Meeting another raw food family

Today, we were blessed to spend part of the day with a wonderful family on the farm where they live right now. The caretaker took us around the farm and showed us all the different fruit trees (start fruit trees, papaya trees, passion fruit trees, mamon trees, a little durian tree and we even tasted a strange and interesting fruit called huevo de mono - monkey's egg) and wild greens. We tasted honey right from the hive (it was a very small type of bee that doesn't sting), then we went to the green house and picked all we needed to fix ourselves a salad.

Aujourd'hui, nous avons eu l'honneur de passer une partie de la journée avec une merveilleuse famille sur la ferme où ils habitent. Le responsable de la ferme nous a fait faire le tour et nous a montré différents arbres fruitiers (caramboles, papayes, fruits de la passion, mamons (litchi rouge poilu), un petit arbre de durian et nous avons même goûté un drôle de fruit plutôt bon qui s'appelait huevo de mono - œuf de singe) et des verdures sauvages. Nous avons goûté à du miel directement de la ruche (produit par de toutes petites abeilles qui ne piquent pas), puis nous sommes allés dans les serres récolter ce dont nous avions besoin pour préparer une salade.










While we shared our meal in their beautiful open house, we got to ask them tons of questions on the raw food diet and living in Costa Rica, Thailand and unschooling too. They are such gentle and enlightened souls and their children are just beautiful and glowing.

Pendant que nous partagions le repas dans leur belle maison ouverte, nous avons pu leur poser des tonnes de questions sur l'alimentation vivante, la vie au Costa Rica et en Thaïlande et sur l'apprentissage libre. Ils sont vraiment de belles âmes douces et inspirantes et leurs enfants rayonnent.




We also went to the Feria with them so they could tell us where to find the good organic fruits, where to buy the kale, the best raw cookies, the best local Macadamia nuts,etc. It was so helpful! They gave us a pretty good tip: they said that in any market, just look for the old farmers with a small booth and not many fruits and veggies of each type. They are the ones who don't have the money to buy pesticides and other chemical fertilizers...

Nous sommes aussi allés à la Feria avec eux afin qu'ils nous disent où trouver les bons fruits bio, ou acheter le kale, les meilleurs biscrus, les noix de Macadam locales, etc. C'était tellement aidant! Ils nous ont donné un bon conseil : peu importe le marché, chercher les vieux fermiers qui ont un petit kiosque avec peu de fruits et de légumes de chaque sorte. Ce sont ceux qui ont probablement moins d'argent pour acheter des pesticides et des engrais chimiques...



Then, I spoke on the phone to a contact a friend gave me who lives in Ojochal where we will be. It just became so clear to me that here, everything is shared and learned by word of mouth! She gave me such great information in that 20 minute conversation! Wow! I have the name of another French-speaking homeschooling family in the area, I know where the library is located and what their opening hours are, I know of a great secret spot to access (another!) waterfall, I know that the best pest control is having 5-6 chickens roam free around your house all day (they will eat all the insects, fire ants, scorpios, snakes eggs and baby snakes, I know that you can be a foster family for a dog even for only 4 months and that they are by far the best alarm system you can get and many many other things too...

Puis, j'ai parlé au téléphone à un contact qu'une amie m'avait laissée qui habite à Ojochal où nous déménagerons bientôt. C'est maintenant très clair pour moi qu'ici, tout s'apprend par le bouche à oreilles! Elle m'a donnée tellement de bons renseignements en 20 minutes! Wow! J'ai le nom d'une autre famille francophone qui fait l'école-maison dans le coin, je sais où se situe la bibliothèque et quelles sont les heures d'ouverture, je connais maintenant un bel endroit secret pour avoir accès à une (autre!) chute, je sais que le meilleur moyen de contrôler les insectes, fourmis piquantes, scorpions et serpents est d'avoir 5 à 6 poules qui se promènent librement autour de la maison, je sais qu'on peut être famille d'accueil pour un chien, même si on est ici seulement 4-5 mois et que c'est de loin le meilleur système d'alarme qu'on peut avoir, et beaucoup, beaucoup d'autres choses...



And this, my friends, is exactly how I feel since we are here. Here are some excerpts of this great article (extraits d'un excellent article qui traduit parfaitement comment je me sens depuis que je suis ici) :

One of the driving forces of my life for many years was the need to improve myself. It’s one of the driving forces for people who read my work as well.

It’s an incredibly pervasive urge: we are always trying to improve, and if we’re not, that’s something we should improve.

You might have achieved a thousand goals, but do you have defined abs? Do you own fewer than 100 things, or a small house? Can you Crossfit? Can you do yoga, meditate, juggle and do magic? Can you recite Shelly, Shakespeare, Homer? Are you the perfect friend, the perfect lover, a romantic husband, a wife who meets her husband’s needs, a master craftsman, a hacker and a programmer, a knitter or sewer, a home-repair expert, knowledgeable in investing and real estate, do you know the perfect system for goals and use the perfect to-do software, is your phone as nice as his, or your bag as nice as hers, do you have cute boots or a manly shave? Are you debt free, or car free or gluten free? Do you give to charity or volunteer at shelters or build schools for Africa? Is your TV as large as mine, or your penis?

Would we stop striving to improve? Would that be horrible, if we were just content and didn’t need to better ourselves every minute of every week? Would we be lazy slobs, or would we instead be happy, and in being happy do things that make us happy rather than make us better? And in being happy, perhaps we would show others how to be happy? And crazy as it might sound, maybe we’d start a little mini-revolution of happiness, so that people wouldn’t feel so inadequate, or need to spend every dime on products, or spend all their time on self-improvement.
A revolution of contentment.
Amen!