People come to Costa Rica from all over the world because they are optimistic. They arrive with big, bright ideas. They have heard that Costa Rica is green and peaceful and progressive. Everyone knows someone who has visited on a vacation and returned with nothing but praise for the beauty of the forests and oceans and the friendliness of the people.

But there is another side to Costa Rica.

As a long-time resident commented to me the other day, “If any government says its economy is good right now, they’re lying.” The economy of Costa Rica relies on tourism—specifically, eco-tourism—-for much of its GNP. So why doesn’t the government do something to clean up the garbage and the crime in the Caribbean?

And as another long-time resident commented, that same day, “The government has money. It spends nearly nothing on infrastructure. We still have one-lane bridges. There is no army. The minimum wage is still around $2/hour, yet food prices are outrageous. Where is the money going?”

Take, for example, the problem of garbage removal.

The municipal garbage pick-up for the beach villages of Puerto Viejo is chronically late. Local residents have attempted to remove unsightly piles of trash lining beach roads, but if the municipal truck does not come every Monday—as municipal workers claim it does—-nothing will change. Individual residents spend their own funds to build pretty trash bins, or plant flowers to discourage dumping. Businesses pay their taxes and provide their own trash receptacles. But unless the municipal government does its share—-sending the truck to haul away the garbage, every week—the problem will not go away.

Unsightly mountains of garbage are a common sight during peak tourist season. Has it occurred to the powers that be that mountains of smelly garbage—every week—could send tourists packing? Why is it not possible for local government to find a solution to this problem when Costa Ricans believe that todo es possible?

Back in July of 2012, vacation property managers took a day off from work to remove the unsightly trash receptacle that had become a public dumping sight on the driveway of a cluster of high-end homes in Cocles. They spent their own time and money buying materials to plant a garden in the hopes that people would stop tossing their trash. But out-of-touch rules about whose trash gets picked up, when, and where, force people to continue depositing their trash along the road. 

Monday was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a holiday in the United States. But it was not a holiday in Costa Rica. So, why did the garbage truck not come, again?

“Why is it Wednesday, again, and the trash is still here?”

Once, I stopped to ask the garbage men who slave over their daunting task, just to make sure I had the facts straight: What day does the garbage truck come to take away the trash?” 

One of them cautiously answered my question. “On Monday,” he said. But it was Wednesday, I replied. “There is only one truck, and it comes from Limon. The truck breaks down a lot.” Was this an excuse or an explanation?

Is the garbage pick-up problem a matter of government spending? Is there not enough money to buy a new truck, or to make sure the truck is always running properly? Or, is someone just not telling the regional government that the truck is not able to perform proper services to the community?

That same day, I saw a private truck picking up trash at a hotel. Perhaps this was another independent attempt at solving a municipal problem.

Here are the required two eyewitnesses who can testify to the fact that the municipal garbage truck came on Wednesday, not Monday. But eyewitnesses are not enough. Roger Cameron, long-time manager of Tex Mex in Puerto Viejo, will soon be free of the weekly concern about piles of garbage blocking the entrance to his business; the historic landmark is changing ownership.

The situation bothered me. So, on Monday morning, January 28^th, I took the bus to the municipal building in Bribri, a mountain village far removed from the populous beach villages with the garbage problem. I politely asked the receptionist in the municipal office to tell me which day the trash was scheduled for pick-up in Playa Chiquita. She replied matter-of-factly that the trash is picked up on Mondays. I said that this has not been the case. She explained that, due to the holidays, there have been some delays, but soon the schedule will return to normal. The holidays? The holidays are the times when trash pick-up should be doubled, because these are the weeks of peak tourist season.

When trash is piled up along the roads during peak tourist season, tourists suffer as well from this disconnect between the municipality and daily life. The law says that residents are to put their trash out only on Monday mornings, even if the truck does not come until Wednesday. The people who have the authority to resolve this problem just transfer the blame with excuses, such as: the trash is there because people put it out too early, or too late, or don’t pay their taxes. But if residents obey the law, officials should stop making excuses and instead accept their own responsibility by providing services.

