Author: Zoe Henkes

Location: San Jose, Costa Rica

Have you ever taken a day or more to fully unplug from technology and the stresses of daily life?  While it might seem crazy or even impossible, it was just what I needed.  Recently,  the other students and I took a weekend trip to Savegre, a private biological reserve located in the Talamanca Mountain Range of Costa Rica.  While we had electricity and hot water, we did not have any access to internet—the point of the trip was  to relax, enjoy nature, and reflect on our time in Costa Rica thus far.

Although Heidi, the director of the Costa Rica study abroad program, warned us that it would be cold in the mountains, I was definitely not prepared.  We arrived in Savegre late Friday night.  It was raining, and the cabin that we were staying in had no heat, so we piled on the blankets in order to keep warm.

The next morning, we had a host of different activities to partake in, the first being birdwatching at 6 AM.  While I would never ordinarily wake up practically before the sun itself, as a nature enthusiast, I couldn’t pass up this amazing opportunity.  Many birdwatchers come to see the quetzal bird, which is famous to Costa Rica.   While some people come in search of the bird and don’t see one the entire time they are there, we got lucky and spotted one right away.  Our guide had a special telescope for birdwatching so that we could see the birds from far away.  It was a beautiful creature with bright green feathers on the back and red feathers on the breast.  I watched in awe as it sat perched on a tree branch so peacefully.  It was a truly amazing experience—I stood there and just listened to the sounds of the forest.  I can’t remember the last time I felt such a strong connection to nature.

Next, we had the opportunity to go horseback riding through the mountains.  It had been several years since I had ridden a horse, so I was a little nervous.  I was expecting the path to be fairly level and smooth, but that was far from the truth.  While we started out on the road, we soon branched off into the forest.  As we waded through rivers and climbed high up into the trees—it was so amazing to see how powerfully, yet gracefully these horses navigated the difficult terrain.  We eventually found ourselves at a waterfall, neatly hidden within the thick forest.  The water was so cold and refreshing.  I had been feeling silly about wearing my bright blue rain boots on the excursion, but then I was thankful for them.  As we turned back and headed back down the mountain, I could see all the valley and forest beneath us—wow.

Overall, among other things, these were the highlights of my trip to Savegre.  While we were only there for a short time, arriving late Friday night and leaving early Sunday morning, I had an amazing time.  It was so liberating to take a break from my phone and social media and just enjoy my surroundings.  I will never forget feeling so close to nature.  I felt at peace.  I felt at home.

Author: Zoe Henkes

Location: Costa Rica

Warm greetings from Costa Rica!  I have been here for a few days now, but I have already learned so much!  Among already improving my Spanish and learning about Costa Rican culture, I learned a very important lesson (technically) before my trip even started.  My flight was scheduled to leave on Saturday, August 26^th, out of Chicago, with a short layover in Houston.  Earlier that week, however, I had learned about Hurricane Harvey and the growing concern about the potential destruction that the storm could produce.  I was a bag of emotions—excited, nervous, energetic, anxious.

As of that Friday, flights through Houston were being cancelled left and right, but somehow, my flight was untouched and was scheduled to depart as planned.  After making several phone calls to the airline, it seemed as though I was clear to fly.  The drive to the airport from home was about 2.5 hours, so my family and I left pretty early Saturday morning.  On the way, however, I found out that my flight had been delayed, and then delayed again.  At this point, the plane into Houston would have arrived too late to make the connecting flight.

I was supposed to be taking the same flight as three of my peers on the trip, so sure enough, messages from our group chat started to blow up my phone.  I was the first of my travel group to arrive at the airport, so it was up to me to get the facts and relay the information back to the group.  A very nice travel agent from the airline listened to our situation and calmly gave me all of the information that she had been given, even talking to her supervisor and checking out other options for our group.  We were reassured by several other travel agents as well that there was no possible way the flight would be moved up to an earlier time. Thus, it was impossible for us to make the connecting flight as it was too dangerous for us to go to Houston.  With that information, we collectively decided to switch the flight to Sunday, the next day.

