A new (bilingual!) resource for kids during the pandemic

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Today marked Costa Rica’s highest COVID-19 case increase of the pandemic, with 649 new cases. It may not sound like much from the perspective of much larger countries, but it’s a number that would have been unthinkable just weeks ago, with huge consequences for our strained health care system.

Feeling overwhelmed, wherever you are? Do you know an overwhelmed kid? Here’s a free, downloadable book, available in English and Spanish, from an outstanding group of educators: “There’s No Monster Outside – It’s a Virus.” 

My dear friends Dr. Rafael Lara-Alecio and Dr. Beverly Irby – a phenomenally talented and kind husband-and-wife team of educational researchers with whom I got to work when I was developing language programs with the Costa Rican government – joined forces with colleagues at Texas A&M to create the book as a way to help families who need help explaining this insane situation to their children. Work is underway to translate the book into Arabic and Mandarin as well.

“We wanted to ensure that this work was as accessible as possible, particularly knowing that many family members were out of work and could not access bookstores, or perhaps children were from very rural areas in their countries and could only have access to it via cellphone service,” said Dr. Lara-Alecio in an A&M article about the project. 

Please share this resource with anyone you think would find it useful; it’ll be on tap tonight at bedtime in our house. Thank you, Beverly and “don Rafa,” for looking out for the world’s kids, as you always do.

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! If you want to learn more about how to support Costa Rica during the crisis, visit my COVID-19 section – or for ways to enjoy Costa Rica from afar, visit Virtual Costa Rica.

Happy birthday, Tía Panchita

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This month marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of “Cuentos de mi Tía Panchita,” by Carmen Lyra. Even if you’ve never cracked this little volume’s slender spine, you’ve heard about it if you’ve spent time in Costa Rica. Salir con un domingo siete is a fairly common phrase whenever someone truly steps in it, and it can only be understood by reading Tía Panchita’s telling of the adventures of two men who stumble upon a witches’ sing-along; the Cucarachita Mandinga, Tío Conejo and other characters become part of the vague background of your life, even if you’re poorly versed in their adventures.

Carmen Lyra was born in San José in 1888 and went on to co-found the country’s first Montessori school, as well as the Costa Rican Communist Party. She was an intellectual touchstone, highly influential union leader, and critic of the banana companies’ incursions into Costa Rica. After Costa Rica’s Civil War in 1948, the Communist Party was outlawed and Lyra was exiled to Mexico for the rest of her life. However, her mark on Costa Rican history and culture is indelible to this day.

If you’ve got this book in your house, use these weeks as an excuse to pull it out. If you don’t, it’s a good excuse to dive in (although if you don’t read Spanish, the only English translation I’ve seen online is a pricey scholarly edition) or check out a video version of some of the stories, like this one.

The introduction alone is enough to fill you with Costa Rica nostalgia. When she describes the eponymous auntie’s skill at making sweet treats to sell at her home near Parque Morazán, she boasts that her biscuits and tamal asado would attract buyers from “far-off neighborhoods” such as Paso de la Vaca and la Soledad – a notion that seems quaint these days, when greater San José covers the entire Central Valley.

Happy birthday to “the beloved little old lady… who had the gift of making children laugh and dream!”

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! If you want to learn more about how to support Costa Rica during the crisis, visit my COVID-19 section, updated regularly – or for ways to enjoy Costa Rica from afar, visit Virtual Costa Rica.

 

 

 

Fearless Ticas: Mirna, the trailblazing doctor

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In my year of daily posting about Costa Rica (I’m nearly to the six-month mark!) I’ve often used Tuesdays to feature books, authors and bookstores. This month, in honor of International Women’s Day, I’ll focus all my Tuesdays on highlights from a single book: “Ticas sin Miedo” (“Fearless Ticas”), which I wrote about last week.

