Costa Rican citizen Aracelly Meza is trying to obtain a visa to enter the United States after she tied the knot with Bill Beck, 54, a U.S. citizen with a small tech company in Phoenix, Arizona.
Meza said she ran into a wall at her immigration interview at the U.S. Embassy when asked if she plans to work.
“I don’t want to work, and my husband has the money so I don’t have to work,” she said.
Meza, 38, used to live in Tirrases, a shantytown in the canton of Desamparados south of San José.
But now, the mother of two lives in Curridabat in a house she rents with the help of her husband, who lives in the United States but visits once a month.
After her first 11-year marriage, she got a divorce and swore off Costa Rican men. She drew off child support payments and sold lingerie to support her children.
“Ticos are machistas. A lot of things about them are bad,” she said.
A friend of hers involved in A Foreign Affair told her about the matchmaking agency. (Most female clients hear about these agencies through word-of mouth, according to industry insiders.)
Meza said she was skeptical of the whole thing and resisted for two years before she finally caved in.
She went to a couple of the parties, and a few dates, but the language barriers were insurmountable.
“It was complicated. We seemed stupid, silent at the dinner table,” she said.
Finally, last October, a Gringo from Arizona saw her photo online and wrote to her via e-mail.
Three months after she met Beck, they got married in a reception hall in Tirrases in January. Flipping through her marriage pictures in her new Curridabat home, she told The Tico Times her husband is affectionate and loves her children.
“That is the most important, someone who cares about my kids, not just me,” she said. Her husband helps her children, Kevin and Kyani, with their homework, and plays baseball and scrabble with them.
“Billy, he’s a good person,” Kevin said.
