So there I was, strapped to a gurney in the Quepos hospital. My bata was askew, private parts exposed, and a self-assured man in a green surgical suit was fitting a breathing apparatus over my nose and mouth. “Respire profundo”, he ordered, and I took one, two, three deep breaths. As consciousness slipped away, brutally and rapidly, my last thought was: `This must be what its like to die.´

An hour or so later I was conscious, still alive, in the recovery ward. My gut felt like someone had taken a running start and poked me with the tip of an umbrella. To my left was a kid recovering from an appendectomy; to my right a guy whose recent siring of twins had shocked him into a vasectomy. I was there following an operation to repair an umbilical hernia. We shared a common bond of midsection pain. The three of us communicated by rotating our heads slowly to the left or right and wincing.

Several hours earlier I had lain in the same room, on the same gurney, waiting my turn to be sliced open. There was no reading material, nor television, but one of the attendants had brought in a boombox, which was tuned to a religious station. The songs were actually catchy, almost danceable, but suddenly the programming switched to a manic Tico preacher who ranted on and on and on. Time passed slowly. The preacher continued his out of control raving. I stared at the ceiling, which seemed to be in motion. Weird eye dirt danced like floating amoebas in my line of vision. An unconscious post-op patient was wheeled in and hooked up to a machine that registered his heartbeats with a loud and annoying beeping sound. After a time I noticed it was just me and the unconscious patient, accompanied by the steady beeps and the mad preacher. One comes to a hospital to either get better or die and it occurred to me that maybe I had died, and this was to be my eternal purgatory. Fortunately, an attendant entered the room moments later and wheeled me to surgery.

I had given myself the hernia several months earlier in the Mucho Musculo gym. I was doing a series of kneeling stomach crunches—one kneels facing the weight machine, reaches up and grasps a bar, and then doubles slowly forward as if bowing toward Mecca, making the muscles of the midsection do the work. This is an exercise one should do with caution and lighter weights, but I was stacking 150 pounds or more for my repetitions, because I wanted to prove to my wife that I could drink all the beer I wanted and not develop a gut. That I felt an occasional sharp spasm while doing these did not deter me—no pain, no gain after all. Then one day I was showering and I noticed that my navel, a cavernous “innie”, had now become an “outie”. I didn´t think any more about it—there was no pain or discomfort, but when I showed it to my wife she immediately identified it as a hernia. One of her sisters had gotten a similar hernia in childbirth years earlier and her “innie” too had become an “outie”.

It is possible I could have gone on indefinitely without surgery; I had grown fond of my “outie”. Indeed I found it more attractive than my true belly button, which is large enough inside to house a hummingbird. But there were risks involved with letting it go, and besides, it had become my “enabler”: I couldn´t exercise vigorously, so I indulged in my vices vigorously instead.

Prior to my surgery, I was given a battery of other tests because I am now of the age that requires these preliminaries. My blood pressure, cholesterol levels, EKG, lung x- rays all were deemed excellent. If someone was to ask me to what I owe this good health, my honest answer would be, “Get enough exercise to break a sweat each day, don´t be afraid to laugh out loud , if you´re going to drink, stick mainly to beer, eat pizza at least once a week, and if you must smoke, smoke only the finest greenbud.”

Its now been two days since the surgery and the bloodstained gauze has been removed and replaced and I have accustomed myself to the sight of my cave like navel. If ever I tire of it, I´ll just have to return to the gym and start doing the “Mecca crunches” again.

