The 10 Do’s and Don’ts of Workaway

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From Workwayer to Workawayer: tips on how to protect yourself and stay safe at a Workaway

So today, after casually failing to renew my WordPress subscription for over a year, I am here to talk about something I believe is not spoken and written about enough in the nomad community: how to protect yourself during your work/trade experiences. All of the articles I came across when I was just starting out as a young traveler were so focused on how to be a good Workawayer to the host, that it seemed negligible if the host returned the favor. So, this isn’t that article. If you’d like to find out how to be the best Workwayer and how to get hosts to notice you here’s a fantastic article. But how to protect yourself from having a bad Workaway experience? Read on to find out.

This could of course also be Woofing, HelpX, or any kind of work in the trade of food and or shelter that is so popular in the backpacker community. I have personally been loyal to the Workaway website ever since signing up for a Workaway back in 2018 at a Buddhist nunnery in the Himalayas. Workaway has gifted me with so many of my core memories, connected me with some core people, and has helped make the travel dreams of a broke girl come true. If you’re new to the work/ trade experience and are looking for some advice, or even if you’re a seasoned Workawayer looking for tips to get even more out of your experience, this is my list that I’ve been keeping throughout the years of all the do’s and don’ts of a Workaway.

1. Always know where the door is (and how to use it)

This is a lesson I learned the hard way. Most of them are actually. I once arranged a Workaway on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica on a remote permaculture farm with glowing reviews. The hosts picked me up in their truck and we drove for miles into the jungle. I quickly realized that the only way out was by a long trail through the jungle, and if you were lucky, once you popped out of the trail you would hitch-hike on the main road into town. If you weren’t so lucky, you were left to walk for an hour along the main road. This wouldn’t have been so bad if the data and wifi situation hadn’t been so minimal. (Please see list article #5 for more on wifi/ data ). The host would regularly leave us Workawayer’s stranded for days, left to our own devices, without any means of contact. Luckily nothing happened, but there are a myriad of events that could happen in the jungle that one would wish to be rescued from within a reasonable period of time. For example, and this is entirely hypothetical, in the event that an expert mushroom forager leads a group expedition to scavenge mushrooms, and then after a few minutes of contemplative chewing wonders out loud if they are indeed the correct mushrooms or perhaps a closely related poisonous cousin. All was fine in the end and the expert scavenger lived to see another day. However, the point is, you should ALWAYS have access to transportation out of a situation that does NOT rely on the host.

2. Solo travelers (females especially) should take extra precautions

This means plenty of reviews and a decent amount of communication with hosts. Feeling weird about how they’re communicating with you over email or text? That’s most likely not getting any better in person. Do yourself a favor and go somewhere else! Have an uneasy feeling in your stomach/ gut? Absolutely don’t do it no matter how good it sounds. I want to see more solo female travelers trusting their guts, and if that means disappointing people every once in a while, so be it. Also, can men everywhere stop posting on these work/trade websites requesting “females only” to help around the house?? Unbelievable. Gross. So gross. Stop it. If you do end up going to a Workaway that disrespects you in any way, always report it to the Workaway team. There is an option to leave feedback about the hosts that only the Workaway team can see if you wish to be anonymous.

3. 5 days a week, 5 hours a day

If you go to the Workaway website, they will say that 5 hours a day is an estimation and it is up to you to communicate to your hosts about expectations. I know many people that have assumed that 5 hours a day, 5 days a week will be how it is everywhere they go. It’s not the case. Because of this, it is of utmost importance that you be careful to hash out expectations beforehand in the unfortunate event that you do get taken advantage of. If you ask your host what the workload and expectations are like, and they respond nonchalantly that they prefer to not count hours and it’s not “that kind of place”, um, red flag alert! If your host isn’t keeping track of your hours, I highly recommend that you do. It may seem like super chill vibes at first, but sooner or later you may find yourself wondering when you slipped into indentured servitude and wishing you had a record of all your hard-earned hours.

4. Your free time, your business

My boyfriend once did a Workaway in Banos, Ecuador on an organic farm and eco stay. The hosts were super welcoming and generous, they loved sharing stories at dinner and enjoyed lengthy conversations over coffee. At first, this was charming and it’s no secret that my boyfriend loves a chat. He was made to feel very at home very quickly. However, he soon learned that the hosts did not offer more than one day off a week, and expected him to jump up and work for them at their beckoning call, even after he’d completed his hours for the day. There was one time in particular that he and I were on a call after he’d worked a long and labor-intensive day, (I was at home in the states and it was difficult to organize times for a call). One of the hosts came into his room and asked him to help move some furniture. He was made to end our phone call on his downtime and lend a hand then and there. While I’m positive these hosts were well-intentioned, it is imperative for your peace of mind that you get uninterrupted YOU time. Especially if you plan on being somewhere for longer than a couple of weeks. For anyone interested in how this all played out, in the end, my boyfriend organized a mini heist that involved calling a taxi in the middle of the night, sneaking around his new roommate, and sneaking around the dogs (friendly but prone to barking), all without anyone noticing until the morning. While of course, this is definitely not an ideal way to address an uncomfortable situation, he didn’t feel comfortable enough to tell the hosts how he felt without hurting their feelings, and couldn’t stand not having his space respected for a day longer. Yes, the hosts were very disappointed, and no, he has no regrets about leaving as he did.

5. Know the Wi-fi/ data situation.

Please also refer to paragraph 1. If you are consensually going into a zero internet and data zone, this will hopefully be a refreshing and much-needed respite. However, if you are unsuspecting and come unprepared to be without connection to family, friends, or even an online work situation, this can result in quite the opposite of that desired experience. These days, travelers such as myself are heavily reliant on google maps to understand where we are and where to go, and apps such as life360 and even Snapchat help to keep our friends and family in the loop in case of emergencies. I have many a time shown up to my Workaways after promising that I will text my mom to confirm my safety, just to realize that the closest cafe with internet is a treacherous bike ride away. While it is very much up to the host to disclose their internet situation, it is also wise and worth it to do a bit of digging if the situation is unclear. You might notice in the host’s profile under “a little more information” that they can tick internet access or limited internet access. Always follow up about what this means because it means different things to different hosts. At one place I worked at they had ticked both these options and what they meant by it was that there was no reception for miles, and the only internet on the property was in their house. As my accommodation was far from their house, this meant that I couldn’t privately call anyone unless I wanted to stay awake while everyone was asleep and whisper over the phone.

6. Vegan? Celiac? Just plain picky? Let’s talk diet

Most of the time, if you will be working full hours you can expect at least two home-cooked meals a day. It is of course assumed that you pitch in with cooking or cleaning afterward. In some places I’ve been to the hosts will buy all the ingredients and you are free to cook whatever you want. Other places will be very in their routine with planned meal rotations (especially if they are older or experienced hosts). If you have any dietary needs let your hosts know ahead of time so they can prepare. You can enter your dietary requirements in your details section and it will show up when a host views your profile. I strongly recommend double-checking with them that they have this information. If you feel awkward about requesting this because you feel like youโ€™re asking too much and don’t want to be annoying, remember that you are doing them a favor just as much as they are doing you one. This is an exchange, not a handout. If the hosts seem unwilling to accommodate your dietary needs you can go ahead and assume that they will also be unwilling to accommodate any other aspect of your Workaway experience. Also, never expect that the host will feed you unless they have specifically said so.

