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COSTA RICA'S LEADING ENGLISH LANGUAGE NEWSPAPER

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5 Parenting Lessons I Learned in Costa Rica

To have a child in another country is to take on an entire nation as your mother-in-law. It’s a new family, or culture, into...

The cure for grumbling expats: un granito de arena

I have lived in the same house for more than 10 years, but I have traveled quite a distance in that time. I have trouble channeling the college student who devoured the country with a ridiculous grin, unable to believe her good fortune, staring in rapture out of bus windows, listening wide-eyed to howler monkeys at night and thinking they were lions, making bioluminescent footprints on a deserted beach, getting lost, being found. Somewhere along the way I moved from “Will you LOOK at THIS?” to “Oh, yeah – that’s amazing, isn’t it?”

Costa Rican Spanish 101: Humorous Comparisons for Expats

If I had to choose, I'd say that the most colorful turns of phrase in the languages I know and love can be found in...

Costa Rica’s Weather Secrets: Birds, Rain, and Unique Sayings

It was still pitch black when I sat up in bed, thoroughly annoyed. “What is that damned noise?” I asked my husband, on whom...

On tweeting and twitteando: Should we resist when languages change?

In English, I'm a crotchety old-school grump. I am an editor and a former English teacher, and happily embody the worst qualities of both, brandishing a red pen and waging a warring battle against change. In Spanish, I have no such loyalties. I have the tone deafness of the second-language learner.

La horma de mi zapato: On love and taxis

There are taxistas and there are taxistas. But on the whole, I love the river of amiable, chatty, and well-informed men who have carried me around the city day after day and week after week.

Huevos Galore: A Hilarious Guide to Costa Rican Egg Slang for Expats

Most weeks, I aspire to examine Costa Rican language and culture with as much subtlety and sensitivity as I can muster. Most weeks, I...

The Real Secret of Costa Rica: Grapes and MacGyver

I have seen aspects of Costa Rica that are unflattering, exasperating, and downright infuriating, but there is an unruffled approach to life that does seem rather mysterious, and that I think has gradually worked its way into my bones over the years. What’s in the water?

Hablando paja: What if Jesus had been born in Costa Rica?

A Costa Rican Nativity scene: one Wise Man falls through La Platina, another into a pothole. The last one calls Joseph. Mae, I’ll be there later, ya casi llego. Traffic, mae. Es que vieras que en La Uruca hay UUUUna presa…

Keeping up with the Joneses? Try the Chickens and the Crazies

It turned out that every single home in the neighborhood had a special nickname floating above its roof, visible only to insiders. No wonder I had never understood directions around here. “You can’t miss it! Just go down by the Crazies’ house, turn left and keep going until you hit the Sausages.”
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A Venezuelan Migrant’s Ordeal in Bukele’s Maximum-Security Prison

For love, Andry Hernández left his native Venezuela to cross the dangerous Darién jungle between Colombia and Panama in an attempt to reunite with...

Costa Rica Outrage as Nicaragua Coach Questions Star Goalkeeper

Nicaragua's Chilean coach Marco Antonio Figueroa fired off sharp comments ahead of Thursday's World Cup qualifier against Costa Rica, brushing off star goalkeeper Keylor...

U.S. Senator Sounds Alarm on Cartel Grip Tightening in Costa Rica

U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts raised concerns about Costa Rica's growing role in drug trafficking during a recent Senate hearing. The Republican from Nebraska spoke...

Nicaraguan Brothers Die in Costa Rica Illegal Gold Mine Collapse

Rescue teams in Costa Rica pulled the bodies of two young Nicaraguan men from a deep tunnel in an illegal gold mine in Crucitas,...