A little country bio for ya

I was writing to a friend about Costa Rican economics and it´s level of development, and as I wrote I figured it might be good to share with all of you as well.

Costa Rica, as small as it is, is actually the most developed and advanced of the Central American countries. The roads are paved and well kept (not all, but the most heavily used ones) though not without potholes. 40 years ago it abolished its standing military and put all the funds into education and healthcare, so those systems are very good. CR is the only country in Latin America in which public education is compulsory and the literacy rate is 97%. It is also common to continue and go to college. (I know I sound like a tour book right now and its because I was just reading about this a couple days ago) The Costa Ricans are very proud of their high economic and developmental standing. As the book I read described, they prefer to describe themselves by what they are not. They are not poor, uneducated, illiterate, complicated or wasteful.

It is not without its poor areas, but on the whole it is far more developed than the other Central American countries and continues to grow and improve. I´m just happy to know that if I get sick or break something I won´t end up in a shady, rundown hospital. In contrast with the only other experience I have had in Latin American countries, the parts of Mexico I went to for mission trips (mostly in Ensenada) were extremely poor, but that was a mission trip, so of course we went where help was most needed. There are parts of Mexico that are very developed, but the big difference here in Costa Rica is the lack of militancy and political conflict. They do quite well without a military. They are called the Switzerland of Latin America. On the whole, people are very passive and non confrontational in both political action as well as everyday life. A tico (costa rican local) will go out of their way not to argue, even if it means agreeing with something when they really don´t. If you ask for directions, they may not actually know how to get there, but they will still tell you something because they would rather give an answer and try to be helpful than not give any information at all. Overall, they aim to please. It´s really nice but I am afraid that I will not know if I have offended someone because it is likely that they will not tell me so. So far I think I'm in the clear, I think. ; )