#costaricadailyboost – katherine stanley obando

On marriage and diamonds

Posted on December 26, 2019January 28, 2020 by stanleyobando

In our first year of marriage, my true love gave to me a yigüírro in an orange tree.

Don’t worry – I won’t continue. That would be silly. By no means will I tell you that he also gave to me two empanadas, three Rock Ice, four chicharrones, fiiiiive Meeeeega Triiiiiits, six monkeys pooping, seven dolphins swimming, eight sloths a-slothin’, nine comparsas drumming, ten egg salesman megaphoning, eleven ladies dancing (at Castro’s), and twelve micheladas.

As we approached our twelfth wedding anniversary, I kept thinking about that first one on my list and how simple it was. We were renting a little house with an orange tree in the yard, and, yes, a yigüírro in that orange tree, more than once. Costa Rica’s national bird would wake us up with its calls for rain during those hot, dry days of late summer. We owned more things than the yigüírro did, but not all that much more. We could flit around the city on a Saturday, aimless. In fact, that was our favorite thing to do.

We marry, and then we add things on top of it, whatever “it” is. We add years, possessions, meals, logistics. Maybe a home. Maybe actual additional humans, if we so choose, and are lucky.

As averse to change as I am, I don’t think all of this is necessarily a bad thing, and I’m not sure we can avoid it. If we had sworn to each other, in our wedding vows, never to give each other anything more than a yigüírro in an orange tree which wasn’t ours anyway – never to complicate our lives further than those vows and perhaps a shared lease – I think we still would have piled something on top. The strains and ups and downs of our jobs, perhaps. Trips we would have taken. Obligations we might have acquired with the time and energy we might have conserved in the absence of a kid jumping up and down on our bed at dawn.

Even when we try to stay in place, as steady as a rocky shore like the ones where my mother lives in Maine, the years have a way of bringing flotsam and jetsam along with them and depositing them in front of us.

A while ago, I started thinking about marriage and diamonds. We so often give and receive them at the start of a marriage – a shining symbol of everlasting love, or something like that – but that’s the wrong metaphor. The right metaphor is the way that diamonds are made: a whole lot of crap compressed over time, and under immense amounts of pressure and heat that form unbreakable bonds. The diamond in an engagement ring isn’t a symbol of what you already have. It’s a manual for what you are going to try to make.

That’s why I don’t think it’s such a bad thing to layer all kinds of crap on top of your marriage vows. I think that’s how it works. Phone bills, dinner dates, lost socks, birthdays exceptional and mundane and bad, small arguments over small things, massive arguments over small things, wrenching discussions of potentially life-changing things – all of it goes in the mix, and then the pressure of life bears down over time. Doesn’t that sound delightful? But they warned us. It’s all there in the manual.

That’s just how a diamond is made.

And the thing is, those diamonds are beautiful. I won’t go into detail, because I’m from New England, and already display far too much emotion for my own good. If I add a thick layer of cheesiness and self-congratulation, a gang of disapproving matrons will arrive at my door, lips in a thin line, to wash my mouth out with rhubarb and make me can blueberries or something. But you know what I mean. In the moments where all those hours and days and long lines and blissful vacation mornings and indecipherable tax forms – all that carbon, which, after all, is what we are – get compressed into something much stronger than either of the two of you, it makes your breath catch.

That’s what it’s all for. We start with just a hope, a piece of paper, some intangible “it,” and watch it become something real. That’s one thing I learned as my father’s life came to an end: that the bond between my parents was not an idea, or a feeling. It was practically a solid object. It was almost visible. I could feel it running through me as I stood between them in a church pew for the last time, for example. We could all see the glint of it as we gathered around them during those unforgettable final days. It made my breath catch. It still does, right now.

It had been forged under the ordinary and extraordinary pressures of life over 52 years.

