THE government knows young people will play an important role in Costa Rica’s future and want to demonstrate that they recognize the things the nation’s youth have done and will do. So March 18–28, Costa Rica will be the stage for the International Festival of Youth Expression.

“The future is in the hands of the youth,” says Robert Gifford, executive secretary of the festival. “We want to get across the message that they can make the future better.”

The purpose of the festival is to help make young people’s voices be heard, as well as to give them a chance to show their talents and abilities in the arts, sports, science and technology.

“We want to show that young people are doing good things,” Gifford says.

THE festival hopes to bring together people between the ages of 12 to 35 from all parts of the country. Organizers are hoping to bring more than one million people together during the 10-day event. A number of activities have been scheduled, including theater performances, sports expos and competitions, an anime and comic exposition, art shows and concerts.

Some of the highlights will be a performance by the Chilean rock group La Ley March 27, the inaugaration ceremony on March 19 with events around the Central Valley, including a concert featuring local group Evolución at the Plaza de la Democracia, an extreme sports demo in Sabana Park featuring events such as Motocross and skateboarding, a variety of workshops around the Central Valley and exhibits at CENAC and Aduana Antigua buildings.

Sponsored by the Viceministry of Youth along with the Ministry of Youth, Culture and Sports, the Presidency of the Republic and dozens of other organizations, organizers hope that young people will enjoy the event and that it will become an annual celebration.

FOR more info, including a complete schedule of events and locations, see www.festivaljoven.com or www.siemprelistos.com.

YOU don’t have to be done with high school to get your art on museum walls.

Seven teens in the International Baccalaureate Visual Arts, Design and Sculpture program at the EuropeanSchool are proof of that. They get to show what they’ve created at the House of Culture (La Casa de la Cultura) in Heredia March 22–26.

Christopher Abdey, 18; Gabriel Hara, 18; Andres Jaen Castro, 18; Jason Li, 19; Christopher McCue, 18; Daniel Samper, 18;and Michael Wolfskill, 18 are all participating. Two sculpture students are Costa Rican, as is their teacher, Donald Jiménez, winner of the Second BCT Sculpture Biennale of 2002, a big competition here in Costa Rica.

THE other five young artists hail from North American, Taiwanese and Japanese/German backgrounds.

They’ve all done different things – painting, drawing, assemblage and digital animation. The work ranges from smoothly serene, as in Samper’s “Chromeform,” to chaotic modern, as in Wolfskill’s “HeadphoneMan.”

You can see their work Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. La Casa de la Cultura is in downtown Heredia, across from the Central Park.

For more info, call the EuropeanSchool at 261-0717.

EVERY year, groups of retired teachers from Vancouver, British Colombia, fly south to Costa Rica and settle in for a month at Ana’s Place, a bed and breakfast in Atenas, 42 kilometers west of San José. This year, two groups made the trip, one in February and one in March.

It all began when organizer Ollie Whitcutt came to Costa Rica for a vacation shortly after retiring 13 years ago, loved it and wrote an article on Costa Rica for the retired-teachers quarterly journal. She stressed environmental and cultural assets.

So much interest in Costa Rica generated as a result, that she brought a group of 20 down the first year. Now the program has expanded and on Feb. l6, one group left and another arrived, passing each other in the air. Thirty people have already signed up for next year.

While in Costa Rica, the group visited volcanoes, beaches, Monteverde in the Central Highlands, San José and Sarapiquí in the Northern Zone, went rafting and tried other adventures. Being teachers –even retired – they cannot keep out of the classroom and visited a grade school and a high school.

ONE requirement for the trip is to bring at least five books for school English programs. Enough days remain in the month to spend some time lying in a hammock and reading or studying the area flora, fauna and feathered friends right in the neighborhood.

Atenas is known as having the best climate in the world, for its position just east of the mountain range, making it a perfect place to evade the dreary dampness of Vancouver winters. Ana’s Place has roomy grounds full of bright, tropical flowers and birds, a pool and outdoor dining areas for sunny breakfasts – all the amenities missing in Vancouver at this time of the year –and it is just blocks from the center of Atenas with its preserved historic buildings and market.

