Category: Costa Rica

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The Future We Choose

Cristiana Figueres
Cristiana Figueres

We have just entered the most consequential decade in human history. The scientific assessment of climate change suggests this can either be our final hour, or our finest. The Future We Choose is an inspiring manifesto from Global Optimism Co-Founders, Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac. It explains what’s to come, how to face it and what we can do.

Practical, optimistic and empowering, this is a book for every generation that shows us how we can move beyond the climate crisis into a thriving future.

Christiana Figueres is a Costa Rican citizen and was the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change from 2010-2016. Ms. Figueres has been credited with forging a new brand of collaborative diplomacy.

One of the best things you do with your “down time” due to COVID19 is to read this book and participate in saving the earth before it is too late! Celebrate Earth Day 22 April 2020!  FIND THE BOOK HERE or simply do a search in your favorite online book source or ask for it in your favorite physical bookstore.

My friends in the U.S. especially need to read this due to the “rollbacks” of policy or the backward movement on climate change the current president and Republican Party have brought the last few years. It is not too late, but if we don’t start doing something now it soon will be too late! And how you vote does make a difference!

Go Green!

VOTE Blue!

¡Pura Vida!

 

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Foggy Horizon

“The fog is a chest, a magical chest! What wonders are hidden in it, the only way to see them is to dive into the fog!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

Photo of foggy horizon from my house in Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica, April 2020.

¡Pura Vida!

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Costa Rica COVID19 Slowing?

We began this week yesterday with positive information on the spread of COVID19 in Costa Rica showing no significant increase with a total of about 600! Read multiple articles at  https://ticotimes.net/  or for the specific articles I think interesting, click the titles below. I think it particularly interesting how the traffic is kept down by limiting CR AIR STRIP 2ad11d24-cd45-47e7-9a56-cd76cfaf76b4which days you can drive your car based on the last digit of your license tag. And police are giving tickets for those who “cheat” on what really means a restriction from driving on just two days a week! Not bad! But us walkers can walk on any day!   🙂

Costa Rica begins new week without significant jump in COVID-19 cases

Costa Rica installs air base on border with Nicaragua to reinforce coronavirus surveillance

Costa Rica announces health measures and vehicular restrictions to continue all month

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Your car has to be off the streets at least 2 days a week!

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”
― Albert Einstein

 

¡Pura Vida!

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Hope is the thing with feathers

Hope is the thing with feathers 

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.


~Emily Dickinson – 1830-1886

¡Pura Vida!

Featured photo is a Red-legged Honeycreeper I photographed at Maquenque Lodge in Boca Tapada, Costa Rica where I hope to be again in July if re-opened.   🙂    See more in my Red-legged Honeycreeper Gallery or also my bigger BIRDS Photo Gallery for many more birds. Pura vida!

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From Bandanna to Homemade Mask

A week ago I showed you how I looked like a cowboy bank robber in my bandanna which I’ve been wearing when out in the public for “necessities” like groceries, etc. Well, an enterprising local Tica seamstress, whom I’ve used for other purposes, is now making masks according to an online medically-approved pattern and a bunch of us in Roca Verde got some at only mil quinientos colones each or about $2.60 each in dollars. Washable and with a choice of several colors and fabric designs!   🙂   Those white medical masks are simply not available here.

Costa Ricans are a “can do” people and this local seamstress rose to the occasion! I hope it will help her little local business. And you may ask, “Why are you going to so much trouble when Costa Rica has only 500 cases of COVID19 and only 2 cases in Atenas?” Well, duh? It is because we as a country and a town are taking all the medically recommended precautions and have basically “shut down” everything that we are not ravaged by the pandemic like the U.S and we did it early. The government here is helping the businesses and tourism hurt by this and in another couple of months (hopefully) we just might be back to “normal” without thousands of people dead like in some other countries.

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

~Benjamin Franklin

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¡Pura Vida!

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Thankful I Live in Costa Rica

Costa Rica Coronavirus Updates from TICO TIMES online English newspaper:

AND

The following opinion article was copied from the Live in Costa Rica Blog:  (Stats not as up-to-date as Tico Times articles above, but expresses much of my sentiment.)

Day by day, I am thankful for living in an underdeveloped country like Costa Rica.