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Today is Monday, May 20^th.

The problem is worse, not better, since January 28^th, the day I went to the municipal building to speak in person with someone about the garbage problem. I had wanted to give the local government the benefit of the doubt, so I held onto this article. But now, months later, the garbage truck does not come sometimes for weeks. It is time for people to know what is happening here in the Caribe Sur.

Residents are concerned that disease will begin to spread. The smell of the garbage is overwhelming. Recent rains are washing loose trash into a nearby stream.

This morning a property manager called the Bribri office, again, to ask why the garbage from Cocles to Punta Uva has not been picked up. She was told the last time she called that the pick-up day had been changed to Wednesdays. But the truck had not come for two weeks now. The office worker informed her that now the garbage truck would come on Tuesdays. But does that mean tomorrow, or next week?

The local handyman came by this morning to take our trash to the garbage receptacle on the street, the one that has grown into a two-week mountain. I was surprised. “Oh, is the truck coming today?”

He responded, “It is supposed to come on Mondays.”

Apparently he has not been informed of the schedule change.

“But it hasn’t been coming. Maybe we should leave our trash here, just in case.”

His wise reply: “It is the responsibility of the municipality to bring the truck when it says it will.”

Maybe I should also ask him this: “Why is the garbage problem worse, not better, since the Margarita Road project drew public attention almost a year ago, in July 2012?”

If the Costa Rican government has plans to bring development to the Caribe Sur, shouldn’t people be asking some questions?  “Can we begin by picking up the trash?”

What, exactly, is possible, here? Maybe we can begin with just one thing.

Last week we had two days of really hard rain here in the Caribe Sur. Big puddles and ponds sprung up overnight. The frogs began to sing again. Our gravel lane was a creek; I had to wear my boots to wade through the flowing water to the road where I caught the bus to Limon on Monday. It was raining so hard that the bus wheels were spraying out water everywhere along the road. The rivers were swollen with the rain.

And on Wednesday, a delivery truck arrived unannounced from San Jose with a package for Evi. The driver said something about the rain preventing travel; that was why he did not arrive the day before. So, rainy season is upon us.

But in the Caribbean, the rain is more civilized. It does not rain every day; there is only the potential of a daily shower. In fact, although the sky was overcast all day today, it did not rain—and the sunset was glorious. In the Caribbean, July and November are the big rain months. The weather is a constant variety of sunny days interspersed with evening showers and some really rainy days. But it does not rain at 2 p.m. each and every day, as it does in the central valley.

Costa Ricans must have 100 words for rain, because, even though rainy season lasts for more than half of the year, the rain is different every day in kind and number. I believe that rain is a national characteristic of the Costa Rican people. They complain about it like New Yorkers complain about the traffic. But when it rains, they still say, “Que rico!” How wonderful. They talk about spending the weekend curled up in bed because of the rain. Que rico. But there does come a point in rainy season, toward the end, where the people are no longer smiling. They’re cursing inwardly, saying, Geez, when is rainy season going to be over, already?

That’s when all their shoes are soaked and stinking—remember, there is no junk mail to stuff wet shoes with, or heaters to put wet shoes on top of. And all the clothes are damp and smell of mildew, because there are no clothes dryers to dry wet clothes with.

How do people dry wet shoes here? This is why everyone wears synthetic leather sandals. I once asked a colleague what she did about the puddles. She pointed to her feet and said that everyone wore sandals so the water would flow through them.

Before coming to Costa Rica, I prepared myself by reading what I thought was a lot of information, enough to prepare me for living here. The information said that the rainy season in the central valley was from around May through November. But somehow this information did not register with me. Perhaps it was because I had no conception of what rainy season signified, or how big the central valley was. The central valley? No, that does not pertain to me.

