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Librería Universal near the SE corner of La Sabana, and Univeral, La Lehman, and scattered used book stores in downtown San Jose. You’ll find more books in English in the used book stores, but they come and go.
Freddy,
I’m sorry for your loss. As a parent, I can’t imagine what you had to go through, except that it must have been indescribably brutal.
Heaven knows you’re not the only grandparents that have had to assume the responsibilities of raising grandchildren, for one reason or another, but your plans to move them with you to live in Costa Rica certainly sounds unique, and in my opinion, wise beyond your expectations.
Costa Rica is a WONDERFUL place for children to grow up.
Here’s why:
It is not a mobile society. Unlike the U.S., almost all the schools and jobs are to be found in only one place – the Central Valley. Furthermore, if it’s hard for Gringos just starting out in the job market in the U.S. to pay for their own place to live, it’s twice as hard for Ticos. Finally, the Tico culture places much less emphasis on individualism and independence than in the U.S., and more on family unity and group cooperation.
These factors combine to insure that extended families generally stay together throughout their lives. In established neighborhoods (as opposed to new developments where neighbors are a bit more transient), it’s not uncommon for aunts & uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc. to live on the same block, many times as a result of subdividing larger properties for successive generations. It’s also not at all uncommon for people to live in only two houses in their whole life, the one they were born in, and the one they moved into when they got married.
What does this have to do with raising kids? It means that there is much more respect for elders, that they work together more cooperatively, and that they are more comfortable living with their parents well beyond the teenage years because there’s no expectations for them to move out when they’re 18. Kids help out in family businesses and assist in caring for younger siblings. As they grow older single adults contribute to the household, care for their parents, and use endearing terms like “mommy” (“mami”) and “Daddy” (“papi”) until the day ther die.
Tico houses tend to be small. I’ve seen foyers in the U.S. that are larger than some Tico living rooms. Bedrooms can be tiny as well. Cramped quarters, combined with larger families than in the U.S., also contribute to more respect for other people’s privacy, and greater cordiality. After all, if this weren’t the case, it would be hard to survive.
Better family relations also extend to friends and classmates. There is no such thing as a “clique” in school. New students in the U.S. often have difficulty making friends and “fitting in”, and they are often ostracized, ridiculed and humiliated until they find their niche. Conversely, a new student in a Costa Rican school has 100 new friends the first day. Tico students generally have a much greater thirst for learning than then their spoiled, materialistic, and self-centered Gringo counterparts. Ask any teacher who has worked in both the U.S. and in Latin America and they’ll tell you that the difference in their students’ behavior is profoundly better south of the border.
All Ticos, both children and adults, kiss each other on the cheek in greeting (except male-to-male). It’s more of an air kiss really, with just cheeks touching, and not even that if you dislike the person or don’t really know them that well. Since this starts at such an early age, it seems to me that it helps children develop an immediate and intimate respect for each other.
While I used to get into physical fights with other kids when I was a young (the only one I won was the last one, of course), I have never seen two Tico kids go at it. It just doesn’t happen.
Respect for others, cordiality and good manners, and group awareness among children in Costa Rica is easy to notice, even if you never visit a school or Tico household. All it takes is a bus ride to see children behaving like saints to realize that there’s something different in the way kids are brought up. There just aren’t the same pressures there that they would face in the U.S. – peer pressure, double dog dare pressure, grow up and get a job pressure, be number one pressure, try this drug pressure, etc.
To sum it all up, kids in the U.S. are in a hurry to grow up, while kids in Costa Rica are comfortable in their extended childhoods, many times lasting until the day they get married (or longer).
While rugged individualism, insatiable aspirations, runaway materialism, and “if you don’t win you’re a loser” attitudes contribute greatly to a highly productive Gringo society, there’s something to be said about the slower pace of life, the more cohesive family unit, and the different meaning of the term “success” in Tiquicia.
I have no doubt that your decision to bring them up in that kind of culture will turn out to be much better than you ever imagined.
The negatives? There are few that can’t be mitigated.
