The Pure Life

The Pure Life

Mar 07, 2023

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It was last Sunday in Tamarindo, Guanacaste Province, Costa Rica.  We decided to go to church and, joined by some of our fans, made our way by taxi to the Iglesia Santa Maria.  The Mass was in Spanish and English.  It was fun to be on the receiving end of such bilingual services, like what we have in Illinois.  The priest delivered his homily for about twenty minutes as we sat in the wooden pews.  I could snatch a word I understood in Spanish here and there and my mind went drifting, checking out the congregation of visitors and parishioners alike.  The day was hot and the church itself was open on three sides:  a wide Spanish-type door, and the two sidewalls consisting of a stucco wall halfway up and an iron decorative grate wall that allowed light and more importantly, air into the church.   Big fans helped move the air around the church and an occasional breeze found its way into the service.  

A gentleman got up after the priest’s homily and then read the translation in English for about another 20 minutes.  After that, the service continued, and we listened to the people sing songs that were played from a CD.  The songs were simple, in Spanish and had a guitar and some synthesizer on it.  It wasn’t spectacular, but the actual people singing in the congregation made up for its lack of intimacy.  

Some things never change no matter where you go in the world for a Catholic Mass: people trying to sing and the second collection.   Both are something that people attending the service should know should happen, but always appear to be unprepared for.  So, it was with the Iglesia Santa Maria, sandwiched in and sharing its walls with a repair shop on one side and a tiny mercado on the other.   

We slowly walked back into town to get something to eat after the service.  The town of Tamarindo doesn’t have sidewalks completed for the entire stretch of main road that runs through it.  You have to take your chance of walking on the road itself as cars and trucks come barreling by.  I sidestepped on big truck that apparently was having an issue with me as a pedestrian and it felt almost normal.  One learns quickly that pedestrians don’t really have the right of way and have to fight for whatever pathway they can find.  

Some of our party decided to call an Uber and leave the rest of us, as what seemed like a short distance to the town from the church ended up being more what felt like two miles in hot, dry weather. 

We walked on into the town center, which is more of a road that goes by the oceanfront and then a spur that heads out into the surrounding area from the beach.  A checkmark of a town center if you will.  Each building sort of made from whatever passed for a building code at the time.  

Here and there were some street vendors.  And Annie spied a man selling coconut water.  The cost was $2 per coconut.  The man selling them was in his mid-50’s and had a long ponytail sticking out from under a sagging blue baseball cap. The back of his small, black painted and fairly dented Toyota pickup was his shop and here he had a cooler filled with partially husked coconuts. He had macheted his crop to create a better way to cool them and store more, I reasoned. Annie ordered in her best Spanish.  The man opened the cooler and pulled out the first coconut.  He would take out a hammer-like device with a long spike soldered onto one end and deftly swing it into the top of the coconut.  A small hole was made and into it he inserted a plastic straw.   Annie brought the precious bundle of coconuts, one for each of us.  We were tired, thirsty and sun weary.  That first cold sip of coconut water was probably one of the most exquisite things I ever tasted.   And I finally understood what Costa Ricans mean by Pura Vida, or the Pure Life.


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