None of this is exclusive to marriage, or to marriages that last. It can happen anytime we hold on to another person over time and through the heat of life. It stands to reason that divorces can create some absolutely spectacular diamonds. Sisters and brothers, parents and kids, neighbors. Some friendships, although other friendships are the equivalent of walking down the street and picking a fully formed, perfectly polished diamond up off the ground, just like that, nothing to be added or taken away. Sometimes, there’s just a freebie. Maybe some marriages are like that, too – perfect and unchanging from the start – although I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one that wasn’t on a page or a screen.

None of this takes away our yearning, now and then, for the lightness with which we started. That’s what anniversaries are for, and birthdays, and all those celebrations. They remind us of simplicity. We set aside these jewels from deep in the earth and deep in our hearts and put on a flower ring instead, a bruised stem wrapped around our finger that keeps coming loose. We might eat a Ticoburguesa. We might kick up our heels, take an aimless walk. It’s what we always do, as humans: juggle and juggle that unbearable lightness and breath-catching depth of our being.

Day 72: All I want for Christmas is coffee

Posted on December 24, 2019 by stanleyobando

Today is a special day for many people and countries around the world. That’s right: it’s the anniversary of the first Costa Rican coffee export to England. Captain William Le Lacheur took the precious cargo from the Pacific port of Puntarenas in the clipper Monarch.

That was in 1843. You know what happened in 1844 in England? The birth of the modern cooperative movement, the abolition of debtor’s prison and the creation of workday limits (ok, 12 hours for women and six for kids – not exactly knocking it out of the park, but progress). An awfully efficient, high-performing year for the country’s leaders, wouldn’t you say? Coincidence? I think not.

Well, maybe. But life started getting better across the pond when, that foggy Christmas Eve, a ship full of the world’s best coffee set off on an adventure that would transform Costa Rica forever.

To all those celebrating today, happy wrapping, churchgoing, cookie baking or whatever else the day holds – and may the coffee that fuels you through it all be worthy of a Monarch.

Day 66: The power of your tourist dollar

Posted on December 16, 2019 by stanleyobando

Some time ago, the Costa Rican owner of a small hotel told me the story of the quiet night guard I had just seen patrolling the lobby, looking out at the shadowy forest beyond.

The night guard had once been a hunter. As in many areas of rural Costa Rica, limited economic opportunities made this an important source of income and sustenance, and local species pay the price – even, sometimes, protected or endangered species. This man was once on a hunting expedition where he saw some of his fellow hunters kill an endangered Baird’s tapir, called “the gardener of the forest” because of its critical role in spreading seeds and preserving Costa Rica’s ecosystems.

The tapir was so large that the men who had killed it couldn’t even take all of its meat out with them. They left much of it behind on the forest floor. That didn’t sit right with this man. His future in a different sort of job began that night.

Today, this man is doing work that helps people from all over the world get to know rural Costa Rica, understand its biodiversity, and maybe even – if they are extremely lucky – get a rare glimpse of the endangered Baird’s tapir. His son has even led his first nature tour, sharing the forest with visitors. The guard is part of an enterprise created by local community members: it’s one of many small businesses around Costa Rica that are not only providing economic opportunities, but also helping change the way the community sees and values its natural surroundings.

Could a job at a big hotel have helped this man leave hunting behind? Sure. But those hotels don’t often reach the rural areas where this type of transformation is most valuable, where local residents are responsible for some of the country’s rarest species and most precious ecosystems. And it’s rare – doesn’t have to be impossible, but rare – that a massive resort leaves its earnings in the pockets of the local community, or shares with every single employee a passion for environmental sustainability. Even rarer – again, not impossible! but rare – that the owner of a big hotel would know the backstory of the night guard. Rarer still that the owner would have shared that story with a guest, turning her weekend into a source of inspiration and pride.

At this time of year, some of us are planning our 2020 expeditions, making resolutions to stash some money away in a trip jar, hoping to visit this place or that. The places we choose to go and the businesses we choose along the way really do make a difference. We can simply pay for a place to sleep, or we can end up feeling that we have been a part of something important. As Jane Goodall said, “You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” This is never more true than when we book a trip.

