Christmas Shopping

Caña india is planted here to form hedges and windbreaks, and very stately it can look, too, but the flowers are a bonus...they smell wonderful.
The plants down in the garden have been blooming for while now, but the younger ones near the house have just started and every slight breeze sends their scent through the rooms...soft, heavy and sensual.

I just wish someone would make a perfume of this...it would beat a lot of the commercial big name stuff hands down.

I've always liked wearing perfume and I laid in a stock of my favourites before moving to Costa Rica - luckily, as I've seen none of them here!
(Watch out the next visitor from France...you will have to find room in your luggage not only for anchovies but also for a large bottle of Eau de Nice!)
I tried some newer ones when I was in London, but nothing really appealed  except Flowerbomb.....until I saw the price. They should have named it Screaming Habdabs.

One relief here is that men do not go in for the 'knock you down and drag you out' aftershave lotions typical of rural France....by the time you'd gone through the kissing routine at an AGM you would be reeling from sense fatigue...no wonder so much was passed on the nod!

Still, I'll be looking at perfume when Christmas shopping in San Jose as well as in the self described upmarket suburb of Escazu......home to expat business men and ambassadors, with its numerous malls and speciality shops, not to speak of its housing.

Gated communities and tower blocks.....condominiums.
Those lowering blocks always remind me of overpriced Glasgow tenements, while if I wanted to live hugger mugger with communal sports facilities and pool, an open prison would be a better bet.
I just don't see the attraction.

Security, say those who choose this way of living...but who wants to live with guards on the gates?

Still security can be a problem at this time of year.
December is the month of the 'aguinaldo'...the thirteenth month, when employees are paid a sum equivalent to a bonus month's pay.
People have money in their pockets, the shopping areas are crowded and bag snatching is a real worry.

The police in San Jose take it seriously. Tall platforms are erected at intervals in the main shopping streets manned by police keeping an eye out for trouble, while detachments stand on almost every junction.

I know it works, because last year I was walking in the pedestrian area with a friend when her bag was snatched.
The man was off and running before we could react....but the police had spotted him and he was brought to the ground in the next street.

We all went to the police station to sort out the formalities...and we were both shocked by the appearance of the robber.
He was young, his clothes of poor quality but spotlessly clean and he was crying.
Not an experienced thief, either, or he would have thrown the bag away as soon as the pursuit started.

My friend identified her bag, was relieved that the contents were intact, and asked the police what would happen to the young man.

Well, we'll want to see his papers. He says they're at home, so we'll take him there...but I know what it will be. He'll be an illegal immigrant....couldn't find work and desperate for money. He'll end up being taken to the immigration lock up and be sent home. Nicaragua by the look of him.

Poor young devil.
My friend could not afford to have lost the contents of her bag...not so much in money terms but in terms of her papers, bank cards and all the odds and ends that take an age to replace once lost...endless queues and paperwork.....but what a contrast between our lives and his.

Trying to make a better life, help his family at home, setting off - and probably paying the 'fixers' to smuggle him over the frontier - in the hope of finding work, and meeting nothing but disappointment and despair.
Poor young man.

My friend asked if she could refrain from laying charges.
Yes, but it won't do him much good. He won't be charged anyway...just sent back.

Could we give him some money?

You could, but there are some hard cases in that lock up...they'll soon have it off him.

We gave him some anyway...something to enable him to make 'phone calls, buy soap and odds while he was awaiting his return, but nothing could stop his tears.

I wonder where this young man is now....I'm sure his family were delighted to have him back with them, but the basic problem won't have been solved.

People need work to maintain their self respect and poor countries need investment, not aid.
They need to be allowed to develop in their own way, not constrained by the ideologies of the IMF and the World Bank.
And they certainly don't need politically based embargos on their economies.

I have no faith whatsoever in the NGOs...as institutionalised as national governments...but I do have faith in people helping people direct.

So while I'll be looking at perfume I won't be buying.
I'll put the equivalent to a group in San Jose run by Nicaraguans helping illegal immigrants to get their position regularised and finding them work.

