Friday, March 5, 2010

Another day in Monteverde

Turns out the house in Mal Pais will not be ready until the 15th (Monday week), latest from Beverly is that she'll be back in action on wednesday so Amber may be able to keep working for a few more days. I am right now at Dulce Marzo cafe waiting for Amber to get out of school so we can have lunch. I bumped into Jason (Cindy's husband) on the way here and he recommended the curry. "Its spicy," he said.

'Service' here in ridiculous. I've noticed people going up to the counter and ordering since I've been here and they're up there forever. Not because they necessarily want to, but the guy behind the counter really takes his time! I went up to order a black ice tea when he finally had a moment to himself and just stood there waiting for him to acknowledge me while he was preparing the orders he just took before. Tell you what, ticos do things reeally laid back here and I find I have to check myself from getting impatient.

I've started reading 'The Life of Mahatma Gandhi,' by Louis Fisher. It's a pretty hefty biography and I hesitated to start reading it because 1.) I didn't think I'd be able to finish it before we left for Mal Pais, and 2.) I thought that it might be a monotonous and unstimulating read. So far it's been very difficult to put it down! I never knew that Gandhi was such a spiritual person and an avid reader of religion, namely the Bhagavad Gita. It's inspired me to read it too. Also among other authors he loved reading about are Ruskin, Tolstoy and Emerson. My reading list is snowballing! What's intriguing about Tolstoy, similarly to Gandhi, is their passionate advocacy of non-violent resistance, or "passive resistance" to human injustice. Tolstoy was bothered by the "discrepancy between Christ's message and mans way of life, and attempted to create his own way of life abandoning high society for the simple life to escape "intolerable luxury." I've put his book 'Kingdom of God is Within You' is on top of my reading list, although I don't know how realistic it is to find it in a Costa Rican bookshop.

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