MOVING TO COSTA RICA XIII
A Loverly Buncha Coconuts
Losing essential body parts in one easy stroke is easy. Learn how:
Last week my Tico friend Chito was here building a closet in my bedroom, among many other things he has helped me accomplish over the past couple of months.
Chito is one of the most naturally happy people I’ve ever known, always smiling, laughing, pulling pranks, making jokes… and teaching me Spanish in the process. It’s a joy to be in his presence.
Last week, after finishing the closet construction, I delivered Chito and his tools to his house, and was rewarded with a freshly harvested bunch of coconuts. The lot weighed almost 40 pounds, I noted, as I lugged them back up the very steep hill (no, it was nearly vertical) to where I had parked my car.
Sweating and gasping in the afternoon heat, I heaved the lot into the back of my car and drove away, wondering WTF am I going to do with these things?
I own three machetes!
On my property there are several stacked piles of “stuff” the previous owner left behind, and I’ve been gradually sorting through some of the top layers to discover treasures, finding mostly trash. But I did find two rusty, forgotten old machetes that Chito cheerfully honed to a keen and deadly edge. Soon after, in his foraging for framing wood, Chito found a third!
Muy peligroso!, he warned. It occurred to me that I had never seen a Tico woman with a machete in her hand. Perhaps Chito hadn’t either.
And I certainly have never handled one! But it looks so easy, right? With one well-aimed THWACK! a Tico can chop off a perfect, thin slice of the coconut shell that allows the precious nectar inside to begin to flow.
A handsome Mexican boy faces an older opponent. Blade-to-blade machetes, eighteen-inch blades sharp enough to shave the hair off your arms or chest. The chico is quick. He catches the other across the back of the hand, severing tendons and veins. The other drops his machete without any change of expression, catches it with his bare foot, kicks it up into his left hand and splits the kid’s head like a coconut. — W.S. Burroughs, The Western Lands
At this point, the little man in my head, the one who gives me a report each morning, is screaming, NO!!! Don’t even THINK about it, woman! But then, he’s quite accustomed to being ignored, and I’m determined to figure this out on my own.
Spoiler alert: I did not lose any fingers or toes
I adore pipa, which is simply pure, unadulterated coconut water, completely different from coconut milk. Pipa is that trendy and expensive new product on the top shelves of the bottled water aisle in your upscale grocery store. But it doesn’t taste anything like the real thing fresh from the nut!
THIS is how you get the real thing — a bunch of coconuts, a sharp machete, a funnel, and a container for all the precious liquid. Each of these coconuts contains about 250 mL of pipa, más o menos, for a grand total of about three liters, if I do this perfectly.
A machete is a heavy blade, high-carbon steel, sharp, usually rusty. This is not a tool one one would choose for severing digits and limbs. I mean, think of the risk of contracting lockjaw.
But a determined gringa woman can do this without having to call the EMTs. It’s a lot like chopping onions, if you think about it. Just takes a little bit more muscle and a perfect aim. And a wheelbarrow of determination.
Warning: Do not try this at home. Do not allow a Tico man to witness your sloppy, awkward, and perilous hackings. In fact, do not allow anyone near you during this process. Could be fatal to all concerned.
But Oh So worth the effort. And the merit badge. (Hmmmm…I wonder how it might taste with a touch of rum?)
Thanks for adventuring with me! And thanks to Shadowgnosis for that fabulous WSB quote! ❤️
