Adonde Costa Rica...

Returning from rural Costa Rica, like last summer I find myself overwhelmed by the sheer number of people needing help--very simple things, really, and yet not seeming to understand their need--and my lack of understanding where, even, to begin. It is such a tropical paradise, exploited at every turn by Americans, Canadians, and Europeans, but the Costa Ricans understand this, expect it even because they think it means better-paying jobs, and so are glad for their own exploitation, not understanding the simple economics that more development drives up the cost of the few goods and services they need to survive exponentially so that they must go further and further inland to live and to purchase these things, driven off the beaches where they've lived, loved, and bought their food and supplies for generations.

It is difficult to lie in an adirondack chair under the shady almond trees, an occasional, quiet bombardment of the ripened husks on a deserted beach, or to take a two mile walk along a stretch where the only people encountered are a group of young people from around the world building a crude turtle rescue barricade for when the sea turtles come ashore in a couple of weeks to lay eggs so they can scurry and gather them before the locals scavenge them to break them into their beer to enhance fertility, when I know that less than a mile away there are several families trying to bail the water from their homes and yards from the seasonal monsoon-like rains that fall everyday now. The flooding is a result of Lagunas de Matapalo, a subdivision with plans for sixty homes that has sprung up since last summer that filled in a wetlands area with no permits or planning and has caused the river to back up here in the wet season and flood homes as much as a quarter a mile away from the river with six inches of water. Residents living in Matapalo have had many meetings, and last week even managed to get some officials to come from Quepos, 45 minutes away, but nothing was resolved; local politicians can't even convince San Jose--4 hours away in the best-roads dry season--to pave a 30-mile stretch of impossibly stony highway between Quepos and Dominical along the Pacific coast--a major bypass from the Pan-American highway when it closes due to landslides in the mountains during the wet season.

With only 25% of the roads in Costa Rica paved at all, the major form of transportation is still by foot, bicycle, or by horseback; the de rigueur footwear for men is high, black-rubber boots to guard from water and snakes as they work in the tall grass, woodlands, or the palm plantations owned, primarily, by American companies, with machetes of all sizes slung into leather scabbards on their belts or from their backs. Small children are seen leading horses along the road, as women, more often than not, are always dandling a baby--they generally start families at age 15 or 16. But both men and women are very family oriented, and nothing is more important than their children, though the men, when they have jobs, will often have to work 12-hour days, 6 days a week, and so aren't home much.

They are very private people, and don't let many outsiders into their hearts and homes, and so we felt very privileged last summer when Marleni, the housekeeper/gardener where we stay, invited us to her home for lunch and a swim at the catarata (waterfall) "close" to where she lived. We went, having to first find the opening through the barbed wire fence in a cattle pasture along a small, one-late drive and honk our way through the cows until coming to an African palm plantation. It turned out that she and her family had a tiny home in the middle of this jungle of date palms, next door to a sister who had the same kind of home. After unfastening another section of barbed wire (this is no easy task--unfastening three strands, keeping it stretched out as the car passes through, then refastening it), we drove through the rows of palms and pulled through mud, up to her home. It was the middle of the day, but it was very dark because of the height of the palms and the deep shadows cast by the overlapping, sun-filtering branches. Roosters, hens, chicks, ducks, and a ferociously-barking, brindle, one-eyed dog surrounded the car. "Bobbie!" they shouted, and he backed away but kept barking for several minutes. I looked for a place to step without mud, wasn't successful, so I let my flip-flops sink into the sodden red clay and immediately felt my toes covered in its warmth. It sucked the flip-flops right off my feet. Nonchalantly, as if I meant to take them off anyway, I just bent over, yanked them from the mud, and carried them to the house.

It was tiny, but immaculate. The walls ended where a normal ceiling would be, and the zinc corrogated roof rose above, with the wiring running along the tops of the walls to each of the rooms, turning at sharp, 90 degree angles here and there, and running up and along the ceiling at places, and emptying out at one corner of the house. Geckos played along the walls and ceilings as well. The typical Costa Rican meal always includes rice and beans, and, in addition, Marleni had cooked one of her chickens. For dessert, she had made a rice and milk kind of pudding--VERY sweet!

We then took the "walk" to the waterfall. We walked with her daughter and another young man up the road about a mile-and-a-half when all of a sudden, Daniel said, "Here." "Where?" I said. Daniel had pointed into the jungle, taking his machete and parting the foliage slightly as if he were pointing to something. "Here," he said again, and stepped through the opening. The jungle immediately closed back around him. I looked at Tom, then at Marleni and Jerlyn. They smiled. I pulled the jungle apart like curtains and stepped through, and there stood Daniel on a path about 8" wide. All of us began walking to what I thought surely would be, oh, maybe five or ten minutes through the jungle on a flat path to the waterfall. WRONG!

We walked through what was some of the most difficult terrain I've ever hiked--climbing over or under fallen primeval rainforest trees, slimy with wet season, inch-thick, leafy vines; having to grasp one another's hands to jump over narrow, but deep, ravines that had sloping, slippery sides; climbing steep, rocky precipices, watching constantly for snakes among the hanging, looping vines overhead. It was no walk in the park, and it was so dark we could hardly tell it was still daylight; all along the way, however, I kept hearing a river somewhere, so I held out hope that eventually we WOULD come to a waterfall. At last, ahead, we saw a clearing, and could hear the rush of the falls.

They were beautiful--not one, but a double set of falls, one too high to climb to, but the lower falls that pooled into a large lagoon, a respite from our walk. It tumbled over rocks downriver into a rapids. But was it safe? Were there snakes? Piranha? As I was wondering this, Jerlyn and Daniel jumped into the water. So did I. So did Tom. It was sooooo cool and refreshing! Refresco! We didn't, however, jump off the falls like the kids did. The walk back didn't seem as hot.

This summer, we were invited back for another lunch, but this time, the whole family was there. Marleni's other daughter and her grandchildren, and also Marleni's husband, Juan, a very hardworking, private man. He ended up talking quite a bit, though. We were invited so that I could go horseback riding on their only horse, Tranquilito, as a thank-you for bringing gifts when we came back this summer, I think. I took the horse and went riding through the palm forest, and was only a little shocked when Tranquilito decided to become a jumper over the narrow river close to their home! I wish I had a picture of my face at that moment!

What to do? For the people of Costa Rica? For Marleni's family? I'm still thinking.