The people in our neighborhood

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Just when you’d thought we’d given up on the blog… (key suspenseful theme music, crash of thunder… but no ear-piercing shreiks, please.)

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is not celebrated here in Costa Rica, except by ex-pats and a handful of gringo-ized Ticos (Tico is the affectionate term for Costa Rican). We are going to have Thanksgiving dinner at a Tico friend's house -- the lady that Dara works with at the Inbioparque. She did her graduate school in the US and has kept the Thanksgiving tradition since. Although she was going to serve chicken (stuffed, of course) her daughter told her she had to have turkey. Turkey is not common here, but if you look hard enough, you can find it -- I even heard one store was importing Butterballs. Dara is making sweet potato casserole (with canned sweet potatoes she smuggled in her suitcase from her last trip to the US) and apple crisp. Should be just like back home.

Speaking of back home, it is with a sense of melancholy tinged with excitement - or the other way around, depending on whom you ask - that we announce our return to the U.S. December 18 is the day so the official wind down/countdown has begun. We’ve given our landlord notice, our tenants in Yardley are moving out, the for sale signs have been hung on our good ole’ Trooper. We’ve had a great time here in Costa Rica. I know this is going to sound confusing - we’d love to stay, but since we knew we were only here temporarily, I think we’ve had enough and we are ready to go back. There are lots of little things that we’ve had enough of that if we knew we were staying longer, we’d take the time and effort to fix - mainly things that would be solved by finding a new, bigger apartment. And we miss our family and friends, so it will be great to see them again.

There are a whole bunch of things we’ll miss and things that we are looking forward to. Hopefully I will get motivated enough to put them into writing and posted. In the mean time, here are some pictures of the people in our neighborhood. We don’t “meet them each day”, but we do see them pretty often. 3 or 4 or 5 times a week, we make the walk about 5 blocks down the street to the gym where the kids take ju-jitsu classes (the gym is right behind the church pictured below). This has been great - the kids have really enjoyed the classes and have made good friends. We really like the teacher, Rigoberto, and Abel, the owner of the gym. To get there, we walk past the butcher, the mechanic, the shoe store, the hair dresser and the pizza place. Everyone smiles and says “hi” as we go by.

I say we make this walk 3 or 4 or 5 times each week because there are kids classes 3 times a week and we usually make it to all of those. In addition, Ari has been going to the adult classes when he can, too. Ari has really enjoyed the classes and he was the one that ook the initiative to ask Rigoberto if he could attend the adult classes. He also, all on his own, studied for and asked to take the blue belt test at the same time as his orange belt test. The first Dara and I heard about it was at the test itself.

We have enjoyed living in Heredia -- it is not that small a town (I have heard estimates that vary from 30-50,000 people) but it does feel like a small town. We are often remembered in the stores and restaurants we go to -- even if we haven’t been there for months -- and we are usually treated with exceptional service. The kids, especially, are remembered and sometimes we even feel like minor celebrities. Of course this is even doubly true of the places we frequent more often - the owners of Pizza Itacuba know who is calling just from our voice and always deliver within half an hour.

That’s it for now - just a quick one to try to get back into the blogging habit.

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Photos

Portones blancos y grandes
These are our garage doors (portones blancos). Since there are no house numbers and people don't use street names, we use the garage doors to identify where we live -- the big garage doors on the right (it's a one way street, so at least they're always on the right). We have the one second from the left and it is a tight squeeze to get our big Trooper in the door. There are 4 apartments in our building so each apartment gets 1 garage and there´s one extra (one of our neighbors just got a second car so now it´s theirs). Actually 2 of the couples don´t own a car at all so those spots are always empty. To get to our apartments, you go through the garage and up a flight of steps out the back. There is a nice little yard there, behind all the bushes you see in the picture.

Our street
This is our street. Technically, it´s Avenida 13, but even the cabbies wouldn´t know that... they don´t use street names here and you rarely see street signs anywhere. There is a plan to start to put street signs in around the country in various cities and will be using ¨real¨ addresses in about 10 years. I'll believe it when I see it.