No matter where we travel, the magical thing is this: we’re surrounded by walking, talking stories. We never know when we might get to hear one and how it might change us. Sometimes all we have to do is ask. Sometimes they come to us unbidden, a sudden gift, as fleeting and as powerful as a sudden glimpse of an animal in the deep woods. An animal that has been left alive, free to roam.

Day 60: Anthems, snakes and parks. Oh my.

Posted on December 6, 2019 by stanleyobando

One thing I planned to do with the Costa Rica Daily Boost, but have neglected a bit, was to celebrate great dates in Costa Rican history. So to make up for lost time, here are three at once.

Today, in 1949, the author of the words to Costa Rica’s national anthem died. I don’t know about you, but I am very partial to the words of Costa Rica’s national anthem. I learned them as a college intern living with a beautiful family in Tibás; the dad made me learn the words and sing the anthem for visiting family members, who listened gleefully. (This was very good preparation for working for the president, as it turned out, since I attended approximately 1,007 events where the anthem was sung.) The lyrics are a gorgeous celebration of peace, hard work and humilty. They also remind us that tranquil farmers are always ready to tear shit up if anyone gets in their way. Thank you, José María Zeledón.

Tomorrow, Dec. 7, in 1976, the Clodomiro Picado Prize was created for excellence in science. Clodomiro Picado was a Nicaraguan-born badass Costa Rican scientist whose name also endows the Clodomiro Picado Institute, a world leader in snakebite research whose scientists save lives all around the world. It’s seriously amazing. You can read about it here.

And Sunday, Dec. 8, is the anniversary of the day that the Parque Nacional was created. This is one of my favorite spots in all of San José, for the following reasons. 1. It’s gorgeous. 2. It was the start of my morning walk to work when I first became a reporter here. 3. It’s home to the National Monument, which an evangelical legislator climbed and then refused to come down, at great public expense (emergency workers had to surround the statue for hours, as well as a very annoyed gringa reporter who had a hard time not heckling him), because he was protesting the government’s punishments of noise pollution by evangelical churches. And 4. It has a little pool with a tiny bridge across it and mermaids painted on the bottom. What else could you want from a park? If you’re in San José, pay it a visit and chill out for a while.

Here’s a recap of this week’s posts:

Monday Motivation: Environmental alarm bells are going off in Costa Rica.

Tuesday Beauty: A poem about December in warm places.

Wellness Wednesday: A champion for mental health in Costa Rica.

Travel Thursday: What are the best Costa Rican spots to visit when the rain stops?

Have a great weekend!

Day 59: Summer beckons

Posted on December 5, 2019 by stanleyobando

Happy Thursday! I’ve written about how much I love the rainy season and the spots I prefer to visit during those wetter, less crowded months (Arenal hot springs, for example, or Manuel Antonio National Park, which I think is fabulous in the rain and where peak season lines can be considerable). However, there are certainly destinations within Costa Rica that are at their best when the rain goes away.

One, to my mind, is the Río Celeste, whose otherwordly blue can be affected by heavy rainfall that mixes mud into the water – we’re splitting hairs here, since it’s beautiful 365 days a year and I’ve had incredible visits there in the rainy season, but if I had an entire 12 months to schedule a visit, I might pick the summer months. Another is the Volcán Irazú, near my home: again, it’s great whenever, but the view of the crater itself and of the surrounding countryside from its summit are particularly stunning on a clear day. Most of the country’s volcanoes and peaks fall into this same category. Of course, travelers visiting more remote areas of the country often need to choose the dry season to have the best chance to usable roads and crossable rivers.

What about you? What Costa Rican spots do you think are particularly lovely – or just more accessible or convenient – when it’s dry?

