Adventure on the Home Front

Who says staying home can't be an adventure? Forewarned by predictions of snow and ice, we weren't surprised to wake up at 4 a.m. on Monday morning to a loss of power. We WERE surprised, to say the least, a few minutes later, when we heard some loud cracks and then a HUGE crack followed by an even huger "THUD!" right outside our window. Upon investigation, we found that half of a giant oak had fallen under the weight of the ice, landing across our front yard, and taking a very small bit of the roof/eave with it. Boy, we were lucky! It seems like it could just as well have fallen into the house, although we do a pretty good inspection job every year to see that there aren't dead branches destined for such a fate.

When we learned later Monday morning that we wouldn't have power until Tuesday night, we spent a few minutes bemoaning the fact that our fabulous generator, installed in preparation for Y2K, hadn't been running for a number of years. Then we did the wise thing and called for a hotel room in town! Not to worry, we figured, we would call and get someone to come out and fix our generator. After a great try of several hours in the cold and snow, the technician declared that the machine was a goner! Later in the day, after calling every possible store in the area, we realized that there was nary a non-electric heater in sight that might help us keep pipes from freezing. So, we went back home to keep the fireplace going overnight.

We've always said that we could make a party out of most any situation, and we proved it to ourselves once again last night! We picked up a pizza, stoked the fire, snuggled up under every quilt in the house on mattresses in front of the fire, and watched a movie on Dave's new Mac. Somewhere in the middle of the movie we got a call from the generator folks, saying that they could install a new one at 8:30 in the morning! We set the alarm to feed the fire once every hour or so and made it through the night!

The technicians arrived right on time, installed the new generator and fired it up! It ran for all of 5 minutes, when our power came back on! So, now we have power from our electric coop, back up from the generator, and glorious, glorious sunshine. The whole place looks like a fairy tale today, with the sun on the trees and the lake. We are truly blessed today and always.

However, we are also feeling so very deeply saddened today by the news from Christchurch in New Zealand. If you haven't been following the news, an earthquake right in the middle of this beautiful and historic city has taken the lives of at least 65 people, and dozens are still missing in the rubble. New Zealand is the next stop on our sabbatical tour, as well as a magical place where we have spent many wonderful months, and the home of many dear friends. It is simply unimaginable to think about experiencing such a tragedy and it happens so often to so many people around the world.

We're still planning on New Zealand, followed by Australia and South Africa, and then (we think) on to Cambodia (where we have an old friend and brilliant development practitioner/consultant), and then India. We are blessed every day by the connections friends and family and colleagues are helping us make as we explore Dave's interests in "management and leadership practices around the world with the potential for transforming our workplaces, communities and societies." Ideas about who we should visit and interview? Send them along, PLEASE!

One final note: a great big "thank you" to Dave and Bailey for assembling my Costa Rica "peace chair" that now sits happily in our living room!

The Sun Sets on Costa Rica

The sun has now set on our Costa Rica adventure, but we've gathered enough memories for a lifetime (as well as miles of sabbatical interviews, as Dave will share later). Here are just a few memories of our last few days in Pure Vida land.



Nicoya Peninsula

On the next to the last day at Tango Mar, we couldn't resist the temptation to rent a car and venture out to some of the Nicoya Peninsula's most beautiful beaches, even though we were told that the roads were a bit of a challenge (Kristi, Randy and Lisa - think a narrowed Hawkins Highway with no maintenance for several years and potholes the size of a Volkswagen Beetle)! It was indeed quite the adventure, we saw beautiful beaches, but we came back saying that Tango Mar and Tambor Bay had been a most lucky choice for a fabulous vacation.
Once we heard the Michigan weather forecast, we decided that another couple of days in the sunshine couldn't hurt anything. Thus, we headed back to Margarita's B & B near the airport for one prepaid night, and then landed ourselves back in our favorite place in Santa Ana, the lovely Villas Los Candiles. It truly felt like a homecoming, and we were able to have one more meal at each of two wonderful, world-class restaurants in the neighborhood, Doris Metropolitan and Bacchus!