Every year at about this time, I begin to understand why hair grows inside the nose. On the surface, few things are more unattractive than visible nostril hairs. How many times have you ever heard a woman say, ”I fell for that man as soon as I saw all those adorable strands of hair curling from his nostrils”? Likely never, unless she lived in the part of the world where she could only appear in public wearing a burqa. But here in Costa Rica, as we reach the latter days of the dry season, I appreciate my nose hairs for the function they perform, namely as a filter that keeps dust and dirt out of the nasal passages. When I ride my bicycle in and out of Quepos over several kilometers of unpaved road, I thank that little follicle forest within each nostril that enables me to breathe with confidence (confidence that I won´t end up in the emergency room with an oxygen mask strapped to my face). Dust is a daily reality at this time of year, and after 15 years of living here, I have come to accept its inevitability; like death and potholes, it will always be with us.
Lately I have done some research on dust, as I have been toying with the idea of pitching a tourism campaign to ICT (the Costa Rican tourism institute), based on the impressive volumes of dust generated every year during the waning days before rainy season arrives. I googled ”benefits of dust” and found only a little useful information; likely I could have googled ”benefits of sexually transmitted diseases” and received more responses. When I sprung this idea on various acquaintances I was generally met with laughter and skepticism; not even when I began reciting my idea for a commercial (”Costa Rica. You may know us for our beaches. You may know us for our rain forests. You may know us for our mountains. You may know us for our coffee. Now come know us for our dust.) was I taken seriously. And if you are reading this right now, you might be thinking, ”Is this guy some kind of mental outpatient?”
I know this idea may sound ridiculous, but I remember a day back in 1990, a few months before my arrival in Costa Rica. I was tending bar at the (aptly named) Rogues Gallery, on the island of St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands. Many regulars were gathered, drinking, watching Headline News on the TV. There was a feature story about an emerging new fad in the United States– body piercing. The piece concluded by showing the various ways in which one might choose to slightly mutilate one´s self, concluding with a shot of a quivering, extended tongue, freshly spiked. In all my years of tending bar, I don’t recall ever hearing an explosion of laughter like I heard at that moment. Reactions of disbelief and derision followed. ”Why would anybody want to get a hole poked in their tongue?” was the question of the rest of the day.
And yet– if I had a dollar right now for every person who has had their tongue pierced, I might well be on the Forbes 1000 richest list. So laugh, ridicule, deride the idea; just don’t be surprised if one day a few years down the road you see an ad which begins, ”Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Costa Rica in March and April is a wonderland of fine, world class sediment, filling the air, encouraging the newcomer to view the world through a dusty prism, seeing the world as if through the gauzy eyes of a newborn. Once you´ve seen a spectacular dust particled sunset, you will never be able to look at a regular sunset again.”
And remember– you read it here first.
]]> http://www.quepolandia.com/crazy-from-the-heat/dust-to-dust/feed/ 0 http://www.quepolandia.com/crazy-from-the-heat/the-true-national-religion/ http://www.quepolandia.com/crazy-from-the-heat/the-true-national-religion/#comments Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:46:17 +0000 Paul http://www.quepolandia.com/?p=1037 by Matt Casseday

One day last week, I had to pay visits to three different government offices. I spent a lot of the day seated, waiting and waiting for my number to be called. Each office was similar: A casher seated behind a plexiglas window; an armed guard seemingly ill-prepared should he – God help us all –  ever have to actually use his gun; a number of sober-faced Ticos behind desks; and a much larger number of patient citizens awaiting their numbers to be called. I had forgotten to bring something I had recently purchased to avoid long waits: My own roll of numbers just like the ones you pull off from the dispenser in order to receive attention. Mine were the real thing, courtesy of the ´´Take-A-Tab´´ company. The trick is to wait until they call a ´dead´ number, that is, a number no one responds to. Then quickly and surreptitiously leaf through your Take-A-Tabs until you get the number you need. Much time can be saved employing this method; all you need is your own personal roll of numbers, but I had forgotten mine.

