New year is here!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011

John Lennon Happy Xmas (War is Over)

Happy Father's Day!!

Malpais? Not at all: Wonderful country!

Yesterday mi daughter had to attend a Malpais concert. There was a long earth wake in the afternoon and I was so afraid, that I decided to go with her and her friends. I am not a concert person. I love music, any music, but with a comfortable volume and in a nice place. Jumping among heads and yelling trying to communicate with the person right after me is not my idea of enjoying music.

Anyway, when I arrived to the gym, I realized that I knew the musical group. Fidel and Jaime Gamboa played in UCR pretil when I was there. Tapado Vargas is part of Editus. But the most amazing part was seeing Manuel Obregón playing the keybord wearing just an old, simple, blue t-shirt and a wrinkled pair of pants… I had attended his piano concerts and of course I like the Orquesta de la Papaya with those rare instruments made of turtles shells, pieces of wood, bamboo, sea shells, and so on; but this night was completely different.

Manuel Obregon is our Minister of Culture. He was wearing suit two hours before. And now he was in a school full of teenagers without Security Personal. His music colleagues made fun of him. Fidel Gamboa said: Now we are going to take advantage of “all the culture” that we have in this stage… and they played together a funny melody called “El Portoncito” and Minister Obregon did the funny chorus and made female voices…
Manuel Obregon is a wonderful professional musician. He is a classical pianist. He loves music and he plays a lot of instruments. Yesterday night he played marimba (La Coyolera and El Torito) and acordeón.
After the concert, some teenagers went to take photos with the musicians and they were not interested in the Minister. They looked for Jaime Gamboa and Tapado.
I felt really proud of my country. My daughter is a reporter from her school newspaper and she asked to Jaime Gamboa if Malpais is going to change because of the Ministry of Culture, and I almost cry when I was listened to the recorded interview and the musician said: “Para nada, nosotros somos unos ‘pisos de tierra’ y así vamos a seguir!”
This is our country: A place where a Minister can be in a public place without bodyguards. A place where a person is important because of his real hard work and skills, not because someone in the Government decides that he is good in some political position.

This is our Minister of Culture. This is our CULTURE.

San Isidro Labrador, quita el agua y pon el sol...

When I was a child, I used to sing this little song when it was rainy: San isidro Labrador, quita el agua y pon el sol (Saint Isidor Farmer, put away the rain and bring the sun) in order to go outside to play.

The Catholic Sanctoral says: "Isidore the Laborer, also known as Isidore the Farmer (1070-May 15, 1130) was a Spanish day laborer known for his goodness toward the poor and animals. Isidore frequented Holy Mass every morning but often reported to work late. Late, though he was, his plowing was nevertheless accomplished by angels that resulted in three times more productivity." That is why, Saint Isidore became the Catholic Patron Saint of Farmers.

In our country, we had a lot of towns named after him. In Heredia, there is San Isidro, a little country town with a wonderful landscape of San José, and one of the most beautiful Costa Rica Neo-Gothic Catholic Churches.

In May, all towns named San Isidro have “Fiestas Patronales” and the Catholic Church organizes Oxen Cart Parades, Animal Baptism, and music contests.

Last Friday, Professor Olga invited the Cultura y Lengua Meta group to visit San Isidro de Heredia and to enjoy the Cimarrona’s Contest. A “cimarrona” is a traditional band, formed by, professional or not, musicians who play popular music with some percussion and wind instruments.

We had a wonderful weather, not cold at usually it is in this own. The professor asked for parking the cars a little far from the Church because of the crowd. I thought: “What crowd? This is a little town and nobody will come over there”. By the time we left, there were cars all around three blocks from the Church!!


There were a lot of people in the Church’s garden. Families together, little kids with baby caps, elder people, a lot of teenagers and kids groups, everybody was at the Fair.

After a while, we went to have some dinner at the “Hotel”.
It was very surprising because the cafeteria was a big, clean, and elegant place. The food was traditional: tamales, picadillo de papa o arracache, carne mechada, arroz con pollo, lomo fingido, arroz con leche, agua dulce, etc.


I was impressed by the absence of alcoholic beverages and consequently, no drunk people walking around.

We had a wonderful time. And it was a generous offer from our professor who wanted to share her town and traditions with her students. This is culture alive!