7. Snakes, crocodiles, spiders…oh my!

Someone told me once that the most dangerous thing to be at any given moment is an uninformed tourist. Grab some popcorn and a blanket kiddos, it’s story time. Three years ago when I didn’t know any better I was backpacking in the Puntarenas province in Costa Rica. I heard there was a beach shaped like a whale’s tail nestled in the Marino Bellena national park where you could sit from the comfort of your beach towel and watch whales. You can imagine my disappointment when I hiked to the entrance with my book and a picnic only to be told by an under-slept looking park ranger that the whole beach was closed due to Covid. So what did I do? I am not proud of this folks, I began bushwacking through the jungle following the google maps blue dot to the beach and hoping for the best. After some time I popped out on a dirt road and was led by the blue dot to a small hut with a man sitting on his front step whacking a coconut with a machete. I waved and he waved back, looking rather alarmed to see a foreign woman this far out in the middle of nowhere on her own. The blue dot lead me past his house and straight back into the jungle where it got exceedingly gnarled and difficult to bushwack. The ground was a muddy sinkhole and my flip-flops were no match. The further in I trekked, the more intense the feeling got that I was being watched. Luckily I listened to that feeling and turned around before too long. When I reemerged from the entanglement of strangler fig and philodendron with mud splattered over the backs of my legs and bits of the jungle in my hair, the man was waiting for me with a concerned look on his face. “You have heard of crocodiles gringo?” He’d said burying his machete into an unsuspecting coconut. He offered me fresh coconut water and chicha, and informed me that I was headed directly into a crocodile haven. He saved my day and turned out to prove a magnificent and hilarious host and I ended up staying until the early hours learning how to salsa, but that is a story for another entry! The moral of the story is, do your damn research gringos. Know your environment, know what snakes and spiders to look out for, and bring mosquito repellent if there is a risk of dengue or yellow fever. Is there a risk of heat stroke? Is the water clean or do you run the risk of parasites such as giardia? I highly recommend packing a first aid kit tailored to your situation and not relying completely on your hosts for your safety.

8. Housing, what’s the sitch?

What’s the story about accommodation? Room in the house? Bungalow? Shared or private? How far away from the main house will you be staying? Will the internet reach? Will there be a mosquito net? A snake machete if need be? Will you feel safe and comfortable? Does the bathroom/waste situation agree with your feminine (or masculine) needs? (I once had to pack a diva cup to an off-grid/ zero-waste farm and learned the hard way diva cups are not for me). It may not seem super important especially if you’re used to roughing it either camping or staying in the cheapest hostels, but remember that you will most likely be working hard hours for this accommodation, make sure you’re getting what you’re worth.

9. Seasonsโ€ฆdon’t let them get the better of you

Beware of the wet season in any humid tropical climate, don’t let it take you by surprise! Just because you might be going to a hot sunny place does not mean you will be breaking out the whole summer kit. I showed up to a farm Workaway in San Jose with no long pants, no rain jacket, no gum boots, and nothing that I particularly wanted to get dirty. Luckily the hosts were used to this and were fully equipped with everything I needed. I have a bad habit of never checking the weather before I show up in places, and this has resulted in a lot of disappointment when my fantasies of spending my free time sunbathing by a river donโ€™t pan out.

10. Planning ahead

I would highly recommend that you never commit to a Workaway for more than a month at a time. I personally prefer to only commit for a maximum of two weeks. The reality is that sometimes a place or the people, no matter how genuine or lovely they may be, are just not for you. Maybe you don’t love the only other Workawayer on the property, or maybe you realize the seemingly perfect paradise is a beautiful performative facade covering up the exploitation of young gullible travelers. If you always have a backup plan in case a Workaway doesn’t fan out, you have nothing to worry about. Even if you don’t have a backup plan, in a pinch oftentimes if you go back to the Workaway website and go to the last-minute page, you will most likely find someone willing to take you on board in less than a week.

There’s a whole bunch of whackos out there just waiting for you to fall into their wacky web, so it’s wise to be suspecting! But don’t let the possibility of a whack job keep you from the adventure of a lifetime. I have been lucky enough so far that I haven’t found myself in too serious a situation, and I can thank all of the fantastic advice I’ve received from fellow travelers I’ve met along the way for that. Remember that safe traveling comes down to trusting your gut and communicating with your safety network of fellow travelers or family and friends back at home about your whereabouts. Now that we’ve got safety pretty much covered,

I hope this helps! Also, any and all questions are encouraged as I am attempting to pick up my engagement on this platform, I will answer you I promise! Alright see gressa grow gang, as always thanks for the support and until next time.

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An Unexpected Lesson in Birding, and other Pandemic Hobbies.

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An audio entry.

On May 1st, 2021, I sat down on a rainy evening in Oaxaca, Mexico with landscape architect, nature enthusiast, and birder Iris Van Diel.

At the time I was interviewing her for an article I had been tasked to write during my journalism internship at Envia; an organization that provides interest free micro-loans to indigenous artisans in Oaxaca. For the article, I was meant to interview my fellow interns and volunteers for the inside scoop on what we get up to in our free time. I was to collect all of this information and condense it into one cute little summary. However, as I sat with Iris on either side of a bottle of Mezcal, what was meant to be a quick chat about her favorite cafe turned into a fascinating and comical exploration into the rich ecosystems present in Oaxaca, and the winged creatures that call them home.

Upon re-listening to the audio, I realized that the audio deserved a platform of it’s own. I hope you all enjoy, and please be warned if you are listening with young ears present, we do not refrain from a few profanities.

(Photos by Iris Van Driel)

A Peek into the Creative Lives of the Indigenous Women of Oaxaca, Mexico

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“Angelica’s work desk”

The Oaxacan sun is already peaking when our small group of Fundaciรณn En Vรญa volunteers and employees pile into the tour van at 9am. We are the pilot tour; a group consisting of two photo journalists, a translator, a prospective En Vรญa tour guide and communications intern, the new tourism coordinator, me, a communications and journalism intern, and a couple other interested En Vรญa fans. Although En Vรญa has been successfully running tours for 10 years, they, like the rest of the world, have stopped because of the pandemic. Our purpose here today is to test out new Covid safety protocols and hopefully get the ball rolling for many tours to come.

As the tour van bumps along the winding dirt road towards the small community of San Marcos Tlapazola and the Sierra Madre del Sur mountain range rolls along beside us, our responsible tourism coordinator reads off the itinerary for the day, emphasizing the importance of the new Covid-19 protocols for these communities that were hit so hard in the past months.ย 

“Precautions”

This is the first coordinated tour with En Vรญa since December. This is also my first time venturing outside of Oaxaca de Juรกrez since arriving a couple months prior and making a comfortable life for myself volunteering at a hostel. A life that, as full of friends, delicious food, and mezcal as it was, prompted a prying restlessness. I began interning at En Vรญa with the desire to scratch the surface of the tourism culture here and discover what I could about everything going on underneath.

Since December when Covid-19 finally made it’s daunting sweep through Oaxaca, En Vรญa has relied on the generosity of donors to keep up with its interest-free micro loan program, which has been the backbone of the organization since the beginning. 

With interest rates in Mexico ranging from 70 to 200%, an organization that offers interest free loans is almost unheard of, and certainly hard to believe for most of the indigenous artisans who have struggled to get their businesses off the ground without the kind of opportunities that are offered in the west.

This was the case for Angelica, who waits for us at 10am behind the counter of her dress and apron shop with her hands confidently folded in front of her own embroidered apron. 

She was introduced to En Vรญa by her sister in law, who convinced her after her own success story that the micro loan program offered by En Vรญa was to be trusted. A year later, Angelica has turned her craft into a growing business using her facebook business page as outreach for her commission work and drawing in customers from America. 

