Pura Vida Gayle Cottrill
M
y plane landed in San Jose, Costa Rica. In my beloved window seat, I had watched the land change from blue, to green, to brown and white, to finally a close-up on a city teeming with life foreign to my own. Within the first few minutes I spent off the plane, I knew the next week was going to be one I would not forget and one far different from what I had anticipated. Bright colours fed my thirsting eyes. The walls held murals of toucans, sloths, frogs, monkeys, and iguanas. Inhabiting these still frames of wonder, the animals imitated their living counterparts and celebrated with the sounds of their true home that emanated from hidden speakers. The rush of a distant waterfall, the chirp of a macaw, the roar of a howler monkey (which is terrifying in real life), and the song of a cicada passed through the crowd, creating excitement and preparing all who stood in the Customs line for the beauty that awaited them outside. As I stood in line, waiting to be interrogated about my motives for participating in an innocent Spanish Club trip, I noticed two words painted in bright yellow letters, twisting amoungst the jungle vines of another mural, Pura Vida. Something “life” was all I could interpret. I didn’t know that much Spanish. Enough, I figured, to get me thorough a week of exploration in a foreign country where we were “supposed” to practice our Spanish, but I figured I wouldn’t really need to when I was going to places designed for foreign tourists. But there was something about these two words that struck me. As I moved along towards the questioning counter, I noticed the words were everywhere: on advertisements for beer (especially beer), food, transportation, and general merchandise. Pura Vida. What kind of life? Finally my turn came for interrogation; it wasn’t that bad. My trip was summarized easily: a one-week stay, three days with a host family, each day full of excitement and travel. Nothing too suspicious, so I was allowed to go on my way. Our tour bus was teal and decorated with the same jungle animals that crawled, climbed, and
circled their way around the airport, and also on the bus, those same two words again. Pura Vida. Our tour guide, Hector, was quite charming. At least, all of us girls thought so. But in the next week we discovered he already had numerous girlfriends throughout the country and was quite the traveler and handyman. He could fix broken busses, tame “cocodriles” and poison frogs, give river-boat and jungle-walk tours, organize seeing an imaginary tapir with our horse guides, salsa like a pro, make inspirational speeches, and he knew his coffee. His accent was thick, and he was encouraged by our cruel teachers to speak in Spanish while on the bus. At times it was difficult to understand exactly what he told us of where we were going and what we were to see and do. Sometimes he gave us advice, and I was nervous when I was unable to fully comprehend his every direction. From the airport, our bus took us on an extremely bumpy ride to meet (hug and kiss) our host mothers. I was excited, scared, and anxious, knowing I was on my way to live with my host family and be submerged in a foreign culture with only a roommate who spoke my native language. I realized that my three years of studying would hardly be enough to truly communicate with my host family. At first I proved myself correct. I spent the first few days nodding, smiling, saying only sí, un pocito, no sé, más despacio por favor, and using the universal language of confused facial expressions. But after a few days of practice, my classmate and I were able to truly converse with our family. It was a new experience, and I decided early on I was going to take some risks, try new things, speak a new language, and live by Costa Rica’s national, historic phrase, Pura Vida, or as our beloved Hector told us on the bus (in English) it meant, “pure life.” I would start with that.