A Broad In Costa Rica

Falling From Grace

China is having its way with Costa Rica. A few months ago, at China's insistence, Costa Rica dumped Taiwan in order to form a new relationship with The Big Guy. Taiwan had been good to Costa Rica, built them a Friendship Bridge, never did anything harmful or even rude. Tough luck. China is a more prestigious trade partner and has tons more money to give to a beggar state. Bye bye Taiwan (in the middle of the night with no warning, muy humillando), Hello China.

The first thing China did was promise to pay for a new soccer stadium for Costa Rica. Say no more: Costa Rica "R" soccer. Everyone is all excited about the new stadium. So excited, in fact, they went to work on it straight away. Not seven months later, the old one is already torn down! Seven months. That's gotta be a record.

Nothing happens straightaway in Costa Rica. Nothing. They've been trying to get a road finished from Puriscal to Jacó for something like 30 years. There's a list of projects that have been years, decades, in the making. But Costa Rica keeps running out of money for its own projects. China, in the spirit of Friendship, enters bearing an envelope of cash: $60,000,000 in small unmarked bills. That's only for the stadium, though. Nothing for those unfinished roads or roofs or bridges. Just fútbol!

Ok. Nobody asked me for my opinion. Sanctimony "R" me. Whatever. And they don't care how we do it up north. We got a good chuckle at this headline:

New National Stadium To Have Only 400 Parking Spaces For 35,000 Fans

The Estadio Ricardo Saprissa stadium, followed by the Estadio Alejandro Morera Soto, home of La Liga, are a perfect example of poor planning of a stadium, especially when it comes to parking, where there only parking is provided by adjoining land owners who offer their porches and lawns for high prices.

The new Estadio Nacional ... that will soon rise over the land that housed the old Estadio Nacional for decades, will be no different, as only a few hundred visitors who arrive real early will be able to park their cars in the stadium lot.

The new stadium is expected to hold 35,175 people, but will have room for only 400 vehicles in the parking lot. Continue reading here...

Actually, 400 spaces for 35,000 seats is not so ridiculous in Costa Rica, like it might be in New York. At least two to a car so 17,500 cars max. There probably aren't 17,500 cars driven by die-hard soccer fans in the country. And, since most people go everywhere with their entire families, you have to figure at least 5 people to a car so we are already down to 7,000 cars, even if every family who went to a game drove.

But at least two thirds of those game-goers aren't going to drive because at least two thirds of Costa Rica's population doesn't drive. So, we are down to 2,300 cars. Just 1,900 parking spaces short. Hardly seems worth mentioning.

What is worth mentioning is the other recent China debacle. The Dalai Lama was supposed to visit Costa Rica. Had his ticket and everything. He was here in 2004. Looks like he liked it!

But China asked Costa Rica to refuse him entry and, to its shame, Costa Rica complied. Adding insult to injury, Arias tried to hide why he did it. China fessed up, though. They don't care what anyone thinks.

So Costa Rica dumped Taiwan and the Dalai Lama for money and a soccer stadium. A definite fall from grace.

"HEY! Is that a SMIRK?"

Here's a taste from an interesting and informative article by James Bovard from my favorite morning reading at LewRockwell.com:

Federal Attitude Policy

TSA agents can slap fines on Americans based on "attitude," which TSA classifies as one of the "aggravating factors" in determining financial punishments. TSA has issued no guidance on the precise amount of obligatory groveling at airport checkpoints. People who question TSA commands are probably far more likely to be fined.

Read the whole article here...

And, hey, put a lid on that smirk. You can be fined up to $10,000 if you get caught with it.

P.S. My favorite author, King of Smirkers, has written some good articles on the madness of the TSA. The man knows how to poke fun. And when to grovel. He's smart like that.

WARNING(S)!

I remember the worst moment of my life, the moment the world turned from friendly and full of hidden promise to dangerous and full of unspeakable peril. The moment the words, "Be careful!" became my mantra. The moment I realized all the chillingly simple and unpredictable ways my child could be killed.

Morgan was not quite a year old, standing on a chair, drawing with a pencil. I was so involved in his wanting to draw, I missed the clear and present danger. How could I have been so foolish? Then he fell off the chair, holding the dangerous implement. As I leaped to grab him, all I could see was that pencil lodged in horrible places.