Prepared to get up even earlier and make the drive again to the airport, I set my alarm for the ungodly hour of 5:50AM.  Finally relaxed and feeling okay about the situation, I fell asleep early, ready to travel the next day.  Sure enough, however, I woke up to notifications on my phone that the flights that day had been canceled.  Canceled!?  I rubbed my eyes again, blinked a few times, and read it again—canceled.  In fact, the whole airport in Texas had shut down for the next two days due to extreme flooding.  After much more deliberation among the group, we decided to reschedule for a flight on the same airline for Tuesday.  Ironically, all possible flights to Costa Rica offered by this airline were scheduled to stop in Houston—we were kind of in a sticky situation.  Even after changing the flight to Tuesday, we were still very unsure if it was going to be canceled again or not.  Then, after even more deliberation, tears (almost), and searching for new (yet affordable) flights, we decided to switch airlines to avoid traveling through Houston.  While this was not the best option, considering all that had already happened, we were definitely anxious to get this resolved.

Now, it’s been nearly a week since I arrived.  I’ve been able to settle into life with my host family, visited several beautiful sites around San José, and eaten a ton of rice and beans.  I have also had some time to reflect on this adventure already.  Situations such as these really put things into perspective.  While dealing with flight cancellations is extremely stressful, I can’t imagine what it would be like to be living in the Houston area at a time like this—my thoughts and prayers sincerely go out to anyone who has been affected in any way.  Furthermore, on my end, this small bump in the road was miniscule in the grand scheme of things.  Overall, everything worked out in the end, and the view was actually pretty spectacular.

Pura vida.

Blogger: Zoe Henkes

Location: San José, Costa Rica

Major: Biochemistry and a Spanish minor

Studying abroad in college is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I am eager to be immersed in the Costa Rican culture, improve on my Spanish-speaking skills, and take part in an amazing journey of learning and personal growth. I am most excited about meeting my host family. It is so cool to have a “second family” to get to know and love!

Author: Kortney Cena

Location: San Jose, Costa Rica

Once we made it aboard the plane, Granny took a picture of me, saying she wanted to send “a picture of the girl who took me under her wing” to her daughter. As I took the window seat and Granny sat near the aisle, she gestured towards the empty center seat saying, “Do you think we’ll get away with this?”

“What, having an empty seat here?” I asked.

She nodded and I said “Probably not, they said this would be an almost full flight.”

She sat for a second, then turned to me and said “I could lay in both seats and act like I’m ill.”

We laughed, but in the end, another nice old lady ended up sitting between us. As people passed by and put their luggage in the overhead bins, she tapped me on the arm and said, “They can’t put their luggage like that! It won’t fit. It says so in this manual” as she pulled the plane manual out from the backseat pocket. “The proper procedure is in here,” she said. She added, almost as an afterthought, “I should be a flight attendant.”

I laughed and told her she’d probably be great at that. And she said “Yeah, I would tell people: ‘I don’t know what you are saying, I have hearing aids, just do what I tell you to’.”

There were some serious culture shock moments on the way back to Colorado. The biggest shock I faced that day was to see such a confrontational attitude after so many months with polite and calm Ticos. But before I could associate the loud and complaining and crazy with “the United States culture,” this Granny came up and showed a completely different attitude. This Granny knew Pura Vida. Though I have been hearing the phrase for months, it was her who taught me how to really live a pure life. When trouble comes, don’t stress out and run around like everyone else. Take it peacefully. Even when Granny heard we might have to stay the night, she didn’t panic but treated everyone with respect and was cracking jokes. She was never afraid to ask for help, and actually, it was by asking that she made some friends, including me. She taught me to, in the worst of times, be relatable with people and be nice. If this is not the message of Pura Vida that the Ticos have been trying to drill into me, then I don’t know what is. Patience. We are all people and it will all work out in the end. It is not the United States culture that was repulsing me, but rude people. Just like there are nice and rude people in Costa Rica, the same is true here, and anywhere else. And I began to think, maybe home won’t be quite so different after all.

Once I made it off the last plane and helped the guy in orange find the baggage claim in DIA (all in Spanish of course!), my family finally got to me. I realized that all those fears I had in the beginning were silly. After only a couple minutes with them, I realized that no matter how much I have changed or no matter the amount of stories I had to tell, they wanted to love me, and they wanted to listen.

Now, I am still adjusting here. The other day I went to the grocery store by myself and accidentally reverted to Spanish when I had to interact with some strangers. In some ways, the hardest part of being home is the normality of it all. It feels like I have reverted back to life before Costa Rica. But inside, I know that I really am not the same. Though it may not yet be obvious how these changes are going to manifest themselves into my life, I do know that I will never forget the people I met and the experiences I had. I know that these things have changed where I am going in the future because I have a wider view about who “people” are—not just United States people, but all people of the world.

