Our first two and a half months in Costa Rica have been...interesting. About two days after my most recent post, we discovered that someone had copied P´s credit card. We traced it back to a hostal where we stayed our first night in Manuel Antonio, turned the info and our suspect over to the police, and now we´re waiting on "Tico time" to find out what will happen next. As for the money that was stolen from the account, we´ve been waiting since the first week of October for it to be returned by the bank. We had a rough first month spending what little money was left in my own bank account to live on, and then finally a new credit card was delivered last week. This means as soon as our money is returned, we´ll have instant access to it, but we´re still waiting on the bank to return it, and because it´s a French bank we have to wait extra long, apparently.
All of this has greatly overshadowed any warm welcome we first felt when we arrived, and also prevented us from doing anything of interest. Our meals have consisted of pasta, rice, and whatever vegetables we can buy for cheap at the local weekend market. We´ve been able to get drunk a few times for cheap, but had to seriously justify the expense when we were eating bread and butter for two days straight. Since the credit card has arrived (with a loan from both of our parents behind it), we´re back to square one and it´s like we´re just starting out here with a new perspective. Money trouble has meant we´re not able to fly to the States for Christmas, as I had really really REALLY hoped we would, but I´m telling myself a trip in January or February isn´t too far off, once I start earning money.
And money has been trickling in: I´ve been occupying my time teaching Spanish to a few gringas we´ve made friends with, and P´s busy with several job ideas he´s got in the works: dealing poker is one of them; another is working as a consultant for an eco-friendly hostal project here in Manuel Antonio. Time will tell, and hopefully money will start flowing in TWO directions instead of just one....
On the job front, I´m three-quarters of the way through with certification and training for Open English, an online teaching company here. I´m excited about learning a new way to teach and expanding my teaching experience into the online realm. Everything I´ve learned so far has been really interesting and, from a job standpoint, fantastic: working from home - or anywhere!, in your pj´s if you want, making your own schedule, bi-monthly pay direct-deposited into my bank account, lessons of no more than 4 students per class, 45-minute classes, plus I´ll be teaching the same lesson/theme each day, more or less, so prep time is dramatically reduced. It really couldn´t be better, especially considering where we live there are virtually zero English academies or schools (the Ticos are really, really good at English; almost everyone here knows at least 100 words). Also, transportation to and from work could easily become a hassle in Costa Rica, even more so in the remote-yet-touristy area of Manuel Antonio. None of that hassle from me, I´ll be teaching from my bed (if I damn well please!).
In the meantime, we´re learning about Costa Rica little by little. There are good things...and there are bad things too. We´re not sure, but the bad might outnumber the good slightly. First of all, it´s expensive here. Like, more than either of us were prepared for, especially since I´ve been living outside the U.S. while prices have surely been rising there, and thus, here in Costa Rica. Also, although I knew Costa Rica had close economic ties to the U.S. (the dollar is accepted here, lots of American tourists come through in huge numbers, etc.), I wasn´t prepared for the unusual mix of cultural discrimination here - which goes both ways, in fact. Case in point, P was offered a job at an American-owned luxury 5-star hotel here a few weeks ago. They offered him 48 hours a week, for an hourly salary of $2. They announced the salary with the disclaimer of, "We know that isn´t much for Europeans who live here, but Ticos are delighted to work for that rate." We were disgusted - how can they be so honest and unashamed about abusing the local culture?! The receptionist job they offered P earns the same as a bellboy; the bellboy receives tips and doesn´t have to say a single word to the customers, while they wanted P as a receptionist because he speaks 3 languages. Where´s the balance here?? We were indignant about it, and of course P rejected the job, but later I reflected on something that happened our first week in Manuel Antonio:
As if the financial problems weren´t bad enough, I took my portable hard drive to a cyber café to print out my resumé for job searching, and when I got home I realized my hard drive had been infected. We took it back the next day to the cyber café to see if I could trace the virus I´d picked up and recover the data (which is somehow still on the hard drive but inaccessible due to a virus), and it was closed. Same thing the following day. So we went back and finally they were open. The owner listened to my problem and let me sit on the same computer as before to try and troubleshoot the virus problem. About 30 minutes later, it´s apparent he knows nothing about his own business (or computers!) and he tells me I´ll have to check with his technician tomorrow; then, he tells me, "That´ll be $1.40 for the use of the computer." Was this guy kidding me?! As P and I argued our very justified reason for refusing to pay - it was his effing computer that caused the problem, and now I´ve lost tons of megabytes of data, and the only reason I occupied the computer was to attempt to fix the problem HIS computer caused. I said I could understand him charging us if there were a line of people waiting to use the computer and I was occupying it, but there were only 2 others in the shop. When we refused a final time, he said, "Come on, $1.40 is nothing!" So I said, "Then why do you want it so bad?!" And we left. We knew he meant, "$1.40 is nothing TO YOU, because YOU are RICH." The guy couldn´t get that it was the principle - why should I pay him? If anything, he should return the money I paid him for the use of the computer which implanted a virus - that was his defective service I paid for! Infuriating. On several occasions after that, we became aware that Ticos who own businesses are very casual about overcharging foreigners. They see no problem with it, I guess in the same way that Americans see no problem with coming here with all their money, stealing business from Ticos and paying them close to nothing - meanwhile not learning Spanish even once they´re granted resident status in Costa Rica.
Another disillusion relates to the environment. We foolishly expected a tropical utopia where people actually get excited about recycling or at least don´t mind it, where everyone knows the simple routine ways to save energy and water and reuse it, where the whole community works to defend and protect the beautiful spaces here. But I guess my naiive assumption didn´t account for the poverty issue in all of Central and South America - poor people don´t really give a damn about anything other than getting by, and lack of education compounds the problem. Costa Rica gets props from us for having so many protected areas, of course, but they´re a far cry from environmentally conscious here. It´s sad. I feel like a kid who´s found out about the Easter bunny :(
I guess it´s normal to feel disappointed with these types of lessons - we´re certainly not in Europe anymore, but we´re not in the place we´d imagined for ourselves, either. The food here, while hearty and filling and is more to my tastes than Spanish food (cilantro, lime, sour cream, onion, avocado, mango, pineapple...mmm!), is very basic and not too diverse (lots of beans and rice, blegh!). I miss red wine, and I miss Granada where it´s easy to enjoy things on a budget. I miss people there, and going out for tapas. I miss shopping (guilty girl pleasure, sorry)!
But at this point, at least Costa Rica still feels a bit new, so we´re not running back to Spain just yet. But it´s been talked about. It´s been thought about. It´s a possibility, perhaps. We´ll leave CR for a few days at the beginning of December - probably Nicaragua! And we´ll see how we feel about that country, since it´s definitely a lot cheaper than Costa Rica. If we fail to make it work here, or don´t find what we´re looking for, there´s a lot of other central-American countries we could choose from. At least with a job teaching online, I can jump ship if need be, anytime at all, and take my work with me!