It wasn't. He cried for about a second, then climbed back onto the chair, back to drawing, never noticing the paradigm shift in our little universe. Wishing I'd let go of him and let him draw in peace. Meanwhile, I'm peering over my shoulder, seeing a house of treachery. Furniture. Pens. Probably dust-covered esophagus sized marbles rolling about in hidden corners reachable only by inquisitive baby-sized bodies... What had I forgotten to child-proof? And all this before bikes and swimming. How would my children survive childhood?

Or my neuroses? With any luck, they will learn to smile and ignore my high drama same as their father. Good thing they have a father or they would never have any fun. Fun is dangerous. When Morgan was four and we were at Disney's Blizzard Beach, we passed the Summit Plummet on our way to the placid Cross Country Creek. Mo looked up at that slide and said, "I want to do that." I said, "Not a chance. Come on, we're going to ride INNER TUBES." He looked skeptical, but followed me. What choice did he have?

Just as we got to the Creek, Hal decided he and Mo needed drinks. They were gone for an hour and a half. Where did they go????? The Summit Plummet! I wanted to kill Hal for encouraging such risky behavior. Instead, I dragged my fat old body up those zillion stairs and screamed my head off all the way down. It was terrifying. That's fun? Mo followed me down, however, eyes wide open, huge grin on his face, silently ecstatic. That was the day he uttered the fateful words, "I'm scareless, Mom." Great.

Why no scareless Ryan stories? Because Ryan values staying alive over fun. He was looking both ways from his stroller. That's my boy. The teen years seem to be wreaking havoc with that common sense... somehow he's developed a taste for roller coasters. It's Hal's fault.

Now that the boys are gigantic, I'm pretty relaxed about their safety. I simply can't protect them anymore. Fortuntely, they know everything. This will come in handy because there is still so much to be afraid of today. Like...

Warning #1
On Thursday night, while surfing the web, a window popped up on Hal's computer that said, "Warning: Windows has discovered a virus and needs to do a security check." There was an "OK" box. He clicked OK, that window closed and thousands of new windows started popping up. As he closed the windows, more popped up... on and on seemingly forever. He finally got them all closed, continued reading and surfing, turned off his computer and went to bed.

The next morning, when he turned on his computer, all the data was gone. My Documents, My Pictures, My Music, Outlook and Outlook Express, all his emails, all his contacts, every file on his desktop, everything wiped spanking clean. Like new.

Now, we consider ourselves pretty geeky. We know the scams, we know a real Windows box from a fake one (or so we thought.) We know not to click anything no matter how flashy or how big the word "WARNING" until we know exactly what it is we are clicking.

But Hal must have been tired when he came upon this page because he didn't examine it too carefully. He assumed his Windows Firewall was taking care of business and clicked OK. When all the windows started popping open, he then assumed he'd fallen for an advertising ploy, closed the pop-ups and went about his business. But while he was busy closing windows, software was being downloaded on his computer that erased all the data.

When Hal described the warning page to me, I suddenly remembered seeing it a few days before. Usually, as I'm reading an article online and come across a link to another site that looks interesting, I right click the link and select "open in new tab." That new page opens without my having to leave the page I'm on. I can finish reading, then visit the new page at my leisure. By the end of a few articles, I end up with a slew of pages open. Pages I haven't yet seen. Somewhere along the way, either an extra window opened or a link had been hijacked because, as I finished articles and closed windows, I eventually found myself at the offending page.

It has a blue screen with a perfectly executed Windows warning box. I almost clicked it but then I looked closer and realized it was not an independent window generated by my computer as it appeared to be, but actually a graphic on the blue webpage. You NEVER click a graphic on a webpage unless you know where it's taking you. I figured it was an advertisement for anti-virus software and closed the window instead of clicking OK. For a brief moment in time, I was smarter than Hal.

And how does one recover from an attack like this? Fortunately, Windows has a clever feature called System Restore found here: Start / Programs / Accessories / System Tools / System Restore. Newer versions of Windows create a restore point everyday. With System Restore, Hal was able to restore his computer to just a few hours before the erase!

Thank goodness we remembered this little rarely-used tool. When you open your computer and all your data is gone, your mind goes as blank as your disk. Wha' happened??? We also have a hard drive back-up. But System Restore was the most efficient and most recent. These days, you want to know about this feature! These days, you also need to know about...

Warning #2
You know those earth-friendly expensive-to-buy-but-cheap-to-run lightbulbs we are all using now? Read this. You will see them in, ahem, a new light...

Over the past two months, I've given up dairy because of this written by Jane Plant, PhD and author. I feel great since doing this, by the way: sinus troubles gone, no junk in my throat. I highly recommend it. I don't even miss butter!

