Last night I went with two other blondes to Escazú, the most Americanized part of San José. We had some drinks at a salsa club that was full of couples sitting at small tables… then there were the three singles, that´s us, sitting at the bar. We moved to the next club and there was no shortage of people to meet. While other foreigners were quick to approach us, the Ticos were more hesitant at first. But once when the Ticos started approaching us we had them in an overabundant supply and they are fantastic dancers, eager to teach the moves and throw you around. Because we liked the other ‘couples club’ a lot better, we brought a group of American and Costa Rican guys over there. When we returned I was the last one to be dropped of by the taxi, the driver trying to convince me to go somewhere else with him at 3 am. I was so happy and relieved when he dropped me off at my house that I gave him an extra large tip. My hostmother hadn´t explained exactly how to open the gate so I stood there for a good five minutes all confused until I saw the curtains move and heard some loud giggling… my hostmother comes out in her pyjamas, still giggling uncontrollably. She wakes up at four every morning!

San José is not really that beautiful of a city, Ciudad Colón where I live is a lot nicer. The students basically go to San José just for the clubs which are pretty nice given the large number of cute Costa Rican hotties attending them. Still, they don´t compare with the beach clubs. Last weekend I went to Cahuita Limón and that was fantastic! I have all those tourist guide´s invitations to go on free trips here and there. Then I met a girl that´s just about to open her own restaurant café who invited me to come stay in the bungalow in her garden. She happens to live in the biggest house in town with the most beautiful garden… a cat, four dogs, a 8 year old son and an american husband. She´s going to teach me surfing next time I go… we´ll see about that… I actually have some friends I could bring who want to learn as well. The only downside of my trip to Cahuita… was how I kicked the water input of the toilet out of place and how our big room filled with water in matter of minutes, my roommates woke up all disoriented (I had stayed longer at the bar with my new Costa Rican friends) and I had to call the manager and help him and his wife showel out the water at 2 a.m (at 4 o´clock according to the manager):S

EWWWW…. a spider in my bed! Reminds me… my hostmother says they (or should I say ‘we’) have a problem with tarantulas in the summers! I may not be afraid of angry street dogs but if I one day wake up with a huge tarantula climbing over my face – I´ll have a fit.

Tomorrow is the national referendum on the TLC – the free trade agreement between Costa Rica, the other Central American countries and the US. While I was very much on the ‘NO’ side from the minute I heard about the TLC three weeks ago, the day I arrived, but now I´m on both sides. Like many Ticos I was viewing the TLC more in ideological than economic terms, seeing the national referendum as an opportunity for the Ticos to choose whether to maintain their rather socialist system or embrace capitalism and in many ways I still believe this is the case.

There are several reasons the government failed to ratify the TLC, calling for the first national referendum in the history of Costa Rica. President Arias was elected into office by only a 0.5% margin and the governmental structure recently changed from a bipartisan to a multiparty system. The divided nature of the government and the disputed legitimacy of the president made a naional referendum seem like a feasible way out of an institutional deadlock. Then again, the President and some highlevel politicians are determined in passing the ‘SI’ and rumors around that the vote tomorrow will be rigged or ignored in the case of ‘NO’. Before I arrived there was this big scandal because some high level politican had been threathening regional governors that if the ‘SI’ didn´t pass in their regions they would lose much of their government funding. The ‘SI’ campaign here is also a lot better financed than the ‘NO’ with an overload of advertisements and emotional rhetoric.

Also adding to my negativity is US history of meddling with Latin American politics, creating puppet governments and exploiting Latin American labor and resources. As far as I know NAFTA was bad for Mexico but then again the Canadians seem to believe NAFTA is working out well for Canada. I am moving towards the ‘SI’ side little by little. The government here has monopolies on health care, education, social security, insurance, and telecommunications among other services. I think some of these services really need to be opened up to competition, especially insurance and telecommunication services that are offered at some ridiculous prices here… I was going to buy a cell phone despite the ridiculous prices at which they sell them but when I asked how much buying a line was, they replied that there were none available… I could maybe get a sim card sometime in January or buy it on the black market. When it comes to the free trade of goods, Costa Rica already has a sort of a free trade agreement with the US so this one hardly changes much – it´s more like an ideological statement.

Yesterday I went to the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights for an informational meeting for the Transparency International Observers of the election. I am not signed up as an official observer as the students signed up some 2 weeks before I arrived but I´m still going with them filming our whole adventure… starting at 6:45 tomorrow morning.