Pura Vida - for Animals, Too

We asked our homestay family in Heredia, Costa Rica if it would be worthwhile to visit the zoo in Alajuela, the next nearest city, on Saturday when school was closed. They looked embarrassed and suggested going for a hike in the Bosque de Hojas, a natural site in a mountain town near Heredia, instead. Our Spanish teacher, who had told us about the zoo in the first place, discouraged us from going there. In fact, none of the Ticos [Costa Ricans] seemed to want to talk about the zoo at all, as though it were some kind of national dirty secret.

Curious about why this was, I consulted our Costa Rican guidebook. The zoo in Alajuela is one of only three in the country as the Costa Ricans have become the first country in the world to outlaw zoos. They have kept three zoos open until all the animals in them die. The ones left in the zoos have either lost their instincts to fend for themselves in the wild or are too dangerous to humans to be released. In fact, all the animals in the Alajuela zoo are rescue animals. This sounded interesting in itself but we opted for Bosque de Hojas instead.

In Samara, we stayed at a beautiful little hotel surrounded by trees and tropical plants. A family of monkeys lived on the roof undisturbed. Iguanas lived in the area surrounding the swimming pool. In Tamarindo, our hotel was home to another family of monkeys. Different types of iguanas lived in the bushes surrounding the hotel.

the monkey family living on the roof of our hotel

Throughout Costa Rica, we saw beautiful species of birds some that we had never seen anywhere else. Who needs a zoo?

It was interesting to see that Costa Rica has been leading the way on many issues concerning the environment. Sixty five percent of their energy is from renewable sources – mostly solar. Twenty seven percent of their land is reserved for preservation of natural ecological sites.

One thing I really liked in Costa Rica is that the deer is a national symbol and its picture is on some of their currency. Anyone caught deer hunting is subjected to steep fines. Then again, it would be difficult to deer hunt in Costa Rica because it’s very difficult for any civilians to obtain guns there. As a result, they have the lowest homicide rate in Latin America. Definitely something to think about as we go forward in our national debate on gun control.

One of our last class exercises epitomized the Costa Rican attitude towards animals. We read a Spanish version of Little Red Riding Hood. Most of the story was the same until we got to the end. When the wolf jumps out of Grandma's closet, Grandma jumps out with a pistol. A guard of the woods enters the room and yells, "Don't kill him, Senora! Wolves are an endangered species. Take him to an animal refuge." (rough translation) Red Riding Hood and Grandma learn their lesson about protecting endangered species and the wolf's life is saved.  

As I laughed at that story's ending, I felt an affection for the Costa Ricans. I wondered if a country’s attitude toward animals and its actions toward them is reflective of its attitudes towards its people? What does it say about the kind of society that it is? It's certainly something to think about. I wish you all the good fortune to be able to visit this remarkable country. See Costa Rica and ponder how you would answer these questions.  Pura Vida!

The Other Side of the Table - Spanish Immersion Classes

After several years tutoring immigrants at the ESL Café, my husband and I got a taste of my own medicine at La Escuela Intercultura www.interculturacostarica.com in Heredia, Costa Rica by taking Spanish immersion classes.

Besides being in class for four hours a day, the school can arrange homestays where students live with a family, eating breakfast and dinner with them. We were thrilled to do the homestay figuring it would be a good opportunity to practice speaking Spanish. For years, I would tell students, “You only speak to me an hour per week. You need to practice more. Watch English speaking TV. Talk to English Speakers. Go on www.mylanguageexchange.com and find a skype partner. The more you practice, the better you’ll get.”

At Intercultura, we had to do just that - in Spanish. Herediais an older colonial era town of about 250,000 people with a large branch of the University of Costa Rica. Since it isn’t a tourist town, the people there don’t practice speaking English very often and seem self-conscious when they do. Almost everyone in the town was very patient with us, conversing with us in our inadequate Spanish.

main plaza in Heredia

While there are many language schools for adults in Costa Rica, La Escuela Intercultura is probably one of the best. We were placed in an intermediate Spanish class with four other students. Our Spanish teacher was excellent constantly changing our activity using every learning method so that the lesson would sink into our older brains. The four hours each day flew by.

In addition to Spanish classes, the school has various cultural activities – tours of Heredia, dance classes, Costa Rican cooking classes. Our favorite was the language exchange. Besides providing Spanish classes, Intercultura provides English classes to the locals. Twice a week we had an opportunity to speak with these students - half an hour in English and half an hour in Spanish. Most of the Costa Rican students were university students and we worried about how interested they’d be in talking to older retired Americans. This worry was totally unfounded. They were very cordial and eager to talk to us, interested in talking to us intent upon hearing everything we had to say about our attitudes on a variety of subjects.

The family we stayed with was very encouraging and spoke to us extensively about Costa Rican life. We arrived at their house on their Election Day. On a walk through their town, they took us to their polling place. The whole town was celebrating as they got out to vote. This was such a contrast to elections in the United States that it was a pleasure to witness. The man of the family was very involved in the campaign. We watched the election returns on TV with him as he talked to us about it throughout the evening. Unfortunately, we only understood about 30% of what he said. This was frustrating to me. I would have loved to have a real discussion with him about the issues facing Costa Rica. By the time we left their house, however, we understood about 60%.

Did we become fluent Spanish speakers? Of course not. Who can become fluent in any language in a couple of weeks? Nevertheless, thanks to Intercultura, we speak Spanish much better than we did before. It was a great experience and I recommend it to anyone who would be able to go there.