The first week I was in Heredia, which is in the central valley, it was sunny in the mornings and there was usually a shower in the afternoons. I thought this was great weather, just like the summer weather in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. So one day I asked a new neighbor if she wanted to go with me to visit one of the nearby volcanoes sometime in the next week. She replied that no, rainy season was coming, so we should wait until it was over. But that would be how many months? Why would she let a little rain stop her? Because she knew what was coming, that’s why.

When I was a new teacher, my students would ask me to tell them about my country, especially about the four seasons. I would then ask them what their seasons were. Did they have autumn? I drew blank stares when I mentioned autumn.

Then one student spoke up for the class: We have two seasons: wet and dry. Everyone nodded.

But how can you have only two seasons? I asked.

Did I know how long the rainy season was in Costa Rica? They responded.

 No. Apparently not. The books said there are five to seven months of rainy season, but I soon learned otherwise. There seems to be no end to it. One day when rainy season was supposed to be over and it wasn’t, I asked a friend to tell me, tell me the truth. How many months does rainy season last? She thought a minute and answered, “Seven months. No; eight. No…nine.” In Heredia, the dry months are January, February and March. It starts raining again right after Semana Santa, which is usually in early April.  After I had been in Costa Rica for a rainy season, my students would ask me which I liked better, snow or rainy season? Tell us the truth, now.

One day when rainy season was supposed to be over, I did not have any dry shoes left. All I had left were plastic flip flops. I think I posted a photo on FaceBook of all of my wet shoes stuffed with old copies of La Teja sitting out on the driveway to get a few hours of sun. And a friend responded, “Me too!”

At the end of my first November in the central valley, I arrived home from a long bus commute to two language school classes. I was completely soaked and thoroughly demoralized for the last time. I just could not take one more day of this daily soaking. I emailed my boss and told him I couldn’t do any more afternoon walks along the highway in the rain. And then, just like that, the sun came out and it stopped raining. Rainy season was over. The sun came out and the wind began to blow, and it did not rain at all for three months. And then I began to look forward to rainy season, just like everyone else does.

Here is a little saying:

In Costa Rica, there are only two stations: the train station and the rain station.

(station=estacion, season)

This morning I am trying to resume the plan to write a memoir about living in Costa Rica. But living here in Playa Chiquita mesmerizes me. I read that Annie Dillard spent years living in the woods, gathering material for her book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. She chose to write the final draft in an ugly room in Pittsburgh, PA, a room with no windows and no captivating view. She advised writers to do the same.

I now understand her advice.

I arise early in the mornings to write, but instead of writing, I find myself just gazing. Gazing and listening. In the near trees I watch the movements of every kind of bird, watching closely to see if I can match the colors and shapes with the songs they make. Are they flycatchers, or nuthatches? Then I see flower petals and pollen drift down from the upper branches of trees I don’t know the names of. Soon, there will be fruit.

In a distant forest giant, I see a movement—it’s a toucan, trumpeting with his huge, rainbow-colored beak, up and down, up and down—then I hear the answering call of his mate. I watch until he flies off to join her in another tree, its branches dotted with holes where the green parrots make their nests. I am entertained by the animations of the toucans as they search for eggs; can’t help thinking of the Fruit Loops commercials I watched as a kid. How odd that my first introduction to these tropical wonders was a picture on a cereal box. After a few minutes of fruitless search, the pair flies off to some other business.

Then my attention is diverted to the unearthly growling of a troupe of howler monkeys. The sound echoes through the trees, but the small, timid monkeys could be close by. If I look, I could probably see them moving through the branches as they eat their breakfast of leaves.

But it’s time now for me to work.

But then Maria comes for the weekly house cleaning ritual, so I make us some coffee and cut slices of fresh papaya to share. As we breakfast, I tell her how much I am enjoying the peace of this place. I am still recovering from the constant noise of the school, the constant shouting of all those kids, all day, every day.

Maria tells me that her place is even more peaceful than Playa Chiquita. She doesn’t have the buhos (owls) at night or the neighbors in the daytime: the neighbors all go off to work in the mornings and don’t return until evening.

