Having spent only four months in one small village in Costa Rica doesn´t make me an expert and yet, there seems to be two faces presented to visitors. One being the GREEN, ecologically sensitive one, paired with volunteer with the turtles, surf with the dudes, sip organic coffee, and contemplate the natural beauty and playful howler monkeys.
But there is another face to Costa Rica and it is not as pretty. Or as green. Or as ecologically sound. Or even terribly friendly. In the time I lived in Orosi, next to the stone quarry that had been shut down for business by the Ministry of Interior for polluting the air, endangering the local neighbors, and destroying the river, the owner, a wealthy man in these parts, bribed a judge and made up for lost time spent in jail by working the stone crusher up to 16 hours a day.
The sounds reverberates through the valley. There is no escaping it although if you are higher up valley, only a mild thumping can be heard, somewhat reminiscent of the roar of the Rio de Orosi as it thunders down the valley and into Lago de Cachi. But if you are in the barrio sharing fields and riverside with the stone crushing equipment, it begins to thump in your brain like a helicopter that never shuts off, never flies away.
Local children have asthma, as do the old people. Others just get headaches and housewives are driven to distraction removing the constant creep of stone dust. Not so bad I guess. Not the worst that could happen to a community.
As you look up valley or cross valley, all you see is green, layers of differing levels and tones of green. How lovely! Until you realize that all that green isn´t natural ancient rain forest. All that green is coffee and banana plantations, regularly sprayed with DDT and pesticides.
A local public health official informed me that the nearby towns of Cartago and Paraiso have the highest rates of stomach cancer in Costa Rica. Local farmers regularly don neckarchiefs across their faces to protect them from the herbicides and pesicides they carefully spray their gardens with to ensure that they will get the harvest and not the voracious insects who they share all their food and belongings with.
So -- your vision isn´t the same as you begin to add up these facts and wonder. Is Costa Rica some central American miracle, the longest-running democracy in a region rife with thugs, oligarchies and terror? Or is it a US enclave, a place to funnel our money, where it is still cheap to live, albeit not nearly as safe as we had thought. Gangs are about in San Jose, you can get killed in your plush home or apartment in the night. And even in sweet Orosi, overlooking the volcanos toward the Caribbean, backed into a lovely valley where howler monkeys can still be seen roaming with thier families, has its share of crime, petty thievery, leading all to be slightly on-edge, suspicious of their neighbors, in a remote mountain town of 5,000 souls.
Come and see for yourself. The people are friendly and kind, stretched to the limit by a new economy they don´t fully understand yet and may get abandoned by before they have a chance to comprehend it. Just don´t fall completely prey to the marketing juggernaut that says Costa Rica is paradise.
Paradise is not so easy to find, you see.
But there is another face to Costa Rica and it is not as pretty. Or as green. Or as ecologically sound. Or even terribly friendly. In the time I lived in Orosi, next to the stone quarry that had been shut down for business by the Ministry of Interior for polluting the air, endangering the local neighbors, and destroying the river, the owner, a wealthy man in these parts, bribed a judge and made up for lost time spent in jail by working the stone crusher up to 16 hours a day.
The sounds reverberates through the valley. There is no escaping it although if you are higher up valley, only a mild thumping can be heard, somewhat reminiscent of the roar of the Rio de Orosi as it thunders down the valley and into Lago de Cachi. But if you are in the barrio sharing fields and riverside with the stone crushing equipment, it begins to thump in your brain like a helicopter that never shuts off, never flies away.
Local children have asthma, as do the old people. Others just get headaches and housewives are driven to distraction removing the constant creep of stone dust. Not so bad I guess. Not the worst that could happen to a community.
As you look up valley or cross valley, all you see is green, layers of differing levels and tones of green. How lovely! Until you realize that all that green isn´t natural ancient rain forest. All that green is coffee and banana plantations, regularly sprayed with DDT and pesticides.
A local public health official informed me that the nearby towns of Cartago and Paraiso have the highest rates of stomach cancer in Costa Rica. Local farmers regularly don neckarchiefs across their faces to protect them from the herbicides and pesicides they carefully spray their gardens with to ensure that they will get the harvest and not the voracious insects who they share all their food and belongings with.
So -- your vision isn´t the same as you begin to add up these facts and wonder. Is Costa Rica some central American miracle, the longest-running democracy in a region rife with thugs, oligarchies and terror? Or is it a US enclave, a place to funnel our money, where it is still cheap to live, albeit not nearly as safe as we had thought. Gangs are about in San Jose, you can get killed in your plush home or apartment in the night. And even in sweet Orosi, overlooking the volcanos toward the Caribbean, backed into a lovely valley where howler monkeys can still be seen roaming with thier families, has its share of crime, petty thievery, leading all to be slightly on-edge, suspicious of their neighbors, in a remote mountain town of 5,000 souls.
Come and see for yourself. The people are friendly and kind, stretched to the limit by a new economy they don´t fully understand yet and may get abandoned by before they have a chance to comprehend it. Just don´t fall completely prey to the marketing juggernaut that says Costa Rica is paradise.
Paradise is not so easy to find, you see.
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