“Rehydrating outside of Angelica’s storefront”

As security and as a way to hold the women accountable for paying back their loans on time, En Vรญa groups the women into threes. If one of the three women in a group doesn’t hold up her end of the bargain to pay a loan back on time, the whole group is charged with a fine. Therefore, in most cases these groups of three are bonded by family ties or close friendship.ย After thanking Angelica for her time we step outside her shop to gather around her sister in law, Marcelina.

Marcelina is standing proudly behind her table of assorted pottery and tostadas, wearing an embroidered apron made by Angelica. Her pottery is an assortment of tea kettles, mugs, vases, and mezcal shot glasses with faces molded from the clay.  She describes to us her process of hiking to the mine to harvest the clay she uses for her pottery. She says for each trip she hikes back with about four sacks of clay tied to her back. She says that although the clay itself is free, she has to pay people to help her harvest and hike the clay back. She admits that the pandemic has been hard on her business, but that she has found relief in the Growing Strong program provided by En Vรญa, a program that gives the women the option of either starting a vegetable garden or hosting chickens. Marcelina, like most of the women, chose the chickens which she says provides her with the options to either sell, butcher, or keep for the eggs. She says that she started off with 35 chickens, and when asked where she kept all of these chickens she answered with a grin, “Tengo en mi casa [sic],” (in my house). 

“Marcelina and her pots”

Angelina is the third woman we visit in their group of three. In 2018 she joined the two women and has since put her loans entirely into her clay business. She has a spacious studio that is a sweet relief from the harsh midday sun. She says she has come a long way since she was a teenager and would help her parents with their clay business, carrying the pottery in a basket into Oaxaca city center and using the money she got from her sales to buy groceries and carry them back to her family in the same basket. She leads us outside and gives us a thorough demonstration on how she makes her pottery by hand, using a seemingly strange assortment of tools in replacement of the wheel. 

“Angelina’s pottery tools include dried corn cob, a piece of wet leather, and the skin of a jicara fruit.”
While Angelina stands for her portrait with her freshly made pot, a small boy peeks his head up over the porch railing and calls out “Abuela!,” “Abuela!”
“Conchita serves enchiladas”

After we break for a delicious lunch of sweet chicken mole over yellow rice, grilled Oaxacan cheese, crispy enchiladas and pickled vegetables, we visit the community of Teotitlรกn del val, home of the weavers. We are warmly greeted by a group of three cousins, Minerva, Magdalena, and Leticia. They have laid out for display on a hard dirt floor a multicolor row of yarn with bowls corresponding to each color. Inside each bowl are the various natural ingredients used for dying the yarn. Spanish moss creates shades of forest green and beige, sweet acacia bark for blacks, and a type of scale insect that lives on prickly pear cacti called cochineal creates oranges and reds. 

“Minerva brushes the wool”

Minerva is the oldest of the three and has been weaving since the ripe age of 12. She is the most advanced and specializes in the most intricate of patterns. She has just completed a large woven tapestry after three months of work with over 30 colorful birds flying around a geometric tree and vines crawling in and out of the branches. 

Similarly, Magdalena, Minerva’s younger cousin, hopes to save up enough money to buy smaller looms so that her own children can already start learning how to weave. She says that it is common in the community for the children who aren’t yet tall enough to reach the looms to perform other tasks such as brushing and washing the wool. As soon as they are tall enough to reach the pedals of the loom, that’s when they begin learning how to weave.

She speaks of how before she was introduced to En Vรญa she worked for companies that required her to weave certain patterns with certain colors, stifling her creative process. Now that she has been able to build up her own business using the loans from En Vรญa, she says she is free to weave on her own creative terms. Minerva is passionate about her weaving and its significance to Teotitlรกn, and she shares her concerns that this age old art form is dying with the older generations. In attempts of preserving her culture, and with the help of her growing business, Minerva has a long term goal of founding a weaving school for the children of Teotitilรกn.

“Minerva and her spinning wheel”
“Leticia at the loom demonstrating her weaving skills. She is in the beginning stages of a rug that she says should take her three days if she only breaks to cook and to eat.”

After Minerva’s weaving demonstration I meander over to watch Leticia skillfully play her loom, which resembles a piano in its grandiosity, foot pedals, and many strings. The patterns she has planned for her rug are based on grecas, which is an ancient Aztec pattern. She forms these patterns through mathematical formulas that she has memorized, counting the rows of each color based on her chosen design.ย She says her goal is to become as skilled as Minerva so she can bring to life all of the designs she has in her head.ย ย 

At the end of the visit the women hand us each small cardboard cutouts, which I realize soon after are their business cards neatly handwritten with their name, type of business, phone number and if they have it, their email. After shopping around their store, and personally after eyeing a particularly fashionable black and grey woven handbag with leather straps, we thank the women for their time and head back to the tour van, our appetites satisfied by Oaxacan cuisine, cultural exchange, and handmade trinkets gathered from each stop. 

It is 3:30 and our pilot tour has come to an end. I am exhausted from the heat of the day and all I can do on the trip back to Oaxaca de Juรกrez, back to my little hostel life, is stare out the window with my head pressed against the glass and reflect on the passion and talent of the women I met today. It makes me wonder if more female indigenous artists everywhere had the opportunity to weave or mold or sew their way out of the poverty trap, where they may take women on a global scale; what dent in the patriarchy they might make. It is questions like these that run through my head after this tour and fill me with not only my own excitement for my adventures with En Vรญa to come, but for the prospect of these tours inspiring other tourists who, like me, are restless to scratch the surface and engage in organizations that give life-changing opportunities to women who have been historically bullied out of their creative freedom.

A huge shout out to Payton Haynes for his natural talent with a camera. To follow his work check out his photography page on Instagram @payrayhay

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The Philosophy of Pura Vida; A Tribute to my Last Month in Guanacaste, Costa Rica.

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Oh hello there, everyone. You have found me in the SJO airport waiting to catch a flight to Cancun, Mexico, drinking one last Pilsen and reminiscing on my last almost four months spent in Costa Rica. After leaving Finca Las Hormigas I made my way up to Monteverde to be reunited with my family after over a year of being apart. We split the holidays between the Monteverde rainforest and Samara beach. In Monteverde we explored the eco-diverse cloud forest, being so lucky as to sneak up on the mystical Resplendent Quetzal bird, a tapir, a coati, multiple species of hummingbird, and, to my mom’s absolute delight, the famous blue morpho butterfly.

Standing beneath a Strangler Fig tree
The Resplendent Quetzal

I can’t express enough here my gratitude to have been with my family for the holidays. On New Years Eve a fellow backpacker inquired about my favorite moment of 2020. Without thinking twice I responded that it was looking up from a coffee at the treehouse restaurant in Monteverde to see, to my absolute surprise, my mom, sister and brother looking around for a place to sit (my dad was parking the rental car). Since none of them had had any data, and I’d had no contact with them for the last few hours, I had begun to worry. Apparently I’d had some reason to worry since on their way from the airport to Santa Elena, Monteverde, they had managed to get into an accident with a motorcycle on a very steep and narrow road. My poor brother who’d been asleep in the backseat had awoken to a man on the windshield. In the end, the man and my family were fine, and the rental car got away with only a dent in the left head light.

Our assaulted rental car and the treehouse restaurant!
Me and the sibs

My sister had been drawn by mere instinct, some sisterly supernatural phenomenon, to the same restaurant that I was sitting at; hence my surprise when I looked up to see them, flustered and with a mirrored expression of surprise. That night we celebrated our reunion and their aliveness over Casado and beer on tap. 