Public schools have few materials and large class sizes. You’ll want to take advantage of the many private schools available there to insure that your kids will spend most of their time learning, rather than spending hours copying down what the teacher writes on the blackboard because there are no hand-outs.
Tico families with any means would find it shameful for their teenage or college age children to get menial jobs, such as mopping floors and such. Gringos tend to think any job is better than no job at all, even if you’re studying to be a doctor or lawyer. This attitude, however, can be countered in the home if you wish.
Then there are the other negatives of living in Costa Rica which are not specific to children. For that you can read the many other posts on this forum.
I have two children, and my wife is Costa Rican. I met her when I was an English teacher in San Jose in the early 80’s, and after we married we moved to the U.S. When our first born was 6 months old, we moved back to Costa Rica, and stayed there for a decade. Our second child was born there.
Why did we move back to the U.S.? In a word, MONEY. It’s a tough place to make a living, and the professional and business opportunities in the U.S. are overwhelmingly greater. This fact brings me to the one negative aspect you just can’t get around. As Gringo children living in Costa Rica grow older, the doors which lead to these opportunities begin to close.
In the final analysis, while I anguish over my belief that Costa Rica is a much better place for my kids to grow up, there are far fewer opportunities for them to thrive there as adults. As GringoTicos themselves, it will be much easier for them to move back to Costa Rica to work and live, if they so choose, while the reverse would not have been the case if we had remained there.
Since your grandchildren are still young, this won’t be a factor for a while. However, down the road, it’s something to consider.
Please review the many helpful comments in this forum and take heed of the sage advice offered about living in Costa Rica to insure that you avoid the various pitfalls awaiting you. As for your grandchildren – don’t give it a second thought. For them, there are no pitfalls.
Oh yeah, from a more selfish perspective, Tico children take much better care of their aging parents than their Gringo counterparts. There are few senior citizen homes in Costa Rica, unlike in the U.S., and the coming growth in assisted living facilities in CR will depend upon aging Gringo Boomers for their profits. Tico senior citizens, on the other hand, are generally cared for in their homes by their extended family, who never left the homestead.
Might the move be a painful adjustment for your kids? Certainly! Until their Spanish gets up to speed, they’ll definitely feel like outsiders, no matter how cheerfully they’re greeted. Will it be worth it? You betcha, many times over!
Kamy,
Please search for this forum for past threads regarding getting a job in Costa Rica. I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed.
A visa is simply permission to enter the country, not to work there. I am unsure what you mean by “cedular stutus”. I assume you mean that you will have a cédula (i.d. card) “de pensionado” (retired) or “de rentista” (not retired, but with enough money to buy the privilege of a more permanent resident status). Neither of these allows you to become employed there.
I’m blushing.
Costa Rica wasn’t exactly the penal colony that Australia was, but those who had the ear of the Spanish crown received position and power in Mexico or Peru, where the natural resources were in abundance(i.e. gold and Indian slaves). The runner-ups got Guatemala, or other secondary colonial administrative centers in North and South America. Costa Rica, known then as “Varagua”, was really in the hinterlands, several days ride beyond the boondocks. Once they figured out there was no gold to be had, there weren’t a whole lot of takers.
I too enjoy the thoughtful and respectful back and forth to be found in this forum. Perhaps it’s because the kind of people who love Costa Rica, with all its strange and quirky ways, are naturally more tolerant and accepting of other people’s diverse attitudes, mindful that there is usually more than one right way of doing things, and cognizant that what some people refer to as “facts” are many times merely words used to describe things we don’t understand, or wish to simplify so our puny little brains don’t blow up and spatter all over the walls.
What is a “continent” anyway, why does mass attract, and what is my wife so mad at me about now?
Ah, the wonders of the universe!
Pure life my friend.
Well, you’re both at least half right. Indeed Costa Rica has been invaded several times since its independence from Spain in 1821.