In each office there was something about the surroundings—the solemnity, the sobriety, the reverential silence of all those waiting—that reminded me of church. Which is fitting. I have always been of the belief that Bureaucracy—and not Catholicism—should be considered the true official religion of Costa Rica. Every year more and more Costa Ricans leave the Catholic Church to become Evangelical or Pentecostal Christians or just abandon religion altogether and all is accepted. The teachings of the Catholic Church are debated and argued and sometimes questioned and there is little public outcry. But woe to the politician or economist who expresses the opinion that the public sector could easily be downsized considerably, that too much money is already thrown that direction on salaries, pensions and sick leave—the Bureaucracy and its participants and defenders will take to the streets in outrage that anyone could dare utter such blasphemies! And woe to anyone who voices such opinions to a random gathering of Costa Ricans: Chances are you will be directing your opinion toward someone who is employed in the public sector or who has a close relative collecting the bureaucratic paycheck. Forget the old axiom about politics and religion; in Costa Rica, if you want to stay safely on the good side of Ticos, avoid any pointed discussion of the bureaucracy.

At the third and final office I visited, my number was called quickly. I took my seat but before I could get a word out, the young woman on the other side of the desk asked me to wait while she caught up on some unfinshed business. Before her was a stack of papers equal in thickness to the Greater Los Angeles telephone book. In her right hand she wielded a stamper. Page by page she proceded, stamping each with a practiced precision. Although the stack was thick, she made great time—at one point I counted her doing 28 pages in 10 seconds. After only about 10 minutes, she finished her stamping. I started to speak but she held up her hand to indicate that she hadn´t yet finished. She put down her stamper and picked up one of those little gadgets used to cleanly remove staples. The papers had come in stapled sections; now, for whatever reason, she had to pluck each staple cleanly. This she did with great stealth and agility. Soon she had one unstapled stack before her. But before she could pass the papers on, she saw something on the top page that needed correcting. She produced a pen that, when squeezed, produced white correcting fluid. She whited something out, and then took the stack of papers to someone seated behind a partition. I had just witnessed the holy trinity of the bureaucrat—the stamper, the staple remover and the correction fluid pen—all put to use in a brief period of time, and I knew better than to show restlessness or impatience when she returned.

Every year, every adult living in Costa Rica sacrifices a few days or more in accumulated hours inside the offices of the Costa Rican Bureaucracy. It is not worth complaining about. It is simply the price one pays for living here. Consider those lost hours time spent worshiping at the altar of the True National Religion.

(Read the review by Jim Parisi of Matt’s book, Crazy From the Heat)

Writing humor is a cruel, nasty and thankless endeavor more times than not. Trust me because I have tried. Telling a humorous story in person to a group of people is completely different because the speaker can control the pace, the cadence, the intonation and eventually, the punch line. Writing these same words onto a page, handing it to a complete stranger, walking away and allowing the writing to convey humor on its own takes a leap of faith and a unique storytelling talent for the humorist to succeed. And Matt Casseday has pulled it off.

Sr. Casseday is a fifty-something ex-pat who has been calling Costa Rica home for more than two decades. He has been living in the Quepos area for about half that time and writing columns for Quepolandia, the local monthly magazine there, for more than five years. He recently culled through his collection of articles, selecting fifty-four of them to compile into a publication of his own, titled Crazy From the Heat. I think the operative word in that title is the first one, and I mean that in a good way. Matt takes a wry look at the trials and tribulations of living within another culture, specifically, being a “gringo in Ticolandia”, as he calls it. Sr. Casseday has lived and worked in a few different locales as well as owned a car and a business in Costa Rica, is married with a Costa Rican woman, and in short, has easily garnered enough material for his book with first-hand experience.

I’ve lived in Costa Rica for nearly eight years now and I could recognize myself and relate to many of the situations he describes in his stories. At times I found myself literally laughing out loud at some of Matt’s stories. His use of tongue-in-cheek and dry observational humor hooked me in more than once or twice. Certainly, not all the stories tickled my funny bone to the same degree. Humor is an individual taste. But I really enjoyed his piece titled “Gringos in Paradise” which describes four classic ex-pat caricatures. Despite the disclaimer, I swore I had really met each of these exaggerated personalities. I also laughed heartily at his article about the lack of political correctness embraced by the local gentry.

