Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Standard american english defines VILLA as a country residence or estate. any pretentious residence, especially one in the country or suburbs maintained as a retreat by a wealthy person.
The Brits simply define it as a detached or semi detached suburban dwelling.I guess it depends on who is advertising, to whom they are directing the advertising and how honest they are. Then again, as Scott points out, it can be a very subjective definition. I have seen some pretty crappy looking “villas” in Costa Rica…and some pretty damned nice ones.
Let me repeat what Scott said…I live in Miami and I no longer want to. Too crowded and noisy and way too expensive. I pay over $7,000 taxes on a home I purchased 22 years ago for $98,000. Today it is appraised at $350k even after the recent pull back. If I were to buy this home today, my taxes and insurance would exceed $10,000 a year. Your taxes in Costa Rica would be about one tenth that amount for the same valued property.
It is probably not a good idea to compare real estate between to such disparate places as Costa Rica and Miami, Florida. Miami has a great infra structure, Costa Rica does not. Miami is flat as a pancake and your only scenery will whatever nature cooks up in the sky or the ocean. In Costa Rica, you have the ocean PLUS mountains, waterfalls and PEACE AND QUIET in the countryside. It also depends on why you are buying real estate. If it is for an investment, you may have one set of criteria. If it is for a home, you may have another.
Value in real estate to me is the ability to lay in a hammock on my property and not have to listen to the incessant sound of car tires hissing on the nearby street and then paying an outrageous sum in taxes to maintain an infrastructure of which I make very little use of anyway.
Just the act of having to make a line and vote may infuse an increase in interest in the issues at hand. Who knows? It sure couldn’t hurt.
Yours are one of the most valuable contributions to this message board for me at this time as I am looking at construction in the future in the Central valley. Thanks for the info and I hope to read more from you.
At least there is some official concern for getting out the vote. In the U.S., the republican party discourages voter turn out and actively works to throw out many votes. In fact, the whole system discourages voting by making the vote day a tuesday and not making that day a national holiday. We make holidays here at the drop of a hat for other silly reasons but make no effort to turn our voting day into a holiday.
Is voting day in CR a national holiday?
Rebaragon,
I completely missed the possible racist interpretation of the “monkey” reference probably because, like the author, I was more focused on his salient point of civil servant incompetency which has nothing to do with racism in CR. (As far as I can see, there is no racism in CR)
I think it is OK to critique immature behavior as monkey-like. I thought the image was amusing: a group of cariblancas and howlers in an office throwing papers up in the air turning the pages of environmental studies into a monkey game. I still think it is amusing.
Disrespectful language directed at individuals or at ethnic or racial groups is in bad taste, to put it mildly. But directed towards the ACTIONS of politicians or civil servants seems quite alright to my sensibilities. This is an american trait, to be sure and I should monitor myself when abroad. In the meantime, all we can do is cross out fingers for the leatherbacks. I am not hopeful, though, for any of us as long as human population is out of control.While government representatives are also people, their behavior as representatives is ALWAYS open to public criticism. At least in democracies it is supposed to work that way. A healthy general DISrespect for government is usually a sign that government is not doing its job properly.
Actually, I sometimes have MORE respect for monkeys than I do for most politicians and many civil servants…in my own country. I do not know enough about CR to have any developed opinion but I am reading a lot of criticism from both Expats AND Ticos about civil servant AND citizen attitudes towards civic responsibilities.
People from the British Isles have a reputation for being VERY civil and calm in the face of frustration and while that kind of attitude is always welcome everywhere, it sometimes seems somewhat out of place in certain areas of the world. But this IS your message board and as such, rules of the house should be followed.My little problem is an unmarked 70 meter gravel service road (servidumbre) leading to my place coming off of the paved road. The land and trees at the entrance from the paved road do not belong to me so I wonder what would happened if I nailed some kind of sign to the tree. probably nothing would be said about it but this is just another little idiosyncratic aspect to life in Central America, I guess.