Author: Kortney Cena

Location: San Jose, Costa Rica

I was still thinking about the beautiful mother/daughter moment and looking at the pictures I had captured of the precious moment when I heard over the speakers, “Kortney R Cena. Last call for gate 47.” I had forgotten about the time change, and my gate had switched. A couple panicky moments later, I made it onto the second plane of the day, sitting in middle seat of the very last row – probably the least coveted seat of the airplane. But I had no problem with it as it allowed me to get to know this nice kid from Kansas City who wants to be a dental hygienist. A couple hours later, we landed in Kansas City, and everyone who was staying on the plane for its next stop in Denver moved up to get better seats. I didn’t know it at the time, but these people would be the starring characters in my next adventure.

The pilots found a maintenance problem with the plane, so we were asked to get off while they procured another plane for us. Once off and in the gate, we were told over the intercom to sit tight and wait for information. Some people, who were too impatient to do that, asked for information and were turned to the customer service desk. As I sat, waited, and listened to angry voices all around me as they complained about the situation, my ear picked out some soft and less angry Spanish being spoken by 2 of the other passengers – a guy in bright orange and his companion in white. I immediately felt a gush of relief– either because their voices were calm or because Spanish feels like home to me now after 4 months of immersion. And this is when I met Granny. She is a delightful elderly woman, perhaps in her 80’s, but still with plenty of spirit. She wears a flowery dress and a light pink cardigan and is the picture of a cute old woman. Because she has hearing aids, she could not understand the intercom voices and was very confused about the whole situation. She asked me if I was going to Denver, and when I replied yes, she said “Then I am sticking with you!”.

Nearby there was a security officer who was telling people that if our flight had been canceled, we would have to be fit onto other flights to Colorado for that day, and if there were none, we could have to wait until tomorrow for a flight. One lady, wearing all dark black clothes and a darker attitude, hurried off to where the security officer suggested– which was out to the main check-in booth of southwest, outside of security. As Granny stepped up to the officer and started to ask questions of her own, I heard over the speakers someone saying “Denver, line up at gate 39,”so I began to lead Granny in that direction. Eventually we made it to the front where all other passengers who had no boarding passes (because we were already on the plane) were congregating. Southwest had got us a new plane, and we were all ready to get on– except for the lady in black who ran off. As we waited for the new plane to be prepared, I talked to the guy in orange. Turns out he is from El Salvador, a land plagued with gang wars and violence, but he personally was a successful businessman in Houston and was going to Denver to visit family. He was interested to hear that I was traveling from Costa Rica “a land of peace, thanks to God.” Then Granny showed me a picture of her great-grandson. A stressed-out mother tried to placate her fussy two-year-old and complained about her traveling woes, insisting “They had better let us on first. We were supposed to be on the plane first.”

As the plane finally began to load, we were not let on first, but were instead to go after the pre-boarders. Stressed-out mom was furious, and questioned the attendant. Despite her frustration, the attendant still decided to let the wheelchaired and disabled on the plane first. As one pre-boarder, an older man, went through to the plane, Granny turned to me and said, “I should say I’m with him!” Then with a smile, she mock cried out “Oh honey, wait for me!”

In response I answered, “Oh yeah, grandpa, wait for us!”

As we were snickering to ourselves, the other ‘through-travelers’ formed a line and began to get on the plane. Luckily, Granny was an old lady who knew how to use her old-lady-status to her advantage. She got herself in the front of the line and then asked if I, her daughter, could come with her. And that’s how I boarded the flight as the 3rd person and got a second-row window seat.

But just before we could get on, the lady in black appeared. She had a ticket for the flight in her hand. I gathered that she had traipsed around the entire airport, gone through security again, and probably met a lot of resistance to show up at the correct gate (which was in reality only 10 meters from the gate she left earlier) with this ticket. She was frustrated and at her wits end, so she cut to the front of the line, gave the attendant her ticket and asked to board. The attendant, who didn’t know her story, looked and saw in her ticket a boarding number A27, assumed she was just an impatient guest, and he told her to go wait in line. Furious, the lady in black said, “No! No, no, look again, it’s highlighted just for you.”

