Twilight Zone

The whole month of July turned out to be like being swept up into a reality/telenovela show based in the twilight zone.  My brother and his two beautiful children had been to visit for two weeks and we had just said goodbye to them a few days before the saga began on July 4th.  

We recived a call from our friend, Julio, telling us that an older friend of hs that lived up the road in another community had been involved in an accident and had to be taken to the emergency room at a hospital in San Jose.  The man, Mr. C, ended up having emergency surgery and has been in ICU, unconscious since that day.  We located information to contact his daughter in California who flew down to assess the situation.  

Since she spoke very little Spanish, Julio asked if I would help her upon her arrival, which happened one day before we were expecting company more family to arrive for a visit.  Throughout the next 10 days or so we learned about this man I had never met through various people in the community as we went around town trying to take care of his personal business.  It was like having a portrait painted of him through the stories of people he dealt with in town and in his neighborhood.  Mr C moved to Costa Rica seven years ago and drove down here in an RV all alone.  He wanted to raise chickens, sheep and had two beloved dogs left behind while he was hospitalized, whose names we did not know, but through savvy detective work managed to discover.   The funniest story I heard was that Mr C had purchased a sewing machine to be able to mend his underwear.  Just one of many eccentricities that seem to be part of his character.  Strong willed, independent, cranky, and generous were the impressions that seem to personify Mr C.  

Things went from bad to worse though as the caretaker we placed at his house immediately after Mr C was hospitalized came down with dengue and then had to be fired by yours truly after some unfortunate things happened.  The last straw, though, was that we built a security cage to secure Mr C's valuables until he could return home.  Three days after the cage was completed, someone broke  into his home and stole all of his stuff.  We were shocked, angry, and saddened that this crime would be committed against a poor old man who was battling for his life in the hospital.  It is unlikely the culprits, who obviously knew exactly where to go for the goods will be caught.

We had two rounds of family visitors in July in the midst of the whole ordeal with Mr C so we were quite busy on all fronts.  I am glad July is behind us, but hope that Mr C will eventually recuperate and that he will be able to have some quality of life left to enjoy.  

As for me, I have learned more about the Costa Rican judicial and medical system than I wanted to know so early into my life in this beautiful country.  There is so much natural beauty, but that can be sometimes overshadowed by the rampant theft, lack of accountability for criminal behavior, and complexity of laws.  

We love our new homeland, but do wish that home robberies were not so commonplace and that criminals were more aggresively prosecuted.  Sadly, we had been warned that as soon as Mr C's home was left without a person living there fulltime, the home would be broken into, and sure enough, the predictions became reality.