I went on this diet two weeks ago and it seems to be working. I've lost a couple of pounds and Saturdays are SO FUN. Yesterday I had two large orders of McDonald's french fries with catsup. The salt almost stopped my heart. Thank goodness, I don't have to do that again for at least a week.

We rarely eat red meat anymore because of this. We eat tons of fruits and vegetables, mostly because they are so abundantly available here and breathtakingly cheap.

We take vitamins, go to the gym 5 days a week, try to get plenty of sleep. Laugh a lot.

But the other day, before reading the lightbulb article, I broke a bulb in Ryan's room. I swept it up, threw it in a trash can. Licked my finger to get up the really tiny pieces and throw those away... All that good healthy living reversed in an instant. It'd be funny if it weren't so scary.

A Brief Political Moment:

Call me a Paranoid Libertarian Extremist - I've been called worse - but I'm afraid if the guy gets any more popular, he will be killed. Not like shot... like poisoned. Heart-attacked. (Yeah, more paranoid than you thought, right?) But, heck, it's been known to happen. I think I'll send him a tin-foil hat. Works for me!

If, ahem, you want to know more about Mr. Paul, enjoy his salient moments from the last debate. Just because I don't live there anymore, doesn't mean I don't care about or, despite all previous experience, have hope for my country.

Free Burma

U.S. Campaign for Burma

Free Burma.org

Burma Wiki Page

Amnesty International

Burma Flickr Page

The Most Ridiculous Thing I Have Ever Heard Of:

Jen at Living Dominica has this priceless tidbit on her blog today:

"In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission." Read the entire absurdity here...

La Carpio

"I've worked my way up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty." - Groucho Marx in Monkey Business

Somewhere over the rainbow, there is no place like La Carpio. No place at all. My visit last Wednesday was so overwhelming, I'm having a hard time putting everything into words coherently. You know, like I usually do.

Somehow, I'm a member of Helping Hands Costa Rica (HHCR). I'm not really a joiner, but I wanted to meet more expats and here was a group looking for members. I had nothing to do one night and voilà: I'm in.

HHCR was started by Evangeline, a young woman with boundless cheery enthusiasm for the task of ending poverty. You think, "This kid is going to burn out." But after being around her for awhile, you notice she is taking it as it comes, poco a poco. One shoe at a time. One colon at a time. That's the only way to survive. She very well might. I don't know about me.

We rode with Gail Nystrom, founder of the Costa Rica Humanitarian Foundation and tireless humanitarian. The purpose was to see what she does in La Carpio. "Bring your cameras," we were told.

I have heard of La Carpio. It's where the desperately poor live. People kill each other over there. I wasn't afraid of dying. My fear is that I would be in a van full of gringos going to photograph the desperately poor. Would they wave and smile? I would never know unless I went. So I did. I dragged Mom along. Something to take our minds off her luxury vacation at the overpriced hellhole.

La Carpio is filled with refugees, mostly Nicaraguan, almost all illegal. Population is estimated at 35,000. That's a lot of people. More than Key West's year round population of 28K and squeezed into a smaller area. None of it oceanfront. The land is "donated" by the government: these guys are squatters. They've been here so long, the land belongs to La Carpio. I'm not clear on the finer points, but you can buy and sell your house... I think the land is akin to a leasehold.

Housing styles range from cardboard to rusty tin to wood, many combinations, all held together with balance, spit and bread wrapper ties. In the nicer part of town, there's more cement block. The one paved road is a godsend. Many homes have dirt floors. Outdoor plumbing.

One of the things Gail does is buy houses for the poorest of the poor living in the worst shanties down by the river. When you are the newbie in this community, you start at the bottom of the hill. Everything runs downhill, you know. Right down to the river. [There are questions to be asked about exactly how well Costa Rica is preserving her natural resources. But this is not about that.]

In the photo left, all the way to the right further down is the river. This is a tiny snippet of the whole. I couldn't get enough perspective with my point and shoot camera.

On our way into town, Gail drove us by the landfill. The stench was sickening and we could smell it in town, everywhere. The landfill was supposed to be here 10 years then closed. It's now year 13, going gangbusters. A steady stream of trucks brought in the trash. You could see the methane gas flowing furiously from the pipes stuck in the dirt. Rumor has it there are chemicals being dumped here, then released into the river. But it's just a rumor.