He let her pass with a begrudging nod, but she turned back, stopped the flow of traffic, and made a scene asking, “What’s your name? Write down your name here.” I assume she wanted to go online and complain about this particular attendant’s service. The other passengers behind me were upset she was making a racket and causing the obstruction in traffic. The Salvadoran in orange shook his head, ashamed for her. He said, “Earlier, she said she was just going home,” implying that there really was no good reason for her to be so worked up about the delay. Though I know she has a backstory that can probably explain all of her feelings and behaviors, I responded, “The people of Costa Rica are so tranquilo, so chill, and I miss that already.”

“Yes”, he responded. Paciencia.

Author: Kortney Cena

Location: San Jose, Costa Rica

Before we left Santa Rosa, Costa Rica, our program director Heidi Michelson put us through a re-entry workshop. We talked about the things we would miss, what we have learned, and about some serious fears and doubts we had about returning home. Fears that our friends and family will not understand us and how we have changed, that people will not listen to our stories, or, worst of all, that we will forget it all and revert back to the people we were 5 months ago. But, whether we were mentally prepared for it or not, May 10th came, and we had to say heartbreaking goodbyes to our host families and to the country we have grown to love.

As I took-off in the first flight of a line of planes that lead from Costa Rica to Denver, CO – home— I was a little overwhelmed by all of the emotional and exciting things that had happened already that day. Saying goodbye to my host family was harder than I had even imagined and saying goodbye to Costa Rica itself, the beautiful country full of mountains and trees, through the small and just-slightly-lower-than-is-comfortable plane window was unexpectedly difficult. And the forecast was for more emotional turmoil in the coming hours, as I knew that I would see my real family for the first time in months. Little was I to know that this was only the beginning of my travels that day—and travel is never adventure-less.  Recorded here, in a 3 part series, is the epic tale of my journey home, physically and mentally, and the record of a re-entering experience with plenty of lessons to be learned. In the end, you will find that in all my experiences in Costa Rica, of all the time spent with “ticos”, no one has truly driven home the heart of Pura Vida like an old Granny I met from Houston, and she was able to drive away the fears I had of home.  

Part 1: The Basic Blunders

Erin, another student in the Valpo Costa Rica Study Abroad program, had the same flight as me to Houston. While her connecting flight heads off to Chicago and mine goes to Denver, we got to spend the last few hours in Costa Rica together. As we flew out of Costa Rica and passed over Nicaragua, I happened to look out the window and notice a mountain with clouds around it. But that was no mountain, and those were not clouds either. On second look, I saw that it was an erupting volcano. I elbowed Erin, and we marveled at Central America giving us a last glimpse of its natural beauty. We visited Nicaragua a couple weeks before, we hiked one of its many volcanos, but the view of an erupting volcano, from a safe distance away, was another level of cool. Around the cone, you could see bright red lava, and down the sides, you could see trails of black where the magma had cooled. The steam coming out the top spiraled into the sky. Before you get worried, the volcano didn’t hurt anyone, it was in a rural area and even so, the lava didn’t travel much past it’s base.

As the attendant came around with drinks, both Erin and I responded in Spanish, which I’m sure he found confusing. As we arrived, I creaked my neck to look at Houston through the plane window. Everything was…perfect. Big. Placed with perfect spacing between buildings. The roofs were white—there were none of the cheap and typical tin roof rusty-orange color roofs or green roofs that mark the houses in Costa Rica. Neighborhood blocks were perfect squares and each high school had its own meticulously kept sports fields. To look at all of the wealth, in every direction, it’s easy to forget that most people in the world don’t live this way. Most people couldn’t afford to keep their lawn perfectly trimmed with manicured flowers and bushes rimming it. In fact, my host family couldn’t even afford a lawn. What are lawns for anyways? Do they have a purpose other than to impress neighbors? As all these thoughts ran through my head and we landed in Texas, I had to admit that everyone was right when they said that culture shock is always harder on the way back. As we went to the bathroom for the first time in the US for months, both Erin and I made the mistake of throwing the toilet paper in the trash can and laughed at ourselves for it afterwards.

Immigration in Houston went without a hitch. Well, except for the one moment that Erin tripped on her shoelaces and wiped out as we walked toward the security checkpoint. But we made it through the whole first step of returning to the US with only a few minor scrapes and bruises. We decided to head towards Erin’s gate together, since my flight was leaving an hour later– and unbeknownst to her, her real mother and I had planned a surprise for her! Conveniently, Erin’s mom also needed to take a flight from Houston to Chicago, and had set it up so that she and Erin could take the flight together, but she wanted this to be a surprise for Erin. I knew that this plan was going to result in tears– Erin had barely slept the night before, trying to make the most of her time in Costa Rica and putting off packing until midnight, and she had also already cried a couple times today when saying goodbye to her host family and to Costa Rica. As soon as Erin saw her mom, she erupted in tears, and the two enveloped each other in a great big hug. After a couple moments of happy sobbing, and some cute pictures, the two of them had to get in line to board. And after all we had been through together, Erin and I had to say goodbye (for now).