I think the money will smell sweeter that way.

It all began badly....

Image by JKleeman via Flickr

It was our first trip to Costa Rica.

We were due to leave from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, which meant that friends had to get up at some godless hour to take us to catch the milk train up to Paris....here....where for some wonder everyone was not on strike...except that the lifts at Charles de Gaulle railway station did not work, so I had to hump the suitcases up two flights of stairs to get to the shuttle bus that runs round like a demented hamster serving the various terminals.

Charles de Gaulle must be the most unpleasant main airport in existence. Badly laid out, dirty almost to the point of being squalid and decidedly expensive, it was almost a relief to get through to the departure gate in some far flung annexe for our long flight, which involved a change at Houston.

The 'plane was late, we had to walk miles while empty transport vehicles passed regularly, picking up no one, until we eventually arrived at the hour long queue at immigration.
I was struck by the discourtesy of the staff organizing the lines....whatever their training had involved there had been no place for manners, evidently....but the final blow came as our 'planeload approached the checkpoints.
It was one of those periods when the French government were being uncooperative in the view of the U.S. and as the sound of French became audible to the staff, more than half of them closed down their desks.

Well, welcome to the U.S.!

We were in transit, we had no intention of staying in the country, but were still subject to this absurd process, not to speak of having to retrieve our baggage and go through customs!
I think 'subject' is an appropriate word.
The U.S. government appears to think that all foreigners are 'subject' races with only one aim in view...to get into the U.S.A. and stay there.
Given the reception, the reaction all around me was the same as mine....
If that's the U.S.. they can keep it!

Then through 'security' again as the departure time for our flight to Costa Rica did not so much as creep closer but gallop fast enough to win the Derby.
Bossy women snatching our travel documents....and the final delight...taking off our shoes to go through the security gates.
Well, Mr. Fly cannot balance to do this standing, so I asked for a chair.

'If he isn't fit he should be in  a wheelchair. If  he isn't in a wheelchair he's fit.'

So he stood in front of the gate, blocking it, until a chair was brought.
I think it was a near run thing between the arrival of a chair and his departure in handcuffs.

The 'plane was small and crowded.....but at least we were out of the U.S.!

As we approached landing time, the plane ran into violent thunderstorms and circled for an hour over the main international airport at San Jose, Costa Rica.
From the window I had close ups of mountain peaks and searing bolts of lightning, while in the seat behind a loud American voice announced that it was often like this and no doubt we'd be diverted to Panama, where, as Americans need a visa, nobody would be allowed to leave the plane!
Eventually, the pilot announced that we would be diverting to the holiday airport of Liberia, in the north of Costa Rica...but from there...what?
Would we be bussed down to San Jose?
Would we have to stay in the plane at Liberia until conditions improved?
No news.

At Liberia, the plane landed and eventually the stewardesses announced that it would be refuelled and would then take off again for San Jose.
It was a long, hot wait and Mr. Fly, exhausted, needed somewhere to stretch out.
I asked a stewardess if he could go through to the front of the plane.
No.
But he was ill.
He hadn't paid first class, he didn't get first class.
But he doesn't want champagne, caviar, pole dancers or whatever else goes on up there..he just needs to stretch out.
He hadn't paid first class, he didn't get first class. There's water in the galley if you want to help yourself.

I was getting worried.
Mr. Fly was suffering from heat and exhaustion.
We had arranged a pick up to take us to our destination.....but by the time we had been  refuelled and taken off again, we would be five hours late arriving.
There was no way our pick up would still be there.
I started looking at the travel guide, looking for somewhere to stay near the airport, and found a couple of options, planning to take a taxi to one of them, get some sleep, and ring our contact number the next day to sort out what to do.

The voice from the seat behind was declaiming that this was always happening in this country...you got used to it...he was going to ring his wife to pick him up...too bad for anyone else...

Then we landed.
Immigration was fast.....we were the only 'plane.
Customs was fast, with a charming man who helped me load the suitcases through the machine.

And miracle of miracles....our pick up was there!