When the government was looking for a landfill location, they went from town to town. Each town said NIMBY. La Carpio said NIMBY, too. The government offered to give title to the La Carpio homeowners in exchange for allowing the dump. La Carpio thought it over, then said NIMBY. The government offered to send in immigration. La Carpio couldn't fight that; they got a landfill.

When Gail is househunting, she looks for the basics. A house has to have something other than a dirt floor; it must have an indoor bathroom. A room for a kitchen. Running water. A window would be nice.

And before anyone starts in on how it's better to teach people how to fish than to feed them, walk a mile in Gail's shoes. If you don't feed, clothe and house people this poor, show them some love, show them that they matter, they will die of apathy before they can bait a hook. Gail's been doing this 17 years, the last 10 "officially" since she founded CRHF in 1997. She has a track record. The only reason we were not treated like a bunch of curious gringos is because we were with Gail. She has earned their respect. They trust her.

Gail used to come here everyday, for years. At the moment, she's spread a little thin and can't come everyday. She needs help, an assistant. She acknowledges that if she stopped coming, things would fall apart. She knows this because if she doesn't come often enough, things begin to fall apart. If you live here day in and day out, like these people live, it would be hard to keep your spirits up. There is no hope here. Gail brings it in.

She doesn't just buy houses. She's done more, so much more and not just here in La Carpio. Read the details at CRHF.com. She's opened a learning center for kids with toys, legos, games, a computer and the only library in the area. She's opened a clinic where anyone is welcome. There is another government run clinic down the road but that is only for ticos with papers. Nicas with no papers don't get medical care - let's not get into the politics, ok? At Gail's clinic, everyone is treated. The cost is un mil ($2) but if they don't have that, it is free.

We met Jessica, a mother of three. Gail bought a copier for Jessica so she can sell copies for 10 colones each (about 2 cents). Gail gives her new entrepreneurs supplies for a couple of months till they can get the hang of buying supplies and budgeting.

We stopped by the police station and met the officer on duty. He said there had been two murders that week, two young men. Presumably over drugs. He was friendly, let us stroll around, not anxious at all. He said the danger was at night, not so much in the day. I did get a photo of his fridge: it's like an old Chevy. The kitchen could some sprucing up.

Our last stop of the day, we visited with Maria, a mother of three (two teens and a little girl of six.) Maria was widowed two months ago. Her husband was killed in the U.S. where he was working legally, dragged out of his house and shot 15 times. She doesn't know why and she probably never will. The company he worked for, Ironco, has been very supportive.

Maria is waiting to get the life insurance - there is some holdup, something about murder not being covered. Then, she will go back to Nicaragua where her mother lives. You can hear some of her story here. The video is poor and there is a TV on in the background. Her teens were watching TV: they stay at home all day because they have been threatened by the other teens here. It is dangerous for them. Maria is quite depressed. Jesus, I would be, too.

Evangeline reported on the day here. See? Cheery. Four hours at La Carpio was enough for me to digest in one week. Not Mom. She gathered up all the shoes in the house - I think we each have a pair left - and went back with Gail today to see the kitchen where they feed 50 kids everyday and a group of 15 community women on Fridays. Mom is going to make lunch next Friday; she's all busy planning her menu. My mom is an excellent cook... they will want her everyday. Not to mention being a beacon of light her own self. With a little light and a dose of hope, you can get something started. At the risk of being entirely corny, if happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow, why oh why can't anyone from La Carpio?

A Crime In Costa Rica

This is not a funny post, not in the least. This is the story of a crime that happened a week ago, outside of Jaco, down on the coast. I don't know Henry, but I have exchanged emails with him and he is a regular contributor on the Costa Rica Living Group board.

I offered to print the story, not to scare you away, but because, in today's A.M. Costa Rica, the reporter told a completely different, and decidedly unsympathetic, tale. I'm mystified as to why. I will meet Henry and Robyn soon. And I have a post about crime in Costa Rica percolating. Definitely more to follow on this topic.

----------------------------------------

Hi Sara,

Here is the basic scenario to our story.

On March 2nd two people broke into our house. I had gone to the beach for two hours and my girlfriend Robyn was back in Calif. They obviously had been watching our property for some time before the break-in. We live on six acres without any immediate neighbors.

They pried open the bars with a 2x4. They stole our laptop which was visible and several other items. I always put my laptop in our safe when we go anywhere. Unfortunately, this day I forgot. The following day my dog was missing. I called O.I.J. [Organismo de Investigación Judicial], the day of the robbery and they came down and took fingerprints and I filed a report with them.

