Update Costa Rica: Part 1 "Initial Observations"

Many weeks have passed since I submitted my last article. For that I must apologize, but I was struck with a severe fever of laziness while lounging out for a month at the beach in Nosara, Costa Rica. I have now been officially living in this rich Central American country for three months. Adjusting to life here has posed its challenges and I am meeting them with a joy and determination I never would have thought possible.

This is the first time that I have actually lived in a foreign country and going through this experience as a “foreigner” has been truly eye-opening. In the United States I grew up around foreigners. I knew people from Israel, China, India, Korea, Japan, Iran, Iraq, Yugoslavia and enough from other countries so that we could have created our own United Nations of Orange County. I grew up thinking that being a foreigner must be so exciting and a constant adventure. I began travelling at age 1 and so I figured that the immense joy I felt while being in a new culture abroad must feel like that all the time for foreigners living in my country. The last few months in Costa Rica has been an important lesson in understand the plight of the foreigner in my own country.

Not being from the country you’re living in is hard. No matter how much you love a place there are always the challenges of absorbing a new language, accommodating your body to the food, learning how to get around, making friends etc. The list is endless. The entire process of solving troubles is a journey that any foreigner goes through. Although I can’t say that living here in Costa Rica I have experienced “culture shock”, I do learn everyday how different I am from everybody else here, although I must clarify this statement.

On a fundamental level I believe that all human beings are essentially the same. Of course there is always an exceptional aboriginal tribe that seems to defy our conceptions of “normal” human behavior, but I believe I am fairly safe in making the following observations. I believe that most humans in all parts of the world want the same things: a place to call home, a means to making a decent living, having people in their lives that they may call their “loved ones” and simply to have the opportunity to live happy and fulfilling lives.

This does not mean that even though we are the same in the core of our beings that it is impossible for people to feel foreign. The human race has an ugly history of intolerance, and on a less extreme level we tend to have uncomfortable dislikes for that which challenges our conceptions of our everyday reality. Simply put, foreigners are treated differently no matter where they are in the world. This isn’t always bad, but it’s a feeling that one experiences every single day of existence while being in a foreign country. Personally, every time I step out of my house I immediately feel different from everybody and out of place. It can be something as small as not knowing how to say “zipper” in Spanish and as big as having bus drivers not stop for me if there’s nobody else at the stop.

Sometimes, before I even open my mouth many people will speak to me in English. It doesn’t matter that I’ve lived here for months and that I speak the language; I’m just obviously not Costa Rican. Costa Rica is chalk full of tourists, so I obviously become upset sometimes when people automatically assume I’m a tourist. I am certainly a guest in this country, but I am by no means a tourist.

I have had interesting experiences in some of the more heavily toured areas of the country where, after only a couple sentences in Spanish using the local lingo prices fall at least in half. There are definitely two economies that exist in Costa Rica: the Costa Rican economy and the Gringo economy. What this means is that in areas where tourists can be found, there are ex-patriot Americans and Europeans selling their wares at American and European prices. Many unknowing tourists who don’t want to wander the three blocks into town to find the locals often end up getting ripped off by the Americans and Europeans, doling out money that no Costa Rican would ever pay while the Costa Ricans who sell goods at normal local prices often miss a great deal of the tourist economy. Although tourism has obviously brought a great deal of opportunity and money to Costa Ricans, much of what comes through in that industry still ends up in foreign hands. In fact, a great deal of the money Costa Ricans see from tourism is by getting jobs from businesses that foreigners own. They often earn little more than $2 an hour while the outsider earns 1^st world money while paying 3^rd world wages. Although I feel this is the norm there are also great exceptions. For instance some of the surfer kids I know in Nosara make $40 a lesson teaching people how to ride waves.

Although this phenomenon can be quite frustrating, one accepts it as a part of life here.

The food on the other hand, is amazing and much less depressing than the local economy. Costa Rica is about as tropical of a country as they come and the fruit is absolutely astounding. All over the highways one can find papaya, mango, coffee, guava and a slew of other amazing plants that bear fruit almost anywhere a root can find the earth. Most everywhere in the country one can buy a cold fresh coconut for forty cents. I’ve barely been here more than three months and have learned about at least twenty new fruits since my arrival.

Aside from the amazing selection of tropical goodies available at the most dirt cheap prices imaginable, the local cuisine is not lacking. The most typical plate you will find here is the famous Tico casado. Casados generally come with rice and beans (or sometimes gallopinto which is rice and beans prepared and mixed together) some vegetables, a small salad and a meat dish. There are dozens of local dishes but you can’t get more Costa Rican than a good old fashioned casado.

Getting used to the culture in Costa Rica has definitely been a sort of spiritual practice for me. I moved here after two years in Los Angeles where the pace of life is a steady pace of “not enough time”. People drive fast, eat fast, talk fast and live fast. Costa Rica maybe isn’t the most opposite place on earth compared with Los Angeles, but it’s awfully close. The most commonly heard motto hear is Pura Vida and this local saying beautifully captures the essence of this country’s culture. Everything here is just so incredibly laid back. The vibe you get when you go out in public is “what’s the rush?” That is, unless you’re driving. City driving is like playing Russian Roulette; you probably won’t die, but you might.

Becoming accustomed to the slow pace of life is here was quite a challenge at first. Depositing a check at the bank can easily be a one hour ordeal. Don’t be surprised to find two tellers helping fifty waiting customers and be even less surprised when the line continues to fill up and one of them takes their coffee break. It has also been a great test of my patience getting used to how people give directions. I went from being given a precise address and cross-street to, “Take the highway until you see the green painted bridge. Get off at the dirt road and the house is located 70 meters past the mango tree. You’ll know you’ve gone too far if you see the coffee plantation.” Keep in mind directions like this are given even though “the highway” is what every single highway is called here, half the roads are dirt, mango trees grow like weeds and there’s probably 10 coffee plantations per capita. All in all it’s not such a bad system once you get used to it. Once you come to terms with the fact that you will never get anywhere on time it’s all good. Pura Vida, right?

Be sure to stay tuned because now that you’ve gotten an introduction to Costa Rican ways of life the next part in this series will focus on my month in the beach town of Nosara.