Adventures in Middle Earth

“Aceras” is the Spanish word for sidewalks.  Every day Jody and I walk about a kilometer to school.  It is a pleasant walk, but we have to be careful because the sidewalks have a variety of surfaces and some are in disrepair (we also have to be very careful of traffic, but I’ll leave my comments on that for another day).  It isn’t unusual for a student to twist or break something due to inattention.  Here are some “aceras” on our path to school:

Three nice ones:

These six aren’t so nice; watch your step!

And sidewalks in San José aren’t just for pedestrians:

Sometimes you have to cross a little bridge or the sidewalk just disappears:

Here’s the worst one!  A wrong step here and you probably end up in the hospital:

“Dirección” is the Spanish word for both direction and address.  And Costa Ricans (Ticos) have an unusual way of giving directions and addresses (unusual to us but not to them; the city just put up street signs a year ago, so it is part of the culture).  Instead of using street names and house numbers, they start from a landmark and then tell how far to go using the four points of the compass (north, south, east, and west).  And instead of using blocks for distances, they use 100 meters instead of one block.  So, if they want to say “three blocks north” they say “300 meters north.” It may be 150 meters, or 500 meters (block lengths vary greatly), but they always convert blocks into meters, where one block equals one hundred meters.  So here are the directions (and the address) of where we are staying in Costa Rica.  I’ll translate into English for you.  The actual directions are in bold italics, while the rest of it is my commentary:

San Jose (the city), San Francisco of Two Rivers (the burough):  From the Pacific Pharmacy (the landmark), next to Okayama Park.  [In the last two weeks, the pharmacy closed and is now a bakery, so I don’t know how that all works]:

Okayama Park (it was a gift from Japan but everyone calls it “China Park” because Ticos call everything Asian, “Chinese”)

This is where the pharmacy was.  It is now a bakery (panadería)

Go 300 meters (3 blocks) to the east.

Go 20 meters to the south (i.e. turn right).  House on the right hand side, color orange, with green barred fence, three floors, before the speed bump (the Ticos call a speed bump a “muerto” which means “dead man”).

You’re there!

This is our seventh day in Costa Rica, and all is well.  One of the differences we’ve noticed is a preoccupation with physical security.  Businesses and homes have an ever-present air of watchfulness due to guards, walls (paredes), barred windows, doors (puertas), gates (portones), and locks.

Here is a picture of the facade of a nearby street showing the outside walls and gates.In addition to bars on all windows, many houses also have razor wire on top of the walls.The home where we are staying is a good example.  Even while at home, doors are locked and the alarm system is on (the alarm is triggered if the door opens).  To leave we have to:

• Deactivate the alarm system so that the door can be opened without setting off the alarm,
• Unlock the door,
• Unlock the first gate,
• Close the door from the inside (so you can set the alarm),
• Turn the alarm system on,
• Exit the house and close the door (within 60 seconds),
• Lock the metal door behind us,
• Lock the first gate behind us,
• Open, pass through, and then close the second gate, and
• Pass through the outside wall by unlocking, going through, and then relocking the third gate.

Entering the house requires substantially the same steps in reverse, except that only 30 seconds are allowed after opening the door before the alarm system goes off.  Here are pictures of the outside locked gate and the gate and door to get into the house; note also the bars on the windows in the second photo:

If the alarm goes off, the security company follows a protocol to determine if the alarm is false or real.  If they aren’t satisfied that the alarm is false, they dispatch armed guards to the house.

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