My Tica wife and I have been together for over a quarter century. When we met, I was living a simple life here. Three days a week I baked breads, cookies and pizza rolls and three days a week I sold them. I was my own boss, and as this was pre-electronic factura, every colón I made was mine. My sales were mostly at the beach and I typically finished my selling around noon on Saturday, which gave me a nice mini-vacation on the beautiful Costa Rican coastline until it was time to return to the oven on Monday. I was never going to get rich but was enjoying my life at my pace in a place that was still a few years away from entering the mass tourism phase.
My wife came from an old Costa Rica background—big family, big farm in a remote area of the Osa Peninsula, kids sleeping three to a bed. The house was uninsulated and very hot during the long, steamy days. Her parents worked the farm and her father was a classic hunter-gatherer, the jungles and rivers his workplace from where he brought home a variety of fish, shrimp and wild game (my wife and her family even ate monkey on occasion). They had little in the way of material wealth but were happy. My first visit to the farm I felt right at home. I slept in a hammock, chopped wood for the leña cooking fires and swung a machete in the banana patch without decapitating anyone.
The creature comforts that I first missed on arrival in Costa Rica—cable TV, comfortable US-style furniture, cheap cars and cheap gas—no longer mattered. For some years, my wife and I were in sync. Our goals were simple and stripped down, and we lived the rustic lifestyle I had envisioned since my first visit to the family farm. Our cement block cabina was basic and sturdy. We bought a large diario at the beginning of the month. Our freezer was full, and we always had a platter of fruits and vegetables and a container of eggs. I got free-range chickens dressed and ready to cook from a neighbor.
Then we went to the States to care for my dying father. I don’t know if it was the time spent there that changed things, but after our return I sensed my wife wanting something more. I did too, so we built a huge house, way bigger than necessary, accumulated debt, then sold the house to escape the interest-heavy mortgage payments common with the banks here.
Since that day, she and I have experienced a sort of role reversal. Some couples resemble each other more with time; others, like my wife and I, go in different directions at some point in the relationship. She has a teaching job and now aspires to have all the things that no longer interest me—the nice car, the vacations outside of Costa Rica, the newest cell phone, the outdoor furniture and the manicured lawn. Whenever she mentions any of these goals, I tell her I would be happy in a yurt—hell, a teepee—as long as it was climate controlled and had no leaks.
The only modern comforts I need are electricity, water and internet. And there we stand to this day. We have a piece of land down on the farm, and are already planning two different homes. I am willing to bet that my yurt/teepee/container house is finished first.
