June 13th...dang, it's been a month. Or it'll have been a month before I post this entry. It feels like so much shorter and longer at the same time. Time – weeks, minutes, hours...they've all got their own special Costa Rican stride. I've spent a few hours reassuring myself that when that hour is over, I'll just be that much closer to going to sleep. Other times I wake up on Monday and before I get to brush my teeth it's Saturday.
Right now I'm looking forward to my niece's birthday party this Sunday – she turned one year old today and we've been working hard to plan the perfect, Hello Kitty themed party. I used to think that birthday parties for babies were dumb, but this baby really will enjoy every minute of it even if she doesn't understand why it's happening. There has never been a baby so predisposed to feel unbounded joy. With her soft skin, chubby (and I do mean impossibly round) belly and two tiny teeth inside that big grin...well. She's just the kind of baby for whom you want to throw a party. A baby you'd do anything for, actually, and exhibit A are my blistered hands. The slope of our lawn was not adequate for the guests' tables and thus I have spent this past week breaking up all that earth (all day long) with my host sister. It's not a mountain, but there is a hell of a lot of dirt and we are moving it for this linda bebé.
All the family here deserves respect for the effort of raising this baby. I thought that It takes a village to raise a child had kind of been worn out. I know my neighbors and people at church and stuff had a hand in teaching me things as a kid, taking care of me, etc. But it hardly had a village-type feel. Far and away I spent more time being raised by my parents than anyone else and that was pretty much what I saw as far as my friends' childhood, too. Not so in my Costa Rican family, and the baby is a good example of how this old saying still has a lot of meaning here.
Baby's mom works in Santa Cruz and leaves on the bus that passes at 5:45AM. My host mom, Baby's grandma, feeds the baby and keeps her busy while she cooks breakfast, feeds animals and washes clothes. This is all before I wake up. When I'm eating breakfast I try to keep Baby happy and busy so grandma gets a break. Then all day Baby is passed from aunt to cousin to grandma to neighbor to aunt again. I swear she has a line of people waiting to hold her, and it's no surprise – I've told you how sweet she is. She's washed in one house, dressed in another, her hair is combed and clipped by a group of little girls next door. A visitor to my uncle's house takes her hands and helps her to walk. I'll make sure to keep an eye on her as she pulls on a chair to stand herself up. And it goes on. Baby eventually comes back to grandma for good around 5:00PM and we spend some time all hanging out on the floor, watching novelas (gotta watch my soaps!) and playing with toys. Baby's mom gets home at 7:00PM and, imagine this, immediately Baby does not care about anybody she has seen all day. My host sister only gets to spend about two hours with her child each night before it's time to put her to bed. Rinse. Repeat.
The village spends the most time with Baby, and I can tell mom wishes it were different. Time, again, can be short or long or both. I know my host sister loves every second of that two hours that she spends with her daughter, that in every smile on Baby's face there is an eternity of love that she feels. But too soon it's time to turn out the lights and close her eyes and wake up to leave again. Like a lot of things that I've observed lately, I understand why it has to happen that way, but it still makes me sad.
Baby's going to be just about three years old when I leave Costa Rica. I think of it from the perspective of how much she will develop, how much she'll grow and a lot happens in two years! Makes it seem like a great expanse of time. From the point of view from her mom, though, Baby will be grown before my next breath.
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