Last month, Manrique wrote a comment on a post and I loved getting it. Write more, Manrique! So valuable to hear perceptions from his side of the fence:
Hi Saratica!
First please excuse my english if I don’t write it perfectly (I read it more than I write it). I am a Tico (34 years old, live in Heredia, work in Santa Ana, (1 hr drive each day for 20 km) and has recently been fascinated by all the expats blogs and travelogues. There is really an "underground" expat culture going on of which most ticos are unaware and it is quite interesting! Not only I like to know what "extranjeros" think of Costa Rica (good things and bad) but also I like to wonder about the changes my country has gone through in the last couple of decades, many of which I am still not sure if they are good or bad. I want to share with you my point of view on many of the things you have mentioned. Also, I work for a US company and travel a lot to the US (which I like) so I want to provide my perspective (some benchmarking) on both countries:
Driving in CR: oh god, this is really like being inside a video game (and walking across a street is just like playing Frogger). I remember my first time going around a roundabout. I was scared to death! However after a couple of weeks things seemed so natural. Ticos just don’t notice there are no signs for places and its just natural for us just to stop and ask someone. I have noticed many of the signs are actually misleading. On the contrary I find driving in the US a pleasure (except Boston). Signs everywhere, just drive and go (I love exit numbers). However, I am always scared to death of "doing wrong". I don’t know why but I feel I will end up in jail if I don’t yield correctly. At least if you violate a street sign in CR (and are lucky not to crash) the most you will get is some honking and cursing and it just seems normal. I once merged too slow in the US and got "the finger" and I felt really bad the rest of the day!
Customer Service: this is awful in CR (maybe its because we don’t have a real tipping culture). Slow service, long lines, lots of redundancy, "I don’t care" or "that is not my job" attitude. Yes, its the way it has always been ( I found the same on a trip to Spain so ummm maybe its in the genes!). Sure we are used to it but younger generations are not as tolerant and I start to feel some positive changes. We actually need your help on this. Although you may come to expect it, always let the person know when service was bad! Little by little we will change things. On my trips to the US I have always seen big smiles and "how can I help you" most of the time and its so refreshing (seem a little fake sometimes but hey I will take it). This does not apply at US airports (oh my god what is going on there, do they smack all employees each morning?).
Family: CR is a family oriented country. As it is so small, no need to leave home for college (my brother lived with my parents up to when he was 35 years old, my mom at this point was ready to kick him out, thank goodness he got married!). I find that in the US people are more community oriented and this community can be friends, neighbors, members of a class, group, volunteering, etc. Usually brothers, sisters, aunts/uncles, live farther apart. In CR community most of the time means family as in brother/sisters, uncles, etc. It is sad but I don’t really know my neighbors.
Beaches: CR beaches have gone a transformation. I remember going to Jaco and Tamarindo with my parents, almost no buildings in sight, CR run sodas and hotels, no traffic and deserted beaches. Imagine we used to drive our cars ACROSS THE RIVERS in order to get from Jaco to Manuel Antonio (I remember a few times after crossing the rivers we had to open my dad cars’ doors to let the water run out (it was an adventure getting to MA!). There were only 2 or 3 hotels in MA. I am talking circa 1987 here! Nowadays its sad but its more difficult for us ticos to enjoy our natural beauties. Most tourists that come to CR get to see more natural wonders in a week than any tico will see in 10 years and many in a lifetime. Where paying $15 (and all charges were in colones) a night was the average 15 years ago in Manuel Antonio, Tamarindo etc, now its nearly impossible to do. Last time I spent more than 2 night in a beach was 5 years ago and have only been once to Arenal and Puerto Viejo. Sad, but I guess this is the price we need to pay to cash in the tourist buck.
Malls : Oh yes malls! What we ticos used to do 10 years ago on weekends I have no idea! I really hate going to the mall on weekends (I prefer to go at lunch hour to Multiplaza when I actually need to buy something). Metropolitan ticos seem to love this gift from US pop culture. Now if only we could imitate your excellent water parks!
Prices: Costa Rica used to be extremely inexpensive for the average gringo. Not so anymore although I still tend to believe that "what is expensive in CR is inexpensive in the US and vice versa". Real Estate prices have skyrocketed. Probably you wont believe me but 20 years ago you could build a real MANSION with $100,000. Curiously enough, it has never been so easy for middle class ticos to buy a home (which is not the same as "afford"). Colon interest rates are at a historic low (down to 12% from 21% a year ago). I believe this is not sustainable and might cause a lot of trouble down the road as many people who can afford a $40,000 homes are buying $75,000 homes.
