More Reflections on Costa Rica

I began this series on Costa Rica by labeling it a land of contradictions, and while it may seem presumptuous of me, having spent only a total of three weeks in the country, to render any kind of assessment of it, here it is anyway. On the one hand, it has a reputation as an eco paradise, yet on the other, it reputedly uses more agricultural chemicals, many of which have long been banned in North America because of their toxicity, than any other country in Central America, and overdevelopment is leading to increasing amounts of raw sewage being dumped into the ocean. As well, recycling programs are in their infancy there. The Country has a 93% literacy rate and universal access to education, yet the majority of rural schools don’t even have libraries. In terms of international relations, Costa Rica has been called the Switzerland of Central America, owing to its abolition of a standing army in 1948, yet within the country, crime is on the increase, petty theft is rampant, and the police are underpaid and ineffectual. It has forward-looking social policy, devoting a significant amount of its GNP to the provision of medical care for all, yet at the same time prostitution, a waste of human potential and threat to health, is legal.

If you will indulge the English teacher in me (alive and well despite being retired for almost three years now!), Costa Rica seems like a metaphor for human nature, representing both the best and the worst, the most generous and the most selfish impulses that reside within us all, and while that observation may be applied to many countries, it is in Costa Rica that I feel it most acutely. It is a country that very much beckons to me as it strives to preserve its remaining natural heritage, waste not its financial resources on military expenditures but spend them constructively on its people through progressive social policies, and promote a way of life that stresses living in the moment and savoring the small yet priceless delights the world has to offer. Yet, as in human nature, there is the dark side, a side where greed, lust and general selfishness are also very much at work, a side that sees drugs becoming increasingly prevalent, overdevelopment at the expense of environmental degradation, and crimes of opportunity, now frequently augmented by violence, becoming more common, (security guards and barred entrances to houses abound) while the government is seemingly unable or unwilling to properly train and finance its police forces to stem this rising tide. As well, according to blogs and on-line Costa Rican newspapers I have read, the judiciary is strangely reluctant to mete out the kinds of punishments that are usually seen as deterrents in North America.

Many of these aspects of Costa Rican life became known to me during and subsequent to our second Costa Rican visit in March, a two-week stay at Jaco Beach, located in the province of Punterenas, which I will be writing about in upcoming posts.

Reflections on Costa Rica

As previously mentioned, our January visit to Costa Rica had a real impact on us. Looking back now, I realize our trip came at just the right time; having been retired for about two-and-a-half years by that point, and having built a routine of volunteer work, reading, home renovation and crossword puzzles, it was just the balm for the complacency I had fallen into; while not exactly stagnation, a certain predictability had developed that in some ways was beginning to resemble the routines and structures I had followed in my working life.

The general theme of this blog has been education, and while it originally started out as observations and criticisms of conventional education, I realize that much of what I have been writing about for some time now is about my on-going education as life progresses.

So what did I really learn, or maybe relearn in Costa Rica? I have previously discussed a renewed awareness of the interconnectedness of nature, and I think what reinforced it for me was the immediacy of nature, both on the tours and where we were staying. Frankly, it got to the point where I was happy just to lie on a hammock overlooking the inlet abutting the resort, completely content to feel the gentle breezes, watch the pelicans diving for fish, and the Costa Ricans angling in the shallow waters. While this might not sound remarkable, for me it was a real departure from my standard modus operandi when ‘relaxing’. Usually, without a book or a crossword puzzle to accompany my leisure, I become quickly bored. This connection that I felt with my immediate environment even extended to a tarantula that our next-door neighbours at the resort discovered in their closet and then showed us (safely ensconced under a glass, thankfully!) In fact, we even accompanied them the next day when they released it. I guess that what I am trying to say is that everything seemed new again, and, in fact, I felt once more like a kid, with the same sense of awe that comes naturally to children. Indeed, Costa Rica proved to be a real tonic to my spirit.

The other ability the country seemed to confer on me was the capacity to live in the moment. I am one of those people who, in a sense, are ‘temporally challenged,’ more at home living in the past and future than in the present. When I was teaching, there was always the next class, the next lesson, the next assignment to get ready for, followed by looking to the time when I would have a set of essays marked, a weekend free, a holiday pending. Rarely did I simply exist in the moment, which, when you think about it, reduces the chances of a person experiencing the immediate richness of life. In Costa Rica, I thought little of the past or the future, savoring each moment as it unfolded.

A related effect was the desire for unmediated experience. While in the country, we watched almost no television, despite the fact that it was the week leading up to Obama’s inauguration, and media coverage was extensive. It was as if that world existed only on a distant periphery, and all of the chatter, political analyses and punditry were just so much background noise. Indeed, even though our lobby offered Internet access, I really used it only to check and send email, only once checking out the website of The Globe and Mail, a newspaper I am addicted to a home. It was as if I had discovered another, more authentic world, where all of the important things in life were at hand, making everything else redundant. Indeed, that sense lasted for several weeks upon our return, as I think we both felt a certain disenchantment and impatience with the pervasiveness of interpreted reality that we seem to rely on in our electronics-dominated society. In fact, perhaps the best way to describe our perception is to say that returning to Canada in the dead of winter seemed to bleed all of the colour and vitality out of life. It was this disenchantment that led us to plan a return to Costa Rica in March, a trip that was to show us an entirely different side of Costa Rica which was to leave us with a less romanticized and more realistic understanding of this fascinating yet contradictory country.

