Thursday, 23 November 2017

My husband had always wanted to retire to Miami or Florida

but his untimely death had put paid to all our plans.Since then I have added California to the list,then New England, where the colour of the autumn is breathtaking, I have toyed with the idea of downing my roots, be it temporary, in Vancouver and get to know the whole of Canada and the USA from there,then Costa Rica joined the list for its spectacular nature. The four hour tour to the banana plantation and the Bananito village was quite an education.The tour guide had exalted the virtues of living in Costa Rica,free education til the age of 18,No 1 pineapple exporter in the world, one of the first countries to have electricity,etc.If only was Costa Rica in the first 100 cleanest countries in the world I would have left the bus a happy woman.I cannot comprehend how can people function in squalor,filth,dirt and worst of all consider it a normal, acceptable way of life. I was born in a communist country,and so poor,that even a church mouse was more prosperous than my family.I had my first new dress and new shoes just my size,shoes I did not have to stuff paper into so they would not fall off my small feet,when I was fifteen.We lived hand to mouth,every week my mum would send me to borrow money from my aunt,return it the following week when my father came home from working on the railways,only to go the coming week to borrow money again,and this was our life. But we were clean.I knew how to use a broom and wash the floor like a professional when I was five.Our windows were always shining and the curtains were as white as snow,"the whitest in the village",every-one would say admiringly.The yards were immaculate and I had to sweep the street alongside our long garden! Costa Rica has so much to offer to my vision of a carefree life,content,peaceful,joyful. But I like immaculate,comfortable, luxurious just as much.Would I be able to compromise so much of what is me,the grain of me? I do not know.

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