Visit from a Monkey

May 17, 2009
At 4:00am, I heard the sliding doors of our house moving and then some rustling in the kitchen. I assumed Kaz had opened the doors to get cool air and was having a snack. Kind of a weird thing for him to do at 4:00am, but whatever, I thought. After awhile, I got out of bed to see what was going on. The sliding doors were open about four inches, but no one was around and nothing seemed amiss. I closed the doors and went back to bed. When I awoke later, I noticed that an animal had eaten parts of a loaf of bread and knocked onto the floor a package of cookies. I asked around all day to see what explanations people had for this, then concluded that a monkey must have visited- opened the doors, eaten the bread, and run off when I came out of my room. Only in Monteverde!

Kaz has gotten into making collages using recycled materials, and even sold one for about $4. He also reads, goes to the waterfall, and visits friends in his spare time. This morning, he went with friends to a local hotel that has a pool. He is having a great time here, has really grown up a lot, and has told me repeatedly that he does not want to leave.

This afternoon, we went walking with our friend George. George had a double hip replacement recently and needs to exercise daily. His main form of exercise is walking and he cannot walk alone because if he falls, he cannot get up on his own. Lord knows, it is easy to fall around here with all the rocky roads and uneven trails. Our walk from George’s house took us past loaded blackberry and raspberry patches, and we returned with bags full of berries. George convinced us to stay for dinner, and we were joined by two “couch surfers” staying with him, his neighbor Jesse (6th grade teacher at the school) and Jesse’s wife, baby, and 11 year-old son. We all had a wonderful time. What an interesting, diverse group of people- the sort of group you might find only in Monteverde. Kaz was doubly thrilled because he was able to call friends in the U.S. free of charge from George’s computer, and was able to borrow six DVDs from George’s collection of over 400 movies.

The pictures below are old- from April when Kamila and Michael were still here and Dave was visiting. Kamila and Michael made us some excellent meals; one is shown, and the picture of all of us was taken in our "new" house by putting the camera on top of the refrigerator and setting the self-timer to take the picture for us.