The Gringo’s Hawk

Jon Marañón’s struggle to come to grips with his own value system, spirituality, social consciousness, and place in the universe is reflected in this diversely interesting book. The author shares an onion of a story as he peels back layer upon layer of the surreal life in which he finds himself, with a sweet but tear-making discovery at its core.

The Gringo’s Hawk is a diary, docudrama, field journal, socio economic report and conservation chronicle rolled into one. Written in relaxed style, readers will find a wealth of information about the world within and surrounding Jon Marañón. The book moves along swiftly without boring the audience with technical or scientific jargon.

From a young age, the author finds himself to be different from his peers, relating better to collected nature specimens than pals and classmates. Part of a boisterous family of several sons, Marañón prefers the loner role to organized sports and the expected pursuits of wealth and privilege. With a decorated, aggressive war veteran father and supportive mother, he tries to follow the path of elder siblings leading to Ivy League schools and lucrative careers, but falls short.

At a Colorado university, Marañón is irritated and hemmed in by the noise and activity of dorm roommates and seeks the aid of an on-campus psychologist, hoping to get approval for his solitary living quarters. Instead, the professional’s words haunt him for years to come as she suggests that perhaps he is the one who needs to change.”to learn to adapt, to work it out with your roommate and others.”

The lone student abandons campus life to enjoy the solitude of time spent on a hillside beneath the stars and such solo pursuits. It is the beginning of Marañón’s expat status, which will follow him for nearly 3 decades.

By a very circuitous route, the author makes his way to the wilds of Costa Rican paradise in order to study first hand the ecosystems of an unspoiled land. Questioning his decision to ditch the university learning labs for primitive fieldwork, Marañón wonders, “Perhaps there was something intrinsically problematic about me.some peculiar hard-wired genetic material or program, or something that would make perfect sense to psychiatrists, psychologists, or astrologists upon hearing how I became enchanted by the ocean, the rain forest, and the people of Costa Rica.”

So begins the young man’s many adventures in paradise. The hair raising first flight on a decrepit puddle jumper into a cow patty splattered field introduces the student to his new classroom. Marañón is immediately immersed into the vortex of a disappearing culture being encroached upon by the modern world. He is privy to many nights by the fire with native elders as they spin yarns and pass down truths from past generations.

Marañón, the gringo, classifies himself as an indicator organism; an oddball who somehow through osmosis and observation detects the most minute changes taking place in all aspects of his surroundings, who simultaneously is evolving and adapting to the emerging new environment while trying to act for the greater good.

For a sensitive, environmentally aware person, troubles could only ensue as the different worlds collide, grind, and remake themselves as time marches on. Marañón butts heads with wild animals, poachers, environmental terrorists, big First World government, crooked local politicians, dangerous sea creatures, the whims of Mother Nature, parasites, insects, brujas (evil witches), culture clashes, absence of modern conveniences, rats, vampire bats, and a mythical monkey man running loose in the jungle.

On one of his first nights in the choza (a decrepit hut), Marañón is gripped by some unknown fear after friends tell him that the local bruja is out to get him. “It was like one of those childhood nightmares in which I desperately wanted and needed to escape from an ill-intentioned pursuer but couldn’t get my legs to respond or my mouth to scream for help.”

While studying the land, flora, fauna and marine life around him, Marañón learns of the powerful healing properties of various plants in the area. Deeply cutting his finger with a machete, he is led to a cedrillo tree where his friend extracts a bright yellow sap to smear on the cut. “The bleeding stopped, and in a minute the sap had hardened into a plastic-like bandage.in three days I pulled off he flexible bandage and saw.that my cut was healed and my finger wasn’t puckery as I’d expected.”

Marañón becomes so involved in the mystery slowly being revealed to him by the friendly Costa Ricans, he cannot leave. His quest to earn a sustainable living within the rules of good environmentalism has become his holy grail. So enmeshed in this new life was he that he loses his place in the universe. “.back in my home country, I was an ex-college student and a visitor with business elsewhere. I found myself in the lonely predicament of so many other expatriates: feeling like a foreigner wherever I was, in limbo socially and culturally, with no friends close enough to satisfy my real need for close companionship.”