“These trips are to learn about Costa Rica, the culture and the people,” Whitcutt explains. “We go to Tico restaurants and use Tico services.”

SHEILA Fonseca, whose travel agency is in Atenas, arranges their trips and visits to schools and libraries. Some, like Whitcutt and her sister, Helen Osburn, who’ve been here before, don’t mind skipping some of the trips to stay “home” and just enjoy the climate before returning to ‘“rain, rain, rain,” Whitcutt said.

GENETIC traits can be passed from generation to generation, so why not subconscious problems? This question, or belief, is the basis of a workshop on family constellations presented by Harold Hohnen next week.

Family constellations operate on the idea that past or present family problems can be directly related to the cause of current problems, ranging from drug abuse and depression to cancer. According to family constellation facilitators, by freeing one’s self from these ill feelings, which one may not even be conscious one possesses, a person can live a happier, healthier life.

One common approach is known as the Systemic Phenomenological Approach to Healing, and takes place as part of a group session. In a session, an individual examines his or her family tree thoroughly to examine certain members who may have had problems or died tragically, as well as past lovers of relatives and anyone else who may have sacrificed their happiness at the family’s expense.

Other participants stand in for these family members, living or dead, and often claim to feel a direct connection with the people they are meant to represent. Through this, accordng to workshop organizers, a person can ask forgiveness or make amends for whatever it is that has caused the negative subconscious feelings or problems affecting his or her life.

The first International Workshop of Family Constellations will be held today from 2-7 p.m. and continues tomorrow, 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and 2-5:30 p.m. The event will be at the Hotel Intercontinental Camino Real and the cost per person is $150.

For more info, call 232-0521 or 290-4060 or e-mail mayacan5@racsa.co.cr.

Three scoops of ice cream sandwiched between banana halves, drizzled with chocolate sauce buried under whipped cream and a cherry.

The juice from a strawberry frozen fruit bar running down on to sticky fingers. A traditional wafer cone topped with a dollop of homemade sherbet. So what if the weather in San José has taken a chilly turn in the last couple of weeks? It’s still summer, and it’s still sweltering on the beaches – time for ice cream.

Dozens of chain ice cream stores abound, but for something truly special, here are a few shops worth checking out.

Crem Rica

Specializes in: Ice Cream

Desserts

Recommendations: Ice Cream Crepe, Chocolate Sundae

Founded 11 years ago by owners Eduardo and Esther Balarezo, Crem Rica offers a rich selection of delicious ice cream cakes, crepes, pies and sundaes. All ice creams are made in the store, a fact that the Balarezos take pride in.

“Our ice cream is especially distinctive because it’s not mass produced,” says Esther. “You can’t just go into a supermarket and buy it.”

Ice creams come in a variety of flavors, from popular chocolate, vanilla and strawberry to more unique flavors such as lúcuma (a Peruvian fruit often used in desserts), pistachio and cherry.

Crem Rica also offers fruit sherbets, gourmet coffees and light snacks.

Prices: Ice cream and sherbet, scoop ¢335-¢720 ($0.75-$1.70); banana split ¢940-¢1,130 ($2.25-$3); crepe ¢880 ($2); sundae ¢460-¢1,035 ($1-$2.50).

Located: Curridabat, east of San José, 150 meters east of the Indoor Club.

Phone: 281-1475.

Las Delicias

Specializes in: Tradition

Recommendations: A simple scoop, Granizado with milk For more than 100 years, Las Delicias has been serving up its special handmade ice cream and it never seems to get old, as evidenced by a packed counter on a recent Wednesday afternoon. The ice cream counter has seen four generations of the Mora family, and is one of the oldest businesses in the Central Market.

The store has only one flavor – cinnamon with vanilla – which some people say tastes like eggnog.

“Once in a while we’ll have a seasonal flavor, such as chocolate or guanabana [sour sop] but cinnamon with vanilla is what we’re known for,” says Marlon Soto, an ice cream maker at Las Delicias.

Ingredients are all natural and the ice cream is made in large cooler containers right at the counter.

Las Delicias also serves granizados, which consist of a scoop of ice cream with shaved ice and cola-flavored syrup. Granizados can also be served with regular or powdered milk.