Dave at Nature Air

As a bit of a long shot, Dave emailed a contact at Nature Air (http://www.natureair.com/, the world's first carbon neutral airline), hoping to get one last interview before returning home. A meeting was quickly arranged by the most accommodating Gabriela for the following afternoon. We headed out to the Tobías Bolaños Airport, made our way through some very tight security, and proceeded to Hangar 7 for the interview. We were completely shocked and thrilled to find out that we had a 30 minute interview with Alex Khajavi, the founder and CEO, and another 30 minutes with the COO, Roberto Kopper. The story of the airline, Alex's history and mission, and Roberto's management philosophy is one that needs to be told all over the world (more about that when Dave blogs about his interview experience).

Audi Store at the MultiPlaza

On our final afternoon, I convinced Dave that we shouldn't leave Costa Rica without visiting the MultiPlaza in Escazú, the neighboring town to Santa Ana. It turns out that Escazú is pretty much an expatriate enclave, where several embassies, including the US, reside. The mall was an absolute shocker, given what we had seen of Costa Rica in almost 3 weeks. It has more than 300 stores, all incredibly upscale, ranging from (I kid you not, an AUDI store on the 3rd floor) Carolina Herrera to Salvatore Ferragamo to Tiffany. And, totally in Costa Rica style, when we weren't sure how to explain to a taxi driver where we wanted to go next, a young employee of a shop near the mall entrance came out of the store, walked us to the entrance, hailed us a taxi, and explained where to take us! The people in this country are just astounding!

Typical Bars and Barbed Wire

Besides the amazing people, Costa Rica is full of wonder and contrasts. It was surprising to us to see that most people live behind bars and barbed wire in a country that is the safest in Central America, barely impacted by the region's drug trade, fairly free of poverty, and with a crime rate far below the US. Many shops have guards at the door, and we even went to a restaurant where patrons can't enter the premises without the guard unlocking the door.




Green McDonald's in Lindor Santa Ana

 Another fun discovery is that Lindora Santa Ana, near our hotel, is the home of the first "green" McDonalds's restaurant in Central America. They say that, "Sustainable design and construction elements will save 40 percent in drinking water consumption and 30 percent in energy use. Recycled materials were used in the restaurant’s lobby and dining areas and rain water is collected and re-used for irrigation purposes. In addition, restaurant crew members are trained to communicate with customers about the green features of the restaurant to build awareness of McDonald’s efforts and commitment on the environment." Note the flora growing on the roof in the picture!

On our last evening, we asked Adrian at Villas Los Candiles to arrange for a very early morning taxi to get to the airport for home. We had come to absolutely adore Adrian for his smile, spirit, and his impeccably helpful attitude. We had learned that he is also a budding entrepreneur with his own little tour company (http://www.findetours.com/), consisting of Adrian and his brightly painted old VW van. Just imagine our surprise when we went to the lobby to get our taxi at 6 a.m. the next morning - there was Adrian waiting for us with his van, wearing his ty-dyed shirt, grinning, and saying, "This is my gift to you. I will take you to the airport!" So incredibly sweet! Makes me get teary just to think about it.



The Always Charming and Generous Adrian

So now we are safe and sound, back home in the snow (Dave has been shoveling for hours!), appreciating every aspect of our life, and greatly looking forward to seeing our family and friends! We'll try not to be completely boring with details of our trip!

Into the Blue Zone - Pure Vida!

View from Our Room

Ahhh, vacation time! Precisely at 9 am (a little unusual for Costa Rica) on January 27, our air-conditioned (ahhh) van arrived at our hotel to take us to the Tango Mar Hotel. The first leg of the journey took us about 1 1/2 hours to Puntarenas, where we boarded a ferry boat for the hour-long trip across the bay to the Nicoya Peninsula. Then another van picked us up for the 45 minute trip to Tango Mar!  It was just a little nerve-wracking driving up the very rutted narrow gravel road, following the faded signs for "Tango Mar Bar and Restaurant," wondering what the heck we had gotten ourselves into! Well, in fact, we have landed in Pure Vida (pure life, i.e., Costa Rican heaven). We were greeted here with ice cold face towels and a fruity rum cocktail at the front desk, and then escorted to our room by the Belgian owner of the property, the amazing Hilda! This is, in fact, the most beautiful place we have ever stayed!

View from the Breakfast Table

Tango Mar is on the Nicoya Peninsula, named by National Geographic researcher and journalist, Dan Buettner, and a team of the world’s top experts in longevity as one of the five "blue zones" in the world (others are Italy's Island of Sardinia; Japan's Island of Okinawa; California's Loma Linda; and, the Greek Island of Icaria has). These are areas of the world where people live healthy lives well past 100 years of age. Buettner (who was on Oprah on January 26!), in his book, The Blue Zones, describes four main steps to help create a blue zone:

1. Move naturally: your home should go along with the natural way you move. Concentrate on things you like to do, such as gardening, walking, swimming or spending time with family and friends.