In 1856, after taking Nicaragua, William Walker marched his band of mercenaries into Guanacaste with the ambition of extending the U.S. Confederacy to the south, or possibly making himself emperor of Central America, only to be beaten back by ordinary farmers who had taken up arms. The battle that ousted him from the country was at La Casona in Santa Rosa National Park, and a little boy names Juan Santamaría later laid flames to his troop’s bunker in Rivas Nicaragua, getting killed in the act and sealing his fate as Costa Rica’s national hero.
After Pepe Figueres’ troops beat the Calderonistas at the conclusion of civil war in 1948, he abolished the army. During the next few years the exiled Calderon, with the backing of Nicaragua, invaded twice. Once again civilians took up arms and drove him out. In the end Nicaragua apologized by gifting the big ugly cement gazebo in the middle of the Central Plaza in San Jose across from the Basilica.
In the middle of the Rotunda de Zapote you can see beautiful monument of three John Doe farmers, in recognition of the ordinary Tico in the country’s defence.
The only time the peasantry couldn’t eject the invader was in 1919 when the U.S. Marines landed to protect American interests after the fall of the dictator Tinoco. They remained there until 1920 when a democratic election was successfully held (those were the days…when men were men and sheep were nervous).
No invasionary force has ever come through Panama, which is one of the reasons there’s still no road that goes through to South America, nor much political will to build one either.
As a result of all this, guns are legal in Costa Rica, but must be registered. I know plenty of Ticos who carry a gun in their glove compartment.
I once saw an interview of Pepe Figueres (his wife was a Gringa) where the interviewer asked him why he abolished the army. His first reply was “Why not?”. The interviewer pressed the point, asking if he supported the U.S. military in the war with Germany. He said “Of course. But the army is like the doctor. You get sick, you call the doctor. But you don’t want him living with you!”
The key point here is that Don Pepe openly depended on the U.S. to come to his aid should another invader arise. The fact that his own civilian countrymen had already repelled previous invaders, and that the U.S. had also previously invaded and then departed in a benevolent fashion, certainly made him comfortable in his decision.
Since then I think successive governments also had, and still have, faith that the U.S. would come to their aid in the case of an invasion. The resulting lack of military expenditures has since been touted as the reason behind Costa Rica’s renowned educational system and high literacy rates, a much better investment than guns and bullets, if you have a big brother to defend you.
However, while Costa Rica is known as the Switzerland of Central America, they have been far from neutral. They immediately sided with the US during WWI, and have generally been a thorn in the side of Fidel Castro even though they maintained diplomatic relations. Even now Oscar Arias has some choice words for Hugo Chaves and Evo Morales who are nationalizing industries in Venezuela and Bolivia.
Furthermore, Costa Rica is somewhat more isolated than Switzerland, and is certainly not in any way a cultural or military crossroad. Actually, the “Rich Coast”, like Iceland and Greenland, are misnomers. Like Australia, it was the dregs of European society that ended up there. There are few exploitable natural resources, no harbors at all on the Atlantic coast, and very little arable land for mechanized farming. Their most treasured possession is democracy, which is of course invasion proof.
While the exact border with Nicaragua is contested, (and Nicas do get very testy on the issue, especially when things are going poorly in Managua), unlike Eastern Europe and ex republics of the USSR, the lines drawn in the Americas are generally accepted, and there’s little threat of war between countries. It’s the internal strife that afflicts America.
T-Bone also rightly points out that Costa Rica threatens no one, and makes no enemies in return. On the other hand, a threatening Costa Rica is kind of like a semi truck driver, or jumbo shrimp. Definitely not something to take seriously.
Finally, in his previous presidency, Arias helped influenced Panama to abolish their military as well. As such, it’s just the Nicaraguan they have to worry about, and they’ve been fighting among themselves since their independence. Nicaraguan are conquering Costa Rica today anyway simply by sheer emigration, just as Mexicans are doing in the U.S.
