Taxis, an Ambassador, and Los Caballos de Calle

(Note: Before getting into my post I want to acknowledge the passing of my wife´s grandmother Solweig Hammond recently. During the time I knew her she exerted a powerfully loving influence within our family and I will greatly miss the woman who many of us knew as Farmor. I offer my sincere condolences to her family and apologize for not being able to be there. My thoughts are with the family.)

Personal Journal Week #5:

I mentioned in my post last week, my camera is off in a Costa Rican taxi doing work for the good Nuestra Senora de Las Angeles (see the post for more specific details). As a result, my post this week might be a bit skimpy on visual details (like photos), but it was interesting none the less. The story of how I lost it involves the US ambassador to Costa Rica who spoke at a Rotary event I was invited to earlier this week.

You see on Thursday all the Rotary scholars at Conversa were invited to attend an event in downtown San Jose. The location for the event was Club Reunion right across from the beautifully ornate federal post office (at this time we were running late so I did not get a picture-which you will never see- until after the lunch). Five scholars (all fascinating folks with interesting bios) and I sat down to enjoy lunch after being warmly welcomed to the event by Thomas Ghormley. He asked each of us to briefly introduce ourselves and I presented the banner from the Grand Junction Rotary to the San Jose group and they presented me with one of their own.

After our introductions and a fabulous lunch, the Chief of Mission from the US Embassy, Peter Brennen (second from the left in this US embassy photo I did not take but you can imagine me somewhere in the country if you would like) discussed many interesting facets of US – Costa Rican relations. I particularly enjoyed listening to the wide range of questions, concerns and comments the audience directed towards him after he finished. Because the Costa Rican Colone is linked to the US dollar, many participants were worried about the deteriorating value of the dollar. Brennen was concerned as well and said the present and future administrations are or will make strengthening the dollar a priority.

Afterwards Brennen met with the scholars and congratulated us on our work. I discussed Obama´s recent comments about having students learn a second language like Spanish. Always the ambassador, he said that the press probably took Obama´s comments out of context and that he to felt that knowing a second or third language was important in today´s geo-political and world economy. I was impressed at his willingness to discuss current and future administrations and I got the sense that both he and many of the participants in the room are looking forward to a future where US attention is not solely focused in other parts of the world. We took some photos (imagine them here) and skid addled. I clicked a few photos none of us would see again. We hopped into the taxi and returned home.

The shock of losing my camera passed quickly as I needed another pronto for Santa Ana´s largest festival of the year. After a quick consult with the spouse in her Queen´s country, I purchased another and arrived at the fiesta de Santa Ana with a new camera in hand. The festival was fantastic and quite a bit like Turrialba except that they ride motorcycles and horses around while launching huge (did I say Huuuuuuuggge?) firecrackers. It was beautiful. Most of the horses are trained to march (similar to Tennessee walking horses. At one time more than 2,000 prancing equines were dancing in the streets ridden by some of the happiest souls I have met so far. About midday our municipality lost water but there were no worries as we have plenty of Imperial (that is the local Costa Rican beer).


¡Pura Vida!


Next week: My Life as a Second Language Learner