2. Express your ideas with a positive attitude and allow time for rest.

3. Eat wisely: forget those diet trends that force you to consume 20% less than normal. Do not consume processed foods and have a few glasses of red wine daily. Please remember: do not over indulge.

4. Be part of the right tribe: put those you love first and try and reconnect with your religion or connect to one you wish to explore.

Interesting how close these ideas are to the Five Ways to Well-Being identified by Nic Marks' (of the Happy Planet Index) and colleagues in a research project undertaken for the UK Government Office of Science as part of their Foresight Project. The brief was to create a set of evidence based positive actions individuals could undertake which would improve their well-being. 

  

1. Connect - Invest your time in your loved ones, in your friends, family and acquaintances. Meet people. Talk to them. Understand how they improve your life, and also how you improve theirs. Knowing that you mean something to someone can be one of the most powerful positive forces in the world.

2. Be active - When exercising, the level of serotonin in your body rises and you get a powerful feeling of wellbeing. Something as simple as kicking a ball or throwing a Frisbee around a garden with a friend can knock both this and the previous point off in one go. If you're feeling down, go for a brisk walk and get some air. You'll soon feel better.

3. Take notice - Keeping an eye on what's going on around you keeps your brain running smoothly. If you see an application for planning permission pinned to a lamp-post, and even the tiniest part of your brain wants to know what it says, then go and read it. On a train or bus, rather than burying your nose in a book or your mobile phone, look out of the window and see what's happening outside.

4. Keep learning - Humanity's relentless curiosity is behind almost every single one of our species' accomplishments. Once you've finished your formal education, that's no reason not to stop learning. Actively seek out different viewpoints, and if you don't understand them then find someone knowledgeable to explain them to you.

5. Give - Finally, be generous. A survey gave £100 to two groups of people, instructing one group to spend it on themselves, and another to spend it on other people. Afterwards, the latter group's spirits were significantly higher. If you don't have cash, give your time, your attention or your expertise instead.

Bottom line - don't worry - be happy - Pure Vida!

Dave will blog soon about the amazing sabbatical interviews we have conducted here in Costa Rica. Next up (we hope) will be with Nature Air, the world's first and only carbon neutral airline (http://www.natureair.com/). We're thinking we may take one of their twin-engine planes back to San Jose on February 1.

Carole's "Gotta Have It" Trip to Sarchi

I (Carole) have been whining that we have been completely occupied in the UPeace course and Dave's sabbatical interviews, and that I just wanted to go to Sarchi, which is known as an artisan community, as well as the best place to do my inevitable sourvenir shopping! So today, we hired a taxi (for a small fortune, I might add) and took off for Sarchi. Well, friends and family, don't hold your breath for the souvenirs!

Sarchi is, indeed, a key artisan town in Costa Rica, best known for the highly ornate oxcarts that are handcrafted there. The oxcarts are a national symbol of Costa Rica, as they played a key role in the country’s history, transporting coffee beans to markets. Sarchi is also the home of dozens of wooden furniture and souvenir stores that sell wood bowls and trays to carved utensils, jewelry and masks. The carved furniture made here is gorgeous.

Besides the handicrafts, there is also an unusual church that is painted pink and blue. Built in the 1950’s, the two-towered church sits on a hill overlooking the town. I shouldn't be complaining, it was just a long, hot, disappointing, expensive trip!

Traveling around here in Costa Rica can be a real hoot, as there are no street names or street names or addresses, as such. For example, if you want to have the dinner at Doris Metropolitan, where we're going tonight, the directions are "Behind the Church of Santa Ana, northeast corner, San Jose, Costa Rica." To get to Dave's interview with the Deputy Minister for Peace tomorrow afternoon, the directions are "Office of the Ministry for Justice and Peace, located in San José, Barrio Luján. 25 mts north from the main offices of the PANI." To get back to our hotel, we give the taxi driver a business card with the map below on the back. I have no idea how people ever find anything, but it seems to work (although our taxi drivers will relatively often either stop another taxi to ask for directions or make a phone call to their dispatcher or the destination).

