Since I first had the dream (nightmare) to be a reporter, the Tico Times acted as a beacon in drawing me to its little house by the railroad tracks. “What a perfect place to put out a newspaper,” I thought.
A few years later, after acquiring some experience writing under the byline María Elena Carvajal for some newspapers, radio stations and magazines, I finally took a drag on my Derby cigarette (I was a smoker then) and knocked on the door of that quaint doll house. Richard and Dery Dyer bid me welcome, unaware that they were going to experience a bad dream in having to teach me the do’s and don’ts of English journalism.
“It was, I imagine somewhat similar to what I would experience later when I brought Elena to Miami and married her ten years ago,” says Matt.
Then the Dyers took the risk of publishing my columns, with their Tico flavor, about Costa Rican economic, labor, social, political issues for more than seven years. What wonderful years they were for me!
Thanks to those stories my husband, also a journalist (he worked for UPI for many years in Latin America), got an idea who I was. Time passed and both of us became widowed, Matt decided to spend some time in Costa Rica and we got better acquainted, when he began working for the Tico Times.
“What did this experience mean? Elena asked me.
“It meant a lot because Cupid got involved. And I had arrows sticking out of my carcass. At the same time the rhythm of work was pleasantly different from the ‘deadline every minute’ environment I had been used to.
“Elena and I salute the TT for all the doors that have been opened to many people, like us, over the past 50 years.”
Salud!
–Matt & Elena Kenny
