reflections on the last day...

3-16-2010

Apparently I’m horrible at blogging. I figured that I would manage, at the least, one entry per week, but as I sit here reflecting on my stay in Costa Rica - I realize that I have been here a whole month, and only written once.

It is my last day here in Costa Rica, and as I sit on the veranda of a San Jose hotel, and listen to the noise of honking cars, and rumbling trucks go by, I wonder, how would I sum up my stay here?

To that I say, Costa Rica is not for me, at least not in any potentially permanent way. Let me explain…

I’ve always had this fantasy of myself as a very worldly type, but the reality is that when I look at my life, I have spent almost the entirety of it inside the bay area. I was raised in the south bay, went to college in Santa Cruz, and have lived the last eight years in San Francisco. There isn’t anything wrong with this really, but whenever I find myself recounting these specific details about myself to someone, I feel a little pang of shame, because it doesn’t really match the adventurer image I have of myself. I’ve flirted many times in my mind with the idea of living abroad, and romanticized becoming an expat of sorts, so part of this trip for me has definitely been about clarifying whether or not I would, in fact, someday want to leave the safety net of California to experience a new way of living, as well as where that place might be.



I love California. It holds many things that are dear to me, and as I grow older, I realize how much it has shaped who I am, and how I view things. In fact, I am such an unoriginal Californian that once while traveling in Rome, a guy, just by talking with me for a minute, placed the exact city I was from. I thought to myself, “Wow. Am I that obvious?” I guess so…

But back to Costa Rica...



It is, no doubt, stunningly beautiful here, and the temperature of the water is luxuriously like bathwater. All in all, it has been an incredible playground. I came here to surf, to see wildlife, to explore natural beauty, and on all these fronts, Costa Rica has definitely delivered. For this, I feel privileged and truly grateful. However, I also came here to get a sense of who Costa Ricans are, and sadly, I am no more the wiser after being here for a month.



It is entirely possible, very easy in fact, to come to this country, and visit all of its best sites, even being able to speak Spanish, and not have a single authentic interaction with a native Costa Rican citizen that isn’t summed up by the phrase, “Estamos aqui para servirle” – We are here to serve you.

It’s true that I was mostly on the tourist circuit, and that if I tried harder, eventually I might be able to break through, at least on some level, but I’m not comfortable with how much the culture of expats here seems to have diluted the experience of what may have been, in much earlier years, more authentically Costa Rican. It’s strange to me that when we were in the surf town Dominical, the three main places to eat served burgers, pizza and vegan dishes. Nor am I comfortable with the fact that although tourism brings in a lot of money to the country, many of the businesses are owned by foreigners, who, at least in a few of our experiences, didn’t seem to have legal work permits, who were presumably here on tourist visas, since they left the country every 3 months for 72 hours, and only accepted payment in cash – US dollars please.

I realize that even as I say these things, I was no doubt a beneficiary of the very things of which I complain, and that it definitely made things easier and more comfortable for me. It was certainly an expat who owned the bakery in Malpais that I loved so much, with their freshly juiced lemonade with ground up mint, but even so, it doesn’t feel quite right.

When I spoke earlier of romanticizing the expat experience, I was not thinking of going to a place where everything is familiar, and people are bending over backwards to make me feel just the way that I do when I am at home. I was thinking more about the challenge one goes through in order to get to know someplace new, while allowing a different culture to seep in a bit, transforming the way one views the world, and helping to gain an alternative perspective. I realize that I'm oversimplifying things, and that the rumored statistic (that 70% of expats who try to move to Costa Rica end up moving back home) would not exist if it were truly easy. I don't want to discredit the people who have a dream of living here, and work hard to make it happen, but I'm suprised when I walk into a restaurant that doesn't even have the menu in Spanish.

During our stay here in Costa Rica we were frequently asked the question, "How is life in paradise?" To that I say, "Amazing, but something seems amiss..."