What It’s Like In A
Country Without War
By Stephen
Bergman
DATELINE: Tierra Tranquila, a house on a
mountain above the Pacific in Costa Rica
LAST NIGHT we sat out under the equatorial
stars and listened to the sounds of howler
monkeys, birds, and cicadas. At 2,000 feet,
there are no mosquitoes. This morning at
dawn we watched three toucans zoom in and
slash at their breakfast - a bunch of
bananas we cut down from our trees and hung
beside the patio.
Among the plantains, mangoes, papayas,
avocados, and limes, birds abound:
hummingbirds hovering under the leaves of
the purple banana flowers, flocks of
parrots, a pair of blue-crested mot mots
with tails twice as long as their bodies,
soaring hawks, and portending vultures.
Each morning you can spot a new, rolled-up
banana leaf and watch it on and off all day
until it unfurls fully, a lime-green flag of
fecundity. On the dirt road, our neighbor
goes by with his oxen dragging the trunk of
a pechote tree - a wood that, like the
native teak, resists termites. It is
valuable, and protected. Only fallen trunks
can be gathered and sold.
The community of 20 farm families live along
the road up the mountain. There is an
elementary school, a social center, and a
women’s cooperative micro-loan bank, which
in 11 years has never had a default. The
nearest village is down a dirt road with 13
hairpin turns, and has two paved streets.
Costa Rica is a designated world “Green
Zone’’ - getting top scores for
environmental policy - and our province is a
world “Blue Zone,’’ for the longevity of its
inhabitants.
The summer of 2004 my wife and I were asked
to lead a cultural dialogue here between
American and Costa Rican (“Tico’’)
teenagers, in which our daughter
participated. Our trepidation about what
might happen in an America ruled by a second
Cheney/Bush, coupled with our sense of
sanctuary in Costa Rica, led us to buy the
house. We have returned to the dialogue/camp
each summer.
On a trip with the campers to a local
waterfall, one of the counselors fell on the
rocks and gashed his head. In the village
was a modern, fully-equipped clinic: doctor,
nurse, and pharmacist. The young woman
doctor saw the patient right away, did a
thorough exam, and sutured him up. By the
time she was done, the pharmacist had
brought in the antibiotics and pain
medication. Our cost: zero. She told us that
every village of any size has a clinic
staffed by a doctor - all of it free.
How do they do it?
The answer came from a question the Ticos
asked the Americans in dialogue: “What does
it feel like to live in a country that’s
always at war?’’
For my whole lifetime, America has been
fighting an endless progression of foreign
wars - and, truth is, it feels insane.
America’s effort in World War II fattened
into a military-industrial economy that has
devoured our national purpose, which now
includes lies and torture. Our healthcare, a
for-profit “industry,’’ leaves 50 million
uninsured, a national disaster. Here, every
Tico has free healthcare. Hospitals are good
- some Americans come to San Jose for the
joint repairs they cannot afford at home.
How is this possible in a small country
without valuable resources such as oil, gas,
or metals? Simple: In 1948, the government
outlawed an army. It cannot go to war. It
spends zero on its Department of Defense -
there is none. Rather, there is a single
department for both Environment and Energy -
all the energy (except gasoline) is
renewable, from water and wind to geothermal
and solar. The country is not a utopia - the
Tico teens admired the Americans’ sense of
freedom and individual possibilities,
material wealth, and world leadership - but
it is an enticement.
If you don’t waste money on an empire, you
might just have money for a true democracy.
This country that cannot go to war, that has
a president who won the Nobel Peace Prize,
generates a certain peace among its
citizens. They know that if they get sick,
they get care; if they want an education,
they get one; if they want work, they can
have it (not just bananas or coffee, but
Intel chips); and whether or not they want
natural beauty and the blessings of animals,
plants, friends and family, and long life,
they have them.
Throughout the country there is a common
greeting: When we meet on the mountain and
ask, “Como esta?’’ - “How are you?’’ - they
answer, “Pura vida’’ - “Pure life,’’ or
“Life is good.’’
Stephen Bergman is a guest columnist. Under
the pen name Samuel Shlem, he is the author
of “The House of God’’ and “The Spirit of
the Place.’’ |
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