Day 58: A champion for mental health in Costa Rica

Posted on December 4, 2019 by stanleyobando

I met Cris Gomar for the first time earlier this year to discuss a potential journalism project. She is literally dedicating her life to creating safe spaces for people to open up, so it’s probably no surprise that we quickly fell into one of the most honest and vulnerable conversations I’ve ever had, all in the middle of a crowded coffee shop. I was fascinated to learn about the mental health initiative Cris had started, Vaso Lleno – more on that on a minute – and the inspiring way in which she, by being honest about her own mental health challenges, was opening the floodgates for people in Costa Rica to ask for help or simply tell a painful story they’ve kept secret for years.

I told her how much I would like to cover and engage in her work through the media organization I was leading at the time. After we finished our long conversation and said goodbye, I stayed behind at the table to do some work. An older woman who had been sitting at the next table and whose group was getting up to leave came over and touched my arm.

“Don’t forget about the men of Los Santos,” the woman said quietly, referring to a coffee-growing region in the mountains to the east. “The suicide rates are very high there. They need a way to share their stories, too.”

And she left.

I tell you this to illustrate how urgently the work of Vaso Lleno, Cris’s mental health initative, is needed in Costa Rica, a country where a variety of cultural factors often lead people to hide their struggles. I’ve learned from Cris and other advocates that some of those factors include the lighthearted, “pura vida” good humor that makes people assume their fears or pain might not be taken seriously. Machismo, which makes many men feel that there’s something wrong with them if they feel bad. A widespread assumption that if you do need to talk to someone, that someone should be your priest – which, especially for women and the LGBTQ community, moves an awful lot of topics off the table.

Enter Cris. Through Vaso Lleno, she is sharing stories of anxiety, depression and other challenges from her own life and the lives of the people who, in her growing online community, are opening up about the problems both big and small that have made their lives more difficult. She was inspired to do this work after experiencing a debilitating anxiety attack and learning first-hand what can happen when we push our mental health problems out of sight. Vaso Lleno means “full glass,” and she says she chose the name because your glass is always full – even if there are bad experiences in it, you can transform them. It began as a thesis project in 2010 and is now a vibrant social outreach initiative.

She creates anonymous surveys where people can simply tell their stories – and to which Costa Ricans respond in astonishing waves that show the extent of the problem. In November, she launched a survey just for men, and from her updates, it seems that she received an epic response. She organizes support groups and other in-person experiences. She shares posts both hilarious and heartbreaking that illustrate what anxiety looks like. She gives speeches that spark massive responses from people who are so relieved to feel that maybe they aren’t so alone after all – like this one, where she also talks about what it’s like to be a tall woman in Costa Rica. (Yes, this is another reason I could relate to her so quickly.)

Now, Cris has created Vasoterapia, a pack of conversation starters. I haven’t gotten my hands on one yet, but from the looks of them, they are a mix of funny and deep, just like Cris herself. She says they are great for kids, families, couples, friends, any group – and the people are already contacting her to let her know how much fun they had and how they learned surprising new things about the people in their lives. (I’d venture to say that this would probably be a great gift for a Spanish teacher in your life.) My main reason for picking them up is that I’m more and more convinced every day that Vaso Lleno is filling an urgent need in this country and world, and I want to support it in any way I can.

I’m hoping to do a deep dive into wellness in Costa Rica in January, so you will be hearing more about Cris and mental health soon. Until then, if you’re a Spanish speaker, I invite you to follow her on Facebook or Instagram (as I write this, it looks like the way to acquire Vasoterapia is by simply messaging Cris there). One thing’s for sure – there is much more to come from this rising leader.

Day 57: Is December the most honest month?

Posted on December 3, 2019December 3, 2019 by stanleyobando

I miss the four seasons I grew up with. I especially love a crisp autumn day, a serene winter morning, a long summer evening. But if we’re doing a strict month-on-month analysis, I’m really not sure what could beat December in Costa Rica.