Abel
Abel, the large, amiable, ex-body guard who loves all things Far Eastern (martial arts, acupuncture, etc.) owns the gym where we spend many hours each week working out while the kids are in their ju jitsu classes.

The gym
Here´s our gym...small and simple (and a little run-down but, hey, we´re easy) but it has everything we need...and all for $13/month for each of us!

The church on the corner
The church is called Corazon de Jesus (la nueva...since there´s an older one too with that name) and it is the reference point we use to give people directions to our house (¨350 metros al oeste de La Iglesia Corazon de Jesus, la nueva, a lado derecho, los portones blancos y grandes¨...yep...that´s our address here...no street numbers or even street names). The church also has a loud recording of church bells that "rings" each hour. Unfortunately, their clock is often off a little so they don´t quite chime in the hour... more like 5 minutes past. Pura Vida!

Friendly church dog
This guy who lives at the church wags his tail and stands quietly to be petted as we walk past on our way to ju jitsu. Great guard dog.

Our pizza place
This place has great pizza and it´s just down the street from our apartment. They deliver when we call...we just say ¨Hi, this is the gringo that lives down the street.¨ (in Spanish, of course) and they know who we are. They´re very sweet and the pizza is yummy.

The shoe store
Ticos LOVE shoes...I mean CRAZY love. There are more shoe stores here than anything else...This is the shoe store down our street. The family sits in there every day, chatting with each other and waiting for people to stop in. We´re not sure how they stay in business because we don´t actually ever see anyone in there buying shoes...but they´re very friendly and wave and say hello every time we pass.

Hair Salon
Mark gets his hair cut here at this little shop a couple blocks down from us for 1000 colones ($2). Ari would get his hair cut here, if he let anyone cut his hair.

The mechanics
The mechanic shop is about a block down from our apartment across the street. And thank goodness it´s so close because we´ve used them enough (not lately though, fortunately). Arnaldo is the head mechanic and Patrick and the other kids help him out. Great guys.

The butchers
Here's Oscar, the father, and his two sons, Jose and Christian. They have a little butcher shop about a block east from our house that we pass 3 times a week on our way to ju jitsu class. We never actually buy any meat from them, but they smile, wave and say hello ("Adios!") every time we pass.

The butcher shop
Here's a better shot of the guys behind their counter.

Fast food alley
This is the main street into town (Heredia). It´s affectionately called ¨fast food alley¨ since, as you can see, it holds all the fast food joints you´ll find in town. Coming into town this way does give a false impression of what it´s like since the rest of town is comprised of little mom & pop, non-brand name shops of all shapes, sizes and types.

UNA
Here´s UNA, the national university with a main campus here in Heredia. This is just up the hill from fast food alley on the road into town. With the university right here, there´s a large, young population which is nice. Notice the large ¨No al TLC¨ sign on the building. The universities here are one of the major voices against ratifying the CAFTA treaty with the US. Even though there were a couple large, mainly peaceful protests around the country last week (with traffic stopped on highways on government offices closed) against the trade agreement, it will probably be approved.

Main street traffic
This is the main street that heads out of town (yes...not well designed and a bit out-dated...there´s one street IN and one street OUT of town... it would be a lot better if they just enforced the no parking rules.)

Comments

[Just Jen]

Sad to see you go !
We are happy to call you our friends and even though we didn't get together often we're glad you were a part of our lives here. You will be missed not only by us but by all the other people whose lives you touched in your short time here. Remember, you're loved here too. Once our house is finished you'll always have a place to come back to in the mountains above San Ramon. We love you guys!

[anonymous]

Mixed Feelings
I remember so well the excitement of returned home from overseas, combined with the sadness of knowing that a very special era is ending. What a gift you have given the children--and yourselves. How great for you (and for us) that you can keep the bogs as mementos. Don't forget to blog your re-entry tragectory. It should be an interesting experience in itself. Happy Thanksgiving! //Barbara Klingsporn

[eli]

Well, of course we're glad you're coming back to the States. As much as we enjoyed our two visits with you in CR, we look forward to being able to see you a little more frequently once you're back. But -- keep up the blogging even once you're home. We enjoy the eloquent descriptions of day-to-day life.