Blog

In praise of weeping

My mom arrived early, as always. Dressed in black, she walked through the doors of the funeral home, searched around but found no one she knew. Don Enrique, a very dear co-worker who worked as a mechanic, had died, and grief was rising in his throat. He sat among...

The invisible mountain range

I sit in front of my computer, ready to write. I have decided to travel to Uvita, in the South Pacific, without packing suitcases, hat or sunscreen. I close my eyes and let the memories of a trip I took a few years ago with the family settle in, when we walked on the...

The magnet of the South Caribbean

After a walk along the beach, we went back to the hotel. Our feet were covered by a thin dark layer, black as engine grease. We took off our flip-flops; we opened the tap to the maximum and rubbed with our hands: nothing. The stain persisted, especially between the...

Chinese Tales

I remember the red bridge in Parque Chino. I remember it because, during my childhood, I climbed his hunchbacked back like someone climbing a mountain. Also, because it appears in a photograph that my mother took in 1976. In that photo, my dad rests his right leg on...

Express Permits and Frozen Accounts

On August 2, 2025, Costa Rica’s environmental movement was shaken by an unprecedented case: an environmental activist, known for walking the forests and his social criticism, woke up to find his bank accounts frozen. Juan Bautista Alfaro, “Juamba Caminando,” had...