Regarding the safest place on earth, I’m afraid Cuba is right up there. Firearms are illegal, and there’s at least one communist party member on each and every block for the entire length and breadth of the island making sure all the neighbors are behaving. I was there in the 70’s, and I have to say that I’ve never felt safer, even alone, on the street, in the dark, in a foreign city. Quite a high price to pay though.
Sorry for droning on here. Just one last morsel of food for thought.
Would you feel safer:
1. With a big bruiser of a brother defending you from those who would do you harm;
or
2. On your own with no one threatening at all?
Ya’ know, sometimes those big brothers can turn on you.
Oh yeah, and I agree with the whole real estate downturn thing…
Here’s my favorite Tiquismo: “No se preocupe, el choke avisa”. Translation: “Don’t worry about it, the force of the impact will inform you if something goes wrong”.
Here’s another: “No corta leña y no presta hacha”. This is particularly suited to the country given the generally scant help offered by many government bureaucrats and private sector employees. Say you ask for some kind of assistance and are denied. Then you ask where you might find such assistance, and are again met with a denial. Translation: “They won’t cut wood, and they won’t lend you the axe either”.
Sad, frustrated, helpless, mad… On the other hand, what makes these visiting Gringa nursing students believe they have the cultural right to participate in political issues internal to a foreign country?
Scott B.,
Please point me to the regulation which backs up your statement “If you choose to own a biz you must also employee at least one Tico as well”. There are probably 10’s of thousands of Costa Rica S.A.’s that have no employees, and I don’t believe there is anything illegal about this.
T-Bone:
Sadly, making war and political enemies seems to have paid off handsomely for people investing in the U.S. and Western Europe since the end of WWII. In contrast, peace-loving Costa Rica has only recently emerged out of the dead asset doldrums, 59 years after abolishing the army.
While its political stability is certainly a factor in the recent investment boom, the main engine powering this economic trend is the aging Gringo Boomers and their U.S. incubated nest eggs.
Furthermore, as “Fortress America” consolidates, one could argue that Americans abroad may become much more likely targets.
I don’t particularly subscribe to this point of view, but it’s possible. Personally, I feel equally “safe” about my investments in both countries. However, it has been my experience that U.S. assets are much more liquid (much larger market of buyers = faster turnover), and IN GENERAL (capitalized to head-off posts citing specific instances to the contrary from recent Gold Coast investors) appreciate faster and more steadily. Hence the long-standing global dominance of the U.S. in attracting foreign investment.
Don’t get me wrong, I think peace is good for business, but it’s a long-term strategy in a short-term thinking world. For all I know, maybe you’re right. After all, 59 years is definitely long-term.
However, it would be wise to remember that we live in an ever-increasingly integrated world economy, where a blip in China creates a small tsunami that circles our little orb in as long as it takes for the sun to rise. The fact is that Costa Rica is deeply and inextricably dependant upon the U.S. economy, so we’re all going down together if the hole in the bottom of the boat gets any bigger.
Frankly Scott, it’s amazing that a stickler Brit like you can survive at all in the land of mañana. I warn off my more type A friends from even visiting.
People wonder why there’s such a lack of urgency in Latin America, but the root cause is easy enough to understand. The industrial revolution demanded that Londoners be punctual to work in the morning, because that’s when they turned on the machines. In countries with a more agricultural economy, particularly where the growing season is year ’round, tomorrow is as good a time as any to pick those coffee beans.
Lee, Search this forum for “Lincoln” and you’ll find a thread which may help you.
Here’s what I wrote about Lincoln:
“Lincoln School has perhaps the most exclusive reputation. It’s maybe half Tico, and half mixed gringotico (I like that name!). As a result, it’s primary “flavor” is still Tico, but the environment and infrastructure are very americanized. Lincoln School is one of the few schools accredited in the U.S. (I don’t know which others are), which means there are no problems getting into a U.S. university upon graduation. Lincoln school is also one of the few schools in CR that has a school year compatible with the U.S. All other schools in CR follow a calendar year schedule. Placing kids in these schools from the U.S. (or vice versa) means either skipping or re-doing a full semester. Lincoln school is expensive, several thousand per year plus an up front $4,000 – $5,000 membership fee if I remember correctly. Also, they’re finally getting out of their old digs in the middle of Moravia, with all the associated traffic, and building near Santo Domingo, on grounds currently surrounded by coffee plantations. Should be very nice.”