Before I go further, I want to acknowledge how fortunate I am in a time like this to have been reunited with my family. As the saga of the coronavirus pandemic oscillates, and I watch from my backpacker bubble as most of the world grapples with isolation and separation from loved ones, it does not escape me that my globetrotting may not be looked upon so sympathetically. My world of connecting to other travelers and experiencing culture outside of my own; of hopping from hostel to hostel, sleeping in bunk beds crammed into tiny rooms without air conditioning and bumping up and down in buses cozied up to jaw dropping cliffs, is anything but relatable to my friends back home.

This acknowledgement aside, and with all of my sympathy for those who are suffering from illness, isolation, or job insecurity, I would still like to offer a window into my reality; the strangeness of being an adventurous young adult exploring Latin America during a world-wide pandemic.

Since I have been living in the land of pura vida, which is the common catch phrase in Costa Rica used heavily in casual conversation either as a greeting or farewell, or to describe the chillness of a situation or to offset it’s misfortune, I think it is time to dive deeper into its philosophy. In English, it is directly translated as “pure life.” 

Isla Chora in the back!

As an example of one of its uses, when my family and I went on a guided ocean kayak trip to Isla Chora in Samara, I cornered our tour guide and nit picked him for any information he had on the strikes that had been happening earlier in September and October. For those of you not so up to date on Costa Rican politics, there erupted out of the injustice of a raise in government taxes during a time of financial despair for most Costa Ricans, a plethora of strikes. These strikes caused road blockages for weeks, some buses to stop running altogether, and many stores to be closed down. During the peak of these strikes I was in San Vito working at the farm Los Patos Suertudos and wondering to myself if I would ever be leaving the top of that isolated mountain.

To my inquiry, the kayak guide replied that yes Costa Ricans have been struggling economically, and yet, it is still all “pura vida.” As he said this he motioned all around him at the rocky island, the lush jungles, the palm trees, the families with young children screeching for joy as they plunged into the ocean…you get the picture. 

Later one night as I was sitting around the hostel living area, I listened in on a conversation a Canadian was having with two Costa Ricans. The Canadian had been in Samara for some weeks and was jokingly asking what he had to do to become more “Tico”, which is the affectionate term for the locals of Costa Rica. To this the Ticos replied, “you gotta stop thinking about tomorrow man- the Ticos, we enjoy the color in the sunsets, we don’t know if we will have tomorrow,” and with that they clinked their cacique shot glasses, shouted “pura vida”, and threw their heads back. 

I have seen pura vida stuck onto the bumpers of dusty volvos, heard it called out between strangers across the street, as the name of restaurants, woven into beach blankets and tattooed into tanned arms; it is ingrained in everything.ย 

In 2005, the term “blue zone” first appeared in a cover story of the National Geographic naming five places in the world where people live the longest. Unsurprisingly, Costa Rica was among the five; specifically, the Nicoya Peninsula where I spent the last few weeks. I do not believe it to be a coincidence that Costa Rica, with its culture so heavily steeped in a philosophy that teaches presence and gratitude, is among these five blue zones.

To expand on my own experience traveling for these last three and a half months, the ticos and ticas that I have made friends and acquaintances with have been among the chillest and happiest people I’ve ever met. And in my airport reflection, I feel so very fortunate to have spent this particular time of global disarray steeped in the philosophy of pura vida. 

One last look back at my fam ๐Ÿ˜ฅ

After my family left, I stayed in Samara at the hostel Las Mariposas, which means butterfly in Spanish. There I met a group of fellow backpackers and we bonded over our similar situations and niche sense of humor. We called ourselves the “Cacique Squad” after the cheapest liquor you can get in Guanacaste. Together we rented a car and spent a long weekend exploring breathtaking and mountainous Alajuela, the area surrounding the active Poas volcano.

The Cacique Squad

There is something about the people you meet traveling, the experiences you each are having, so outside of the daily routine. My theory is that because these experiences will most likely stand out from the rest of your life, so will the people that you meet. 

We found a cute Airbnb home that looked over the cityscape and the rolling mountain range. One of the benefits of finding a handful of people to travel with is that the cost to book a bunk bed in a shared hostel is roughly the same as splitting a cheap Airbnb six ways. 

Airbnb view ๐Ÿ™‚

On our drive up the mountain to our Airbnb I couldn’t stop saying “wow”; the air was crisp, the flowers somehow smelled sweeter and looked even more vibrant, and don’t even get me started on the views. We spent the next three days going on hikes through the national forests, cooking, playing cards and charades, and playing music. 

Geared up to visit Poas Volcano (spoiler alert, it was foggy and we saw nothing).

Now, you may be wondering what on earth I am doing on the verge of a flight to Mexico after bragging on Costa Rica and the friends that I have made?

I am simply being dragged along by the leash of my restless heart.

After traveling up and down the coasts and in and around the peninsula of Costa Rica, I am ready for a change of scenery and culture; and more specifically, to learn about how Mexico has been influenced by permaculture and other types of environmental agriculture.

Until we meet again, my loyal seegressago fans. 

Pura vida to all and to all pura vida,

Gressa 

V is for Vetiver; An Illustrated Guide to Planting Vetiver Grass on Contour.

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Hola! First and foremost, thank you for joining me here on this windy afternoon up near the cloud rainforests of Monteverde. Although these pictures and this project was carried out in the humid ocean-side jungle of Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, I am finishing up this post in a restaurant literally built in and around a tree in the small town of Santa Elena in Guanacaste. Whether you are here because you are genuinely passionate and curious about vetiver grass and contouring (on slopes, not cheekbones), or you are a die-hard fan of See Gressa Go and you love me enough to step outside of your comfort zone and learn something about permaculture farming, I welcome you whole-heartedly and hope you have as much fun reading as I did digging and writing.

To start, I will give a short explanation of swales for those of you who are new to this (myself included). If you are dealing with a pesky slope and want to prevent erosion while simultaneously capturing as much water as possible for the soil, listen up. I can guarantee that if designed properly, swales will be your new best friend. Also vetiver grass, but I’ll get to that in a minute.  

The concept is quite simple. On contour, swales work by slowing down the water flow so that it is able to absorb thoroughly and evenly into the soil.  

Now I’ll introduce vetiver grass into the mix. Vetiver grass, more commonly known for its designer fragrance than its key role in preventing erosion on slopes, is native to India and Indonesia; however, today you can find it growing in most countries around the world. Fun fact, in ancient India, it’s essential oil was named “the oil of tranquility” and could be (and still is)  found as the base for most designer perfumes. 

As it relates to contouring on slopes, when planted in close proximity to each other on the down side of swales, the roots of vetiver grass weave into each other creating a wall that is as strong as it is deep. The roots also help by pulling moisture and rain water down into the soil. In this particular case, I have skipped digging swales and am just planting vetiver grass on a contour line. Over time, a miniature swale will naturally form from built up sediment pushed against the vetiver wall. For more information on why swales will become your new best friend and how to build them separately from vetiver grass, click here.

So, as you may have gathered thus far, planting vetiver grass on a contour line is a winning combination for both soil hydration and erosion prevention. Now for the broken down, illustrated step by step guide! 

Say hello to my little friend the A-frame. This is how you will keep the contour on a 15% gradient, which is important so that the water doesn’t either flow too fast or become backed up. To make one is quite simple, as you can see it looks like the letter A, hence “A-frame.” 

