People Working

The people of Costa Rica refer to themselves as Ticos. Ticos work long days. The fishermen, for example, start at 6.00 a.m., loading fuel, ice, food, and beverages into a small boat that shuttles them to their craft, which are moored a couple hundred meters out into the bay. The guys fish till sunset, 12 hours, and do this seven days a week during the season, December to September.

Below: Carlos and Maria Josefina sell orange juice at a busy, dusty Tamarindo intersection not far from the beach. They live about 45 kilometers away, on the other side of the major town of Santa Cruz, in the artisans' village of Guaitil. They rise at 4.00 a.m., drive the dusty road (paved only half the distance), and set up by 6.00 a.m., getting out their press and wiping down the open tailgate of their Mazda pickup with bleachwater. They knock off around 2.00 p.m. and go back home to load up for the next day. This happens six days a week. Carlos and Maria Josefina have four sons and daughters between 26 and 16. I joked that the little business needs a marketing director, me, for example, and suggested names like "International Juices, Inc." Carlos said, "Solo jugo." Just juice.

Clockwise from right: Teresa was the maid at Hotel Chocolate and helped me a lot with my Spanish. Teresa is a real sweetheart. She has a husband, children, and grandchildren. (A young grandmother, she said, and it's true.) When she came into my apartment to clean, she turned on the TV to Mexican telenovelas like "Dame Chocolate" ("Give Me Chocolate") and "Uno de Lobo" ("One of the Wolf"). Wearing the hardhat is Alvaro, of San Jose, the capital city of Costa Rica. Alvaro was foreman on the renovation job at Restaurante Stella, two doors down from Hotel Chocolate. He and his small crew started each morning at 6.00 a.m. and worked till 5.00 p.m. When I snapped his picture early one day, he had just shouted instructions to his guys, and I teased him by saying, "El jefe habla." The boss speaks. Francisco (blue shirt) confers with another Nicaraguan worker on Sunday, February 24, about a mutual acquaintance who had been hospitalized in Liberia, the capital city of Guancaste province, after suffering chest pains. The other guy handed over all his coins so that Francisco might have bus fare to go for a visit that evening and still return to Tamarindo by 10.00 p.m. and be at work the next morning. Francisco has a wife and three children in a Nicaraguan town near the Honduras border. He works in Tamarindo as a tiler's assistant.

In the village of Paraiso,

the national oil monopoly,

RECOFE, has no station.

But a handpainted sign

says there's gas in 50 meters.

You drive into the yard of this house,

and the people will put some gas

into the tank of your motorcycle,

charging a fair price.

I told them they would be

stars of the Internet.