Blogger: Kortney Cena

Program: San Jose, Costa Rica – Study Center

When you study abroad, you are thrown out of your comfortable little pillow of friends and family, and you must grow an entirely new community. Your cohort becomes like family, and your host family, even more so.  

There are only 3 people in the Valparaiso Costa Rica study abroad program this spring—Erin, John, and I. While I knew Erin before coming here, I had never before met John. After this experience, we have grown close enough to talk about anything together, and we often do talk about anything and everything in order to entertain ourselves during the train or bus rides home each day. We have shared classes, group trips, ice cream stops, and all of that really has been wonderful, but when it comes to bonding there really is something special about being able to talk to people who are going through the same struggles that you are. For example, it is far more satisfying to discuss the language barrier I face with Erin or John than it is with a friend from home, even if it’s just because one of those two can respond by telling me of their own language mistakes! But like we all say, nothing helps you bond like fending off a persistent drunk guy who wants to chat you up on the bus ride home from San Jose. After that experience, we have a greater level of trust and comfort with one another. (Don’t worry, that’s not normal here, that only happened once).

As for my host family, it has been such a humbling experience to receive their love, to learn to relate with them, and to finally grow relationships with them. When I first showed up, I only seemed capable of making messes. They do things differently, and so I didn’t understand how I could help out with anything in the house. And the worst part was I couldn’t even ask about it since my Spanish was at such a low level. But my family loved me anyways and expected nothing from me. Over time I have learned how to fit into the families’ daily schedule and help out here and there. I’ve also gotten more and more able to discuss things with my family, more in-depth things than just the daily necessities. To give you a little taste of the people I am growing to love like family here, here is a little introduction to my host family:

I have a pretty strong connection with mi Máma, Isobel (probably because she feeds me every day). She is both enormously hospitable and also feisty. For example, when I arrived, she made sure to let me know I was welcome by giving me gifts— a butterfly postcard that read “Bienvenidos Kortney!” and a cute little moneybag. But also, when one of her teenage children get out of line, she has been known to chase them out of the kitchen with a large mixing spoon, asking Dios Mio for patience. The special thing we always do together is go to community Zumba classes with a bunch of other women in the neighborhood. She swears that the exercise of Zumba makes you thinner, and she tells everyone who meets me that Zumba is teaching me to dance like a Tica! She also loves to brag about my cooking habits to everyone. She tells people about how I like to cook united-statesian meals for the family sometimes, or how I made my host sister Ashly a coconut chocolate cake for her birthday.

Mi Pápa, Francisco, likes to keep busy. He is always working on some new home project, and yesterday I helped—minimally—while he constructed a new table. Once we discussed how to live a healthy lifestyle, and he explained that taking time to yourself to relax is important for your emotional and physical health since it lowers overall stress. But when I asked how he ever gets time for that, he joked that his personal relaxation time is whenever he is working on refurbishing a new couch. He loves to share things with his family, and sometimes he’ll go on a surprise ice cream trip to bring everyone ice cream!

The oldest son, Kendall (18 yrs old), goes to school some mornings and works some evenings. He is pretty busy, but when he is around the house, he is quite chistoso— he only seems to open his mouth for funny or sarcastic comments! He loves to learn about new cultures, so he enjoys having foreign exchange students living at his house. The company he works for is actually going to be sending him out to the United States for 6 months of training in August, where he will likely learn what it is like to be the extranjero! He also has a talent for baking, and I have to say, his tres leches cake is one of the best baked goods I’ve eaten!

Ashly, my beautiful 15 year old host sister, is kind but feisty (like my host mom) and she has a crazy personality. She has a horde of poor Tico boys who want her attention all the time. She finds school exceedingly boring, and always doodles during the times her school friends get together to do homework together. But it has been cool for me to be able to help her with her English and Math homework whenever she can be motivated to work on them. She loves to listen to popular music, dance like a silly person, and to make you laugh.