It is important that the two legs are the same length, and halfway down you will attach a center board where you can either do it the old fashion way and hang a plumb line from the top of the A and mark the point where it hits in the middle, or you can take advantage of 21st century resources and simply attach a level. For a thorough step-by-step video guide to putting together an A-frame, click here.

Once you’ve got your A, it’s time to get out there on your slopes! To use your A to get a contour line, you will do something called “walking the A.” This is quite an elementary maneuver that is way easier shown than described in words. The video hyperlinked above showcases a beautiful A-walking, but for your amusement I will also attempt to describe it. Simply, put down a stake by each leg, and then, while keeping one leg of the frame planted to the ground, swing the other leg around until it is roughly at equidistance to its companion leg. Put a new stake down beside this leg only when your plumb line falls against a satisfactory mark on your middle board.

When marking out the contour, it’s important that the plumb line hangs as close to the middle as possible, but, and this is based off the A-frame pictured above, anything between the 0 and 5 will work just fine. You’ll end up with a staked out contour line which may surprise you as it surprised me, revealing more of a curvy line than an evenly graduating slope.

So now that you have your contour line, it’s time to get out your handy-dandy shovel!

You’re not going to shovel out a trench so much as delicately split the earth like you’re performing reconstructive earth surgery. Any extra dirt is placed accordingly on the down side of the slope. The idea is that after planting the vetiver grass, you will simply re-close the opening in the soil and the vetiver roots will act as the stitches.

Outfit change. ๐Ÿ™‚

I don’t, unfortunately, have any pictures of me attractively battling to dig this clump of vetiver grass out of the ground, however I must warn you that the blades of this particular grass are anything but warm and fuzzy. Vetiver roots have been known to grow up to 12 feet in favorable soil, which I understand is quite intimidating to shovels and humans alike, however, thankfully, you only need about 100mm of the root system. Pictured above, I have moved on from my battle and am now giving the grass a fashionable snip. The excess grass, when dried, is perfect for mulch, roofing, or even aromatic hats and rugs! Click here for more ideas on how to use your excess grass. ๐Ÿ™‚

Now that you’ve given your vetiver a fresh cut, it’s time to separate the clump into sections that we call, in the vetiver world, slips. These are little clumps of roots more tangled up in each other than high schoolers on prom night, and you’ll recognize them because breaking them apart with a hammer and a machete will be close to impossible.

The hammer and machete method is absolutely not the only way to go about this, however it is so far the method that I have found has lead to the least amount of hair pulled from my head. Please feel more than free to comment if you have personally come up with a more efficient method, I am all ears!

Here, after a fair amount of blood, sweat and tears, we have a slip of vetiver grass! Time to give these babies a new home and our freshly split open earth some nice new stitches.

Here I am tucking in my vetiver slips, which is about as straight forward as you can get. Just cover the roots and firmly pack the soil around the base of the grass. Vetiver grass requires watering for the first few weeks, especially if you live in an arid environment, but before too long they shouldn’t really require much maintenance other than a hair cut about twice a year.

Wouldja look at that sexy contour line!! ๐Ÿ˜

And there you have it! The beginning of a fully functioning, plant-based, vEgAn, hydraulic system. If you’ve been following along up until now, and you still have questions, I can’t recommend enough the website https://www.vetiver.org/, which I personally have spent a good part of a cloudy afternoon nerding out on and as a result have come to the conclusion that vetiver grass will save us all. And of course feel MORE than welcome to drop any questions or comments you have below and I pinky promise to get back to you as soon as I am able.

I will add that I am currently traveling through Costa Rica without a phone (pro-tip, if you ever put your phone in a bag of rice it is Essential to slap some tape over the changing port), and therefore replies may be slower than usual, as well my ability to market myself and the miracle of vetiver grass on contour…so if you would like to help out your favorite broke travel and environmental enthusiast, you can share this article via your social media platform of choice! Also if you are feeling extra generous this holiday season I have made it possible to throw some financial support my way by clicking on one of the purple buttons below. I wish all of you a very very merry whatever you celebrate; on this particular day, merry winter solstice and Jupiter and Mars in conjunction. I will be in touch soon after the holidays spent exploring the lush jungles of Monteverde and white beaches of Samara with my fam. ๐Ÿ˜€

A big shout out to Finca Las Hormigas for allowing me to play with their land!

Hasta Luego!

Gressa

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Solo-Female Travel and Intuition: Name a More Essential Duo, I’ll Wait.

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Hi! I thought I would just write up a little update of what I’ve been up to since leaving San Vito; the in-between travels sandwiched by two die hard off grid permaculture farms. It’s been three and a half weeks since leaving Los Patos Suertudos and I am still unraveling from the trauma of leaving that paradise and embarking on two weeks of restless travel in and out of San Jose; once again in communication with the general public and its unfaltering use of styrophome packaging. I’ve been considering the word trauma and the ways that it can manifest for an individual, even if gone unrecognized. In my opinion, I would say that spending a month in deep spiritual connection with myself, nature, and the people around me, and then taking a 7 hour direct bus ride into the world of cheap beer, trashed cities, and the unrelenting patriarchy, is absolutely traumatic.

Overcast in beautiful Santa Teresa.

Of course that is not to say that I didn’t have my fun. In those two weeks I met some fellow globe trotters and together we explored Santa Teresa, a cute and touristy surf town on the Pacific coast, and then since it was raining the whole time, Puerto Viejo, a small surf town on the carribean side bustling with afro-carribeans, flavorful rice and beans, and young people partying on the side of the road with their car speakers.

Surrounded by my boy bubble in Santa Teresa.

Since I was still trying to find a good fit for my next workaway, I was happy to go with the flow of the people I clicked with and at peace with wherever I would end up. That’s the thing I’ve learned about traveling without a plan; to truly reap its magic you have to be willing to move with the current. And to do that it is absolutely necessary to be in touch with your intuition. Solo-female travel and intuition: name a more essential duo, I’ll wait. To be quite honest, the majority of my two weeks of traveling were spent surrounded by a bubble of young dutch men, and therefore the majority of my female solo travel concerns were put on the back burner. My intuition was then able to switch from its main focus of dealing with potentially sketchy taxi drivers and overly-friendly surfers wanting to give free surf lessons, to considering in which direction my soul would best be fed. The answer to that turned out to be a permaculture farm 15 minutes outside of downtown Puerto Viejo. Quick side note, if you are a female solo traveler (or just anybody) wondering what the difference is between anxiety and intuition click here for an article all about it that’s been super helpful to me!

Hangin out in Santa Teresa.

The farm I was intuitively pulled to is a whopping 100 acres, although only a handful of that acreage has been sectioned off into zones and given thought to design. It is almost entirely off-grid, with the exception of a small generator and a new Wi-Fi box that allows for WhatsApp messaging.ย 

Laundry day!

I am joined here by a small handful of volunteers, an intact cat family, two horses, a ram, and 24 chickens. Our work hours here are distributed into garden and farm work, home and kitchen care, and creative sprucing. Our downtime is mostly spent playing card games and obsessing over the kittens. As I’m new to the farm I’m still in the process of figuring out how my skill set and interests can best be applied, but so far I’ve been happy to do a little of everything. I have recently started on a project to redirect water flow on a sloped section of the property. This project is especially exciting for me as it is the first time I am able to apply some of my knowledge from my permaculture course, and I have been documenting the process with the intention of writing a step-by-step guide for the Finca Las Hormigas website and of course for my own blog to share with you all.

Planting Vetiver grass on contours.

