The Costa Rican Backstory

San Jose, COSTA RICA, October 10, 2008 – So how did we come to be in this sometimes-sunny paradise where the cock crows repeatedly in the morn and attentive guards and housekeepers check on me.  Several times a day.  Whether I need it or not? 

In two days we will have been here 2 months.  We arrived in paradise on Tuesday, August 12 in the middle of an absolute downpour that lasted all afternoon and most of the night. For someone who had just spent nearly a month in drought-stricken South Texas (even the 2 hurricanes that passed through while we were there didn't do much to lift the drought), it looked like a profligate waste of water. And to think it does that every day here during the rainy season (which lasts about 8 months of the year).

Our home here is amazing -- spacious, bright, beautiful. I feel so colonial: There's even "maid's quarters" (a tiny bedroom and a bathroom with no hot water and a window that won't open) off the laundry room, which is right off the kitchen. We have a maid (there's no way I can mop the 6 acres of floors in this house every day, which is what it seems to need), but she won't live there. It makes a lovely storage room.

I really do feel like I'm in paradise so far. I think our condominium (in the U.S. we would say "gated community") is surrounded on all sides by barrios and businesses, but all I can see from my 2nd floor window are trees and what looks (to my untrained eyes) a lot like jungle. In the mornings, before the clouds roll in, I can see the mountains to the north of San Jose (Escazu is a suburb of the capital). The air is clean and almost crisp; the mountains are carpeted in thick, dark green, the fluffy white clouds which will turn into rain in the afternoon are just starting to peek over the hills, and there's a Wal-Mart just 2 miles away. There's also Office Depot, Ace Hardware, Pizza Hut, Tony Roma's and TGIF. I've even seen signs that Domino's Pizza has a presence here (in the form of a pizza box discarded alongside the road). I wonder if they deliver and how do you say "extra large pepperoni" in Spanish?

But here's the rub: how do I tell them where to come? There are no street signs in this country. None. People keep asking me where I live and I say "I have no idea," because I don't. Printed address labels were presented to us when we arrived. They say something like: "Condomino Santa Maria, 300 meters east of HiperMas (that's Wal-Mart) on the hill next to the auto shop." That's my address.  I'll have to take a map with me if I ever go in a taxi and get the driver to mark my location when I get in the car.

The best part of paradise so far: cheddar cheese. Fourteen years I've lived overseas without cheddar cheese. It may be the most popular kind of cheese on the planet (I take that statistic from a Monty Python skit), but no place I've ever been has it. They have 3 or 4 brands here, and the kids and I went through about 2 pounds of it on our first day in country.

The worst part of paradise so far: the sun comes up at 5:30. Every morning. And it sets around 6. Every evening. The sun comes UP around 5:30, but the roosters and dogs get going by 4 a.m., and it's usually good and light by 4:30. Every morning. This morning, on top of that, there was a family of birds that sounded like it was doing construction on our house at 5 (I'm sure they had several hammers and maybe a little saw), and they were joined by a second family of birds having a major domestic disagreement at 5:15. I think that to stay sane, we're going to have to revise our understanding of "early morning" to something like 3 a.m.: if you get to sleep past that, you've slept in. I'm also going to get some very noisy fans to put in the bedrooms, because sometimes the roosters get confused and ratchet up to full throttle at 1 or 2 a.m. and don't stop until noon.

And speaking of wildlife, Jonathan has already had a close encounter with some kind of tropical wasp (black and white, makes your arm swell up to the size of a sweet potato and leaves a bite hole the size of Nebraska); I spotted a chicken on the playground outside our house this morning (and what do you know, there it is again. Actually, I think this is a different chicken, so mark that down as TWO chickens.  And a rooster); we passed a dead possum on the road this morning; and at church recently, the lady behind us was holding a chihuahua, which was wearing a blue coat. (The dog was better dressed than I was.) So, if this is life in the city, I wonder what it's like out in the sticks??