COSTA NICA - The Central American Dream

by Surya Lecona Moctezuma
translated by Ruth Clarke

“Over here, bitch!”

I was taken aback the first time I heard it. We were on a bus and that was how the woman in front of me addressed her daughter. But having my Costa Rican friends call me 'bitch’ (güila) soon stopped sounding strange or offensive.

In deprived and marginalised areas you hear the word “bitch” used all the time to refer to girls, and “dick” (pendejo) attributed to anyone, male or female, who’s a bit of a grouch, a crybaby or a wuss. Unlike back home in Mexico, neither bitch nor dick is considered offensive.

All the same, women in Costa Rica suffer the effects of machismo just as keenly as women in Mexico. Heredia is a city in the Valle Central, the country's central area, and Ticos (Costa Ricans) hail Heredia's females as the nation's pride and joy, the prettiest in all the land, much like Mexicans champion women from Guadalajara. Similarly, when it comes to football, Ticos from Heredia are just as passionate as Chivas from Guadalajara.

Outside Heredia’s stadium a policeman gives me the following tip: “Buy your tickets from the sellers outside the ground, you’ll see them everywhere. Don’t bother with the ticket office.” This is not a simple matter of the police cynically colluding to help touts double or triple their money, as is commonplace in Mexico. There’s more to it than that. Heredia’s players have gone several months without being paid any wages; the extra money made from unauthorised ticket sales finds its way back to the players, to compensate for their missing pay checks.

“So, are Heredia at home on Sunday?”

“Well, only if they pay the electric” 

The chef at the Casa Azul bar tells me, despairingly.

The club is in crisis. According to La Nación, a local newspaper, on the day Heredia learned they were officially the best club in Central America, according to rankings produced by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics, their Eladio Rosabal stadium was closed down because the club had failed to make its social security payments and was behind on its employment insurance premiums and contributions to the Heredia Public Services Company.

At a recent game against Saprisa, Heredia fans hurled insults at the team’s owner, as well as at Saprisa's owner, Vergara. Vergara? Yes, the same Vergara who owns Chivas! Up until a year ago, Jorge Carlos Vergara Madrigal owned both clubs. Rivalries being what they are, Mexican football is loathed and distrusted in equal measure by football fans in Costa Rica; “Costa Ridiculous”, as local novelist Carlos Cortés would have it; “Costa Radiant,” as Mexican journalist Pablo Pérez-Cano prefers.

The unrolled Costa Rican ‘R’ is a trait so specific to a Tico from Valle Central that they consider it something to be proud of. Primary school teachers take the blame, for not teaching children tongue twisters like 'round the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran', staples of early learning in Spain and Mexico. But the constant flow of migrants may also have played a role in softening the 'R's.

Costa Rica is a mixed up place. It aspires to be a European city, but there’s no escaping the influence of Latino immigrants, be it in the accents or in the Colombian shops displaying signs for 'bum-lifting jeans in a wide range of styles and sizes'.

In another parallel with Mexico, migration is a major issue. Costa Rica, at the heart of Central America, is “one of the most peaceful countries in the world,” according to its inhabitants, and it’s something they’re very proud of. But Nicas (Nicaraguans) have long been making their way south, and they suffer discrimination and xenophobia throughout the country. The disdain with which Nicas are treated by Ticos is perhaps a consequence of the fact that, historically speaking, there has been minimal coexistence between ethnic groups in Costa Rica: the country's indigenous population is almost non-existent, registering a token one per cent of the population, the same as Chinese; three percent of the population is black, with 94 percent classed as white or mixed race.

The migration phenomenon can easily be seen on the streets of San José, with a multitude of nationalities sharing the same pavement. The destitute wander the city's arteries and the homeless lie motionless on the tarmac, huddled up in foetal positions with only cardboard and rags to protect them from the elements. All await the opportunity of a home, a job, a life.

There are many factors related to homelessness, not least the disparity between the minimum wage and high rental rates. The current average salary for a domestic worker is 250 dollars while the cost of renting a room can be upwards of 150 dollars, making for a severe lack of purchasing power.

“Save your prayers for Saint Peter and your begging for your granny to take you in - we don’t want any more tramps here!” 

