TenderLovingCare

October 7th marks a very big day for Costa Rica. Citizens not senators will decide whether or not Costa Rica should sign CAFTA. It’s so exciting! “Yes” is both yummier and naughtier than “no” in any circumstance. But “no”, from such a miniscule place could deliver an itching sting to globalization, so that other, more significant countries would take notice. This tiny country of a mere 5 million people, with it’s more than half-million cars, could say “hey, the American dream has become the world’s nightmare”.

CAFTA is about removing trade barriers and making it easier to sustain and develop business between countries. It’s the obvious choice to those who believe the only way people will be happy is by having access to more things and that the only people who can regulate the flow of things are governments. Tricky those “things”, not what they used to be, not to ticos who have a history of having and giving without fighting wars for them.

Ticos are actually better informed than their government would believe. They are mad proud of the democratic process, they’re still sore from such a narrow margin by which Oscar Arias took back the presidency, they’ve lost a lot of highway this year with the rains and import taxes have traditionally fixed infrastructure, they liked Taiwan and, as an environment based economy, are rightfully afraid of China. And even without all the opportunity promised by CAFTA, they’re already experiencing the symptoms of stress, of too much work, of long commutes over short distances, of not enough time or money and the climbing prices of just about everything. Not to mention all the guns and crime that have begun since the early 90’s tourism boom, doubling in size as offshore casinos moved in, ballooning the whore population in the El Rey hotel vicinity and driving ticos further away from their capital.

The bulk of voters that will turn out for the referendum all remember a time before there were even chapulines in San José. They all know that the material standard to which they think they’ve become accustomed is merely a consequence of globalization, sure they love it but why should they say “yes” to more of it? Costa Ricans are starting to understand the difference between being mere consumers and being true citizens.

“Yes” could and should win. Winning is for positive players, for strategists, for mercenaries, for defeatists and opportunists, but not always for visionaries. Too much of anything for too long, will kill incentive, if according to reports in both La Republica and La Nación, Costa Rica is already under staffed to fit the needs of tourist, second-home and technology sectors.

And they’ll win because like my neighbor, a truck driver from Guápiles says, “if I was gonna vote, I’d vote ‘yes’ cause change is always good”. “Yes” is THE side to be on. It’s more democratic, really. “Yes” to removing trade barriers and levies, to affording lawyers a vacation home that they can rent and where they can unclench, to adding smog to Chinese skies, to integrating economic interests with warring empires, dictatorships, and rogue monarchy’s, to making fun of Chaves, and to inspiring incentives like www.pandemoniotv.com.

beirut

es mi musico preferido del momento, su disco se llama gulag orkestar

el gulag suena a crueldad en los pirineos, orkestar retumba con burlas y melancolía, la combinación es más tiempo que tripa. apodandose "beirut" este jóven americano de 19 años grabó en su ático partituras incorporando trompetas parisienas, órgano farfisa, acordeón, ukalele, mandolino, glockenspiel, violín, celo, pandereta, todos tocados por el mismo beirut.

chapea el monte, cultiva el llano, recoge el fruto de tu sudor

the lie

where it all started.
there was a cow
she was a child.
she had always grazed in fields of tough weeds.

then there was us
and we were new to that land
her field.

i didn't want to shoo her out.
she seemed gentle and harmless.
our dog was mean because he was tied in the back of the truck all day.

i was too short.
when i chased her beyond the yard and into the street, she turned to me and said
"hey you little shit ball, go tell your mom i was here first"
then she busted my lip.

ciclo vida

aprendí andar en bicicleta muy temprano en mi vida.
no lo cuento para causarle a nadie envidia.

en esos tiempos las ciudades eran pequeños grandes lugares y todo lo demás era yermo. en bicicleta podía huir de la ciudad. sola, callada y con mis piernas descubria que el ritmo del respiro y pulso del corazón se podían calibrar, apretar o aflojar, mejor que cualquier caja de cambios, yo misma me podía regular y así, podía atravezar el espacio rápidamente, interactuar livianamente y apreciar completamente, todo.

el camino se hace al andar.

en caribe sur son varias generaciones vivas de vecinos que sin carro propio, llegan, cumplen, hacen, contribuyen, traen, llevan, despejan y gozan de sus vidas. aquí no hay talleres mecánicos cada 100 metros como en el resto de limón; aquí se duerme y se despierta con el sol, y así sobre los 26 kilómetros de vía entre hone creek y manzanillo han recibido visita de al menos un millón de carros desde el año 2010.

un millón de carros. en costa rica, para una población de 4 millones de costarricenses + 2 millones de otros, circulan en carro, bus, trailer y moto, millones de automóviles. hagan la mate para calcular a cuanto equivale aquello en dinero y en litros de petróleo al día.

tenga en cuenta que el viaje promedio del costarricense es 6 a 50 kilómetros  y que la mitad de los vehículos operan en función de taxi, de la cual solo la mitad son formales.

aquí en caribe sur pretenden construir otro puerto, marina y aprovechar sixaola como aeropuerto. para qué? para hacer pasar por esta arteria a más de esto? ya la flotillas de trailers que congestionan el braulio carrillo van vacías, los camiones de la coca-cola vuelven a san josé vacías. porque no pueden adoptar el modelo de las de cerveceras, que con los ocho millones de botellas de vidrio, que flotan entre labios ticos desde hace 20 años, tiene un modelo de consumo sostenible.

empresa MECO pretenden qué? donde sacan dinero para tanta maquinaria? y de observarlos, uno se da cuenta que lo que hacen es desbaratar calle para colocar otra encima. ¿para qué?

los famosos huecos en las calles costarricenses estaban ahí por una razón, para que anduvieramos a 30, para llevarla suave, para no andar apurados ni apurando. 30 es la velocidad que nos merecemos.

cancer all month

there is no independence only zool.

at a certain age, i’m pretty sure that every woman in my life would describe their own mother as a (fill in the blank).

and every single adlib will be patronizing: “queen”, “love”, “tyrant”.

i’d call my mom “bitch”. she’s scrappy, she’s dogmatic, she’s intense.

she’d knock the intuition out, along with the teeth, of me. 

“how could you”.

truth telling, because she’s not swell, not unhip, not miraculous as every woman should be, but because as a spiritual being she chose to inhabit a body in this third dimension, that like a bunny or a cat, would bear many mirrors, in four perfect interpretations of their own respective zodiac: a piscis-horse boy, a taurus-dog girl, an aries-horse boy and a piscis-monkey girl. so many people.

i’m the wonkey, non-breeding offspring, the taurus-dog. so was her mother. “perra” holds no negative connotation in our spectrum.

but if i draw back, and watch her as my favorite thing, she is to me, a tall glass of cool water.

she has been taken for granted.

the hot sand of glass, the ice on the poles, the dark starry night.

she succeeds every single day to capture written words with her eyes and read them back to others, she is the dewey-decimal system, the reason mechanics love their jobs. children fight, bicker and quarrel, there’s only so many times she can “shush” them. 

after two husbands and 8 male offspring, she is the age of aquarius stuck, by the length of her dress, to singular notions of authority.