Matt Casseday could certainly never be labeled discriminatory; to the contrary, he appears to be more than willing to take a jab at everyone and anyone in this country (including himself) with equal verve. And it is this quality that for me lends to his credibility. The popular knock on satiric literature is that it lampoons the folly of existing situations without offering any viable solutions. I beg to differ. I think Matt has demonstrated a perfectly logical way to navigate contentedly through an illogical and at times frustrating scenario: with humor, and yes, compassion, the all-purpose salves to soothe your emotional wounds. Hey, maybe this gringo isn’t so crazy after all!

Crazy From the Heat is available at the Jaime Peligro book shops in Quepos, Playa Tamarindo and Tilaran.

When last seen, my old friend Dedson was leaving the area in a battered Range Rover, bound for a ‘tour’ of Latin America. This was years back and the ‘tour’ he had planned revolved around the dented left rear hubcap that he swore bore an image of the Virgin Mary when the angle and lighting was right. “People will pay good money to see an apparition of the Virgin Mary on a dented hubcap,” he assured me. “Especially humble God-fearing Latinos always on the lookout for the latest Our Lady of Fatima.”

I had studied the hubcap at length, from all angles and at various hours of the day, straight and sober, unstraight and unsober, but the alleged vision never materialized. There was one occasion when I caught a fleeting glimpse of an image that strikingly resembled Moe of the Three Stooges, but it turned out I was staring at the hubcap of a different Range Rover. I wrote off my friend as another hopeless expat lunatic, brains fried from too many hours in the equatorial sun. My last sighting of Dedson was of him behind the wheel of the Virgin Mary Express, heading north on the highway toward San Jose, plumes of dark diesel smoke streaming from the tailpipe.

Fast forward to last month. After years away, Dedson reappeared on the scene. When I asked him how his ‘tour’ had gone, all he said was that it had lasted as far as the San Jose area, where within an hour of his arrival the sacred hubcap had disappeared, along with the rest of his car, when he left it parked with the engine running while he went in search of prospective hubcap believers. But that was all in the distant past. Dedson was a man of the present. He wanted to talk of his new interest, which was the website known as You Tube. He asked me if I was familiar with it. I confessed to having blown many an evening watching videos ranging from the professional to the homemade. “That website is a gold mine, you know,” he told me. I wasn’t so sure. If anything, You Tube seemed to be the validation of Andy Warhol’s long ago pronouncement that in the future everybody would be famous for 15 minutes. Ephemeral fame was the norm. Anyone could post a video about anything there, regardless of content, meaning or quality. It was more like a huge internet video flea market than a gold mine. Dedson assured me that there was money to be made once a viewing base was built up. He invited me to come visit him in the following week to show me first hand how his idea would become golden reality.

The next week, I spotted Dedson riding a tricked out mountain bike down the main street of Quepos. On his head was an elaborate helmet that had been adapted to mount a video camera. As he passed I heard him talking into an unseen microphone. “I am now approaching the mercado central and bus station of Quepos,” he intoned. I walked quickly toward the bus station where I watched from a distance as Dedson attempted to interview locals. He had removed the helmetcam from his head and was aiming it at himself as he spoke. Then he rotated it and pointed it toward the people milling about. People stared or laughed or moved quickly away any time Dedson approached. Eventually he got back on his bike and rode away, helmetcam securely on his head.

