The Happiness of Costa Ricans

Saturdays usually mean to me "tour-day", since it's the only day I can run around and do my errands. Saturdays like today are "busy-end" tour-days, since it's the Saturday when I gara do the most errands (an average of 3 banks and two ATMs in 3 to 4 hours, plus the post office, and now that I remember, phone paying (haven't done that yet)). Today's errands included two banks to pay credit cards, two ATMs to get the money to pay the credit cards, and a bank to get a replacement for an expired card. However, in order to retrieve the card I had to go to the capital city, which meant to take a bus and go over there, and that added at least two hours to my regular routine.

Since I fell asleep yesterday at 20:30 - 21:00, today I woke up at 6:17. Did my bed, started Nagi, picked my clothes and then sat down to talk with Kari on the Skype. I totally, totally love him. Oh, and he looks so handsome when he goes to the office! Hair well kept, nice sweater... I'm one lucky lady ^_~. We couldn't talk much since he had work to do, and I had my errands to run.

I must say I'm a really-really lucky and happy person. When I was starting my trip, I found a small coin in a sewer but I didn't picked it up because it was under the water and I wasn't gonna touch it and get some strange sickness from it. However right before the first ATM I found another coin and this one I picked it up. I have this personal believe that if you don't pick up the little coins on the street, you don't deserve the big money. Besides it's a symbol: if you don't appreciate small things and cherish them, how could you appreciate the big ones?

Regardless of the fact that I had so many places to go and so much stuff to take care of, I felt happy and cheerful the entire day. Didn't mind going to the capital city, didn't mind the little traffic jam knots here and there. People all over the place, everywhere I went was friendly and seemed really happy.

These are mixed days for many Costa Ricans as those who work (and have the luck of still having this) get paid a thirteenth month wage, called "aguinaldo". The idea is to get people more money for gifts and vacations, as usually in these days people take the family to some place to vacation. This is the good side, but the bad side comes soon after, as thugs and thiefs get more agressive these days pulling their tricks, often kidnapping people or robbing them at gun point. Workplaces and advertisements try to protect people giving them advises about how to make sure they can keep their money and their safety.

Inspite of this, people on the street were chirp. Among street sellers, I saw three old teens dressed rather darkish hold up signs that said "HUGS FOR FREE", which put a smile in my face. I've got free, honest, sweet smiles from strangers as I walked down the crowded boulevard as I went for craft materials for my handmade Christmas cards (have a nice and simple concept I'd like to develop! I'm being totally inspired by my friends Julie and the things you can see in her We've Got Paper blog, and Patricia and her My Sunshine Pictures), a Red Cross man selling bingo cards from the Red Cross car (something the Red Cross here is forced to do to get funds) smiled like a Dad at me when I asked for directions and was so helpful and nice he really made me feel cared for, loved and at home. People like him really make Costa Rica the best place in the world.

Yes, there's corruption and crime is reaching new heights, and yet the Costa Ricans, and people here in general pick up the tiny coin in the street and smile at it. People here, unlike elsewhere, do seek the small joys of life, find time with friends and family to throw a party, or go drinking, get a coffee, laugh a little, forget about politics and jobs and issues and concentrate on bitching about football soccer. Everywhere, even in the middle of the greatest poverty, people find a moment to smile and be happy. Lay back and enjoy the present, the things before their eyes, the jokes, the sun, the company.

Among the things I saw today, I saw one thing poetically beautiful. It happened in one of the worse parts of town, there were not even idiots or angels were venture. Drug worn whores and their pimps, thugs and thiefs, crackheads and illegal immigrant workers crawl around there. Long lines to enter run down "cuarterías", which are stinky buildings where workers can rent a bed or a cardboard on the floor to crash for the night, wait for someone willing to take them on a poorly payed, overly exploiting job. A place where a 14-hour $100 per month job at a sweatshop is a marvelous dream come true. The bus I take from San José to Heredia, the Alajuela bus goes through there, and so, from the aparent safety of the bus, high up there with my cards paid, my craft shopping done, my lunch at Wendy's finished, I saw the usual like of immigrant, poor workers lined up against a wall, as if waiting for some sort of opportunity, any opportunity. All of them were sitting on cardboard box pieces, many of them sleeping. And there, among the sad, tired faces, one was somewhat happier, content by being busy with oranges he was pulling from a bag and gathering them at his feet and chatting with a mate. There, next to the orange piler one, a particularly tired and dirty looking one, dressed all in worn black, got the head of a white lily-like flower. His face lit up and his fingers twirled the flower slowly between his fingers.

I was marveled there. This pure white flower, so simple, in the hands of this man, so dirty and dressed in black was the essence fo something so greater than him, than us. The contrast between the man and the flower was a methaphore to the contrast between that pure, honest, uncorrupted happiness in his face and the sad, dangerous surroundings. I was late to take out my phone and take the picture, but I was deeply touched. Here he was, in the middle of his possible misery smiling, enjoying by his own the beauty of this flower. He didn't discard it as something unmanly or dead or stupid, or something he can't keep or make into money, drugs, food or shelter. He simply closed himself around the flower, cutting the surroundings and let himself be happy. Foreigner or not, he and that huge happiness reflected in his face reminded me of Costa Ricans: we can be deep in shit and yet, we can find that white flower and smile and love and be happy.