Last Wednesday our Tica family took us on a special adventure. We all loaded into the little white minibus (la buseta, they call it) and drove a couple villages away toward a town called El Rosario, which basically consists of a church, a little plaza, and a couple little shops. All around the village are coffee fields as far as you can see. Coffee is one of Costa Rica’s major exports (along with bananas) and this mountainous area we’re living in is covered in beautiful dark green coffee plants heavy with little green and red balls. We drove up to one coffee plantation owned by a family friend and the boys got to run around through the rows. Our purpose there was not to just admire coffee plants (matas de café), however; we were there to pick oranges! Little orange trees were planted all over the fields to provide shade for the coffee, and the oranges, now very ripe, would just go to waste if not for us. So we spent a couple hours roaming the fields and collecting all of the oranges Mario (our host dad) threw down to us. He apparently grew up in those coffee fields, so he knew all of the shortcuts and interesting sights to see.
The oranges were delicious- we each must have eaten at least 4 that evening- and we brought home several bags full. It’s such a special thing to able to just walk up to a tree and eat whatever you want! We had a blast. The next day, we took 40 of them to our (very grateful) fellow volunteers at training in Tarbaca and they were a big hit. They’re probably expecting a similar treat for tomorrow’s training… it’s going to be a hard act to follow!
Speaking of fruits, we’ve tried so many interesting things here that we feel like we should share a little bit of our new knowledge.
First, Megon’s local favorite is called jocote. It’s a small green or orange/red colored fruit shaped like a massive olive with a giant pit inside. You eat the skin and the little bit of fruit inside and the ripe ones taste just like mangos. They’re delicious. There is a picture of me eating some here on the blog.Next, Megon’s least favorite: the pejibaye. It’s shaped kind of like a big strawberry but with tough green/orange skin. Inside it has really dry orange flesh that tastes like pumpkin. The people here eat it with mayonnaise, but Megon’s still not sure about it. We are going to try to make pumpkin pie out of it for Thanksgiving though!
The chayote is a green vegetable shaped a little like a bell pepper. We think it’s part of the squash family and tastes like water when cooked. Our Tica family puts it in soup.
The ayote is also a veggie in the squash family and looks like a small dark green pumpkin. It takes and feels just like butter when cooked. Yum.
Nísperos are little yellow fruits that look like little yellow grapes. They’ve got a tough skin and several large seeds inside with a whitish pulp. They grow on a big tree right outside our house and they taste just like grapes.
The mamón chino is probably the craziest looking fruit we’ve eaten. It’s small and oval-shaped and has a hard reddish skin with soft spiny things sticking out all over the place. It looks a lot like a sea urchin, actually. You crack it open and inside there is one giant pit that the fruit clings to. It’s pretty hard to eat (also apparently a choking hazard, according to Esterlina, but quite tasty).The guanabana is an awesome fruit that looks like a small bumpy watermelon. The flesh is slimy and white and makes great juice.
There is also a naranjilla tree right outside. Naranjillas look just like oranges but are SUPER SOUR!! Way more potent than lemons.
Other than that, we’ve had guava and plantains and lot of other fruits we’re used to. Every meal is an adventure here!
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