A few days later I caught up with Dedson at his cabina at the edge of the jungle. He paced the floor and spoke of You Tube hits and the limitlessness of cyberspace and the endless stream of money that would surely be flowing his way once his videos began circulating. “I’m calling it Costa Rica Bikecam,” he said. “I’ve already got it trademarked.” He invited me to see some of his videos. For the next hour I strained to keep an interested look on my face as I watched a series of shaky, blurry, nausea-inducing mini cam shots, overlaid with Dedson’s incomprehensible monologue. It was like watching The Blair Witch Project minus the fright. There were shots taken in town, on the beach, in the palm fields. The lighting and sound quality varied wildly from shot to shot and Dedson had an annoying habit of trying to instantly translate every word spoken by his various Tico subjects. He shouted over them, mistranslated words and phrases, and generally came across as a bilingual illiterate, if there is such a thing. Dedson finally, mercifully switched it off and looked at me expectantly. “One word,” he urged, “Give me your best one word summary of what you just watched.” A lot of words came quickly to mind: Unwatchable. Incomprehensible. Lousy. Sucks. Really. Bad. I racked my brain for something positive to say. “One word wouldn’t do it justice,” I said.

At that moment I was thinking of the time my son, then in junior high school in the US, informed me that he and some friends had formed a rock band. When I asked him what songs they did he told me they couldn’y yet play any songs, but they had a really good name for the band.

“Trademark,” I finally said. “Costa Rica Bikecam. Great name. Good thing you got that trademarked.”

(This is a reprint of one of Matt’s personal favorites courtesy of ill timed ICE work to improve our lives during deadline)

I am currently doing research for a book I hope to publish called “Myths and Legends of Costa Rica”.  The following is an excerpt:

The Honest Alcalde -  There was once an Alcalde (Mayor) who became suspicious that many of his associates and underlings seemed to be living way beyond what their salaries could provide.  His own secret investigation revealed massive municipal fraud and diversion of funds intended to benefit all the citizens of his town.  The outraged Alcalde immediately sacked the corrupt municipal employees and pressed criminal charges.  The town later became famous throughout Costa Rica for its’ clean, paved, well-lit thoroughfares, excellent municipal service and overall beauty.

The Ethical Gringo Investor – A successful Gringo businessman retired early and came to Costa Rica, living comfortably off of the interest from various investments.  One day, another retired Gringo told him about a group of Costa Ricans known as “The Family”. Amazing, this group paid investors almost 50% annually.  Soon the Gringo businessman met with a “Family” rep to discuss the possibilities of investing with them.  However, certain things about the “Family” troubled him.  None had any training or education in the world of economics. They were extremely secretive about how they could pay such high returns. Something stunk afoot. The Gringo businessman returned to his village and decided it was better to earn less from his legitimate investments than to reap a small fortune on a possibly unethical enterprise.

“Rico Suave” with a Conscience – A handsome young Tico, blessed with seductive eyes, a bedazzling smile, and great dancing ability, bedded Gringas by the score. He lived for each new conquest and prided himself on never dating the same Gringa for more than a fortnight.  One year, a young Gringa returned with a six month old baby in her arms.  While he barely remembered the Gringa, he had to acknowledge the baby was his. And from that moment, the handsome young Tico abandoned the carefree nightlife, began working two jobs and swore that every colon need for the upbringing of the baby would come out of his pocket.

The Saintly Gringo Tourist – A middle-aged Gringo came to Costa Rica with a group of male friends for a week of R&R. The first night they went to a famous bar in downtown San Jose. Immediately, the Gringo found himself surrounded by beautiful young women, offering him their bodies for a price. While his friends went off one by one with escorts, he could only think of his wife back home. Besides, these girls looked so young – how could they have fallen into this kind of trap?  Knowing they needed the money, the Gringo spent the rest of the evening passing out hundred dollar bills to all the working girls, asking only that the money be spent on their children and their mothers back home.

The Humble Monopoly – For reasons unknown, the Costa Rican constitution, written in the 1940’s, contained a clause that assured the telecommunications industry would always be a state-run monopoly. With the passage of time and advancement in technology, it became clear that the state was unable to keep up with the demands and expectations of new market forces. Cellular service was spotty, internet service erratic, and in outlying areas even a home telephone line was impossible to obtain.  Seeing this, the state run monopoly admitted its failure to satisfy the needs of the people and voluntarily rescinded the constitutional clause, inviting outside competition – and improved overnight the telecommunications service in Costa Rica.