Costa Rica – Part 4 - Fair Trade Organic Coffee

I have written previously about our visit to the cloud forest and our river cruise, both experiences reawakening a sense of awe and respect for nature. Perhaps the most inspiring experience for me came during our tour of a fair trade organic coffee co-operative in Hojancha which, in my mind, epitomized the concept of sustainable development. Our guide on the Duria coffee tour, a lively lady who works on the co-op, explained to us some of the requirements to have coffee designated fair-trade and organic. These rules range from ensuring that the children of the farmers who belong to the co-op are going to school and are not working during school time to limits on the hours per day they may work during non-school time. As well, environmental standards are set extremely high. For example, at one time they used plastic bags to encase the coffee seedlings; that had to end because of their environmental impact. Of course, pesticides are out, making the growing process more labour-intensive but ultimately more profitable for the growers, one of the reasons we pay more for organic products. The processing plant itself is a wonder to behold, a kind of closed system that wastes nothing and produces debris that is ultimately used both to fuel the roasters and to produce rich compost that is given to the members freely. Even the lagoon water of the tailings, once the sediment sets, is reused for irrigation.

The visit was a real education for me; even though we have long bought fair trade coffee, up to that point I really had only a foggy notion of what it meant beyond the fact that the growers are paid a decent price for their products, as opposed to the fraction that conventional practices yield to the farmers. More importantly, however, it got me thinking even more than usual about our wasteful ways in the so-called developed world that has left us with endless bloated, non-recyclable packaging, disposable goods, and rapidly filling dumps. It really made me wonder about why more industries are not compelled to be stewards of the environment rather than simply shepherds of profit. Besides, the two are not incompatible principles -- as our tour guide gleefully explained, the incentive for these ‘green’ practices is the extra profit they bring to the producers. What a concept!

Summing up our first trip to Costa Rica, and how it affected me upon returning home, will be the subject of my next post. After that, sometime in the near future, I plan to write about our second trip in March, to Jaco Beach, which yielded experiences entirely different from those of our Guanacaste sojourn.

Costa Rica - Part 3 - Palo Verde River Cruise

The interconnectedness of nature. It is a term and a concept that I think we understand on an intellectual level, but how often do we really experience and feel it? The renewed ability to feel it was perhaps the most important benefit from our first trip to Costa Rica, one that, as I described in my last post, began with the architecture of the resort’s main building and the presence of the howler monkeys on the property. The subsequent tours we took reinforced it.

I’ve already discussed our visit to the cloud forest and the stewardship in force to protect its ecological balance. The magnificence of the natural world became even more apparent to us when we took a jungle river cruise in Palo Verde, one in which both the guide and the boat’s pilot served as spotters for the often carefully camouflaged wildlife abounding along the shore. Away from any human habitation, we got a real sense of life in the larger, natural world, encountering many crocodiles, capuchin monkeys, water birds, iguanas, fruit bats, etc. While it may sound trite and clichéd, we were able to perceive both the beauty and the terror that nature holds, with a balance that only the natural world can offer. Armed only with our eyes (and of course, our cameras!), we had the opportunity to experience things that were unmediated by interpretation, nuance, narration, etc. In other words, we were immediate participants in this world, not simply vicarious bystanders seeing it through someone else’s lens. In a world where electronics has all too often made us remote participants in the world, this was a real accomplishment, and it was to have long-lasting effects, as I will discuss later on.

I will write about our third tour, to a fair-trade organic coffee co-operative, which took place on the same day as the river cruise (it was a very long day!) in my next post. In many ways, it was the one I found most inspiring.

Costa Rica - A Land of Contradictions - Part 2

In my last entry on Costa Rica, I gave it the title “Land of Contradictions,” the reason for which will become apparent over the next few posts. Today I would like to focus on the positive learning opportunities our January trip afforded us, both through the tours taken and the resort we stayed at.

The first thing we noticed at our resort, Sol Papagayo, was the harmony existing between the reception building, which also housed the restaurant, and the surrounding environment. Open on three sides, the architecture blurred the distinction between the inside and the outside, allowing the sounds of nature and the tropical breezes, and yes, the occasional gecko and even bat, ready access. That co-operation with nature, and the fact that we were just feet from the beach and inlet, seemed to set a tone for our visit, one present in all three of our tours.