Did you see the series finale of “Downton Abbey,” where Lady Edith gets married and everyone else falls in love, brings forth new life, dances in slow motion or gazes lovingly at someone or something? That’s what it’s like. Sunny afternoons. Cool breezes that tousle your hair. Christmas. Festivals everywhere you look. School vacation. The aguinaldo, or Christmas bonus worth a full month’s salary. The whole country sort of swoons at once. Adults act like kids, fidgeting in their swivel chairs, gazing out the window at the delectably tempting sunny afternoons, trying to think of a reason to have some more rompope.

Still, as someone who grew up in New England, it took me a while to get used to a warm Christmas. In today’s piece over at my @poemsondemand account on Instagram, I decided to tackle a prompt I made up myself: explaining why December has such a unique and consistent feel even if you spend it in a climate and a culture so different from the one you grew up in. The answer I came up with? No matter where you are, December is the point of the year when you realize you’ve run out of time – and arbitrary as that milestone may be, it makes us throw our hands up and let go of expectations. As a result, I ended up wondering whether December, for all its festivities and excitement, might actually be the most honest of months. What do you think? (Do you have a poem topic to assign to me, seasonal or otherwise? The trickier or more random, the better. Help support my new addiction.)

No matter where December finds you this year, I wish you a month full of light.

Day 55: Happy Slow Friday

Posted on November 29, 2019November 27, 2019 by stanleyobando

What do you say? Shall we make this a thing?

If there were ever a day made, NOT for shopping or rushing, but for contemplating one’s navel, it’s today. If there were ever a day when we might realistically pull bits of food out of our hair like a sloth, it’s the day after Thanksgiving.

As Black Friday becomes nuttier and nuttier, I say we make this day a holiday for conservation in both the virtuous and the fun senses of the word: conserving not only financial and material resources, but also energy. Like, let’s move as slowly as possible. Carefully click the remote to watch “Elf” – you don’t want to sprain a finger. Ease ourself from one soft surface to another. Turn our heads at the pace of the tortoise from “Kung Fu Panda” as we crane to gaze out the window.

Gaze. We should gaze quite a bit today. And we should, like this sloth, watch the world go by. That’s something my dad used to say. He loved to pull up a chair on a porch or lawn, find himself a cup of coffee or bottle of beer, and say, “I’m just going to sit here, watching the world go by.”

It’s a dying art, but we can rescue it. The Turkey Trots have been run. The big dinner has been pulled off with a flourish. The sweatpants are stretchy. Our books and windows and ceilings have been missing us. Calls not to spend money on Black Friday can sound restrictive; I think the marketing would be sexier if they focused on the utter decadence of inaction. (My mouth is literally watering at the thought. What does that mean, when your mouth waters at the thought of doing nothing?)

Let’s make this sloth, high above the crowds, oblivious to long lines, our spirit animal for today. I think that Slow Friday, at least in my mind, might be here to stay.

Here’s this week’s recap:

Monday Motivation: An oxcart bonanza.

Tuesday Beauty: Taking life one butterfly hour at a time.

Wildlife Wednesday: One of the most incredible sea turtle videos ever shot.

Thanksgiving: A TBT to an essay on slang, gratitude and the oddities of language.

Have a great weekend!

Day 54: A throwback to my favorite thankful trick of the tongue

Posted on November 28, 2019November 27, 2019 by stanleyobando

It’s Thanksgiving, and I think a #throwbackthursday is in order, because one of the first essays I wrote on Costa Rican slang remains my favorite. I wrote it in 2014, the second of my columns that later became “Love in Translation.” I hope the day brings you something cozy, something delicious and plenty to be thankful for. What a nice word, thankful.

The amazing true story of brete and tuanis

On this Thanksgiving Day, here are three things that have me feeling grateful.

The first is, well, you, for sending so many kind and interesting responses to my first column. I heard from homesick Ticos living abroad, fellow expats in Costa Rica who are as enamored of the country as I am, and people who have never lived here at all but whose Costa Rican parents fed them a steady diet of dichos y refranes since birth.

