Live in Costa Rica

A wonderful contributor by the name of Maria D (full name with held at her request) has provided us with some excellent quality photos and we thought it would be great to share them with everyone. So without further ado, here are Maria’s beautiful photos. Thanks again o all those ho contribute to making this site the most informative and accurate site on Costa Rica.

I just read an excellent blog post that made me think about how true the author’s statements are. The Blog post written by “Mother Jungle” at Global Post, describes how Costa Rica is a country of two degrees of separation and not six degrees like we say in The United States. This two degrees of separation can be something thought of as positive for some and negative for others.

The Ticos have a word for people that sit on a park bench and observe others, then gossip about who they had seen or what they had seen while in the park that day or just out and about doing daily activities. The words Ticos typically use to describe this person that gossips among the community is, “Chismoso” or “Chismosa” in the feminine form of the word. In the community, a Chismoso or Chismosa is generally a disliked person but one that is also wanted because of they amount of information that person knows about people in the community.

Since moving to Costa Rica, I often wondered for the longest time “who” was talking about me. I recalled numerous times, going to a party, when someone came up to me and said “I heard that you….” Pinpointing a specific Chismosa or Chismoso was often difficult because after a few days, everyone seems to know my business. After a few years of living in Costa Rica, I finally figure out how the country works on a social level which was very different compared to The United States.

Costa Rica is a small country with roughly 4 Million people and the size of Rhode Island. With such a small land mass and a large amount of people, the country has to know how to propagate information. To elaborate on Costa Rica’s information propagation, we can use Los Angeles as an example and say that we have “Amber Alert” notices on freeways, The Internet, News Casts, etc etc. In Costa Rica, much of the countryside is still plush and pristine, often a family only has one Television shared among a family, whereas in Los Angeles a typical family may have two or more TVs for the household. Costa Rica’s traditional mode of information propagation has been word of mouth, either via passer-bys or community social events. As Costa Rica progressed through to the 21st Century, much of this information travel has been replaced with some internet outlets; however, mostly newspapers, radio, and social events. In effect, the social event form of information propagation within Costa Rica has been the most effective and hasn’t been lost from The Tico Culture. Gossip and word of mouth essentially what runs Costa Rica, in elections, in business and in social enrichment events.

My epiphany if you will, with the understanding of this character difference between Tico Culture and American Culture was discovered when I went to a party at a local 20-30 something club on a Monday night called, “El Cuartel de la Boca Monte“. I had ran into a few friends, one of them in The Poker Industry and was having a drink while discussing industry gossip and things going on in our lives. In a matter of 15 minutes I ran into my ex-girlfriend’s brother, another ex-girlfriend, a girl I liked at the time was with a mutual acquaintance I knew and my co-worker was at the bar when I got a drink. In Costa Rica, the bar scene is quite interesting as every night has a particular venue that everyone within The Capital of San José seem to frequent. This near daily gathering of Costa Rica’s peer social groups creates a closing of a large network for all to propagate information, gossip, and cultural discussions. These information exchanges are part of Costa Rica’s Culture and what makes the country operate. It is these same gossip collaboration that enables people to know about others, prior to even knowing the person. There have been many times I have attempted to converse with a Tica, but her friend had warned her of my more than promiscuous behavior and therefore at times ruined a potential girlfriend.

These gossip circle aren’t necessarily bad either, when often they can be used to make hiring decisions, screen potential girlfriends or boyfriends, garner a good second opinion, or get a task done quicker. A case in point was getting maintenance done on my car. I had purchased a really old lemon of a car from a car dealer near Desamparados, Costa Rica. Ironically, I purchased this car with the help of a friend (Julio) whom was a taxi driver and I asked him to help me negotiate a deal, he even took me to the bank and transported me with the $2000 needed to purchase the car. After buying that car, I wanted air-conditioning as San José gets pretty humid in the July - September months. To get air-conditioning installed in my car, I was referred at a bar that I freqented to go to a great mechanic in the hills who went by the name of “Diego”. Julio “The Taxi Driver” knew where Diego lived, because of the proximity of everything, and Julio drove me up to Diego’s “shop” which was actually a house with an overhang to the side of it where mechanical work on his client’s cars was done. Needless to say, “Diego’s Shop” looked very cluttered and dirty for what one would presume to be a place for auto work, but hat is the beauty of Costa Rica; the micro-economics success and its operation. In The United States we would use Yellow Pages, Google, an Internet Referring or some other medium to learn of businesses and finding a provided service. In Costa Rica, the country operates much more on word of mouth rather than marketing and advertising internet searches or newspapers.