Prices: Ice Cream, ¢375-850 ($0.75–$2). Granizados, ¢440-540 ($1–$1.25). Granizados with milk, ¢460-630 ($1–$1.50).

Location: San José, inside the Central Market, near the southeast entrance, Av Central/1, Ca 6/8.

Phone: 218-8127.

Michoacana

Specializes in: Paletas (A Popsicle-like treat)

Recommendations: Yogurt with Granola, Mango with Chile

Crafted with care, La Michoacana makes all its frozen confections on the premises.

“Our paletas are known for their larger size [bigger than an average Popsicle] and because we make them with the freshest ingredients possible,” says owner Solomon Franklin. According to him, these desserts from the Mexican state of Michoacán were first made in the 1940s and grew in popularity across the country. It is said that there is a Michoacán ice cream store in every town in Mexico that has a population exceeding 1,000.

Franklin opened the store last September, and has plans to expand within Costa Rica this year.

The more than two dozen fruit- and cream-based flavors include traditional raspberry and lime as well as Mexican-influenced flavors, such as mango with chile and rice pudding. Paletas also come in smaller sizes especially for children, as well as in several sugar-free flavors.

The store also sells ice creams and sorbets.

Prices: Fruit-based paletas, small ¢100 ($0.25), large ¢250 ($0.50). Cream-based paletas, small ¢100 ($0.25), large ¢350 ($0.75). Ice Cream, small ¢350 ($0.25), large ¢450 ($1).

Located: Sabana Oeste, west of San José, 500 meters west of the Museo La Salle, beside Aqua Lux.

Phone: 290-2673.

OUR first encounter with the new west side Bangkok restaurant took the form of a phone call. One Tico Times colleague, a confirmed vegetarian who should write a book about the mishaps she’s endured in her quest for veggie cuisine in Costa Rica, called the Thai-Indonesian restaurant to see what was available.

“Yes, eggs are okay,” I heard her say, catching only her side of the conversation. Good sign, we decided after she hung up. They know what questions to ask.

Peter Polstra and Likit Boonyang, long-time veterans of the San José restaurant scene, are back as of late last month with a new dining option in Sabana Oeste, and they are proffering up the same Southeast-Asian cuisine their fans have come to know them for.

DESPITE a dozen or so years in Costa Rica, Boonyang remains true to her homeland in central Thailand, and that attention to detail we first came upon in the phone call is evident throughout.

One example: the ginger-like root galanga is a feature in many Thai dishes. But the lack of availability outside Southeast Asia means many Thai-restaurant chefs substitute ginger itself. Not Boonyang.

“It’s not quite the same with ginger,” she says, explaining that she grows authentic galanga in her garden, and obtains any missing ingredients for the restaurant’s dishes from Thailand. “It wouldn’t be Thai without it.”

And the result in my coconut chicken soup was a flavor distantly resembling ginger, one I wouldn’t have been able to identify. But Boonyang was right: It wouldn’t have tasted the same with ginger substituted.

MAIN courses range from ¢1,750- ¢3,950 ($4.10-$9.30), and the trilingual (Spanish/English/Thai or Indonesian) menu has plenty to choose from. The mildly spiced Indonesian chicken is a gentle introduction to the cuisine from this part of the world.

The chicken with cashew nuts and beef with musaman curry pack more of a kick, but Polstra and Boonyang do adapt their menu for the local audience by offering the option of less spice in their dishes. (The fire is a bigger issue in the curry-based Thai plates than in less piquant Indonesian cuisine.) But that’s the only concession they make.

Vegetarian options include pad thai, pineapple fried rice and tofu or egg in green curry. All curry dishes, vegetarian or not, are prepared in coconut milk, and come with a side order of steamed vegetables and jasmine rice.

LUNCH and dinner menus are the same, but a couple of appetizers can make a full lunch – the portions are filling – if you want something light. Try the vegetarian spring rolls (¢850/$2), which come with peanut, spicy and sweet-and-sour sauces, accompaniments to many of the dishes on the menu. Skewered beef or chicken satay, (¢1,950/$4.60); coconut soup with chicken (¢1,450/$3.40); or a green salad with peanut dressing, (¢950/$2.25) could round out a light lunch.

