Hi, everyone!

In this part of the Spanish-speaking world, the "sh" sound isn't really used. As a result, people have a really hard time with my name. Instead of “Asha,” most people here call me "Acha," which they find really amusing, since that means "ax."

"Pleased to meet you. My name is Ax." It's kind of growing on me.

I’m in Panama City right now. What a crazy place. Totally different than anywhere else I’ve been in Latin America. Really diverse, and surprisingly small. I can walk across the city, through a thousand very different worlds, in a few hours, which is exactly what I’ve been doing for the last few days. The buses are fun too- they're individually owned, painted with colorful graffiti-style art, play loud music, and aren't on any schedule whatsoever. I like it here, there's a part of me that just always feels at home in the city. This morning I got up at 5:30 a.m. to walk down to the water and watch the sunRISE over the PACIFIC. I couldn't sleep and I figured there aren't too many opportunities to do that on this continent.

Yesterday I went and checked out the Canal for the first time, took my shoes off and wandered along in the water for a while at sunset. It was really beautiful. Today we're going to see if we can get work as line handlers on the boats so we can see the whole canal to the Caribbean coast.

I ended up spending way more time in Costa Rica than I planned. Everyone I talked to said, "Don't bother with Costa Rica, it's boring, it's just like Disneyland." I guess I’m not as cool as them, because I loved it there. People were really warm and friendly, and made conversation even when they didn't want to hit on me or sell me something. And after Guatemala, it was really a relief not to have to point out to every other little old grandmother that she had shortchanged me; not to get pulled over in my taxi by men with large machine guns strapped to their chests; to have one price for everyone, gringo or no; and not to have locals make comments like "Wow, you walked that road? And you didn't get robbed?" Not to knock Guatemala, I loved it there too, and met some great people, and you can't blame the Guatemalan people, they've been dealing with decades of civil war and brutal oppression. (And I’m sure it doesn't help that when they started changing things, my government organized an overthrow of theirs). But, regardless, I really appreciated Costa Rica.

The best thing about Costa Rica was the family who adopted us. Mami, Papi, Fabio, his girlfriend Anna, his 4 brothers and sisters and their 2 cousins. We met Fabio one day, as we were on our way to the bus to Panama, and he just walked up and invited us out with them. We drove up to the top of this mountain with an amazing view of the countryside and had a beer and hung out all evening, and then spent the night in their spare bedroom. In the morning, we went out to milk the cows and Mami made us rice and beans and agua dulce and we shared our worlds with each other. They said it was a bad week to travel (Semana Santa, the Holy Week), and we should really just spend the week with them! We had such a good time and felt so completely, genuinely welcome that we postponed our travel plans "for a couple days." We spent the next 8 days squeezing fresh cane juice, getting licked by baby cows, taking salsa lessons from Graciella, Fabi's little sister, and getting a whole lot better at Spanish - no one spoke any English. They always said "our house," "our brother," "our Mami," and from the first day I never for a minute felt like a visitor, I felt like family. They told us we could build a house there or live in the unused one in the back if we wanted to. It's funny, we try so hard to create intentional communities and permaculture systems, and here was the healthiest, happiest intentional community and permaculture farm I’ve ever seen, by people who have probably never heard those words. It was an inspiration, and set a new standard in my mind of what is possible. Fabio says that when we have family, real family, in all countries, there is peace. One more international family was created that week.

And speaking of family, the Rainbow gathering was beautiful too. It was different from the National, only a thousand people (but from 63 countries!) and there wasn't the diversity of theme camps, but it was great to meet people from all over, share food, take Hapkido and energy healing workshops, swim in the beautiful river, and run into a few old friends (and have my 10 dormant strands of DNA activated and the parasitic spirits exorcised from my soul. It is a Rainbow gathering, after all!). A lot of locals came to check it out, and we made the national evening news. One local store had a sign up that read "Welcome Rainbow people, you can sleep here for free." San Vito isn't exactly a tourist destination, so it was interesting and profitable for the locals and they were pretty open-minded despite our strangeness and the occasional rumor that we were a Satan-worshiping cult.

We ditched out on the gathering for a week (we had to come back to the Gathering for a friend's wedding) to go explore the Osa Peninsula, the beautiful, rainforest-covered southwest tip of Costa Rica. We explored the little towns of Puerto Jimenez and Golfito, where we dipped our toes into the Pacific for the first time, wondering how the bath-temperature water could possibly be part of the same ocean we are used to in California. We spent 2 days at a chocolate farm (appropriate, eh?) where I planted watermelons, ate fresh cacao fruit, and hiked in through the backdoor of Corcovado National Park. The second night there I started feeling a little funny after dinner, and then found out that nobody had mentioned that the delicious tofu sauce I had eaten so much of with my spaghetti was a special recipe. I was still high the next morning. What can you do, except laugh at the absurd beauty of life and enjoy the ride?

And on that note, I think I’m going to wander back out into the craziness of Panama City in search of mangos and avocados (7 cents each here!). I love you all and can't wait to see you again!

Love

asha