Unfortunately in my short time of living in Costa Rica I have already seen a change from the word of mouth form of social interaction and information propagation. The change in itself is not entirely bad, but what has happened in larger businesses have been squeezing out the small mom and pop solutions, which has a trickle down effect to the communities in ways unforeseen by the people such as increased traffic congestion, lower qulity of life, longer hours, less personable interactions and a general change in the traditional Costa Rican Culture of “Pura Vida”.

Costa Rica’s president of The Central Bank, Francisco de Paula Gutierrez, stated that Costa Rica will most likely look to the International Monetary Fund for a $750 Million loan to dampen the expected damage to The Costa Rican Economy in the coming year(s). Gutierrez describs this move as a “precautionary” move to prepare Costa Rica for what may be a trickle down of the economic crisis to the tiny Central American Country of four million people. The move is described as, “Bullet-proofing the economy”, but most are aware that this in no way will “bullet-proof” the economy.

On the business side of Costa Rica’s economy, Ontario based Mastronardi Produce LTD, has announced they will be exporting Costa Rican tomatoes to the United States. This business move is not only great for US Tomatoe lovers as they will have access to fresh tomatoes year round with Costa Rica filling in the gap growing cycles of tomatoes that arrive on our gracoery store shelves, but for the slowing Costa Rica economy as well.

Much of the news surrounding Costa Rica these days has been bitter-sweet at best. A case in point is Inside Costa Rica’s article annuncing the cutting of 2,000 jobs at Canadian based Scotia Bank. Avantica on the other hand, announced a partnership with a US based company called Open Mountain, to help better develop their near shore business in hopes of being a viable solution for US Business during the hard economic times.

The Global Economic Crisis will be a tough setback for all to get through. Because Costa Rica is such a small country with so many resources and a great talent pool, the economic setbacks should not be as drastic to the quality of life in Costa Rica, as it will b for their counter parts in The United States.

The ever growing concern by expats and locals in Costa Rica is the prevention of pollution in Costa Rica, most notably the foreign tourist operators. Recently, La Nacion, the national newspaper in Costa Rica reported that fecal matter was found to be present within one of Costa Rica’s most visited sites by tourists, Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio. Manuel Antonio Park has for a very long time been a center piece for Costa Rica’s tourism industry and truly is a one of a kind experience for a first timer.  I can still remember to this day my first surreal thoughts when I experienced the Jurassic Park type feel when I walk up to the beach head of Playa Trés or “The Third Beach” at Manuel Antonio National Park.

This is not the first article within the past year that I have read with regard to fecal matter and other pollutants located near beautiful beaches which are possibly related to the resorts that are located near them. In the middle of 2008, it was reported in La Nacion that a hotel located in Tamarindo was built too close to the beach which is illegal in Costa Rica and the facility was torn down. The tearing down of the facility was probably impacting to the environment, but the building of such establishments so close to the beach is the source of the real problem. The facilities that are often built too close to the beaches usually have little or no sewage system in place. Because of this violation of The Costa Rican law of not building an establishment within a certin distance of the beach, pollution numbers have gone up. Many of the establishments that are in violation are businesses run by foreign nationals who either ignore or pay corrupted Costa Rican officials in order to bypass following the law of the land. The impact of the pollution of Costa Rica’s finest beaches is real and can already be seen in many areas. In 2007, when I last visited Tamrindo it was much more clean though worsening from previous times I had been there. This worsening was due to the creation of establishments that disregard local laws.  Tamarindo as mentioned previously is not the only tourist beach area that has been affected by this, especially on the pacific side. If we as expats want to ensure we are able to continue business while living in bueatiful Costa Rica, we must ensure we preserve what attracts our customers to our business and that is tourism and the shear beauty of Costa Rica.

With the expected worsening US Economy, the tourist numbers will be sigficantly down from the 1.4 Million tourists for 2007.  It is imperative to ensure beach closures do not happen and preventing this is extremely easy. The first thing that must be done is community awareness. Get out in your community and raise your concerns with the preservation and cleanliness of the beaches for ensuring business is sustained. The second thing to do is action. Any business polluting, report them to the appropriate authorities. Please don’t try to get other expats in trouble, forst attempt to introduce yourself and make them aware of the situation. Most resolutions can be solved without using the authorities. The last important feature is enforcement, anyone throwing trash on the ground, polluting a beach, etc and does not wish to comply with requests to stop use community peer pressue and or contact the correct auhority in that particular jurisdiction. Almos any expa business owner in Costa Rica will be open to your requests and most likely is unaware of their impact if they are in violation. Only a few bad apples have spoiled the bunch so far. Feel free to comment on other recommendations readers can use for cleaning up their beaches and/or community in Costa Rica.