  • Where after one week since the outbreak of the first case of coronavirus already the schools mechanical engineering and physics at the University of Costa Rica have prototypes of ventilators they produced;
  • where the Clodorito Picado Institute, thanks to many years of development and production of antidotes for venomous snake bites, is now conducting experimental trials with plasma from patients who have already recovered;
  • where the National Institute of Apprenticeships INA (a type of trade school) is using its facilities to make robes, sheets, towels, and other hospital supplies;
  • where in a matter of days one hospital has been retrofitted with cutting edge technology in order to increase the number of hospital beds;
  • where a Costa Rican woman, living in Germany, invented an APP to make paperwork easier, so that senior citizens can get help from the comfort of their homes;
  • where the Costa Rican government (CCSS) chartered a plane to bring medical supplies all the way from China.
  • where only two patients have died from this epidemic in the whole country;
  • where nobody is denied medical care, even foreigners and tourists;
  • where supermarkets make their products available for the most needy like senior citizens with special schedules;
  • where health care workers, and law enforcement have sacrificed their vacations to help; and where our farmers work incessantly to fill the shelves of our grocery stories and cupboards demonstrating that indeed we are self-sufficient.

We produce milk, rice, meat, vegetables, beans, fruit, cereal and everything else we need. Basic services are accessible to everyone.

We even send medicine to the most needy by mail. Even without an army, our police force maintains order. Even in the most remote corners of our country small medical clinics (EBAIS) and schools can be found to serve the population.

Today a number of infected people in the US, Spain, Italy, for example, cannot afford to purchase a test to see if they test positive for coronavirus.

Today I ask myself , Really, how UNDERDEVELOPED is our country versus those who say they are developed? Today I feel proud of my country and its people.. ? ??   ~Christopher Howard

 

Retired in Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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“There’s No Place Like Home”

Or almost no place better for birds than my home in the Roca Verde Neighborhood of Atenas, Costa Rica. My long-time intentions to do a photo book of birds photographed at home just got fulfilled!

Roca Birds Book
For preview, click image or address below:

Check out the free preview of this book of 80 photos of more than 40 species of birds found in my garden and neighborhood. Plus this book is bigger than my travel series books, a full 8 x 10 inches, making it acceptable as a “Coffee Table Book.”   🙂    The hardcover edition is printed on a higher quality of lustre photo paper, though the paperback edition is nice on standard paper. Enjoy!   🙂

 

https://www.blurb.com/b/10034408-roca-verde-birds

 

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.

~John Muir

¡Pura Vida!

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Moving furniture

When you are forced to stay home I guess it is normal to change things in your house as well as to play on the computer!   🙂

For the 5 years I’ve been in this house I’ve always had my breakfast table at the left or NW corner of my terrace (best mountains vista) and the two rockers at the other end, nearer the driveway, SE corner. Since I’ve gone to sitting in the refinished rockers a little more now, I decided to move them to the left with a better view of the mountains beyond Atenas. Next I will ask my gardener to replace that old-looking plant in the frog pot. Of course I’m old-looking too, but don’t replace me just yet!   🙂

Rearranged Porch or Terrace

 

 

You will notice on the photos title I used “porch” which is what I grew up calling it in south Arkansas, while later, by my Tennessee days, I called it a “deck” and now here in Costa Rica it is called a “terrace” or la terraza en español, maybe because most floors are made of tile here? And I evolve with my surroundings!   🙂

Coming eyeball to eyeball with a hummingbird on my terrace is as exciting to me as any celebrity I’ve met . . .

~Lesley Nicol

¡Pura Vida!

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Widening our bridge

One of the things that drives perfectionist Americans crazy about Costa Rica is the multitude of one-lane bridges all over the country even in the cities! Look no further than right outside the main gate to Roca Verde Housing Development! Our entrance gate is on Avenida 8, better known by the little bario (neighborhood) there as Calle Boquerón. Just outside our gate going towards central Atenas you cross the little rainy season stream that goes by the cow pasture in front of my house. And of course on a one-lane bridge! Don’t know why or who influenced it, but the city of Atenas is widening that little bridge.

The concrete tubing for water flow has already been extended and fill dirt and rocks added around it and as I photographed Monday they were pouring concrete for maybe a base to something or a wall? These two school kids out of school for Coronavirus will probably soon be joining the city construction team as they sit here and learn how easy it is to build a bridge over a concrete pipe.   🙂

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Walking from town, the bridge is just before Roca Verde gate on the right.  Note also on the right the pedestrian sidewalk & bridge built by volunteers a few years ago.

 

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School’s out and these two boys are learning how a bridge is built here over a big pipe!

 

“If Rome had been built in a day we would have used the same contractor.”

¡Pura Vida!

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Sports Park Roofs

I have been reporting on the very slow progress the city of Atenas is making on the renovation of our Central Park, but have not mentioned they are working a little faster on an improvement of two areas of the Sports Park in front of Escuela Central (the elementary school). They are installing roofs over the child-sized football (soccer) field AND over the adult-sized basketball court. I guess these shields from both sun and rain will help both sports to be used more by both school and the community at large.

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The child-sized football field is getting posts for its roof!

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The beams that will hold up the roof over football field.

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In the opposite corner of park behind graffiti-clad skateboard ramp is basketball court.

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The super-structure is up for roof over basketball court.

 

“Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play.”    -Mike Singletary

¡Pura Vida!