Five days later, I was down by the creek in the front of our property, talking with the man who installed our well. We started up to the house. As we approached the house, I noticed some pieces of sausage. I picked it up and sure enough it had white powder (poison) on them. I went over to the bodega to get something for my friend and found the latch broken by a shovel of mine next to the bodega.

They stole my $500 weed-eater and all of my tools. This all occurred with me only 60 meters from the house. One of them was a lookout while the other broke in. Again O.I.J. was called and they came down to investigate.

I left for the states on March 16th for 10 days. On March 18th, Robyn, my girlfriend, heard some noise that night behind the house. She turned on lights inside, looked outside, but could see nothing and just thought it was probably raccoons.

On March 20th at 4:00 a.m. robbers came screaming into the bedroom. Robyn stood up and ran toward them. She pushed the first man (very small and thin). They then began to beat her with a bat or stick, hard to say because it was completely dark. They then tied her up and began to strangle her. They kept feeling her neck for a pulse. They then thought she was dead and sexually assaulted her.

After that they again stole, for the third time our laptop and other things in the bedroom. They then exited the bedroom and closed the door. They had unscrewed the screws to the bars of the kitchen and had literally taken off the complete bars and placed them about thirty feet away by our small storage building.

Robyn waited about fifteen minutes and peeked into the living room to see if anyone was there. Our house is only a one bedroom and 610 sq. ft. When she thought they were gone she went outside went to the car and drove over to the nearest neighbor about 250 meters away. She called her brother and wife who live about ten minutes from us. They came over and went back to the scene of the crime with Robyn. They called the local police. The police arrived, asked Robyn's brother her name. They wrote it down, misspelled, and then said good bye. Very professional, not one other question was asked.

Robyn, her brother and wife then went to the local clinic in Jaco and she was treated for contusions and abrasions. O.I.J. arrived at the clinic and told her to come to the O.I.J. office and that they would have a forensic examiner to review her. Robyn then went to the O.I.J. office to file her report and meet with the forensic examiner, but he wasn't there.

She did file a report on what happened. She then went to the pharmacy for pain medication and back to the house as O.I.J. met them there to look through the house for fingerprints. I flew back the next day. The following days we went and visited the office of the Chamber of Commerce to let them know and see first hand what had happened. We also went around to many residents of the area to let them know about this problem also.

Robyn and I are willing to cooperate with anyone to get to the bottom of this heinous crime.

Sincerely,
Henry Kantrowitz

A Foothold on the Slope of Hope

Last March I wrote a post about Nazanin, an Iranian teenager who had been sentenced to death for killing a man who was trying to rape her and her niece. Yeah. When I first read something like this, I fervently hope it is just a really tasteless joke. Tragically, this was not.

I followed the links to the online petition and signed. Today I followed up on Nazanin. Because of the tireless efforts of another teenager named Nazanin, worldwide attention was brought to bear and Nazanin was re-tried yesterday. Things look pretty good, although in such a barbaric country, you can never be sure. Please sign the petition if you have not. Trust that she will be freed. Once she is home, she will love reading the names.

"Klaatu Barada Nikto"

This, of course, is the famous command from The Day The Earth Stood Still. It loosely translates to "Gort, stop!" Gort being the lead alien who was hell bent on taking over the world. If I'm not mistaken, I believe Gort means George in English.

I saw this movie when I was 8 or 9 years old and I remember being scared out of my wits. I couldn't sleep for fear of Gort's jaws opening and the death ray shooting out from it. I memorized the words "Klaatu barada nikto" and would go around repeating it over and over again, terrified I'd forget it right at the moment I'd actually need it. A drama queen at 8. Scary.

I was also absolutely terrified of Reddy Kilowatt. I would lie awake at night, fixated on the electrical outlet across the room from my bed. I KNEW Reddy was in there, waiting until I fell asleep before he'd come out and dance on my chest. It's a wonder I ever got any sleep at all. Or that I'm not in therapy.

Living in Costa Rica, I sleep great! I'm not terrified of anything. Er, much. Sadly, as a U.S. citizen, I've been too trained for too long to not find something to terrify me. Today's terror fix came thru in this scary little short from the MSM: The Day King George Was Crowned. Should make for some sleepless nights.

All together now: "GORT, KLAATU BARADA NIKTO!!!!" (Or, in English: "GEORGE, STOP!!!") There. That should do it. It helps being 3000 miles away, let me tell you.