There's a saying here that I've been hearing a lot lately: "Poco y poco" or little by little. Our Spanish teacher has said it when she senses my eyes glazing over as I look at the list of new vocabulary words to memorize as part of that day's homework assignment. I rented a surfboard at the beach one afternoon this week to try to apply my newly-acquired surfing knowledge and ended up wiping out multiple times and only managing to get up on a couple waves. When I described the results of my efforts to the surfboard purveyor, he said it too. Poco y poco. Little by little you learn Spanish. Little by little you learn to surf. Little by little you make changes to your ways of thinking and prioritizing your life. Over time, those little bits will add up to a whole. It's a process, and I'm at the beginning of it.

This past weekend, I got to explore in and around Quepos and Manuel Antonio. I spent Saturday morning visiting the feria, the farmers market that sets up shop along the waterfront in Quepos every Friday and Saturday. All manner of tropical fruits and vegetables were on display, as well as a few handmade curios and knick-knacks. For 60 cents, I bought a green coconut that had been kept on ice. The vendor lopped off the top and I had a cool refreshing drink. (Even though it was early in the morning, I was already sweating. It doesn't take much here.) I also got a couple bananas and mangos to bring to school for snacks this week. In the afternoon, I joined several other gals from school to go on a catamaran tour around Manuel Antonio. We were a multi-national bunch - Switzerland, Germany, Finland, and me! We saw dolphins and stingrays jumping out of the ocean, and had fun jumping off the boat at a spot where we stopped to swim for awhile. Then on Sunday, I spent the day in Manuel Antonio National Park. I joined a small group with a guide who brought with him a spotting scope, and that made all the difference. He was able to point out all sorts of critters that we couldn't see with the naked eye - a sloth, snake, bats, bugs. And monkeys… everywhere. I've posted some photos from the weekend in the Quepos-Manuel Antonio photos file - and I also posted a couple shots of me surfing in the Nosara photo file - if you want to check them out.

I also got to spend some time this weekend just walking around Quepos. Many things I've observed here in Costa Rica make me reflect on how different things are at home. Some for the better, some for the worse.

For the better:

Family seems to be the #1 priority here. No one seems to live too far away from their relatives. At my homestay, 5 of their 6 grown children live either in or near their house. One son lives in San Jose - a 4-hour drive away - and even he was home to visit last weekend.

Also, lots of people work here. I've seen no hobos. The most washed-up looking people I've seen are the expats. But no one seems to take their work home with them. I ride the bus at least twice a day and have seen only a handful of people using their phones. Most either sit quietly or talk with their seatmate. I compare that to Portland, where I see the tops of almost everyone's head when I get on the bus because they are all looking down at their phones, presumably checking urgent emails or playing games or doing anything other than interact with other people on the bus. Maybe it's because this is a tourist-oriented locale and most of the jobs are in the service industry where folks can leave their work at work. Whatever the case may be, there's a neighborly civility to the way of life here. Men let women get on the bus first and give up their seats to those with kids or to the older folks. I'm pretty sure that courtesy ceased to exist in the U.S. decades ago.

For the worse:

The roads are narrow and the driving is crazy. There are questionable road rules - for example, if you're following a huge, slow-moving bus on a steep, narrow, winding, almost-one-lane road, go ahead and pass.

Watch your step! The rainy season here brings with it torrential, monsoon-like downpours, and thus the gutters between the streets and sidewalks (where there are sidewalks) can be anywhere from 6-inches to a couple feet deep. Some are covered with metal grates… some aren't. The point is, don't look up when you're walking or you could break your leg.

Sanitary services are similarly underdeveloped requiring toilets to be used only for biological by-products, shall we say, and all other materials must be put in a trash can found adjacent to all toilets. It is, well, kind of gross.

Houses are crowded and aesthetics do not seem to be a concern. For example, the ceiling of my room has one fluorescent light fixture that does not work, one metal casing for an incandescent bulb to which wires have been cut, taped-off and left exposed, and one bare florescent bulb at the edge of the ceiling that provides the only illumination in the room. It functions… and that's all that matters. How it looks… does not.

Any number of things here would clearly be a liability issue in the U.S. and the subject of any multitude of lawsuits.

However, for all the short-comings of what may be seen as a less developed country than the U.S., I wonder about the true costs of our extra bells and whistles. Are underground, covered storm drains worth the cost of having to stand on the bus carrying 2 bags of groceries because no one will give up their seat? Are visually pleasing interiors worth the cost of missing time with your family because you have to stay late at work and fight a commute? Look, I'm not here to judge, and I greatly appreciate the public works improvements that keep us safe and sanitary in the U.S. These are just some of the trade-offs I think about as I'm presented with the different way of life in Costa Rica. I see the differences and I wonder if and how I might incorporate some of them when I return home. Bit by bit. Poco y poco.