una lista

Things I like about Costa Rica, by Malyssa:

1.Mannequins have asses
2. There’s a national holiday for everything and everyone.
3. Spanish guitar instrumentals of Toni Braxton’s “Unbreak my Heart.”
4. The automatic bond formed between white people.
5. Getting my hair braided on the beach to experience something new. Being told flatly and in English, “Nice hair” by a local.
6. Spinning classes to Madonna music. Seeing my spinning instructor dancing on Ladies’ Night at Congo’s Bar.
7. Spotty translations, such as “Remember: Always love never fails.”
8. Trying to explain that Applebottom jeans song in Spanish and realizing that it is, in fact, worse than I’d thought previously.
9. Seeing lots of zeros on my ATM receipts and feeling rich.
10. Home remedies to everything.



Number 10 merits a story. I was having a hard time one night and trying to explain to my host mother what was bothering me. Since she didn’t speak much English and the program required that we spoke only Spanish at home, my efforts were lost in translation. After tiring of trying to understand me, my mom got up and grabbed a suspicious bottle of something from her cupboard, squeezed a few drops into my glass of water and told me to drink it.

I did, and then I passed out and slept through my alarm the next morning. When I asked her what had been in that bottle, she showed me the label, which said “Rescue.” I asked what “Rescue” was made of, and she simply replied, “Don’t worry, be happy.” Those were the only English words she ever spoke to me.