A Weekend Trip to the Beach in Nosara
As I’ve mentioned before in my blog, from 2006 to 2008, I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Costa Rica in a Community Economic Development program. While I was living with my host family in 2007, we took a rare weekend trip from our home in La Cruz de Abangares, Monteverde, to my host-mother’s niece’s house on the Pacific coast in Nosara, Guanacaste. This was my host-mother’s first trip to the beach in her whole life (she was in her late 30’s)! We were all excited to be going to the beach, almost as if we were going to one of the tourist resorts or something. I’m surprised we even made it there and back with the condition the car was in! Turned out that her niece was poorer than we were. They lived in a small wooden house that I would rank right above a shack. There were about 6 people living there, with a mean dog tied up on the side of the house, not too far from the outhouse, and a loud rooster outside to wake us up in the morning. And it was HOT. I think we planned staying 3 nights but ended up staying 2. We had a decent time and did go to the beach, but we were just too many people in that house and it wasn’t too comfortable. Anyways, there was a big field across from the house full of mango and star fruit trees. One afternoon I got this nice picture of her niece’s toddler outside checking out a carton of fresh mangos on the front patio. The other day I remembered this picture and thought it’d make a nice painting!
I think this makes a great piece for anybody who appreciates the innocence of babies and toddlers. If you’ve traveled to or worked in tropical countries, this type of housing may look familiar to you, and I’m sure the mangos do as well!