Desserts (¢500-900/$1.20-2.10), include an Indonesian cinnamon-and-anise cake, green-tea ice cream, coconut custard and fried bananas. Thai iced tea and ginger lemonade complement the standard selection of beverages.

The converted house makes for a roomy, but intimate enough space for a restaurant, with just 10 tables, plus three more in a secluded mezzanine area. Inverted parasols shield the ceiling light fixtures and keep the illumination soft. A few wall hangings and soft background music evoke Southeast Asia without overdoing it.

BANGKOK is 400 m. west of Pop’s in La Sabana, across from Amnet and next to the UCIMED medical university on the old road to Escazú. It is open Tues.-Fri., noon-3 p.m. and 6-10:30 p.m.; Sat., noon-11 a.m.; and Sun. noon-8 p.m. All credit cards are accepted. Phone 296-6110 for reservations or info.

STARLA Landon has found the two things that could distract you from her balcony view of Manuel Antonio’s crescent Pacific coast line – penises and vaginas.

The oversized stone genitalia are carved onto replicas of archaic Zukia statues that support the balcony’s handrail with their hands over their shoulders. They’re just one of the unique touches that sets Starla’s home, called Star La Landia, apart.

She rents the full-service inn as seven separate suites, or in its entirety, to bands of travelers who crave originality in their jungle outings.

It is billed as the “private, intimate adventure,” and hits that mark with champagne bubble baths and furnishings inspired by prehistoric jungle civilizations and Spanish architects.

The house, like the shoulders of the northern sunbathers on the beaches about a kilometer below it, is freckled, but with details secreted into columns and bedrooms and draped around the ample buttocks of statues.

THE living room is two-tiered and, like most of the house, tinged with leafy sunlight and the kaleidoscopic stainedglass patterns scattered adorning the tops of walls. Along with the primeval mood of the decor, light, space and foliage are obvious themes of the house’s architecture.

Starla said she wanted it to look like a Spanish castle, and its imperial disposition is evident in the slate floors and carved columns. She studied architecture in Spain and worked for resorts in South Florida as a landscape architect. Costa Rican architect Francisco Rojas, known for his structures that mesh with the natural world, helped her design the house.

Before she unleashed her imagination on her house’s design, Starla owned 400 acres in the Savegre river valley and planted them with certified, disease-resistant coconut palms. She exported them to South Florida when its plantations were ravaged by lethal yellowing in the 1990s.

The plantation and her home there were swept away in a deluge during Hurricane César in 1996. She sold the land and bought her home in Manuel Antonio shortly after.

Two trees jut through the three levels, encased in glass and iron frames from their roots to the balcony they shade. Their encasements allow rainwater to trickle from their branches to the soil.

THE house is notched into its steep hillside on an edge of a development in Manuel Antonio. From the trees around which it was built, to the preservation of the slope, the house is integrated with the wilderness. Decorative stones set in the walls were salvaged from the sand used to mix the cement. Wildly curvy wardrobes and an entertainment center are cut from the tree-choking fingers of the strangler fig, the columns are carved into stylized guaramo trees.

Stone floors, high ceilings, stained windows and breezy, open rooms keep the house cool in the 90°F heat of the day, but ceiling fans and air-conditioners do the job as well.

A pool in the living room is fed from the mouth of a huge mask on the wall above it, and is the holding tank for the irrigation system. It is not chlorinated, rather, it is drained slowly and refilled throughout the week and waters the organic garden at the foot of the hill below.

The vegetables grown there, and the shrimp that Starla’s husband, Saul Segura, catches in the nearby river, park on dinner plates after a detour through one of the two full kitchens.

A stay there can be as private or as pampered as guests wish. Starla and Saul cook three meals a day or leave guests to their own culinary adventures in the kitchens. Masseuses from the neighboring Sea Glass Spa make house calls with their varied styles of muscle tenderizing and hot stone treatments.

The showers are cascades from conch shells and slate ledges, the sinks are ceramic bowls set in rough-cut four-legged stone beasts, and the bathtubs are full and wide for bubbles of soap and liquor.