Additionally, we were captivated by the howler monkeys that made the trees near the pool their home. There is something particularly enthralling for me to watch primate behaviour, and they provided hours of fascinating observation and photographic opportunities. Significantly, they were not regarded as pests, but rather as simply part of the natural environment and landscape. Here are a couple of the pictures that I took:





Our first tour, to a cloud forest, was a tame one as we opted for a canopy experience (a series of bridges above the trees) as opposed to a zip line adventure. Choosing this route allowed us to appreciate the myriad flora that our guide pointed out,and the fact that there were only four on the tour meant we got pretty individualized attention from him as he pointed out that going through such a cloud forest requires a guide so that people will not damage the plants and trails. As well, he informed us that Costa Rica has set aside 25% of its land for conservation, a move designed to slow down the deforestation that has taken place over the decades for coffee plantations, etc. What especially impressed us was the seeming reverence of our guide for his environment, something that I think we all need a little more of. The only disappointment of the tour, and indeed, of the entire January visit, was the absence of exotic birds. Apparently early morning is the best time to spot them.





Our visit to the cloud forest was followed a couple of days later by the river cruise and the coffee co-operative tour, which I will write about in my next post.

Costa Rica - A Land of Contradictions - Part 1

I have not written anything here for some time, partly because I’ve been busy with other things, including a basement renovation and some travel, but also because I really haven’t felt that I’ve had a great deal to say about things lately that are worth publishing on the blog. In my recent reading of other blogs, I’ve come to realize that some are totally self-indulgent and self-referential, with seemingly very little of value or interest to a readership beyond family and friends. My intention from the outset has been to avoid such mistakes, but who knows whether or not I have succeeded?

What I would like to write about in the next few posts are what my wife and I learned on our two trips to Costa Rica this year, one in January and one in March, our first visits to the country. I had long been interested in the Central American country, having read about its record of environmental stewardship, the diversity of its geography, and the fact that many Canadians and Americans have chosen to retire there. Another compelling reason for my interest is the fact that since I retired, I have developed an even greater aversion to the cold of winter than I had when I was working, resenting the fact that the elements often confine us indoors for lengthy stretches.

During our time there in January, we stayed at a 3-star all inclusive resort (this would be our first time at a resort) in Guanacaste Province, known for its heat and low humidity, and while there, we took three tours, one of a fair-trade organic coffee co-operative, another of a cloud forest, and the third a jungle river cruise. We also took a trip to Liberia, a city about a 20-minute drive from where we were staying. Each excursion, in its own way, confirmed for us the special qualities that make Costa Rica stand out as a country in Central America to visit, and a place where North Americans can learn new perspectives on how to live. That will be the topic of my next post, but for now I am including a few pictures that represent a few of the things we saw.

Leisureville – Andrew D. Blechman

Macbeth: Act 3, Scene 2:

… Duncan is in his grave;
23 After life's fitful fever he sleeps well;
24 Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
25 Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
26 Can touch him further.

These words, uttered by Macbeth to his wife as he describes the hell that his life has become since his murder of Duncan, occurred to me as I read Andrew Blechman’s searing examination of age-segregated communities burgeoning in popularity in the United States. Is there anyone amongst us who has not pined, as Macbeth does in the above quote, for an existence free of the anxiety, disturbance and suffering that are inevitable components of life? Macbeth realizes the only way to realize such a utopian peace is through death; an increasing numbers of seniors, however, see it as achievable by removing themselves to retirement or age-segregated gated communities, virtually severing the once almost indissoluble ties of community and family in the process. Such is the promise of Leisureville, the wry title the author uses to describe his perception of life in such an environment. After reading the book, many readers may conclude that such communities are another form of what Macbeth longed for in his colloquy with his wife.

While always treating his subject with respect, after living for a month in such a community at the invitation of former neighbours who moved to “The Villages,” the foremost age-segregated community in central Florida, the author draws a portrait of a life that, from most people’s perspective, can only be described as vapid and meaningless. Although days upon endless days filled with swimming, golfing and drinking in a sheltered environment may seem alluring to many, one inevitably has to ask if this is any way for a responsible person to spend the rest of his or her life. Considering that many of the retirees have perhaps 30 or more years of life remaining, the answer has to be no.

Blechman makes a pretty strong case for community engagement and involvement throughout one’s life, not just up to retirement, arguing that inter-generational co-existence is what gives true meaning and vitality to communities. While acknowledging that North American society as a whole doesn’t do a particularly good job of either encouraging or looking after its retired people, he clearly doesn’t see secession as the answer.

In addition to the societal implications of seniors’ self-removal from the larger world, Blechman also examines the environmental and political implications of such movements. For example, owing to their mild climates, two of the most popular states for age-restricted communities are Florida and Arizona. At least up to the present, there have been very few restrictions placed on development, despite the fact that water is becoming increasing scarce in both states, with droughts occurring with disturbing regularity. The author discusses sinkholes happening in The Villages due to depletion of aquifers; as well, he makes regular reference to the bulldozing and flattening of land as The Villages continues its relentless development. Another consequence of this kind of lifestyle is the domination of very conservative politics, led by the developers who, with their vast resources, contribute significant sums to both the Republican Party and local politicos that welcome unrestricted development while at the same time largely ignoring and denigrating the needs of the larger community.

All of us need and deserve regular hiatuses from the hurly-burly of life. In my view, Andrew Blechman makes a compelling argument through Leisureville that none of us deserves a life-long commutation from it.