Yells a police officer with a fascist glare, as he hammers his truncheon against a metal structure underneath which Virginia Araya and her son, Álvaro Fuentes, have been sleeping. They've come to the capital from Alajuela, to visit a hospital that might be able to treat Virginia for a leg problem, phlebitis, which has confined her to a wheelchair at the age of 65. Her hands shake and you can sense the anxiety in her cold skin and timid voice. She tries to explain that they're just trying to get some rest, but gets a blow to the head for her troubles. A security guard from the bank on the high street has already moved them on once tonight, rattling their cardboard shelter with his stick and forcing them to move their makeshift home further down the pavement.

Immigration is most evident in the shantytowns, known in Costa Rica as precarios. Carpio and León XIII lie on the San José outskirts, two precarios where, according to your average Costa Rican, not even the police, ambulance and fire services set foot. Ghettos of Chinese, Dominicans, Nicaraguans, Salvadorians and Colombians dominate. The majority of the inhabitants are second generation immigrants, born in Costa Rica to incomer parents.

“León XIII is the worst precario in the country in terms of drug addiction, violence, illiteracy and delinquency” 

Says Suyapa Cuadros, who runs a project in District 4 of León XIII’s Tibas section. The Asociación de Cultura y Recreación León XIII offers workshops in football, rap and painting, amongst other things. At three in the afternoon, Sabana Park is full of children and young people. They come and go, changing shifts on the concrete terraces and the ragged pitch, worn thin by the neighbourhood’s football and basketball players.  A football match is under way between teams from León XIII and Carpio. Their bright new kits disguise their physical appearances, making their tattoos, piercings and gel-set Mohicans more presentable. The green Costa Rican field both frames and hides the troubles these young people face. The game ends and the players lie down on the grass sipping water. Before heading home, they search in vain for a mobile phone that went missing while they were playing.

David Caldwell is an artist based in London. For this work he was inspired by 'Costa Nica: The Central American Dream' by Surya Lecona Moctezuma

Football is everywhere, a constant running through all communities. All the youngsters in León XIII are big football fans and most play mejenga, or street football, while others fashion home-made shotguns, known as chizas.

Giovanni is 15, though he'd pass for 18 if it weren't for his acne. He comes across as mild mannered and considerate. He's been smoking marijuana since the age of 11 and making guns since he was 12. 

“You make chizas out of iron tubes and pellet guns; you put the tube on top and fit a sharp nail and spring coil, or part of an old bicycle, to fire it. It's enough to kill a person.” 

Giovanni explains this to me calmly, and admits that before he'd turned 12 he'd held 9, 32 and 38 millimetre guns, and that he used to roam the streets of central San José with them, mugging people, holding up buses and stealing mobile phones. 

“But I was just a kid then, and kids make a lot of mistakes,” he says, “now I just want to learn computing and get myself on feisbuc.”

Alan (not his real name) is 16 years-old. He tells me he first fired a gun aged 13, in a revenge attack following the stabbing of a cousin. 

“I was a kid, I wanted to play the hero and so I bought a nine millimetre for 60,000 colones (USD30), shot the guy and then sold the gun on again for 80,000 colones (USD40)” 

He tells me, all the while worrying that his identity will be revealed. He's smoked marijuana, crack and freebase. 

“I also injected heroin once” 

He says, before jerking away from the Dictaphone as gunfire suddenly rings out. 

“Don't worry, they know children play in the park so they don't come down here” 

He says to reassure me, albeit from behind the cement bench he had been sitting on. He laughs: 

“I'm only hiding down here just in case.”

The sound of fourteen gunshots sends people running to the park’s wire fence. Rumours start to fly, but the mejenga goes on. The players rotate constantly. Some are in great physical shape, others not so much. The older ones play dirty, lashing out and threatening their opponents. Oscar, one of the best players, is also one of the youngest; he’s 11 years old, has already tried marijuana and seen the guns his brothers carry. 

“It's nothing to be scared of” 

Oscar shouts to those of us running away, 

“gunshots are like fireworks round here.”

I found out later that the gunfire we heard was El Cuello (The Neck), one of the most notorious armed robbers in León XIII, being 'burned'. 'Burned' is another word you hear all the time in the precarios: it means being shot in the foot.

Published in June 2014 in the book
Football Crónicas, edited by Jethro Soutar and Tim Girven