Presidential sighting, family visita, fiesta, oh f#$""&k what's next?

I’ve done a lot of cool things in my life and met a lot of really influential people but I am debating right now if I have just met the most famous person in my life up to this point. His name would be Oscar Arias and he would be the current President of Costa Rica. He is on his second term as being President, but he might be better known for winning the Nobel Peace Prize by helping resolve the Central American wars in the 80’s and 90’s. Unfortunately the majority of people are not in accordance with some of his decisions as President and has converted himself into a President of George W Bush stature. The people here say he used to be a good person, but now he is old and all that interests him is money. For instance the congress had rejected a mining project because it would involve destroying a rainforest in order to get the minerals out. He reversed the decision and the people protested all over Costa Rica and the project is back in the courts right now. Also he has been in favor of a Free Trade Agreement which the people are strongly against because it will raise the costs of cell phones, health insurance and other things that are currently controlled by the government and are cheap. So we’ll see, in the end probably a bittersweet photo but nonetheless pretty cool to be that close to a President.

The only reason I was able to see him was because Habitat had an infamous project of about 60 houses that we finished about three months ago but have had problems finding families to live in them (see journal entries from Aug/Sept). Due to the earthquake and 500 homes being destroyed the government made a deal with Habitat and the victims to allow families to move into these new homes and do the paperwork later. So last Saturday they had the inauguration for the 25 families that decided to move to this new area, about two hours from earthquake zone. They had a nice brief ceremony, the President spoke for a bit, went and saw a house, took off and then we had lunch and came back in the afternoon. I’m really glad Habitat is on the ball with this stuff and really helping these families out. This should be a good year for Habitat as there is now a definite demand for houses and the government is going to be helping fund a lot of homes to get people back on their feet.

My project is going well so far. We have had two work groups come and help us from the US and Canada and we have two more coming this week to help us start the fourth house of our five house project. Things have gone pretty well so far and I have noticed a lot of differences in how projects operate here in Costa Rica in comparison to the US. Probably the biggest difference is how nobody really risks any money. Habitat won’t give the constructor any money until the bank gives them money and the constructor won’t do anything until Habitat gives him the money because the risk is big and he doesn’t have the capital to fund the project for a week. It is also interesting to note that the constructor gets 40% of the contract value upon signing the contract: a pretty big for Habitat I would say. Fortunately we are working with a very well known constructor who is true to his word.

I probably had the best Costa Rica week of my life when my parents and brother came to visit me. Mom, Dad and Bro all shoveled dirt for a few days and really enjoyed their time there. After that I took them on a tour to meet all my old families and friends from when I lived in San Carlos. It was really a good time meeting all the families, and even though the language barrier was tough at times hospitality always had a universal translation. Now that I have them hooked on Costa Rica I just have to get my sis back on board which I will have that opportunity when she comes to visit in March.

Besides work and family visits I was able to go to arguably the biggest party in Costa Rica. It happens every year for two weeks in Palmares, a town about 2 miles from San Ramón. It is pretty impressive, they have carnival rides and games, a bull riding ring, all the typical food stands and a ton of bars that they set up under tents and charged $10-$15 to get in. Also they had free concerts on Sundays. I went the first weekend and saw Pee Wee from the Kumbia Kings. He was ok (might be a young Justin Timberlake of Latin America), I however enjoyed the cover bands more because they played a variety of Latin music. I also went another night when they had carnaval. Carnaval in Costa Rica is when they have a huge parade down main street and have a bunch of marching bands playing carnaval music and a bunch of exotic belly dancers. It was kind of my preview for the carnavales in Panama, which start in about a week.

Arguably having the best time of my life and I feel like my life might end when I go back to the US in May. Right now I am in the stage of planning my what’s next part of my life. I used to be able to forget about it and just enjoy the fact that I was here and not worry about the economy and jobs and all that. Now that is starting to get to me so maybe because of that I feel like I have been diagnosed with a life-threatening disease and have only been given two and a half months to live. I know that I’ll never say good bye to Costa Rica just that I’ll probably need to take a time out to devise my next plan to get to Costa Rica for the long term. So for now I’m looking forward to my last tourist visa renewal trip to Panama for three days (where they celebrate carnaval like no other) and my sister's visit in March and before I know it, I will have used up my last 80 days in Costa Rica.