The property itself is paradise- at night especially. When the sky is clear the fireflies bleed into the stars, and if you’re looking up from my bungalow to the main house on the hill, the torches lighting the path and the tiny lanterns hanging from the ceiling emanate such warmth and magic I feel like I’m in fairyland. I wish I could capture it at least partially with my refurbished iPhone 7.

I am currently taking my day off downtown sitting at a coworking coffee shop called Puerto and Co, but my tablet is on 10% and the beach is calling my name. I promise to be back soon with a blog about contouring on slopes.

Creative sprucing. ๐Ÿ™‚ Permaculture principle #1.

Deep Sea Dreamer; Introducing my end of permaculture design course project.

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Hey readers! I don’t know about you, but I am a firm believer that the universe has hands. I believe this because I have felt them on my back, pushing me when it is time to let go and move forward. I have felt them often as gentle, loving nudges; but when these nudges are ignored (which I admit they often are) the hands aren’t afraid to shove. The most dramatic example of this in my life so far happened just last month when I was suddenly deported from the European Union during, might I add, this global pandemic, and given two weeks to pack my things and find a place to be deported to. I had felt the loving nudges, the gentle caresses, leading up to this as various housing siuations and job opportunities simultaneously falling through. I’d felt them constantly as the stubborn presence of bronchitis that would lie dormant and flare up whenever I got particularly stressed. I felt them as the rejection letter from the American liberal arts college in Berlin I was sure I would be accepted into. I felt them as neurotic roommates, expensive BVG fines for getting caught every single rare time I rode the train without a ticket, and as the sudden end of a solid relationship. And, since apparently none of that was enough for me, I felt them as the final forceful shove of deportation.

Looking back on my last days in Berlin, my experience can best be compared to the numerous times I’ve found myself standing on the edge of a high rock overlooking a deep river, and have closed my eyes, turned my brain off, and jumped. 

When I opened my eyes again, I found that the hands of the universe had landed me safely on the top of a mountain in Costa Rica, San Vito, surrounded by a mirage of blue-crowned motmot birds, menelaus blue morpho and glasswing butterflies, DMT drenched cane toads, a very large cat named Pete, a hyperactive puppy named Finn, four lovely humans named Kristy, David, Nestor, and Jefferson, and, many, many happy earthworms.

To catch everyone up who is not in the know, I have been spending this month tucked away on 33 acres of liberated jungle; a property guided by permaculture principles and steered masterfully to the edge between harmony and chaos. During my time volunteering here I’ve had my nose to the grind stone working towards a permaculture design certificate. This is an opportunity that was not even on my radar until days before leaving Berlin when I was frantically scrolling through Workaway at 3am with a cappuccino and stumbled across Patos Suertudos. And now, a month later, permaculture has opened a portal for me to experience the natural world in all its glorified ancient intelligence and clever methods of design.

I’ve always been a nature lover, but becoming aware of all the underground partnerships that trees form with mushrooms, and the business they have exchanging sugars for nitrogen, for example, takes my disconnected admiration to feelings of an intimate kinship. Like how you think you know your parents when you’re young, but it isn’t until you’re older that you realize that they are complex people with memories and an entire life unrelated to you; that their sole purpose in this life is not in fact to raise you and clothe you and spoil you. And it’s that moment in your growth when you begin to see your parents as people outside their parental role and the relationship becomes something more like a friendship, if everything goes well. 

I think it’s problematic to live our whole lives viewing nature as a parent, and essential to our true understanding and respect of her (in attempt to avoid referring to nature as an it) to begin forming a symbiotic friendship.

So with all of that said, I am very excited to share with you my end of course project that Kristy, Nestor, and myself have been working enthusiastically toward all month. The final product of all of our creative and intellectual talents combined has come together in the form of a musical puppet show. The show is a symphony of hand-painted puppets and backdrops, an allegorical storyline that follows a rebellious fish named Joe, and an original song composed out of the deep urgency to reunite with our natural world. By communicating the message of permaculture through the medium of a musical puppet show, our hope is to reach a wide audience that trancends age and language. 

The song, We Already Paid, written by Kristy Trione and musically arranged and performed by Nestor Padilla and myself is, at its core, a call to action to align our values with natural systems as opposed to a system that rewards an endless cycle of sociopathic consumerism. 

You can find the lyrics in English and Spanish attached to the bottom of this post. We have left it open sourced, and encourage all to take it in as their own. Spread it around as an anthem of the people, add some maracas and dance salsa to it… North Carolina folks I want to hear your best country covers, and to my fam in Berlin I’m very interested to hear a techno cover!…Sing it in the shower, sing it to your tomato plants as you water your garden, sing it to the tiny immune systems of bees, sing it to all the rebellious plants pushing through the cracks in the concrete!

Thanks so much for reading all the way until now! Stay tuned for a post about my new home on the Caribbean coast on a year old 100 acre permaculture farm.

Pura Vida my good fam!

Gressa

We already paid

We already paid
We should have what we need
Weโ€™ve already paid
Weโ€™re done feeding your greed

Weโ€™ve already paid
We should have what thatโ€™s worth
Weโ€™ve already paid
While youโ€™ve trashed up the earth

Weโ€™re all gonna turn to nature
To be our true guide
Everybodyโ€™s gonna turn off the tele
With its pack of lies

Weโ€™ll work for ourselves
No more for the โ€œmanโ€
Weโ€™ll work for each other
To restore the land

Weโ€™ve already paid
But itโ€™s never enough
Weโ€™ve already paid
While youโ€™ve taken too much

Weโ€™ve already paid
Weโ€™ve paid with the time for our kids
weโ€™ve already paid chasing
soulโ€™s empty success

Weโ€™re tired and weโ€™re going home

Weโ€™ll turn to nature
To be our true guide
Turn off the tele
With its pack of lies

Weโ€™ll work for ourselves
Not for the โ€œmanโ€
Weโ€™ll work for each other
To restore the land

Weโ€™ve already paid
with our land, seas and our skies
Now we are going
Beyond corporate demise

Weโ€™re tired and weโ€™re leaving it behind

Weโ€™ve already paid
For our parks, roads and war
Weโ€™ve already paid
We wonโ€™t pay any more

Weโ€™ll turn to nature
To be our true guide
Turn off the tele
With its pack of lies

Weโ€™ll work for ourselves
Not for the โ€œmanโ€
Weโ€™ll work for each other
To restore the land

Ya Pagamos

Ya pagamos
Deberรญamos tener lo que necesitamos
Ya hemos pagado
Hemos terminado de alimentar tu codicia

Ya hemos pagado
Deberรญamos tener lo que vale
Ya hemos pagado
Mientras destrozaste la tierra

Todos vamos a recurrir a la naturaleza
Para ser nuestra verdadera guรญa
Todo el mundo va a apagar la tele
Con su paquete de mentiras

Trabajaremos por nosotros mismos
No mรกs para el “hombre”
Trabajaremos el uno para el otro
Para restaurar la tierra

Ya hemos pagado
Pero nunca es suficiente
Ya hemos pagado
Si bien has tomado demasiado

Ya hemos pagado
Pagamos con el tiempo para nuestros hijos
ya hemos pagado por perseguir
el รฉxito vacรญo del alma

Estamos cansados โ€‹โ€‹y nos vamos a casa

Recurriremos a la naturaleza
Para ser nuestra verdadera guรญa
Apaga la tele
Con su paquete de mentiras

Trabajaremos por nosotros mismos
No para el “hombre”
Trabajaremos el uno para el otro
Para restaurar la tierra

Ya hemos pagado
con nuestra tierra, mares y nuestros cielos
Ahora vamos
Mรกs allรก de la desapariciรณn empresarial

Estamos cansados โ€‹โ€‹y lo dejamos atrรกs

Ya hemos pagado
Por nuestros parques, carreteras y guerra
Ya hemos pagado
No pagaremos mรกs

Recurriremos a la naturaleza
Para ser nuestra verdadera guรญa
Apaga la tele
Con su paquete de mentiras

Trabajaremos por nosotros mismos
No para el “hombre”
Trabajaremos el uno para el otro
Para restaurar la tierra

Thanks for tuning in!