TLC [CAFTA]: Free trade agreement with the US? I have no idea if this is something good in the end and I am sure no one in the country really knows (who has time to go over those thousands of pages). People will vote on this based on gut or passion. However, I do believe that if it does not get approved we will be in trouble just because most other countries have already embraced it. Just keep my cell phone bill as it is!!!!
Wrap up: the US and Costa Rica have many many things in common (I’m talking about actual real people, not governments) and also many many differences. I think this is what make us attract to each other so much. The magic will end when CR becomes so similar to the US.
Congratulations on your wondeful blog! I hope you are with us for a long time!
Thank you, Manrique. Me, too!
Comment to Manrique –
I just loved reading your perspective. Wish YOU would consider having your own blog (the other point of view us Gringos rarely see). Thanks Sally for posting his comment so it wouldn’t be missed by us readers.
Fabulous Manrique!! I agree w/ Teri.
I don’t read blog comments usually (unless they are on my blog. lol) and would have missed this. Thanks for posting it. It’s always interesting to hear the other side, and I’m always interested in how non-natives see the US. Gives us a fresh perspective I think on the good, the bad, and the ugly.
And, yes, WHAT is with the airport employees??
Count me in for the petition to get Manrique blogging.
Salut!
forwarding the petition now!!! there are tico blogs out there, but in Spanish mostly and I can’t read them. if I could entice him to contribute here once in a while, that would be excellent.
That was quite an interesting comment. Its nice to see a Tico’s perspective on extanjeros. Although my wife and I are from the US, I am actually an immigrant to the US. I guess that’s makes me a second degree extranjero. My country of origin is so much like the Tico’s that I feel very much at home, I see all the good and the bad and to some degree understand the reason’s behind them. I’ve lived half my life there and the other half in the US, because of this I have to say I’ve gotten so used to the life in the US that in a lot of ways I’m a bit spoiled. Here are some of my comments:
Driving: its not really that bad here. I’ve had to endure 2 hour commutes to drive several kms. When I was in California, my commute was over an hour for just a 22 mile drive and it was much worse before the dot com bust. I’ve read so many horror stories about driving here and it just is an overreaction of driver’s spoiled by five land freeways. To make you feel better, think of the Thais who have such bad traffic in Bangkok that vendors sell portable peepee devices.
Customer Service: This is a tough one. I’ll cite an example to make a point. I bought several pieces of wood to use as a window lock. I approached the guy in the lumber section, then he measured and went to the guy at the desk to write up a receipt, which I took to the cashier to pay and then give back to the lumber guy to give me my wood.. whew! This goes back to labor is cheap and products and materials are expensive. This is the same where I originally came from where you have people checking everything twice or three times to make sure nothing is stolen. Its not that they are slow, its just that the system is designed to slow down the process…
I hope your comment on friends and family is not entirely true, because if it is, then that would really be sad. I wonder though that maybe this is a city thing? Whenever I drive outside the city, I see so many people outside their house chatting, sitting around and being neighborly??
Its late and I just got back driving more than 3 hours from La Virgen back here in gringolandia. I’ll add to the comments later.
Hi anon, thank you for your comments. I’m not so bothered by driving here either after doing it for a year. I couldn’t drive here the first three months, but you are right: we have forgotten what traffic is like in the US. It’s a little different here, a little more every man for himself, but after being nannied by the US, I appreciate that.
Good point about the customer service! I couldn’t quite figure out why there were so many steps to getting something done, but you explained it beautifully.
I don’t really know my neighbors either yet, but was thinking that surely I would. We live behind big fences for the most part, though, and don’t really see each other. I love driving thru the country and seeing the people out walking, chatting, the parks are filled with people hanging out together. As technology worms its way to the outposts, though, that will happen less and less, I think. The global community is an online community and ALL the young people want to see what that’s about!
Looking forward to more, A…
Another tico. To all of the expats in Costa Rica, please don’t ever leave us!!!.
I was born in a very small town close of Esparza, When I
was still a child, I remeber that my mom and I used to walk miles on a naked feet following the trails of the cows and jumping from side to side of the road we finally arrive to the doctor for him just to say that i had sime worms from drinking milk.
The time passed and I went to the U.S back in 1990’s, were i lived in Fort Lauderdale for almost 12 years, yes is difficult to handle it, yes it’s., to be in a country where evrything is new to you and all you do is compare the world that you are now and the last world you were, you always will find out that there are so many differents as for example the foods, the landguage,their religions belives, the way the families behave and so many other ways of living.
