Toto, I Have A Feeling We’re Not In Kansas Anymore!
So, just a few quick notes – sharing some recent experiences, leading to the “confirmation” that we are definitely not in Kansas anymore! We have recently had to make our way to some unfamiliar places for immigration purposes and to Clinica Biblica. Along the way there have been a number of adventures. On Thursday of last week (jueves), it was day 6 of my (Diana) having a tremendous amount of pain running down my left arm. It was painful during the day and agony at night. Thursday was also the day we were headed over to immigration. You have to keep in mind that everything you do takes longer than you might anticipate. So, after going to my first 2 classes, I was able to get in to see Dr. John Longworth, a wonderful doctor who has a dry sense of humor, was raised in Costa Rica as part of a missionary family and who has office hours at our school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Because the pain was in my left arm and my blood pressure has been up, he wanted to rule out that this was a heart issue, as well as determining what was going on, so requested a number of tests in the afternoon, over at Clinica Biblica. After picking up my salveque (backpack in Costa Rica, mochilla in the rest of the Spanish speaking world), he informed me that I would need to find one with wheels and was not to carry one anymore. It really didn’t feel very heavy, but he was insistent. We finished our appointment, told him we were headed to immigration and would see him in the later afternoon. School starts at 7:30am and my appointment with him was at 9:20am. We thought this would be no problem!
We walked home to drop our things off and headed on to the first bus, which took us (after waiting for it about 20 minutes) into San Jose and walked to the Coca Cola area, which is also known as the red light district. We needed to walk about 17 blocks to get the next bus, which is pretty common for us. We eventually found the right line to stand in, on the correct side of the block. This is not as easy as it sounds and it’s about now you’re thinking you’re not in Kansas anymore. There are no signs necessarily for buses, just general locations. When you wait in a line, if you’re lucky, someone you know that has done this before gives you a “heads up” of what to look for. The electronic title on the top of the bus (such as San Jose – San Ramon) really doesn’t tell you much and doesn’t necessarily tell you what cities or parts of a city the bus is driving to. The real info is abbreviated and hand written in magic marker on a piece of paper or cardboard taped inside the window. But this doesn’t tell you where along the route the bus stops, so it’s best to carefully lean in and ask the bus driver if he stops where you want – but never step on to ask, because the laser counter means he has to account for every body that steps past the beam and pay it out of his own pocket if he falls short. Since he only makes an average of $4000 US a year, it’s important to always look for the placement of these beams – they’re in different places on different buses. Anyway, we waited in the line for hospital de mexico, but found out that there were 2 lines and the next line also went there AND to immigration. We gratefully thanked the young man who helped us figure this out and moved to the proper line. All told, it took about an hour and a half, including walking and waiting in lines, to get there. But a man jumped on at one of the stops, he was in dress slacks and shirt, ripped out a Bible and started preaching … vehemently. We wondered if this could possibly be effective as the words we understood seemed to be preaching a lot of judgment and danger, accompanied with foot stamping and intermittent prayers, but a number of people listened and took the New Testaments he offered. We arrived at immigration, went inside, only to discover that they stop giving out numbers at 12:00 noon. We arrived at 5 minutes past 12 …. so, this meant we’d have to come back the next day, but at least we had learned how to get there. Numbers are an important part of everything you do – doctors, banks, stores, cell phones, emergency rooms, immigration – you receive a number from a deli type machine and wait until your number is called. There are usually many seats to sit and wait in and it’s just part of the process. We found our way back to the right bus, turning down numerous taxi offers and made a return trip home, being dropped off just where we had gotten on the bus. We did get to Clinica Biblica eventually, get all the tests and medicines and see the doctor again. Here’s another notable example of not being in Kansas. We had paid the doctor once that day, so he did not get paid again. Turns out I have some degenerative disease / arthritis in my neck, plus small disk space between vertebrae putting pressure on the nerves running down into my arm. They’re big on injections here, so when I filled my prescriptions, one was for an injection. You take your box of injection stuff to the emergency room, along with your prescription (you keep all your own prescriptions and medical records), take a number and they give you your shot.
And so we arrive at day 2, take the right bus nice and early and part way there, a young man from some mission (we couldn’t quite read his t-shirt), got on the bus and preached the gospel in a more compelling and inviting way. Many people listened to him too – although most folks just ignored him. Several bus stops later, another man jumped on and started “preaching,” only it turned out that he was a toothbrush salesman. Much to our surprise, all kinds of people proceeded to buy toothbrushes from him! Definitely not Kansas. After our 1.5 hour “travel time,” we successfully arrived at immigration again, but were able to get a number – 19 to be exact. After almost 2 hours of waiting (Les brought his Kindle and I had my school books), we were able to bring all of our paperwork and meet with the designated official. We did find out that we were missing about 750 colones or about $1.50 in timbres fiscales (tax stamps) – our agent spoke no English, but we were finally able to understand that Les could run outside and purchase these items at a Coca Cola stand, which he did. Now all of our paperwork was submitted. This means that we’re legal to be here for 6 months and everything should be finalized by then. Without that, you have to leave the country for 72 hours once every 3 months. We got in the same line, in the same place and took the same bus back – but we were dropped off in some unknown location in San Jose, a place obviously not for gringos and probably not a good place for anyone not specifically from that particular district. We’ve had this happen before – the bus stops, lets anyone still on the bus know that this is the final stop and you simply have to get off. Thank the Lord that week one of school, our paseo director John Wallace took us on a walking tour of San Jose and showed us landmarks to look for if we ever got lost. We found our way safely back to the Coca Cola district.
To complete the picture, on our 17 + block walk, there are vendors everywhere shouting their wares, a huge business of people selling lottery tickets by hand – they sit along the street at TV style tables and they walk and offer them to you, even coming in restaurants. There are many handmade hand-pushed carts being moved from one place to another. One man was pushing a small cart with about 20 egg crates bungee corded together loaded with probably 1000 pounds of onions. 2 people, competitors were standing side by side trying to outshout one another. Their chile peppers were the same price and looked identical. Waiting in line to get back to Zapote, there is always a woman walking back and calling, “cien colones, goma eucalipto,” basically 20 cents for a package of eucalyptus gummy bears. Nope – we’re definitely NOT in Kansas anymore. We’re on a gran aventura (grand adventure)!