Welcome to the Jungle!

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My introduction to permaculture ft. how I’m coping with coexistent deadly snakes

It’s been a little over two weeks since my arrival from Uvita. I took two buses, neither of which I was 100% sure were taking me where I wanted to go and I was dropped off nowhere near the bus station. Thankfully I was only 20 minutes from the farm I would be working at, Los Patos Suertudos, and had been given the name of their favorite taxi driver, Johnny. All the way up the mountain, Johnny beamed in his best English about the people who ran the workaway. It was dark so I was unaware of the breathtaking (and very steep) view from the roads, and I learned later that only a few years prior a local bus had driven off that same road. It was only a week later when I biked into town that I first laid eyes on the Lord of the Rings worthy landscape with its thick, dark green mountains cascading into sheared (and chemically soaked) farmland.

When we pulled into the driveway we were warmly greeted by Kristy, David, and their dog Finn, who were happy to welcome their first workawayer in almost 7 months. We sat down to a dinner of chicken soup, local greens from the garden, and for dessert a fruit that I’ve become obsessed with called mamones, which reminds me of a dragon’s egg with it’s red spiky shell and milky incandescent egg shaped fruit. After dinner, Kristy lead me down to the little cabin that would be my home for the month; a quaint, treehousey little thing with black shade cloth stapeled around the sides in replacement of walls. Not having walls alone in the middle of the jungle took me some time to get used to I must say, but I’ve come to adore waking up with the sun cradled inside my mosquito net that hangs around my bed like a royal canopy, surrounded by layers upon layers of lush green. The cool thing about shade cloth is that it is like tinted windows in a car, so wildlife goes on in oblivion of my existence and I am witness to it all. It is a lot like how I imagine it must feel to wear the cloak of invisibility. (I know I knowโ€ฆ.dork alert, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings reference and I’m only in my 2nd paragraph).

My mornings here are my favorite part of the day, which I can't believe I'm saying after a whole life devoted to hating mornings. I wake with the tropical birds and the rooster and slowly make my way along the thick jungle path to the main house where I almost always find french pressed coffee and freshly blended golden milk waiting for me. I then perch on a bar stool with my mug and brainstorm with Kristy about what the day will look like, or as of late, brainstorm plot ideas for the puppet show that may or may not be airing on a public Costa Rican television channel.

On my second day, Kristy sat me down and offered me the opportunity to work towards a permaculture design certificate. Up until very recently if you would have asked me to define the term “permaculture” I would have mumbled something about naked hippies dancing around a campfire. Hahaโ€ฆ oh baby, how this little word has changed me and the direction of my life in only two short weeks. I am now a dedicated student of Bill Mollison, who coined the term permaculture, and Geoff Lawton, a former student of Bill’s who has for the most part taken his place since Bill’s passing some years ago. Lucky for me and all students of permaculture, Bill and Geoff held a 72 hour long lecture in Melbourne, Australia in 2005 and filmed the whole thing in its entirety (save their hourly tea breaks between lectures). It is my stormy afternoon ritual to sit on a comfy chair with a notebook and pen or a painting project and watch these lectures with my ears perked and my pupils dilated to the size of mamones. I’m about 30 hours into the lecture, and, probably related to being up here on this mountain with limited social opportunities, I have begun to feel something resembling friendship with these two visionary men.

For those of you who hear the term permaculture and imagine naked hippies dancing around a campfire, if you’re interested I have attached to the bottom of this entry the link to Geoff Lawton’s website and an article that I think does a wonderful job defining permaculture in a single article. For those of you who just want a brief definition and to then get on with it, permaculture, the word, derives from the words “permanent” and “agriculture.” The basic idea is to observe and apply to our farming and agricultural design, systems that are already working flawlessly in nature. It’s similar to Rudolph Steiner‘s biodynamic farming in most of the core values and back to nature movement, but one difference is that the mystical/spiritual edge of biodynamic farming was largely dismissed by Bill Mollison. One thing I’ve learned about Bill in the 30 hours I’ve spent in his digital presence is that despite his “fuck fairies” facade, deep down he was a big hearted softie. Unfortunately for the public standing of the permaculture movement however, his outspoken aversion to religion and his controversial political opinions can probably be blamed for it’s slow start as a respected, scientifically-backed approach to sustainable farming. Nonetheless, the more I learn, the more it becomes clear that the vision of permaculture deserves way more recognition than it’s been getting. So, you can look forward to hearing more little snippets about permaculture as my relationship with it develops!

Well, I hope everyone out there is able to hold on to some fragment of peace amidst this planetary shift. It's easy to forget how much chaos is going on out there while I'm wrapped up snug in this little jungle bubble. My fear of contracting the virus kind of got transferred to a big and very realistic fear of getting bitten by a terciopelo or bush master; two snakes that can kill you within 6 hours if you aren't able to get to a hospital in time. And even then, people who've been bitten sometimes end up in the hospital for 7 to 8 months. I've gotten into the habit of walking around with a machete resting conveniently at my hip nestled inside a badass looking scabbard. Who knew that all my childhood fantasies of being a piratess would come to life here at this permaculture farm? Luckily I haven't had to use it yet, but apparently if I do I'm not supposed to cut off it's head because terciopelo's have muscles in their necks they can use to launch themselves even after beheading. Instead I'm supposed to wack them along their spine, breaking their little bones so they can't jump. I promise I'm not a violent person, but the prospect of either dying a painful death that apparently dissolves your skin or spending the better half of the year in a hospital will absolutely lead me to some violent wacking.

All of this is to say, pandora's box leaked some freaky shit, and yet I have spent so much time walking around this place in utter awe of the magic that vibrates off of every glistening banana leaf after an afternoon rain, and of every butterfly wing being hauled off by a trail of dutiful leaf cutter ants. There is so much here to observe! And way too much to write about in one post...I don't want to scare you away with my current high on life, so I will save the rest for another post. If you are currently stuck at home, please feel more than free to virtually join me as I make my way around Costa Rica. I hope that the excitement of my forced adventure can serve as some much needed entertainment for those of you in lockdown. I'll be back soon!

Forced Life Adventure Day

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Dear Readers, 

It’s 6am in Playa Jacรณ Costa Rica. I’m hanging from a chair swing in the outdoor kitchen of Casajungla Hostel, overlooking their thick jungle of a garden. Even the colorful potted plants rebel from their pots, their roots dangling out from the bottoms; their leaves swooping and barely brushing the ground like giant ape arms. A chorus of unfamiliar bird melodies and screeches surround the hostel like surround sound speakers. Two large toads hop loudly after each other in the wet leaves behind me, stopping suspiciously after each hop to check they are still undiscovered. I’m jet-lagged, otherwise 6am is not typically my time of day. But I’m grateful to get a couple hours of daylight before the heat and the humidity take over.

A mosquito just took the liberty of biting each one of my toes on my right foot; I’m not kidding, the little guy didn’t miss a toe. It’s tingling and swelling. The trade off of being in a tropical paradise is you share it with biting things. Apparently my upcoming destination of San Vito is home sweet home to no less than 7 types of deadly snakes. I am recommended to wear tall rubber boots and always carry a cell phone in the unfortunate event that I am victim to a bite.

