Blog
The Lives We Are
The night I was born, as soon as they laid my head on her chest, my mother counted, one by one, my toes and hands fingers. She did it very quickly, twice, just to be sure. It was important to be...
Beyond the summit
The Sherpas or Sherpa are an ethnic group originating in Nepal, widely recognized for their profound knowledge of mountainous terrain, their extraordinary altitude endurance and their fundamental...
Parallel realities: between goals and missiles
The Club World Cup is underway. Cameras wind through the stadiums, true temples of football, where anthems resonate like modern prayers and players shake hands before the big battle. In the stands,...
A big blue eye
The first time I went to Ojo de Agua I was about seven years old. It was a Sunday in the late seventies, and I had stayed overnight with my cousins. That morning my aunt Liliana had woken up with a...
Toxic colors
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in USA recently proposed to phase out the use of synthetic food dyes due to health risks. These synthetic dyes are petroleum-based. Every day we see bright and...
Between Memes and Puzzles
Today, while trying to spend some quality time with my family, I wonder if we’ll be able to enjoy a peaceful afternoon without falling into the temptation of those small pleasures that offer an...
The Invisible Enemy
Saying that we are eating plastic sounds like an overstatement, but it’s literal. Although plastic isn’t served for lunch, or with our coffee, we can find it hidden in water, in salt, in fish, and...
Between two waters
In 2016, Jurgen and I visited Playa Ventanas for the first time, in Ojochal, in the Pacific Southwest of Costa Rica. It is very easy to get to: it is about 30 km south of Dominical, on the Costanera...
The language of stones
Visiting the cultural centre in Trench Town was the best decision we made during our trip to Jamaica. Not only did we learn, in a more genuine way, how Bob Marley got his start in music, but we also...
In Praise of Bacteria
In his wildly imaginative book Imaginary Magnitude (1973), Polish author Stanislaw Lem introduces Eruntics, a fictional treatise in which a philosopher describes how he taught English to a colony of...
Teaching to Protect
When I read about the ecological challenges facing Latin America, I realize how urgent it is to change our perspective. I’m increasingly convinced that education is one of the most powerful tools we...
Multicolored squawk: A Telaraña about toucans
In January 1854, after a three-month journey from Germany to San Juan del Norte, in Nicaragua, naturalist Carl Hoffman was about to arrive to Costa Rican. The greatest adventure of his life was...