And, finally, Ian Santiago (Santi for short) is only 6 years old, and he is my constant companion. He seems to think my second job (other than being a student) is to entertain him! Which, most of the time, I really don’t have a problem with: we watch movies together, give each other pen tattoos, and play with cars. It is also very fun to go to his futbol games, even though he has his head in the clouds and doesn’t really touch the ball much– (last game the only time he touched the ball is when some other kid accidentally kicked it into his face). He is an especially sweet kid and already great with the ladies—he told me (bashfully) about how he has four girlfriends! Apparently, none of them have a problem with his infidelity, and he doesn’t seem too conflicted about it. But I suppose that is relationships in elementary school!

Other than my host family, there are a lot of other unexpected friendships that have bloomed up and grown the community that I have in Costa Rica. I have had good times with people from classes in the University of Costa Rica, have met people from around my neighborhood who come over to hang out with my host family, and have spent considerable time with both Erin’s and John’s host family and their friends. Finally, I didn’t expect to have such fun spending time with the program director/professor Heidi Michelson! Class discussions with her often feel more like friends meeting together and talking about life than a necessary academic activity.

This all goes to show, that you may leave your comfort one and head to a new place where you don’t know anyone, but with time, people come in and fill up your life. It happened when I first headed out to Valparaiso University after high school, and it happened again in Costa Rica. Without these connections and people, I think I would probably be miserable, even in Costa Rica, the most beautiful of places. In fact, I think this is why the first couple of weeks were the hardest, because it was before these relationships had really formed. But being kind, attentive, and interested in the people around you– asking other people questions and then listening to the answers—these are the things that have grown my community. Little by little, people are being added to my family, people from all kinds of different places in the world: Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Florida, Costa Rica… and all I can do is be so thankful for them all.  

Blogger: Kortney Cena

Program: San Jose, Costa Rica – Study Center

All my life, I hated the taste of coffee. Even through college, I resisted being one of the many students who were coffee or caffeine dependent. But after only two weeks in Costa Rica, I have learned to like coffee. I suppose when coffee is fed to you in the morning, again during morning coffee break, then during afternoon coffee break, and sometimes even with dinner, you have no choice but to start enjoying it. And a lot of sugar helps!

Indeed, Ticos like their coffee! But the cultural tradition of the ‘coffee break’ is about more than this rich drink. The coffee break is a cultural expression of Costa Rica’s community culture.  In a community culture, there is a greater commitment to relationships than there is to work or to other obligations. Everyday in Costa Rica, there is at least one break sometime around 3:00 pm for people to get coffee and to develop relationships with the people around them. At work, the time is spent getting to know co-workers. In school, sometimes we have multiple coffee breaks throughout the day in order to break up 3 hour long classes and to talk about life with other students. When I have spent coffee break at home with my Tico family, I have found the coffee break is a greater family event than even dinner is. Everyone sits together and talks during coffee break, while the same may not be true of dinner.

I very much enjoy the community culture of Costa Rica, but it is very different from the culture that I come from in the United States. In the United States, work is done first while relationships happen second. At first, I thought that business in the United States was more efficient because of this priority. Maybe this is true, but having seen business in a place with a community-oriented culture like Costa Rica, I would challenge that idea a little bit. The idea here, is that doing work with others is easier when you have a relationship with them and have established trust. And I have seen this to be true. It is not as if work doesn’t get done!

Confronted with this different way of life, I do wonder if the different priorities of the community-oriented culture is better than the priorities in my home culture in some ways. When every business transaction is also about the relationships with other people, I tend to think that those transactions would be more enjoyable and could result in new friendships. Overall, we end up with a population that is more happy at work, and each person has more friends to speak of. Finally, the community is more connected on the whole. There is a reason Costa Rica is one of the happiest countries in the world! So even if these priorities are not the most efficient way to run a business, would this be justified by the fact that the people are more happy? In this war between happiness and efficiency, it seems to me that while Costa Rica has chosen happiness,  the United States has chosen efficiency. I have seen this through my experience in college, where the amount of work that students are expected to do is ever increasing and a great importance is given to a student’s productivity. Its almost like a competition between students: who can handle the most work?

Perhaps the United Statesians can learn something about happiness from this small, central American country where everyone wants to go on vacation and where people live la pura vida, the pure life. Perhaps we can change the cultural structure that makes work separate from friends and leave little time for relationships to have a more community based culture too. But the most concrete takeaway I can give here, is try and take time to appreciate the people around you, and if you ever get the chance to visit Costa Rica, don’t miss out on spending time with the Ticos during coffee break!