By the way, it is good to hear the red cross has service in Grecia but I would imagine that to be the case with so many americans and canadians there.
Yeah, I guess so. Speaking of which; I wonder what the response time is in the sticks for an ambulance? I wonder if, like I hear about the police, they even show up? Addresses such as we have in the States, don;t exist in CR. It never ceases to amaze me how anybody finds any place in Costa Rica simply with a written address. My own address there includes a brief description of a sharp curve in the road and a certain quantity of meters from a certain little pueblo. This amuses me to no end.
Much of the culture of CR and of other countries has already been hijacked by Coca Cola, rock and roll, hip hop and blue jeans. The changes bleed into Central America from south america and the caribbean as well as by direct injection from TV, radio and immigration. It is already a world economy and has been for some time. Back water regions eventually get caught up in the stream. Last year, I strolled into a music store in San Ramon to look for some discs by Guadalupe Urbina (I really love her stuff). The store owner/clerk remarked that he sees very few Costa Ricans with an interest in their own culture and folk music any more. I bought the only discs he had by her.
The world is much more than the sum of its components. It changes faster than we do as individuals. It is a stunning development and will only increase in its pace as time goes on. I wouldn’t blame the U.S. It is human nature in general that changes the world.
Besides, what are you going to do, throw rocks at a U.S. battleship? You just can;t stick your head in the sand like the Japanese tried to do 150 years ago. One day, it may well be China that seems to be imposing its culture on poor little Costa Rica. The good news is, that you can still eat rice, beans and pico de gallo with chop sticks.I hope my sixth sense about this is wrong. Only a small majority seems to have voted CAFTA in place for Costa Rica. That does not bode well. The slightest perception of negative economic results for the country will likely spawn some massive demonstrations and possible work slowdowns, etc. So far as I can tell, the Ticos are not as humble and accepting of political edicts as perhaps the Mexicans and Dominicans. Fingers crossed here. Backlashes can be nasty.
My ex-lawyer is now working for Arias and I recall him telling me once that CAFTA was surely going to be ratified by Costa Rica. He had no doubts. He was also very optimistic about many other things which I attributed to his youth. Sometimes it almost seems that with enough optimism, a country can accomplish quite a bit. So I will sit on my skepticism for a while and watch how this unfolds.
Edited on Oct 08, 2007 06:52
You are correct. And there is no way to “shut the door” short of mandatory world population control such as the Chinese government is doing right now. If Costa Rica is suffering ecological damage, then ecological disaster must be overcoming the rest of the planet. Where else outside of Costa Rica is the ecology so protected? Where else will you go for your dream?
When I first moved to South Florida, it was at the beginning of another population explosion but it was still habitable. The Florida Keys were still a laid back sub tropical paradise, fish and other wildlife were abundant and the back waters were as quiet as they might have been one hundred years ago. 30 years later, it has become a crowded, noisy, polluted place to live. Flotsam and jetsam wash up on every shoreline and jet skis and fishing boats spew fuel oil in the once clean waters. I am leaving for Costa Rica. I don’r see CR as anywhere remotely near the level of population and pollution that we have here in much of the United States. SO I wonder, if Costa Rica no longer satisfies your dreams, what place on the planet can do that? Where will you go?Yours is the third post I have read about problems with leaky roof construction. Are both your roofs metal and are both 6 degrees or more at angle? Lots of rain in this little country and most roofs I see are metal with the newer ones having metal framework as well.
LOL! Very good. I have decided that I would opposes CAFTA were I a Tico. It just smells badly to these liberal nostrils.
It already is impacting my life and I am not even living there yet. I am not immune to human nature and I also worry inordinately about this.I must allow for security in my house construction budget and design.
I don;t see much happening with the crime watch method here in Miami and so I don’t expect much will happen there either. It’s a big problem with many causes but the prime cause, disparate wealth distribution, is the only way to fix it effectively. Punishment is the least effective tool. Somewhere higher on the list would be personal vigilance and self defense.