The Generous Developer - A Gringo real-estate developer made a killing over the years selling high-end properties to other Gringos. But in the midst of his great prosperity, there was also much hardship. The nearby town where he shopped was much troubled by poverty and idleness. Eyeing the village from his mountaintop mansion, he decided it was time to give back to the area from which he had made so much. From that moment forward, profits he made from his business were donated to the town – earmarked for upgrading education, improving medical and providing job training for the idle poor of the area.

The Ecological Campesino – In rural Costa Rica there lived a farmer who was unhappy with the customs of his brethren. The earth he worked had its limits. The shortcuts commonly used were detrimental to the long-term survival of the soil. Therefore, he swore to never use pesticide, herbicides nor to practice any form of slash-and-burn agriculture. Never again would he cut down a tree unnecessarily, nor allow his livestock to overgraze the land. In these ways, future generations would be assured the continuance of rich, productive farmlands.

The Gringo Drug-Free Zone – A small beach town in Costa Rica over the years became a magnet for Gringos of all ages. Seeing this, an enterprising young man set up shop to sell illicit recreational drugs.  Outraged, the Gringo population banded together and informed the vendor that his wares were not needed, used, nor welcome in their town. And thus it came to pass that the salesman was forced to pack up his shop and go elsewhere.

Walking the streets of Quepos on a hot and hectic Friday afternoon, two voices fight for space in my head. One is the voice whose philosophy is simply ‘Live and let live’. It is the voice that brought me here almost twenty years ago, the voice of tolerance and tranquility, a voice best personified by a man lounging in a hammock, eyes slightly glazed after a short smoke and a long drink, beatific smile painting his face as he stares out at a panoramic Costa Rican vista.

The other voice demands attention every time I see someone double parked blocking traffic, or aggressively and arrogantly turning a one way street into a two way street, or most definitely when I see that emaciated little guy wearing the second hand traffic cop vest in the street in front of the bus station and the Super Mas supermarket, blowing his whistle and acting like he is directing traffic, unhindered by the local police. This other voice is not charitable or tolerant or even remotely me, yet it occasionally boils up unexpectedly, like Volcan Arenal, emitting gas and noxious smoke, and almost but not quite erupting and sending the passersby running for cover.

If I had a name for this unwanted inner voice it would be Wilhelm or Josef, or–what the hell– Adolph, but I don’t have a name for it, though if I had to call it something I would  call it my inner fascist. It is a voice that screams for control and discipline, and has a cut and dried solution for all of those little tics and nuisances that accompany life in Costa Rica. VE MUST HAF ORDER! is this voice’s mantra, and I freely admit that I have no freaking idea where this voice originates, for I am Scotch-Irish, West Virginia-born and raised, and a nationalized citizen of Costa Rica. Seriously, one look at my bloodlines and places of residence and the truth is self-evident: Mine is the background of a slacker and a partier, a drinker and a rambler, a comic and a babbler, and most definitely not one worried about regulating traffic flow or creating ample sidewalk space or making sure every citizen is a productive and contributing member of society. Yet this voice hovers within and demands solutions to the woes inflicting Quepos: If only we had police, many more police, well-trained police, walking the streets to write tickets every time a pirate taxi impedes traffic or an unmarked camion parks on a corner blocking cars from turning, if only we could set up a tent city in the campo and take all those homeless crackheads and drifters and grifters and fence them in, if only we had more jail space, if only we could exert some control, if only we could legally break the hands of the thieves and break the balls of the locos, if only if only VE HAD ORDER!

