Enjoying the Costa Rica Friends and Family Plan
Nazareth
Maricela spends Monday mornings cleaning our casa. She usually shows up 8ish and works until 12ish. Sometimes we invite her to lunch with us, usually not.
Today, we got the full “friends and family” plan.
Nancy wanted a bedroom painted so Maricela’s husband – Coo-ko tagged along to do the painting.
Shortly Dimas, their son showed up with his little cousins Gabrielle and Moises. Dimas wanted to play Mario, but since Nancy was a little under the weather, I told him “not today.” So he sat down in the rancho with me while the boys just wandered around playing with the dogs.
Next up was Maricela’s friend Tonya (Canadian) and her husband Kendall,a Tico, and Nicholas, a three year old. They drove up looking for Coo-ko because he was also supposed to do some painting today for them.
I invited them to join the fray.
Maricela decided that we had “mucho gente” many people, so she sent Moises and Gabrielle to her Mother’s.
Us guys sat on the rancho shooting the breeze and I practiced my Spanish with Kendall (bi-lingual) and there was a lot of good-natured teasing going on among the friends and family.
Tonya was dealing with an issue with the Banco Nacional ATM and her Canadian bank, so she Skyped with them.
They soon all piled into the car and went home.
The bus went by so Nazareth and Dylana (Maricela’s daughters) were home, I told Dimas to let them know where we were.
They came busting onto the scene all smiles and giggling. Nazareth had gotten 100 on her English exam and they were BOTH very proud to show their Mother AND Nancy! Actually, she showed the paper to Nancy first.
By then Maricela had pretty much finished cleaning so we all gathered around the island and Nancy and Maricela fixed lunch… chicken tortillas, fruit smoothies, left over Goulash, pineapple chunks, and Oreo cookies.
Nazareth (8) ended up with a milk mustache much to the delight of her older siblings. We sat around and the kids all agreed that they liked eating lunch at our house – why not? we always feed them the crap they can’t get at home!
Maricela did up the dishes and they were off.
Nancy headed to bed to rest – and I’m not far behind. The rains are moving in…
There are sometimes I roll my eyes and sigh when Maricela and the girls show up at the gate. But when we go out to meet them, they have some fruit they just picked or an animal they just adopted or school news they want to share. It’s not long that I find my self smiling from ear-to-ear.
I’m glad that we are part of their friends and family plan.
This story is a great example of the focus on family and friends in Costa Rica. You enjoy time with people in your life on a regular basis, in an informal atmosphere. There are no “play dates” for the kids and gatherings aren’t restricted to planned parties or events. Sounds like you’re enjoying your Costa Rica life – awesome.
We just became ‘friends’ on Twitter and I thought I’d check out your site. Nice. I love people who are living on their own terms. Would you be interested in doing a virtual interview about your experience living in CR for my other website http://www.Retirewow.com? Let me know.
One of the nice things about being Americans and probably Canadians, we look at our ‘help’ as just part of the extended family. I had a friend who lived in Mexico and was always asking her maid to stay for lunch. At first she was uncomfortable (the maid), but then they became friends.