I was just on a Facebook page for expats. A meme there asks, “What has been the most unexpected benefit of having moved to Costa Rica?”
The answers were all over the place, and I agreed with all of them.
Natural weight loss.
No junk mail. (Hello, no mail at all yet except for the translation package that Angie Vargas correo’d to Villas Escondidas when I was there!)
My skin, body and hair all look and feel healthier.
And because I’m eating natural, unprocessed foods the vast majority of the time — this is TMI but — my tummy never gets bloated, it doesn’t give me fits, and my bowel habits have become so normal ( as a person with an intestinal bypass since 1977, I had chronic diarrhea for decades ever since as a result of surgically induced malabsorption syndrome) that I feel like witnessing each one that occurs. “HA! Well, look at that! A flippin’ miracle! Pura vida, indeed!”
Up where I am in El Cajon, the weather is sublime. It stays between 65 and 82 degrees all year. (The lower in altitude you go here, the hotter it gets. Grecia, just five miles away but seriously downhill from here, is noticeably hotter. I haven’t had to wear wet hats, scarves or towels here in El Cajon to keep from feeling overheated. I always take cooling reinforcements when I journey downhill!)
The Ticos (natives) are laid back, kind, welcoming, and very helpful. They are patient when you do your best to speak their lingua franca. They correct you in the kindest, sweetest ways.
And when they call you — as Max X Menos did this morning when calling about my order — they will find someone who speaks enough English to translate what they need to convey. As did MediSmart when they called me the other day. MediSmart also sent follow-up information in English to my email address. (Which reminds me: I need to read it today! Plus Melaney’s info about the university that wants dead bodies (the University of Costa Rica) and will be using mine for medical training purposes when I lay it down and they will charge not a single dime to come get it, take it away, and respectfully dispose of whatever is left that they can’t use.)
(Yes, I have to think about that at age 74, too! I don’t want my family or friends having to deal with my corpse!)
These people love their country. And they have every right and reason to! And they love others as themselves. There’s something to be said for living in a Catholic country that welcomes the outcast, the lost, the stranger, the foreigner just as the Bible instructs. Costa Rica isn’t a theocracy by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a MORAL country without being Puritan or prudish about it.
The environment is well protected.
People are courteous.
I could go on and on. And I probably will as the days and weeks pass.
Because I love this amazing, affectionate, life-affirming country!!!!