A Cut Above

Costa Rica is rated one of the happiest places on earth according to United Kingdoms New Economic Foundation and World Data Base of Happiness.  Being on this trip I founds out first hand that these ratings are true! The questions these researchers ask how happy are you on a scale 1-10? Would you like tomorrow to be like today? In a perfect life where would you rate your life? And are other people happier than you? These questions are asked all over the world to determine how happy a country is.  But why are these people happy is an unanswered question.  

 How can an undeveloped low income country be one of the happiest in the world? That question was a burning one for our guest speaker Liza Fendt.  Liza is an economist on the history of the economy of Costa Rica.  Fendt researched this topic by surveying  Costa Rican's with 36 questions according to 15 indicators of three variables.

 1. Set range of positive emotion that we inherit aka your temperament 

2. Circumstances we face throughout our life

3. Factors under our voluntary control

The results of the surveys showed that Costa Rican's are happy based on several aspects of Costa Rican culture.  Costa Rican's tend to be higher educated which gives them an optimistic outlook that they will reach the goals they set leading them to go out into the work force and climb the social ladder.  Having a positive work environment and the feeling that you are continuously improving.  The main reason behind the happiness of Costa Rican's is their strong family ties and the safety and security of Costa Rica's state.

One of our other speaker talked about her non profit work with a poverty community in Costa Rica.  I could feel the passion Mrs. Gayle Nystrom had for the work she does.  I will try to sum up what Mrs. Gayle told us but my words will not do her commitment justice.  If you ever have the chance to meet this amazing women DO NOT pass it up.  http://www.crhf.org/ 

Poverty as a state or condition can mean that you can wake up with no water to drink, bath, or even wash your clothes.  Poverty communities have no steady stream of water, these people have to face choices like weather to buy food to eat or shampoo.  Making these sacrifices leads to more sacrifices- if you could not afford shoes because its half a weeks salary it is harder to move up in the employment field.  Having these financial problems leads to emotional defeat.  Step one of the Fundacio Humanitaria, a non profit organization working with the  Nicaraguan immigrants living in the bigest slum in San Jose is to start with the children because it is easy to teach them and lead them. When you bond with the children your building a bond with the mother through educating her children.  Step three find a core group of women and invest in their future give them support, therapy, teach them how to be a better mom.  These women become role models, and teschers (not official), and business women.  By default the men are forced to change their behavior because these women will no longer let them act out.  La Carpio is healing, they shut down one of the kindergarten schools due to a population drop.  The community never borrows money they will use what ever they have on hand to make a means for themselves, such as taking a chair and renting it for one colons a day making just enough to eat and maybe buy another chair to rent later.  The Costa Rican government is now giving land title to this squatter community, La Carpio is becoming a condominium community, and their children are starting to graduate high school and will soon be allowed to vote.  The work done by the Fundation Humanitaria is astounding and inspiring. 

Today has enlightened me to two sides of Costa Rica-I would love to live in the Happiest place on Earth and volunteer in  La Carpio.