But here in Playa Chiquita, neighbors are always around, working on their houses or chatting with each other, discussing news or asking for advice; or just at home, as I am—all of us are either retired or work at something here—-living our lives. We live and work here.

There is always some construction project going on: a new house in the jungle (not necessarily ideal), or some reclamation from the jungle. If you have a home, you must constantly do battle with the jungle in order to keep it.

Local gardeners walk up and down the gravel lane with machetes they use for chopping the hedges or cutting banana stalks and pipa (green coconuts) for the residents.

There is the family from Panama that lives next door to the woman who was born here, who still lives on her land and rents out cabinas for a living; next door to her is the new house with a pool that some tourist will buy for $500,000.

There are tourist rental homes with visitors coming and going, retired couples who lived here before the road was built, and families whose children ride their bikes to the local school. There are people from Spain, Canada, Italy, Germany, Austria, the United States, Jamaica, Nicaragua, and Panama. The woman who sells bread is from Norway. In the next neighborhood are an Israeli restaurant and a Columbian bakery, and their families live side by side. 

It is no wonder I never find the time for writing. Just as I go to my room to begin, Maria announces the arrival of a construction worker neighbor who stops by to borrow a tool. I come out and offer him a drink of water. Then, the local guy—originally from Italy, they say—-comes to haul away the weekly garbage, with Evi’s wheelbarrow. He sits down and I offer him a drink of water. “I don’t want water,” he says in his slurred Spanish, then grins. “Do you have juice? Beer? Whiskey?” I hand him a glass of milk.

The American tourists who are staying in the rental house across the hedge come looking for Evi to ask advice on which tour they should take today, and we end up exchanging contact information.

All day it is like this. At some point Evi returns from her morning of property management, and Joel comes home from school. And everyone peers curiously at me each time I emerge from my room, probably wondering what I am doing inside. (I am trying to avoid distractions!)

All too soon, the day is over, and I am still listening. At dusk, there is the song of the buho. “My friend. There is my friend in the night,” says Nelson, who knows the tree where the owl lives.

All night I hear the varied songs of the owls. Then, before dawn the growling of the monkeys resumes as they are aroused from sleep by the changing light. The chickens begin their “shouting,” Evi’s trilingual translation of the Spanish word, gritando. Then the toucans and parrots start their business. Finally, the people are awake and going about their work, and I try once again to resume mine.

“Is it always so noisy?” friends have asked, when we are interrupted by some bird or monkey sound during a Skype chat.

Noise? This is not noise. This is life.

If you want noise, visit the school where I taught English. Constant bells announce the hours for classes to begin and end; for recess, for lunch. Constant screaming of children, either at gym, recess, or some assembly, not to mention the noise inside the classroom. In the town, too, is constant noise: cars, buses, motorcycles, trucks, busy people and machines. Electronic music is noise.

This morning I do not even want to listen to music. I just want to listen to the jungle. I am in danger now of never writing the book. I may just sit here all day, listening (in between interruptions).

I am behaving in the curious manner of people who live in the Caribbean.

The first time I came here, I remember looking out of my bus window and seeing the people standing motionless in their open doorways or sitting, trancelike, on their porches. It seemed to me that they were bored, or perhaps listless with some malady. I actually felt pity for them. Well, I no longer feel pity for them, because now I have the same malady.  It’s not laziness or lethargy, but tranquility that makes us behave this way. It’s the pura vida.

It’s been more than a month since my last blog post.

I have been too busy settling into a new chapter of my life, sharing an ocean-side apartment with two other teachers from the USA and teaching at a bilingual school in Limon. I like living in Limon so far. It’s a real community. We live in what everyone still remembers as a former dance club that was closed due to too much fighting among the women. Although that reputation is a thing of the past, the place is still referred to by its name. Because there are no street addresses in Costa RIca, living in a famous landmark has its advantages.