BEYOND the balcony’s handrail, wildlife topples out of the forest, thrusting upward from the hills to the far-away peninsula that hedges the bay on the northern rim of the beach. Closer to home, sloths are known to grapple with the foot bridge linking the driveway to the regal front entrance and monkeys slink between the branches, some overhanging the balcony.

If the distractions of the house are not enough to entertain you, Starla plans a menu of daily excursions with Iguana Tours. Those range from cable swinging canopy tours, jaunts in the mangroves in a covered boat, jungle treks, sunset sailing, horseback riding through primary rainforests, sea kayaking and white-water rafting on the Savegre and Naranjo rivers.

Bilingual guides lead the trips and a professional photographer will memorialize your open-mouthed splashing down the rivers’ rapids.

Suites start at $150 per night for two, $350 for the honeymoon suite with the private balcony. Guests who arrive between May 1 and Nov. 30 receive a 10 % discount.

For more info, see www.starlalandia.com, call 777-5271 or fax 777-5200.

GETTING THERE:

By Plane: NatureAir (220-3054) and SANSA (221-9414) operate 30-minute flights between San José and Quepos near Manuel Antonio ($45 each way).

By Car: Drive three hours south west on the

, then turn south along the paved

. At Villas del Parque turn right, follow the road to the end to parking lot. If you have a 4×4, you can continue to the hotel; if not, leave the car at the parking lot just before the end of the road.

By Bus: Buses to Quepos and Manuel Antonio depart regularly from San José’s Coca-Cola Terminal. In Quepos, buses leave every 20 minutes for Manuel Antonio.

FIVE months after failing to report back for active duty with the U.S. military, Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejía Castillo, a 28-year-old Nicaraguan-born soldier who served in Iraq last September with his Florida National Guard unit, on Monday turned himself over to U.S. military authorities at Massachusetts’ Hanscom Air Force Base to seek conscientious objector status.

Mejía, a U.S. citizen, said he felt he has not committed a crime by refusing to  fight and does not want to live the rest of his life on the run, even if it means facing a courtmartial.

He is reportedly the first soldier to turn himself in after failing to report for duty in Iraq.

“I am afraid, but I also have faith,” Mejía told the Nicaraguan daily El Nuevo Diario, during a phone interview last week from an undisclosed location in New York. “I believe in my reasons to not continue over there [in Iraq] in this criminal war.”

In Nicaragua, Mejía is being celebrated as a hero by human rights activists and the Catholic Church.

“Conscience is like the voice of God in each of us,” Managua’s Archbishop Jorge Solórzano told El Nuevo Diario. “[Mejía] listened to the Supreme Voice and is free of condemnation.”

FOR five months, Mejía had been sleeping in different locations in New York City and at the Peace Abbey, an anti-war activist center in Sherborn, Massachusetts.

He met with other anti-war activists and eventually learned about the tradition of conscientious objector, according to Lewis Randa, founding director of the Peace Abbey.

“Once he learned about the tradition of conscientious objector, he learned it described his true self,” Randa told The Tico Times this week during a phone interview from the Peace Abbey.

After praying at the Abbey, Mejía decided to put his conscientious objector sentiments in writing and turn himself in. Before doing so, he met with his lawyer, his mother Maritza Castillo, and his father, famous revolutionary singer/ songwriter Carlos Godoy Mejía, best know for writing the popular Nicaraguan folk song “Nicaragua, Nicaraguita.”

A group of 100 peace activists accompanied Mejía to Hanscom Air Force Base and cheered him on at the gate as the guards led him away. Randa gave Mejía a medallion made out of a piece of the bloody alter cloth from the day Archbishop Oscar Romero was gunned down March 24, 1980 while saying mass in San Salvador.

The young soldier activist wore the medallion – a symbol of social disobedience and justice, according to Randa – as he was escorted away.

Mejía was transported back to his military unit in Miami, where his unit commander will decide if the soldier will face charges, according to a military spokesman at Hanscom Air Force Base, as quoted by AP.

Randa describes Mejía as “a wonderfully courageous young man” who he believes will remain strong during his upcoming ordeal.