Many years pass as the adventurer suffers through personal growing pains mirrored by his Eden-like surroundings. He tries out many different career paths in Costa Rica with the support and blessing of his parents. Cattle farming, local cash crop planting, tourist attraction management, gentleman rancher and reforestation manager, environmental crusader, local benefactor and medical advocate are some of the roles that take disastrous turns for the gringo.

Marañón describes his confusion: “The overall effect of these conflicts and the inner turmoil they produced was that once again, I felt acutely marginal, unable to join the millions of happy, normal, hearty consumers who so confidently and enthusiastically gobbled down their Big Whopping Mega-Burgers without any concern.” He spends a good deal of time on introspection wondering about such things as, “What was real and what was not? Who was lying and who was not? What were the true connections between people and reality? How could reality be altered? What were ‘luck’ and ‘fate’ and ‘astrology’ and ‘witchcraft’ and ‘magic’?”

After a lengthy battle between the ranch’s chickens and the hawk he has come to love and admire, the gringo is persuaded by the disgruntled local families to take a shot at the beautiful bird of prey. After another night raid on the poultry by his bird friend the crowd puts up quite a flap. To appease the growing rancor of his new surrogate family, Marañón raises his rifle to fire off a wild shot. The bullet somehow finds its target and the hawk is felled. Like the college psychologist’s burning words of many years before, the gringo is haunted by this event. “For years, I would feel tremendous guilt – for myself, and for my species,” he writes.

From that day, Marañón decides to listen more to his insides instead of the voices around him. And Maranon finds love and the quasi-stability that comes along with a family in the next several years. He also hits upon an enviro-friendly way to make a living that he believes is up to par with his birth family’s standards.

Marañón’s The Gringo’s Hawk is a weaving of the many different threads – rich in texture, varied, and intertwined with both rough and delicate fibers that add interest. It is not a smooth, perfect life, but one that has crafted an interesting, beautiful tapestry for others to enjoy.

Rated Four Stars: A very good read! You won’t want to put the book down.

A young American, affluent, idealistic, but not particularly scholarly, decides to live in an obscure hamlet in Costa Rica as a kind of combination naturalist and anthropologist without portfolio. After three decades he leaves having won some battles but ultimately having lost his gentle war to preserve both the naturally and the human ecosystems from the inroads of the bulldozer and of slash and burn agriculture. And then he writes a beautiful book.

The Gringo’s Hawk is not a book to be devoured at a sitting. Like wine it is best sipped and savored a little at a time. Jon Marañón writes with a grace and fluidity that is seldom experienced in this era. It is indeed a pity that he has but one story to tell. In the process of telling it he reveals himself as a gentle but gallant warrior, a Don Quixote of the rainforest, the beach and the reef.

If there is justice in the world of books then Jon Marañón’s The Gringo’s Hawk will become a sleeper – an unexpected best seller. The more we read in it the better we like it. It wears well.

Rated five stars

In 1972, Marañón arrived in Costa Rica as part of a university project, little realizing he had found his life’s work. For the next 30 years, he would strive to make an environmentally conscious living in a tiny village preserve. His life became a physical and emotional roller coaster as he matured from an arrogant, spoiled young man to one passionately trying to save a disappearing way of life. Even as a college dropout working on behalf of the environment within his local village and government bureaucracy, he watched the daily decimation of the rain forest.

Written more in the style of a diary than scientific observation, Marañón’s attempts at dry humor sometimes come off as supercilious or cynical. However, he does have a unique perspective. Here is someone who walked the walk, who witnessed the willingness of desperately poor natives to compromise their natural resources. Marañón understands the complexities of saving the rain forest and he was successful in helping establish some national parks and marine reserves.