Butch,
When in Rome…
Let them try to throw you out. As Scott said, it’ll take months, and Costa Rica has no credit reporting system, so your record will not be marred as a result.
This is why I will never get (back) into the real estate rental business in CR. The eviction process is brutal on the landlord.
Normally I would not give such advice, but they ripped you off first. Asking your attorney how to sue them for damages is the wrong question. Ask what the owner has to go through to evict you, and I think you’ll see that you are in the driver’s seat, especially if the owner promised that the house would be vacant upon closing.
That kind of line in the sand will give you tremendous negotiating power, and if it endangers the sales transaction, they’ll likely pay you off to get you out quickly.If possession in 9/10’s of the law in the US, it must be 11/10’s in CR. Change the locks ASAP, and hang on to all your receipts!
Johnzane,
I’ve never heard that a white sand beach is a sign of “water purity”. This is hard to swallow. There are black sand beaches right next to white sand beaches on the CR Caribbean coast.
I’ve never been to Hawaii, but I’ve seen some nice white sand beaches all over CR, such as Flamingo in Guanacaste, and Punta Uva down towards Panama on the Caribbean. Perhaps they’re whiter in Hawaii.
While rivers running into the sea always bring silt and agricultural run-off, I think it’s particularly bad by Puntarenas & Caldera, because the rivers there flow through San Jose, not to mention any sewage and ballast off-loading by ships going to port.
You’ll find much cleaner water almost anywhere in CR.
I think I heard that Fiesta was recently taken over by a large and prestigious hotel company, but I can’t remember which one. Like I said, it’s not a bad place, it’s just that there are much better elsewhere.
A 50 year old Gringo in Costa Rica generally has no problem meeting Ticas, as usually there’s a flock of native golddiggers lining up for the opportunity. However, a special lady? That’s different. It’s not that they’re in short supply, it’s just that they’re hidden. They don’t hang out at the bars and casinos, instead they’re either at work or at home, many times caring for their children left over from a previous marriage, or out-of-wedlock tryst.
The good new is that Gringos offer a breath of fresh air for mature Ticas long under the thumb of their macho male partners. The key to opening this box, so chock full of adoring and sincere female companionship, is learning Spanish. Relationships based on non-communication are short-lived, and learning the language is the first step to understanding the culture.
Once you have the tools you need to say the right thing when the opportunity comes along, you create the opportunities. There are countless community and non-profit organizations in which you could become involved, as well as professional and trade groups. Find ways to become part of the fabric of day-to-day life, not just night life, tourist traps and Gringo gatherings, and you’ll develop a network of Tico and Tica acquaintances. Let news of your availability course its way through the grapevine, and you’re sure to meet a plethora, no, make that a gaggle, of wonderful Ticas to help you make your life on the “Rich Coast” that much richer!
Carla,
The rooms and pools at Hotel Fiesta are good, the food OK, the beach not so good, and the water dirty. It’s very near the Port of Caldera and the effluence of rivers originating near San Jose, which account for the dirty water.
The attraction of Fiesta is low price all-inclusive, and proximity to San Jose.
A bit more money, and more travel time, will get you to Tambor (also all-inclusive) where the quality of amenities is much higher. The only negatives to Tambor is lack of waves (it’s on a large bay), the beach is brown sand, and the music by the pools is an all day thing. Other than that it’s excellent, especially for families with kids. Also, it’s close to a few other beaches, like Montezuma, which offer some of the natural beauty CR is famous for.
These all-inclusive resorts are terrific if you just want to chill, but they won’t show you the best that Costa Rica has to offer. For that you have to travel around and go a la carte.
If you’re fixed on the all-inclusive option, I’d switch your reservations to Tambor if I could. It’s well worth the bump in price.