Today, meet Mirna Román Rodríguez, Costa Rica’s first Ngöbe doctor. Growing up in the small indigenous village of Altos de San Antonio near the Panamanian border, she says in “Ticas sin Medio” that somehow, “inside of me an idea was born. I thought: I have to study. I have to leave here. I have to show that an indigenous woman can do it.”

After graduating from a one-room elementary schoolhouse of only 10 students, she walked 15 kilometers along a lonely path to the nearest high school, a nearly three-hour journey each way. She would rise at 3 a.m. to get to school by 7. However, she says in the book that her cultural adaptation was much harder than the hours of walking: she suffered constant taunts and only made one friend, in tenth grade, whom she treasures to this day. She also had to significantly improve her Spanish, her second language.

University studies in San José and then Cuba followed, and she earned her medical degree in 2013. She hopes to become an OBGYN and, most importantly, serve the Ngöbe indigenous community.

“Doctor,” she says, “is a word that makes me feel complete.”

Excerpted and translated from “Ticas sin Medio,” a Kickstarter-funded project published by Dina Rodríguez Montero and illustrated by Vicky Ramos Quesada. Learn more here.  

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! Each month in 2020 has a monthly theme, and March’s is women’s rights, so scroll back through the month to see posts highlighting extraordinary Costa Rican women and organizations working on their behalf. 

Here’s to ‘The Future We Choose’!

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Today’s Daily Boost is a book we all need to read. The attitude shown in this photo (reposted from @cfigueres at the New York Stock Exchange) by authors Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac is the same spirit that comes across anytime Christiana, the architect of the Paris Agreement, enters a room.

I got a big dose of it when I heard her speak last year and when my daughter got to meet with her to talk about climate change. The whole world deserves to have that experience, and now we all can! “The Future We Choose” is out now – more here.

Books on a sunny corner

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My independent bookstore crawl continues: the Librería Francesa occupies one of the pleasant corners in San José, on a street lined with tall trees and across from the Parque Francia. While Spanish and French speakers will find the most browsing material, most anyone can enjoy the bookstore’s strongest suit: its beautiful children’s books, including many from Costa Rica.

Drop by during your visit to Barrio Escalante, leaf through books as wind ruffles the trees outside, and then read in the park or in one of the surrounding cafés. Perfection.

Which books moved you most in the 20-teens?

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I know. It’s a tough one.

Costa Rican: I’ve never been able to forget “Única mirando al mar,” the poignant tale of a lonely old man who literally puts himself into the trash and ends up living among the inhabitants of the Rio Azul trash dump not far from my home. It’s since been covered with unnaturally green grass, but the inequality Fernando Contreras Castro portrayed has grown fiercer and fiercer since the book was published.

Other: So, so many. I mean, this was the decade in which I finally read “El Quijote,” finishing it over a solo dinner in San Pedro, crying over the final chapter, eight months pregnant. Things trended much lighter and less challenging after my daughter’s birth; there have been a lot of mystery series, albeit very good ones. I hope to wade back into bigger waves in the 20s.

On this New Year’s Eve, as firecrackers pop all over the Central Valley, I’ll be vowing to read much more in the year ahead. May the coming decade be full of quiet page-turning, luscious browsing, and recommendations swapped among friends.

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! You can also find me churning out small, square poems on any topic under the sun (here on the site, on Instagram or Twitter). 

Day 62: A bookstore stop for your summer park walk

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One of the best possible ways to spend a long, breezy San José afternoon in December is to wander through the city’s prettiest parks, nestled together just east of the city center: Parque Nacional, Parque Morazan and especially Parque España. And now there’s a delightful spot to stop, browse and read amidst the green.

Librería Duluoz is just off the Parque España’s northeast corner, across a narrow street from the beautiful Casa Amarilla. On a recent visit, I could have plopped down in the cozy, inviting kids’ section for hours. The English-language selection is limited, but readers of Spanish will be in heaven, and honestly, it’s worth a visit just for its gorgeous location. Robust feminist and LGBTQ sections and more provide a chance to take in the scope of the country’s and region’s progressive authors, and independent publishers are the stars of the show.

