Isolating beaches, III: wondering

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Being a tico or tica also means that you have a pretty great chance of being literate, and having enough money to provide for yours and your families’ basic needs. Desperation was not apparent, if certain shelters perhaps did suggest poverty. Desperation also kept this gringo from having any meaningful or unmeangingful interactions with the locals. The best conversation I had was with my wheelchair pusher when I arrived in the airport, with my private limo service driver nowhere to be found my new amigo used his own coins to operate a public phone to check on things.

Yes, yours truly, who has been lost on a motorcycle in Mali and found on a motorcycle in Berlin, had gone for one of these package deals where my splendid little nature and yoga retreat center sends a driver to fetch you. With a broken leg, crutches and two small bags, I realized adventuring on public transit may not be the smartest idea.

And though it took me five days on isolating beaches to realize how much I missed Senegal, it was really just moments after leaving the airport that I understood how disparate even the third world can be…from the get-go planning of this getaway of mine, I had been feeling way too bourgeoisie for my own liking and trying to avoid the essence de westerner…but most of my awkward guilt defused as soon as my eyes hit upon the paved roads leading out of San Jose airport, the jersey dividers, actual laneage, road signs, traffic lights, street lamps, collective agreement on right-of-way, roadside restaurants constructed with durable materials, cars pulling into their marked parking space lots, people just loafing, not all the while searching.

As we made our way from the airport through the countryside and three national parks on the way to my remote rainforest retreat, I had not yet finished my Lonely Planet chapter on Costa Rican development and economy, but from the little I saw around me and based on the disposition and status of my driver, felt less like I was raping this country or these people than when I used to barter for a price reduction equivalent to 50cents or go treat myself to the occasional packaged ice cream cone at the gas station in N’Gor with begging boys surrounding me.

Though still zeros away in our incomes, it felt like the Costa Ricans and I were closer in our needs than those of the Senegalese. Something tells me, though, that even as Senegal climbs up the UNDP list of quality of life indicators, mes amis will still call out ca va’s and salaam aleikum’s, will still play djembe on the beach, will still hawk with merciless zest, will still propose love -- and will continue to fill the air with a quality of life that I consider unmatched.

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Photos

tree pose
not bad for a virgin yoga chic with a broken leg, eh?

um, you know me...
the girl to my left is a high school camarade i hadn't seen/heard/spoke of in 17 years! the two of us happened to be staying the this same remote retreat center...r u kidding me? took us about 1 day to even recognize one another...

can he lead americans to think beyond the final frontiers?
i flew from Costa Rica straight to the inaugaration pretty much. can Obama really call us to action to not apologize for our way of life, but to look beyond our borders to help others improve their lives? let's see...