What can I say? It’s not easy living with an inner fascist, yet I would bet there are many out there who harbor there own version of my Wilhelm/Josef/what-the-hell Adolph. All I can do is let that weird, disjointed voice run its course, before inviting that first voice, that voice of tranquility and reason to emerge. Pssst, hey Wilhelm or Josef or whatever I should call you, my first voice whispers. Nice boots. Do you polish them daily? And that uniform. Spotless. Not a wrinkle to be seen. I don’t know what you’re doing here, but I do have a little advice for you. If you don’t like the way we do things here in Costa Rica, maybe you should check out some place like Singapore or China or Saudi Arabia. I understand they have a lot of order and control and do things more to your liking in those parts.

Then I retire for a short smoke and a long drink and stare smiling through heavy-lidded eyes at some majestic mountain or ocean view, and repeat that worn yet welcome phrase on the lips of so many Costa Ricans……..Pura Vida.

On the other side of the globe suicide bombers are blowing themselves up more than ever, and although it may sound politically incorrect, even appalling, I must admit I typically feel a bit of sympathy for these desperate young men. I can not imagine what it must be like growing up in that part of the world, living an existence so cloistered, so bleak, so futureless, that the notion of blowing ones self up to kill other people because you have been promised 72 virgins in the afterlife seems a good option. Any time I read or hear about yet another of these acts of terror committed by relatively innocent kids, I consider what, in a perfect world, could be done to dissuade them.

If I could travel safely to that region, and somehow gather every prospective suicide bomber for a talk, I have a presentation in mind that would go along the following lines: “Greetings muchachos. Allah akbar. To all of you I first must ask, why do you consider the idea of 72 virgins to be enticing? I mean, really—OH MY GAWWDDD!—do you have any idea what you would be getting into?  Seventy-two virgins? That sounds more like a prescription for afterlife insanity. Wouldn’t say, three or four really experienced women bring more eternal fun? I know, I know, you have been taught that these women are somehow unclean, damaged goods. But I can’t help but observe that the teacher delivering this message of uncleanliness is so often some demented-looking guy with a ratty, hummus-encrusted beard hanging down to his musty crotch.  Please, put those Korans aside for a moment, banish the thought of self-flagellation from your minds and stop worrying so much about the afterlife. Instead, ask yourselves why you want to continue propagating a lifestyle that seems to have been heavily influenced by Spanky and Alfalfa’s He-Man Women Haters Club. No offense, but I think one of the problems you guys have is the absolute denial of the natural attraction between the sexes. Instead of embracing it, you blame the poor females in your culture for stirring up feelings of excitement. You make them cover themselves up as much as possible.”

Here is where Costa Rica comes into the picture; it would be my ace in the hole to change the perception of these young men. Because Costa Rica is the antidote for the repression inherent in the Islamic world. I would point out to all the young potential human bombs the following: “I understand the frustration you feel. You live in a place where the norms dictate that your women go about as covered up as possible in public. You consider that normal. But wouldn’t you really much rather be in a place like Costa Rica where the young women uncover themselves in public as much as is legally allowed? Of course you would. The acceptance of this perfectly natural male desire to see the female form liberated would likewise be the first step in your liberation.”

Admittedly, my task would not be an easy one. The following is a true excerpt from an article about beauty pageants in the Middle East:

There are few (beauty pageants) in the largely conservative Arab world. The most dazzling is in Lebanon, the region’s most liberal country, where contestants appear on TV in one-piece swimsuits and glamorous evening gowns and answer questions that test their confidence and general knowledge. There are no such displays in ultra-strict Saudi Arabia, where until Miss Beautiful Morals was inaugurated last year, the only pageants were for goats, sheep, camels and other animals, aimed at encouraging livestock breeding.

I can not imagine, do not even want to think about what life must be like where a young man is chastised for thinking about young women……and must be satisfied with instead admiring the fine form and graceful lines of ….livestock. (Joke: A man survives a shipwreck and finds himself on an island inhabited only by other men, all the survivors of other shipwrecks. He soon learns that if he wants to stay on this island he must pass the initiation, which consists of carnally knowing one of the thousands of sheep that graze on the island, while everyone else watches from a bluff above where the sheep gather. On the appointed day, he enters the field, finally manages to stick it in one of the sheep, and to his surprise, anger and humiliation, all the men gathered burst into hysterical laughter. The man withdraws and angrily shouts out, “I thought this was what I was supposed to do!” The island leader responds, “It is what you are supposed to do. We are all laughing because you picked the ugliest sheep.”)

