Mothers' Day in Costa Rica

Monday, August 15, is Mothers' Day here in Costa Rica. I was aware that the date was different from ours in Canada (the second Sunday in May). It's a big holiday here - Dia de la Madre, Feast of the Assumption-Mothers' Day - and is a national bank, school and business holiday.

We were grocery shopping at the Supermercado Coopeatenas this morning and had much more than 10 items to run through a till. However, the very nice fellow at the 10 or less till waved us over anyway. When he got close to ringing up our purchases, he asked me in Spanish if I understood Spanish, to which I replied "poco" (a bit, ha! and that's an exaggeration), and then I thought he asked if I knew tomorrow was Mothers' Day and I proudly said "Si"!

At that response, another fellow stepped up and handed me a lovely bouquet of flowers - apparently the actual question asked was "are you a mother?" and I said yes. Well, I'm not a mother but I have a mother ... so does that count? At least I was listening to what I was being asked and trying to understand what I was hearing.

Anyway, mother or not, I am so impressed that a grocery store was making this effort to honor the mothers that live in Atenas and area. I don't know how many grocery stores in Canada do this sort of thing. Here is a picture of the bouquet I was given - and the rose smells so nice.