I’m glad Librería Duluoz has joined Librería Andante on the extremely nascent independent bookstore crawl I started as part of the Daily Boost. Do you have other favorites I should visit? Tell me all about them! And don’t forget to enter my Costa Rican holiday care package giveaway!holiday care package giveaway!

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! You can also find me churning out small, square poems on any topic under the sun (here on the site, on Instagram or Twitter). 

 

Day 32: The reading season is upon us

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Remember when the Scholastic Book Club flyers would arrive at your classroom and you would pore over them at your desk when you were supposed to be doing other things and circle the books you wished you could have? I’m not sure when that started or if it ended, but for a book nerd at elementary school in the 80s, it was like Christmas. I think of that sometimes in this day and age where the internet is a vast, infinite Scholastic Book Club at my fingertips at any time, with no one to tell me not to buy a given book except my own budget.

Despite that abundance, my book-reading muscles have atrophied substantially in recent years, and I’m sure I’m not alone. I attribute it to a variety of factors: part decision fatigue, part decreased attention speed because of the brevity of social media posts, part feeling like we’ve read because we spend so much time skimming emails or think pieces or news. I know that whenever I do crack a book – especially an actual book with actual pages and an actual cover – my mood and state of mind are immeasurably improved. As we enter what I always think of as the reading season, with cozy nights and vacation days approaching, I like to get as much inspiration as possible to line my nightstand or Kindle with recommendations.

Will you give me a recommendation? I obviously have a soft spot for books from and about Costa Rica, Latin America, immigration, women and women’s rights, and the theme of the Daily Boost, which is finding inspiration amidst chaos… but I’m wide open, honestly. I’d love to hear what you’re reading now or books that pop to your mind that you might have read long ago but that NO ONE SHOULD GO ANOTHER SECOND WITHOUT READING, and actually now that you think of it you don’t understand why you aren’t rereading it yourself right at this very moment. (“The Incredible Lightness of Being,” “The Elegance of the Hedgehog” and “A Confederacy of Dunces” come to mind, off the top.)

Happy reading…

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! You can also find me churning out small, square poems on any topic under the sun (here on the site, on Instagram or Twitter). 

A conversation with Joe Baur on ‘Without a Path’

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Without a Path InterviewTravel writer Joe Baur interviewed me on the latest episode of his fascinating podcast, “Without a Path.” We share not only a love of Costa Rica but an obsession with Costa Rican slang, to the point where we both wrote books about it – check out his, “Talking Tico” – and it was great fun to shoot the breeze with him.

Listen in to our conversation about reasons travel is particularly important for U.S. citizens, why “the greatest country on Earth” is such a ridiculous concept, the immigrant secret identity and more.

Also, subscribe to Joe’s podcast for weekly interviews with “creative types, adventurers and the occasional hope for humanity about the travels that have helped define their lives.”

https://soundcloud.com/without-a-path/expats-immigrants-live-abroad

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An interview about ‘Love’

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kso-pic-smallThis was an amazing week and I’m so grateful to you for your comments and shares! Earlier this year, Tico Times Managing Editor (and fellow writer-mom) Jill Replogle asked me some great questions about Costa Rica, writing, juggling family and the immigrant vs. expat debate. The TT published the interview on Monday and I’m proud to share it here as well. 

…Stanley, 37, arrived in Costa Rica in 2004 and has worked as a reporter, editor, speechwriter and freelance writer, as well as in a variety of roles in the nonprofit sector. After the birth of her daughter in San José in 2013, she began writing about Costa Rican language and culture, both on her personal blog, The Dictionary of You, and in a popular Tico Times column called Maeology. Many of these writings are included in the new book, which follows our Publications Group’s first title, “The Green Season,” by Robert Isenberg (2015).

Continue reading An interview about ‘Love’