So listen up Aziz, Abbas, Ibrahim and Mahmoud; heed my call Farouk, Shareef, Hassan and Fawzi. The outside world will forgive you, indeed welcome you if you put aside all this ‘72 virgins if I blow myself up’ nonsense and come enjoy all the bountiful goods Costa Rica has to offer. Rise from your prayer rugs, ignore your weird and hairy mentors and use that money that is supposed to go to your family after you turn yourself into a human guided missile on a one-way ticket here. I promise you, after the life you have lived, you will indeed swear you have found paradise.

Back in the 90s I lived in the southern Costa Rican city of San Isidro del General. I owned a car, but my preferred mode of transportation was the bicycle. I rode almost every day and one of my favorite training runs was to the top of El Alto, the highest peak between San Isidro and Playa Dominical. The climb was over a thousand feet in a distance of less than ten miles. I did it as much for the exhilarating high-speed ride back down the mountain as for the exercise. The last couple of kilometers before beginning the ascent wound through a neighborhood called El Hoyon. I would psych myself while passing through, preparing for the torturous climb. It was here, in a spot along the road that overlooked a warehouse of some kind, that I began encountering a man who hid himself in the high grass on the embankment above the warehouse. When I passed he would often be there, lurking, visible only from the waist up. He would shout something to get me to look, and when I glanced over while passing he would make odd, slurping sounds, sometimes saying, “ooo, que rico”, always those words. Though I couldn’t tell for sure in the couple seconds of view, he often appeared to be playing with himself.

One morning, I must have been riding a bit slower than usual, and he emerged from the brush and crossed the street in front of me, grinning at me as I approached. He plainly grabbed at his crotch as I passed, made the slurping sounds and said “ooo que rico.” I rode on without responding. In my teens and early twenties I had hitchhiked over thousands of miles of highways and had certainly had my share of weird experiences and strange advances, so there was nothing startling or scary about his actions. Besides, I was twice his size physically; he was a bedraggled looking guy in his 30s, dressed in jeans, dank work shirt and cheap black rubber boots. I felt sorry for him. He was clearly poor and likely simple in the head.

I kept an eye out for him any time I rode by. Sometimes he was there, more often not, but any time he saw me as I rode by, he would shout to get my attention and I would glance over as I sped by, catching a glimpse of his leering face. He would usually be a few feet down the embankment, so that his head was only a couple feet above the edge of the road, framed by the wild uncut grass. I sometimes wondered where he lived, if he had family in the area, but as time passed, I noticed him less and less.

One morning as I pedaled through El Hoyon, I watched from the distance as he emerged from the bush and said something to a passing group of school aged children. The children quickly crossed the street to get away from him. As I passed he was stepping back down into his area and did not see me. I rode a hundred yards past, filled my left hand and pocket with several small rocks that I scooped up from the broken road side, and rode back slowly toward him. When he saw me he began his routine, but I stopped, dismounted from my bike and began firing rocks in his direction. I was only about ten feet away from him and though obscured, he was still an easy target. When he realized what was happening, he shouted something, a command, and suddenly three dogs tore from the bush and ran at me, barking. I fired a few more of the rocks in their direction, jumped on my bike and sprinted back toward San Isidro, growling dogs nipping at my heels.

Shortly thereafter, I moved to Quepos, and I never saw the guy again. I return to San Isidro from time to time, but El Hoyon has undergone a lot of development in the past ten years and the place where he once lurked is now the entrance to a large, open depository of some kind. Alas, the pervert is no more—but the memory of him lingers, like the residue of a bad dream.