Costa Rica Archives - Page 9 of 18

Police Issues Part I

September 19, 2006

I’ve been wanting to create a post for a long time about the police here in Costa Rica. To begin with, I do understand, or have some idea, of how difficult it must be for them to do their jobs here. They have had the exact same amount of police officers for the last 20 years. That means there are the same amount of officers trying to serve the needs of over 2 million more people!

Join the Tribe!

September 1, 2006

Some friends of mine on the Caribbean side are looking for their “tribe.” They’ve found the land, a former organic fruit farm and now they need the people. They need people who know ¨permaculture¨ and potentially have construction and infrastructure skills and- or are incredible, creative, inspired teachers. They also hope to raise as much of their own food as possible, and are open to developing a number of cottage industries depending on individual skills and interests. The plan is to integrate some of the promising youth coming from challenged situations in the area.

Isla Tortuga

September 1, 2006

As if we hadn’t had enough excitement lately, we took a trip to Isla Tortuga. We are looking for great, easy trips to send our clients on, and Isaac had been here before and seemed to think it was a great candidate.

Christmas?

August 29, 2006

Can you believe I saw Christmas decorations in the store yesterday? It’s not even the end of August for crying out loud! Well, I guess the truth is, we don’t celebrate Labor Day, Holloween or Thanksgiving. So what else is there to look forward to here?

Help Wanted

August 29, 2006

The Sarapiqui Conservation Learning Center is a non-profit organization located near Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui. We are currently looking for a Youth Program Coordinator to run our high school scholarship program.

My Birthday Party

August 27, 2006

Last Saturday the 19th, we celebrated my birthday (which is really August 15) by having a big party at our house. It was a ton of fun, and ranks amongst the top 2 parties I’ve ever had. There were just under fifty people here and the evening was filled with excitement. It started with a surprise showing of Mr. Universe Absolute Fitness 2005 from Spain….

Sex Education

August 18, 2006

As you already know, there is no separation of Church and State in Costa Rica. The Catholic Church has a lot of say in what happens in this country. This is from the level of school children having to pray in school and being surrounded by religious icons and statues to the hand the Church plays in approving what is taught in schools.

Safe for Women

August 15, 2006

I was really pleased to hear that USA Today recently announced Costa Rica as the 3rd safest travel destination for women in the whole world! I can’t say that I’m really surprised. Costa Rica, despite our petty crime problems, is still very safe. We have had probably over 100 guests so far in the last 2 years and not one single person has had any kind of safety issue. Now that’s good news! By the way, Amsterdam and Ireland were numbers one and two, with India and Vietnam just behind Costa Rica. I wonder how far down the US is on that list?

Before and After

August 12, 2006

I know it sure is hard to tell from these before and after photos, but we’ve done a ton of work on the house and it’s looking SO much better. New roof, new windows, window frames, 400 flowers and plants. Click on the photos for a better view. Still a lot more work to go, but little-by-little it’s starting to look like a real home.

Repairs and Insanity

August 11, 2006

As usual, I once again had to suspend my ideas of how things operate in life when I came across the need to get some things repaired. Both with my car and with my lawnmower I was required by the repair shops to go buy my own parts and deliver them to the shop. This meant, of course, an hour drive to drop off the equipment and an hour home on day one. Then several hours on a different day to shop for – and to deliver – the parts. Finally, another couple of hours to pick it up once it was repaired.

In: Costa Rica