I also learned a lot from you, as I knew I would, leading to the second thing I’m grateful for: finally understanding the origins of the word tuanis (that classic costarriqueñismo, or so I thought, meaning good, cool, great). Bear with me here. I learned from a reader’s Facebook comment, followed by a highly rigorous Google search, that the Costa Rican tendency to switch the syllables of its words – primo becomes mopri, fiesta becomes tafies – has its roots in Nicaraguan malespín. This is a specific type of slang apparently based on a code created by Salvadoran General Francisco Malespín, whose military exploits took him around the region (including to Nicaragua, where he sacked León) and who also served as president of El Salvador in the 1840s. In his code, the syllables of words are rearranged and vowels are switched around: “a” for “e,” “i” for “o,” “b” for “t,” “f” for “g” and “p” for “m,” and vice versa. At any rate, try this for the word bueno – “b” becomes “t,” “e” becomes “a,” “o” becomes “i.” What does that spell? Yup, tuani, which became tuanis during its southward migration to Costa Rica. It seems that this emblematic Tico word has a fascinating Central American tale to tell.

Here’s another classic malespín-ismo. Take the word trabajo (work), switch the syllables around and switch each “a” for an “e,” the “o” for an “i.” You get breteji, eventually shortened to brete, the slang for work that has become one of my favorite words over the past 10 years. Its fascinating origins are only one of the great things about it. I love its Spanglish-tastic variant, breteanding, and there’s something uniquely satisfying about breteada, a huge mountain of work, as in “Vieras que breteada me pegué anoche.” Just saying it makes you breathe out a little knot of tension: bre-te-AHHH-da. Most of all, however, I love the attitude adjustment the word brete has given me during my time in Costa Rica, because it’s so often tied to the concept of gratitude.

For example, you might hear: “I’d love to stay, but I have so much to do. Mucho brete. Gracias a Dios.”

“I was up all night working, and now I have a triple shift. I just taped my eyelids open and drank three quarts of coffee. Mucho brete. Gracias a Dios.”

“My boss is the worst. I wouldn’t mind feeding her limb by limb into a wood chipper. But hey, tengo brete, gracias a Dios.”

In a Catholic country, this turn of phrase might be a reflex for many. You can tell that it’s sometimes more of a linguistic habit than a heartfelt sentiment. But as a foreigner and a person who almost never says “Thank God,” it was jarring to me at first – then eye-opening. Over the years, it has become a powerful reality check. In any country, in any culture, those of us with the outrageous good fortune to find employment whenever we need it run the risk of forgetting what a privilege it is to put food on the table. Those of us who have only known the stress of over-employment forget how much more stressful it is to be under-employed. I don’t say gracias a Dios myself – it would feel insincere – but the simple act of hearing it again and again has made me stop myself, on a good day, in the midst of a complaint or a rant. And it means that for me, brete is not just a word. It’s a reminder.

So as I prepare for my eleventh [now 15th!] Thanksgiving in the land of tuanis; as I anticipate another feast that will feature a last-minute expat ingredient substitution no matter how much I plan; as I get ready to put on some soccer as I cook and pretend it’s the background noise of the football game I only crave one day each year… as I do all that, I am grateful for you. I am grateful for the strangeness of a world where a general who destroyed a city also created a new way of speaking, and where a country that abolished its army communicates in a centuries-old military code. Last but not least, I’m grateful for – well, I’d tell you, except I’ve gotta run, because vieras que montón de brete tengo que hacer hoy.

Gracias a Dios.

Day 53: Drop everything and watch this video

Posted on November 27, 2019 by stanleyobando

National Geographic this week shared an astonishing video shot in November 2016 in Ostional, Costa Rica, by biologist and conservation leader Vanessa Bezy.

“To this day I’m still blown away by the video,” Bezy told National Geographic, and I can see why. This is more of a Wildlife Wednesday than my usual wellness theme, but I think this video fits the bill for both: I sat up straighter, breathed deeper and felt an incredible sense of awe when I saw this. Not a bad way to spend one minute nine seconds.

Check out the NatGeo story for more on how she came to shoot this video, just how unusual it is, and what threats Ostional is facing.