Think It Might Rain?

This is what the sky above our house looked like this afternoon - very dramatic clouds billowing and churning. Sure enough, the rain started just before 2:00 pm - normal for this time of year.

 

 

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Feliz Dia de Niño

Today, September 9th, The Day of the Child is celebrated in Costa Rica. This celebration was initiated on July 12, 1946.

This holiday is for children and teenagers and there will be parties and gifts for them at their homes and schools. It's an important day because it marks the value of the development of a child in a society that provides them protection, respect and love.

 

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New Brand for Costa Rica

A new country logo for Costa Rica was released on Tuesday of this week, "Esencial Costa Rica" ("Essential Costa Rica" in English). The brand will be used to promote trade, investment and tourism.

I like the clean design. The green color represents Costa Rica's commitment to the environment and the flowing script represents the Pacific and Caribbean oceans on each side of Costa Rica and mountains in the middle. There are so many ads around using toucans, oxcarts, parrots, etc. This new design is a nice change for the senses. It is sophisticated.

There is also a new promotional video and you can view it here.

 

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Banking in Atenas

This morning I went to Banco de Costa Rica to deposit our rent money to our landlady's account. First I draw out the amount in U.S. dollars from my bank in Canada. The reason for this is because, as pensionado residents, we are obligated to convert $12,000 U.S. to colones every year for three years in order to fulfill the requirements of living in Costa Rica as pensionados. After the third year, we can apply to become permanent residents and this requirement will cease. We see this as just the cost of living here for the first three years. We have to save the bank receipts to prove we have done the conversions. You can do it in one fell swoop, or over months, as long as you have converted $12,000 U.S. to colones at the end of a year.

We are now into our second year of conversions. It took a year to get our cedulas and that is when the requirement to convert starts.

So every time I withdraw money from my Canadian bank via the ATM, I do it in U.S. dollars, then convert to colones. Canada does not have an agreement with Costa Rica whereby Canadian pensions can be directly deposited to a Costa Rican bank, unlike other countries, the U.S.A. being one I believe. Some time before the end of our year (in our case August to July, August being when we received our cedulas) we usually reach the $12,000 mark and can stop doing the conversion - which saves me from embarrassment for a period of time.

The reason for the embarrassment is because I then have to turn around and convert the colones back into U.S. dollars because our landlady's account is a U.S. dollar account. The tellers shake their heads at me ... why would anyone do such a thing! I just shrug and agree that it is loco, but it's hard to explain why in my limited Spanish. Sometimes I do the transactions on two different days just to avoid this.

So everyone gets a piece of the action ...

In Canada, you have to stand in line to see a teller, sometimes a lengthy line. Here at the Banco de Costa Rica, you get a lettered and numbered ticket from a machine and then take a seat ... a seat! The letter on the ticket corresponds to how many transactions you want to do at one time. There is a special teller for the elderly and handicapped so they don't have to wait long. On two walls are screens showing the next number up and which teller to go to. It's a good way to learn some of the Spanish alphabet and numbers.

The bank door is manned by two guards and you won't get in without the magic wand sweep and a quick look into purses, backpacks, etc. I'm always polite and say thanks and now I receive "con mucho gusto" from them ("with much pleasure"). It took a while to get to that point, but now they recognize me.

Well, today the ticket machine was not functioning but that's no problem for the guards. They know exactly who gets the next vacant chair and we played musical chairs through three rows of chairs. When someone vacates a chair to go to the teller, everyone moves up a chair and if you are a bit slow to realize this, the guard is right there to ensure you move. It's very efficient. The elderly get preferential treatment. I'm not sure when they will decide I am at that point.

Oh yes - turn off your cellphones! The guards have the eyes and ears of eagles and will be at your side in seconds if your phone rings. Such a change from Canada where everyone is yak yakking on their phones and we are forced into listening to their inane conversations.

Sometimes it can be a lengthy wait for a teller, so bring a book. At least we are sitting, not standing. Usually I just sit there in peaceful contemplation, listening to the numbers being called, "M42, posición tres" (posición being the teller's number). Once, in this state, I realized what the big blue square post was in the middle of the bank, in front of the tellers' stations. I was able to read the Spanish signs. It is where everyone must go to in the event of an earthquake. I guess it is super stabilized to withstand one.

You may as well do that, because you won't get out the door without the guards letting you out!

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A Mystery to Solve

This sign is erected on highway 3, very close to Alida's Pizzeria. I have Googled Cristina Cabezas Zumbado and can find nothing. She must have been an important person in Atenas. This sign is quite large.

Can anyone help?

 

 

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Rain/Lluvia

On Thursday, the 22nd, we received 3.4 inches of rain, the highest in a single day where we live in Vista Atenas for this month of August. We were in Atenas when it started, just as we were finishing lunch. By the time we got home, it had reached our house. I had laundry drying on the line and managed to get some things unpegged and into the laundry basket but just left the sheets and pillow cases as they were already soaked.

I figured they would get a nice rinsing from the lovely tropical rain and the sun would dry them the next day. Wouldn't they smell wonderful .... wrong! I forgot about the bats. Currently, we have many of them doing bug patrol every night. We haven't actually seen them yet but they leave their calling cards everywhere. Everything got rewashed the following day.

When our garden trash removal guy, Mario, and his workers were here on Wednesday we showed him where the upper level berm had given way earlier in the week and caused the flood in our house. "No problemo" and five minutes later they had dug a ditch and filled in the berm. Thursday's mega rainfall showed their handiwork had done the job to prevent more flooding, although some soil erosion was seen and husband Lance went up the hill to do a bit of repair work.

You can read Lance's monthly weather reports for where we live at Paul and Gloria Yeatman's monthly newsletter, Retire For Less in Costa Rica. Paul keeps weather records for San Ramon, where they live. They live at a higher elevation then we do and it is interesting comparing the weather between the two places.

The repaired berm after Thursday's rain

Lance doing a bit of repair.

 

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Fun In Costa Rica

Late yesterday afternoon, we had almost two inches of rain fall in a short period of time. It was an extremely intense monsoon-like rainfall.

Our house sits at the bottom of two slopes. The top is where the mango and banana trees are, then there is a slope to another flat level, and finally another slope down to our house. There are berms on each flat area that are supposed to direct water into the deep ditches along the property side.

This time, the rain was so intense that the berms could not hold it all and torrents of water started washing down the lower slope, flooding the back of our house and actually coming into the house through the back door. There is a square drainage hole near the back door but it could not cope with the influx of water.

This is the drainage hole:

You can't see it in this photo, but there is a pipe outlet at the bottom edge of the hole.

In no time at all, this outlet was incapable of coping with the rushing torrents of water and quickly overflowed. There was a lot of plant debris filling the hole so I leaned over to get my garden trowel which was stuck in the soil, thinking I could clear the hole and help it drain faster.

As I reached over for the trowel, I fell into the hole - right arm and shoulder first. Lance was out there too and both of us were already pretty wet from the pounding rains, but now I was totally soaked from head to foot.

It was like something from an "I Love Lucy" episode. We were laughing so hard - it was pure unplanned slapstick. Lance pulled me from the hole and I ran inside to discard the wet clothing and take a shower. Then I started sweeping out water from the house ... one great thing about having tiled floors and no carpets is that cleanup is easy. We used all the old towels and rags we had to help mop up the water in the house.

This morning's laundry consisted of our wet clothing from last night and the towels .... all needed several rinsings to get rid of the mud and plant debris. My garden trowel is MIA .... presumably sucked into the drainage hole vortex.

The last I saw of the trowel. The drainage hole is under water to the left of the trowel.

 

 

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