At this point you may be wondering, wtf is Gressa doing in Costa Rica in the middle of a world-wide pandemic? I thought she was in Berlin? Last time we spoke, I was quarantined with my au pair family in the brunt thickness of winter. I had just escaped an awkward roommate situation, and was preparing myself for bear-like hibernation and isolation in Zehlendorf. I can imagine that you might be confused. Let me catch you up.  

Turns out, after almost a month of a heated back and forth debate between me and the auslรคnderbehรถrde (foreigners authority building), I have technically been working here illegally as an au pair and therefore was “kindly” asked to leave the European Union. In other words, I have been deported. I realize this sounds dramatic, and I guess it kind of is. But since my attempts to attain my visa were snuffed by the pandemic, and I was here on a legal and quite innocent basis, it didn’t occur to me that actual deportation was in the cards. At maximum I had prepared myself for a light scolding.

I was given two weeks to organize a flight and a plan, and in that short time I decided with the help and support of friends and family, that I would stay far from the United States and embark on an adventure in Costa Rica (at least for 3 months until I can return to Germany, but who knows where I’ll be by then). And that is exactly where I am now. Hanging from my swinging chair in the bohemian outdoor kitchen of my hostel. This is my 2nd day waking up in Costa Rica. Last night I stayed close to the airport in San Josรฉ. So far I have been alone in the hostels, and therefore greeted with enthusiasm and treated quite royally. Yesterday morning the owner of my hostel, a tall middle aged man with a white Fedora and kind brown eyes, offered me a free ride in his jeep to the bus station in return for a good review on hostelworld, saving me almost 50 dollars and a big hassle of tracking down a taxi. I learned on our drive that he is an expat from Quebec and came here in 2015 upon purchasing a hotel. Since the pandemic, he said he’s had to sell the hotel and is now just the owner of the hostel until things pick back up. I noticed on the way to the bus station, in the streets of San Josรฉ almost everyone wears a mask. According to the Fedora wearing hostel owner, the covid situation in Costa Rica wasn’t that bad up until July when there was an inflow of migrants from Panama. As a contrast from reckless, rebellious Berlin, it’s odd to see everyone compliantly wearing their masks even walking alone in the humid streets. On my bus to Jacรณ, I passed a mother and her two small children sitting completely alone at a bus stop in the middle of nowhere, and all of them wore masks.

In Berlin it was admittedly too easy to forget about the world pandemic roaring outside of the city. With all of its persistent public events and lack of social distancing in parks. No one likes to be told what to do in Berlin, it’s probably a part of the reason I feel so at home there.  

It’s now 9am here and I’ve finished a large breakfast of rice and beans, a salty omelette, and two watery cups of coffee. Check out is at 11 and I am told there is a mountain I must go to by one of the free hostel bikes before leaving Jacรณ.

A long, sweaty hike to my hostel after getting quite lost from the bus station. ๐Ÿ‘

I will be back before long to share updates of my forced life adventure. Until then, Pura Vida.

Gressa

It’s the End of the World as We Know It, and I Feel Fine.

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My dear readers! 

Merry Christmas, Happy New Years, Happy birthday to me, and last but not least, Happy bubonic plague!! A lot sure has happened in the last three monthsโ€ฆ I’ll put the kettle on. ๐Ÿ˜‰ 

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First of all, I hope you all are safe and mentally sound in the midst of this global panic and making the most of your temporary “time-outs” delegated by our mother earth. It’s both a scary and exciting time that we are witnessing from inside our homes. On my end, it’s been quite the sociological experience to be in Germany during this crisis. I am realizing from a new perspective  just how flawed the U.S. health-care system really is. People here are worried, but not nearly on the level of Americans, so many of whom are without health insurance. As an American I’m realizing that as I compare myself to my German peers, I’ve always lived with this sense of self-dependency as the result of the absence of a safety net. Of course I’m privileged and I’m not living on the streets, but if I were to get into an accident that affected my ability to work and I didn’t have health insurance, I would be in way bigger trouble than any working class German. Oh to be able to fall back on your government in a time of crisis! Here, people mostly still gather in parks and bend the quarantine guidelines to fit their preferences. Neighbors wave sweetly to each other from their fenced in gardens, and children have been spotted getting ice creams with their Au-Pairs (since the weekend however we have put the brakes on this tradition). Point is that people here do not seem to be panicking the same way I’ve seen panic sweep through North America. As of Monday, Berlin is on a general lockdown until further notice and I am quarantined with my Au-Pair family in Zehlendorf. We are allowed to travel to work, go to the grocery store, go out for exercise as long as we stay six feet apart from others, and  visit loved ones to bring them necessities. 

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Although I already miss my friends and social life with people in my age group, I got really lucky to be quarantined here with a family I’ve bonded with in a nice big house with a big backyard, a fully stocked fridge, and a beautiful quiet neighborhood. Day one of my official quarantine began Monday at 8:30am when the father of the kids picked me and all of my things up from my old apartment in Neukรถlln and whisked me away to Zehlendorf just in time for the crackdown. Lucky for me, I wasn’t on a contract in this last apartment and I only paid the security deposit and one months rent. Regardless of this quarantine business, I was planning on moving out in the beginning of April anyway as I found myself in an unfortunate roommate situation. This nearly 40 year old woman wigged out when I did a much needed dusting and cleaning of the bathroom and then moved some of her cleaning supplies from a shelf to a bucket without her permission. After this incident I was informed that the apartment was not my space to make myself at home, as I was merely a “subletter”, and I was not allowed to have friends over. To top all of this off, I received the news after moving in that the bathtub does not work, which for those of you who know me know is a deal breaker. Needless to say, I am relieved to be outside the limits of her bad juju again and temporarily cradled in the comforting arms of wealthy family life. 

Despite the outside world coming to an end as we all know it, to quote R.E.M., I feel fine. ๐Ÿ™‚ My days are filled with leisurely sun dappled mornings curled on the edge of an enormous couch with a cappuccino and a toddler on my either side, afternoons of collecting acorns, sticks and daffodil pedals for fairy houses, and nights that smell of sweet chamomile and bath-bubbles. Now more than ever, my sanity is needed. Everything I learned from growing up in a caring Quaker community, the hours I spent in meditative walks in the woods as a teenager, pouring over spiritual self-help books and performing my own little rituals, everything I learned from my month volunteering at the Omega Institute, and everything I learned in my months traveling in India; everything I learned is needed now. I haven’t just spent years of my life training my mind and spiritual self to mentally crumble when the world outside grapples with western mortality and hardship. Our world needs our sanity now more than ever. What our world does not need are toilet paper and milk panic buyers and upper middle class wookies thinking only of themselves and their families. 

So that’s enough apocalypse talk for now. Obviously I can’t write a blog during this time and not offer my personal reflections. But there are plenty of other things going on in the world that are being totally swept under a giant rug right now and deserve to be talked about and explored. For example the not so insignificant asteroid that ignored social distancing policy and zoomed by us 50 times closer than what is considered the standard safe distance according to astronomers. And the fact that Miley Cyrus told Hilary Duff that the only reason she wanted the Hannah Montana role was to copy her, and honestly who can blame her? 

So with that I’m going to leave you until next time and go for a jog around the neighborhood, making great care not to pop anyone’s 6 foot bubble or make eye contact with any police officers looking for an excuse to hand out a fine. Stay safe, smart and mentally sound my friends! 

All the best,

G-swizz

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