I did it, yes I worked as an iligal in the U.S and I got to be legal too thru marriege and had two amzing children with an American woman, but all I had to do was to be one more U.S number and even when I lived close of the beach in there I never had the time to enjoy it, never enjoy a birthday and i never understood why the American celebrate “thanks Giving” and “Hallowin” and ” 4th of july, ect, because all they do is complain about not having enougth of this and enougth of that. Don’t get me wrong, I still thing that florida is my world and I belong to there.
Back in Costa Rica, the place that i was born I think that it did change a lot, more drugs making a precense and more new generatios has change, to the point that I see more metal fences than when I was in here 15 years ago. But what it really hurts me the most is to see a lack of hope in a people that in the past I notice a trust from them towards the Americans, what the U.S goverment did bad to this people or beter I say what the U.S goverment did not give to them, that made them
so mad with Americans in here, to the point that I hear from this expats complaining about they getting attacked and robed and murdered… It does hurt me that in Costa Rica, we the Ticos are treating those that come over here to help us with the every day surviving and giving us hopes for our children generations.., I love Americas and I mean it, it does’n matter if they are Blak or White, if they came from Ireland, Germany or Israel, I do., not because they have American Dollars or Because they are from the U.S, but the only reazon that they are and always been here helping us.
I’m a Costa Rican and I feel like an U.S citizen because I admired them sience i was a child and I met the expresident John F. Kenedy and remember that my father told me that Americans were here to help us and that John was our best freind.
More comments: CAFTA – with or without this, I don’t think it would make much of a difference. How can there really be free trade when the US gov’t gives subsidies for certain products (sugar, grain, etc.)? That is that absolute contradiction towards free trade, which basically wants the market to dictate the prices. Bottomline, CR imports so much more than export that I just don’t see much effect this Free Trade Agreement can bring – except swamp central america with US products.
One very critical event that might have a MUCH bigger consequence is CR’s breaking off diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Not much talk about this, but that is a huge event that will have repurcussions in the near future.
Prices: one word – inflation. Here’s more of a personal view, not much substanciated by facts – don’t care to research on this. Everyone knows that the US went on a devaluation path since 2001. Why, to limit the effect of the recession of 2000 maybe or to ensure that the economy won’t be in the septic during ’04’s election – who knows the real reason but we know what has happened to the dollar. Basically money (the dollar) has gotten so cheap that it almost looks like the banks are giving it away to anyone who can sign their name. This has made commodities appreciate (commodities are basically the basic materials to build any products – plastic, concrete, steel, rubber, oil,etc.). Now to say that americans have made house prices appreciate is only half true. Construction costs has skyrocket too and this has helped increase prices – not just those dumb gringo’s paying an arm and a leg for four walls and a roof. So if we’re just going to talk about houses, there’s two ways to value a house: a) compare house cost to rental income, b) look at house construction costs – compare asking price and cost to replicate the house.
Expats and Economy: There’s a board with the village idiot on it basically slamming expats for draining CR’s resources such as medical/education. My take: what a load of fresh cow backside produce. Expats are definitely giving more to the economy (other side effects such as moral degredation, social changes, etc are a different topic). Extranjeros bring very precious currencies into this economy plain and simple.
Maybe I’ll comment more later. Wifey’s waiting…
Hola Valentino, thank you for sharing your perspective, too! The influx of gringos has helped a lot, here, I think. We spend our money, lots of people create jobs, the economy over all has improved. The government pays attention to some things like the roads, perhaps more to placate the gringos which helps everyone. We volunteer and teach English.
But there is a price: there is resentment for any tico who does not feel that their lot in life has improved. Gringos are seen as rich which makes them a target for ladrones… there is a price to be paid. It does look like we are here to stay, though – we love your country! Hopefully, the positives will outweigh the negatives!
Thank you, anon. My take, my very cynical take, is that the more the US wants CAFTA, the less benefits there are to Costa Rica. I have heard NOTHING that makes this sound like a good idea for anyone but the US. Sadly, Arias seems determined…
To break off ties with Taiwan to kiss China’s ass is very disturbing. China is a scary place. I don’t like that at all, simply from a bleeding heart point of view. I know nothing about the politics of it except that is definitely has to do with money. The king of everything.
Your take on the money is… on the money. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) Huge topic, one I barely understand. But I’ve heard enough from my husband to know all the glitters is not gold. Far from it.
Housing values: exactly! You have to use either rental income or construction costs to value homes… That’s how appraisers do it, along with comparable sales. Those three figures kept each other in line. But over the last 3-5 years, prices went soaring so far out of control (due to the availability of dollars to anyone with a pulse), appraisers in the keys STOPPED USING income approach and replacement costs to figure into value. Otherwise nothing would close. Looking at the market today, with all the foreclosures and bankruptcies, maybe that would have been a good thing…