Bernarda Vásquez no longer follows politics. After a year of highly publicized scandals in which photos of ex-Presidents in handcuffs provided persuasive evidence to Costa Rican voters of the corruption leaching into their national politics, many of her countrymen are equally apathetic. Yet what makes Vásquez unique and her indifference more lamentable is that she occupies a celebrated place in the history of Costa Rica’s democracy. On July 30, 1950, when Vásquez was 32, she became the first woman to vote in a Costa Rican election.
ALTHOUGH we lacked precise directions, locating her house was easy. As we entered the town of La Fortuna, near north-central Costa Rica’s Arenal Volcano, billboards appeared along the highway proudly reminding passersby of the right to vote that is consecrated here. When we stopped to ask for directions, a group of teenagers outside a pulpería nodded in proud recognition as they pointed up hills and around corners, assuring us that we weren’t far.
Soon, we were pulling off the main road onto a narrow dirt side street, our tires kicking up clouds of dust as we came to a stop in front of the house. I knocked on the door. After a moment’s pause, a key turned, a bolt disengaged, and the door creaked open just wide enough for a pair of gray eyes to regard us with surprise and a hint of annoyance. We were politely told that we had arrived in the middle of a rosario, a Catholic tradition of intense personal prayer. They would be finished in 10 minutes. We apologized for the interruption and retreated from the porch to an outcropping of rocks to wait.
AS we waited, I considered what I knew of Costa Rica’s road to democracy. After gaining independence from Spain in 1821, the country was subject to a span of dictatorial and unrepresentative rule by various members of the coffee elite for more than a century, interrupted only by military coups that imposed their own corrupt and nepotistic regimes. Real political change did not come about until the late 1940s, and, as in much of history, war was the catalyst.
The contested results of the 1948 presidential election prompted José “Pepe” Figueres Ferrer, a discontented member of the country’s elite, to call upon an army of exiles and mercenaries committed to overthrowing the dictators in the region that he had helped form while in exile in Mexico years before.
After training his troops on his farm outside San Isidro de El General, in the Southern Zone, Figueres launched a series of attacks against government forces. The five-week civil war that followed claimed more than 2,000 lives and ended with Figueres coming to power. Among other progressive social reforms, Figueres revised the constitution to outlaw the standing army (including his own), established presidential term limits, and introduced full citizenship for blacks and suffrage for women.
IN less time than it took for us to become uncomfortable on our awkward stone seats, the door opened wide and a pair of smiling faces ushered us into the sparsely furnished living room. Despite the time of day, the air inside was heavy and warm, almost tangible. The room smelled like my grandmother’s home, a mixture of old furniture and perfume. An unplugged television sat unused on the floor. Two things drew my attention upon entering the house.
The first was a shrine to the Virgin Mary, lovingly erected in a far corner of the room. The other was a wall lined with plaques, photos, and presidential commendations commemorating that historic day in 1950. While the pictures and plaques had gathered dust and hung crooked on their nails, the Virgin’s table was adorned with clean white linen and Christmas-themed wrapping paper, a low burning candle, and an assortment of fresh flowers.
Vásquez, now 87, is a small woman with snow-white hair and skin like leather, coffee-brown in color and creased with deep wrinkles attesting to her many years. Her default expression is one of abiding contentment, thin lips slightly upturned in a whisper of a smile. Her black eyebrows contrast sharply with her white mane of hair and draw attention to her dark, quiet eyes, rendered nearly blind by cataracts. THAT day, she wore a simple, brown, flower-print dress with a clean but stained blue-and-white apron fastened snugly about her narrow waist.
Her bony fingers toyed with a string of rosary beads, lacing them through one hand and threading them through the other until finding the bone-white crucifix dangling at the center. Scuffed sandals covered her feet. Francisco, her polite but shy brother, sat against the wall with his fingers interlocked behind his head. His clothes were too big for him; his pants were old, the fabric worn thin, and a black leather belt bunched layers of cloth one over another in a desperate attempt to keep his slacks from slipping away from his slender frame. He seemed accustomed to playing second fiddle to his famous sister.
WE spent the next hour talking with Doña Vásquez. Childless and never married, she has lived with Francisco for more than 50 years in the same house. She spoke of her childhood and of attending school up to the fourth grade before she was needed full time on the family farm. She learned how to read and write, though these days she does little of either because of her failing vision. She recalled the morning she awoke before dawn to vote in the municipal election that decided the small communities of La Tigra and La Fortuna would integrate with the canton of San Carlos, defecting from the canton of San Ramón.
She told us that although she remembered a general feeling of excitement surrounding the election, she had felt largely indifferent about the whole process. She had been aware that she was participating in something that would be remembered; she had just found it hard to be animated. “I was just a simple farm girl. Politics and elections were things that didn’t seem to affect me,” she admitted. “To this day, politics is not something I pay attention to, although it’s an embarrassment what has happened with these ex-Presidents.”
VÁSQUEZ relies on a monthly pension of ¢15,000, about $31. This struck me as truly sad: a woman once hailed by presidents, now virtually abandoned by her government, living well below any reasonable barometer of poverty. I asked her if there was anything she still wanted to do, some long-held desire not yet fulfilled. She paused.
Her hands continued to fidget with the beads in her lap and her eyes drifted toward the open door, left ajar to help cool the room. “Morirme,” she said. Die. At this, there was silence. Vásquez wore her subtle smile as I pretended to fiddle with my tape recorder. Someone coughed. After a moment, she stood up and offered us some of her homemade picadillo. Hands outstretched, fingers gliding along the familiar rough surface of the walls, she led first herself and then us to the kitchen a few paces away.
As we stood assembled around the room, our forks playing with chunks of plantain, the awkwardness induced by a powerfully honest answer crumbled away and our conversation turned to nothing in particular. We talked of the weather, debated the prowess of national soccer teams, and poked fun at my accent. We praised her food and washed our own dishes, as coiling lines of white smoke rose from her wood-burning stove. As night fell, we took our leave, thanking Doña Vásquez for her time. The election long since forgotten, the picadillo heavy in our stomachs, we drove away as a woman in the twilight of her years waved goodbye to us from her front door.