La Paz Waterfall Gardens

Our wonderful Academy for Peace hosts arranged for us to take a lovely trip to La Paz Waterfall Gardens today. It was really our first opportunity to see the awesome beauty of this country - the mountains; the plush greenery; the flowers, birds and butterflies; and, of course, the magnificent waterfalls.

Dave even made a connection with a photographer (with a humongous camera) who turned out to be from Macomb, Michigan! The guy also has a private, corporate charter business, and has many clients that he wants Dave to be in touch with for his sabbatical.

It was also my first chance to do souvenir shopping, so I bought myself a new "peace chair!" Just awesomely beautiful!

We do seem to be having a pretty happy time in the most happy country on the planet!

Universidad Para La Paz/BePeace

Every day this week, we have made a trip way up the mountain, past the shade grown coffee fields to Costa Rica's University for Peace, located just outside Ciudad de Colon, a "suburb" of San Jose. UPeace was established in 1980 via a mandate of the United Nations. Its stated mission is "to promote the spirit of understanding, tolerance and peaceful coexistence, to stimulate cooperation among peoples and to help lessen obstacles and threats to world peace and progress." UPeace offers graduate-level classes and programs in areas such as sustainable development, environmental security and peace, conflict resolution, international law and human rights, natural resources and peace, and gender and peace building. Currently, there are students here from 60 countries. It is a real privilege to be here for a week participating in the BePeace course as a part of the University's summer institute programs.

BePeace is the brainchild of Rita Marie Johnson, an American who moved to Costa Rica 17 years ago, inspired by the fact that the country has no standing army, and with a desire to help in some way. Her accomplishments are nothing less than astounding in that regard. In 2002, Rita Marie created BePeace, a practice that integrates HeartMath and NonViolent Communication, and then founded the Rasur Foundation and the Academy for Peace of Costa Rica, an organization that was awarded the Changemakers Innovation Award: Building a More Ethical Society in 2005. Since then, the Academy has been working with the Ministry of Education to implement BePeace in every high school in Costa Rica.

In 2006, the Rasur Foundation presented a Ministry for Peace initiative that was embraced by Costa Rica’s president, Oscar Arias, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. The bill passed on August 19, 2009, establishing Costa Rica as the third country in the world to have an official government Ministry for Peace. As a result of Rita Marie’s involvement in the Global Alliance for Ministries and Departments for Peace, the Costa Rican government hosted the 2009 Summit of the Global Alliance and the Rasur Foundation facilitated it.


Just this month, Rita Marie has gifted the Rasur Foundation's 2-acre property and its Academy for Peace to Costa Rica's Ministry for Peace to serve as its headquarters, and making Costa Rica the first country in the world to have a complete infrastructure for bringing forth a culture for peace.


Yasar and Mercedes
BePeace Sweethearts

 With that background, I (Carole) can tell you that we are having a magnificent time in the BePeace course, with the majority of the participants being UPeace graduate students from countries all over the world including Nepal, India, Uganda, Iraq, Sweden, and many more. Dave, as he will share, is having a great time setting up and doing interviews, including yesterday's brilliant conversation with the UPeace Vice Rector.


Unbelievably, Nic Marks, the founder of the UK's Centre for Well-Being at the New Economics Foundation, and creator of the global "Happy Planet Index," is on campus next week. We've been invited to attend a 1/2 day workshop next Wednesday, titled "A Happy Planet?: How governments, business and people can nurture well-being and respect nature." The Happy Planet Index has named Costa Rica as the happiest country on earth! Next week, Dave will also be interviewing Costa Rica's Deputy Minister for Peace.

This weekend, we're taking a trip to La Paz Waterfall Gardens with Rita Marie, a BePeace participant from the UK, and a couple of the Academy for Peace facilitators.

What an Excellent Adventure Day

Two blog posts in one day is probably a clue as the great day we had today! First, a lovely breakfast in the garden at our hotel...

...then a trip to the HUGE Sunday Farmer's Market in Santa Ana (note the MSU shirt - the guy didn't actually know anything about MSU, but he was excited to know it was "mi escuela")...

...followed by a visit to one of the oldest (350 years old or so) churches in Costa Rica...

...Dave's tennis game with a local "pro," and finally, a magnificent meal (aged beef, sourdough bread, etc.) at the Doris Metropolitan Restaurant (http://www.dorismetropolitan.com/) for a finishing touch! We could definitely get used to this life!

Tomorrow morning begins the BePeace course at the University for Peace!