Oh, my god, could this blog series get any longer!?!?! This entry has been sitting in my queue for two weeks now. Did I even leave the country? Ugh, life caught up with me.
I think I can get over the numbers now. It's not like this is Sesame Street or there is a diabolical pop quiz after this rant. This run, I would like to get to the heart of the matter. There are some fundamental differences between The States and CR that we as North Americans should start taking notice.
By 2010, Costa Rica wants to eliminate their carbon footprint from not only their micro-climates, but the global environment as a whole. We witnessed the country's efforts first hand. It's one thing to say that there is no litter or trash around their national parks or ecological reserves. But it's the little things that are done in plain sight that make the difference. Por ejemplo, when visiting an North American hotel or lodge, in the bathroom guests would notice the mini-bottle sized soap and shampoo, complete with about 2/3s of the soap and shampoo your body actually needs. Where do all the used mini-bottles go? Obviously, they are not edible or we would have an even bigger problem with obesity today. In CR, they keep is simple and contained. In every hotel we stayed in (save one), they had dispensers as opposed to bottles on top of bottles. All the staff does is fill a reseviour with liquid soap and shampoo. A couple of extra squirts and one could wash their whole body without burning through plastic that will never be recycled. No waste, no mess.
Speaking of recycled, what if we took all the used beer bottles I have ever consumed. Let's make it fair and add all the Topo Chico bottles as well. Currently, my hometown decided to reliquish glass recycling for the last ten years. What if we reused all the bottles, reduce waste and use them for the next run? Why is something so commonsensical not practiced in The States? Well, it's practiced in the Rich Coast. Instead of doing the measly 5 cent deposit in Connecticut, vendors, shop keepers, bars and patrons return the beer bottles to be washed, re-washed, steamed, dried and used again for the exact same purpose -- for beer and beverages. They reduce the glass in the trashpits and landfills and crack open a fresh beer while doing some good for the environment.
But enough of the tree-hugger manifesto. An English grammarian would make a killing here. Then again, they should be wary of visiting CR. Wave Expeditions doesn't know how to use a comma. Johnnie's Pizza was having trouble with transliteration of "B"s and "V"s. La Pollera was having some trouble with "Gordon Blue" which is a lot like Cordon Bleu except it's the exact same thing! The Airport (converted horse barn) in Fortuna was having trouble with Anions Rings even though they were trying to express rings of onion.
Which bleeds into my point; if an American goes to a foriegn country, the traveler might want to try to attempt the native language. Native countrymen appreciate it when you at least try to speak the language. These are the words from everyone's mouth that we encountered. "It's nice when guests speak the language", all of our lovely hosts stated in one version or another. Why try to impose a foriegn language to another country? Even the expatriots agree. I just never understood why the other Americans we hung out with didn't give it the old college try? It not like the Language Police were going to come and take us away. It's like if Russians came by the truckloads and just started pushing Cryillic on us and if we didn't understand it, they would just speak louder. Got to respect the home-court advantage. As we all know, Manifest Destiny is over.
And the Oscars aren't that big of a deal in Central America. I would be safe to bet a couple hundred colones that it's just The States that cares about it.
So, that's it. That is what I learned while in Costa Rica. So, yeah. Books are overrated. Unless they are bird books with full page pictures and distiguishing markings. Consider the debrief completed. Talk later.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment