Parks in Costa Rica
The first time I saw a park in Costa Rica on a Sunday I assumed there was a festival on. The park was Parque de la Paz, the Peace Park, south of downtown San Jose. There were vendors selling kites and drinks and food, banners leading up the spiral path to the top of this big conical hill in the center of the park (probably manmade, the hill I mean), carnival rides, and a million and a half people swarming around, all having a great time. On top of the hill there were people flying kites, everywhere from the cheap little plastic kites sold by the vendors to huge fabric and bamboo kites with twenty-foot wingspans. "Oh," I thought, "It's a kite festival!"
No, it was a Sunday at the park.
Every Sunday kite flyers, carnival rides, vendors, children, and adults converge on the park. I would have said that most of San Jose was at that park, except that every other park was similarly populated, though minus the kite flyers (hey, turns out it's the best kite hill in San Jose). So instead I'll say that most of San Jose was at a park on Sunday. And the parks aren't exactly deserted any other day of the week either.
Parks in Costa Rica are made for people. Which sounds like an obvious thing to say, except that parks in the US are made for...something else. I'm not sure what. Display, I guess. Piedmont Park in Atlanta, Georgia is frequently closed to festivals because the crowds "damage the grass." Children in La Paz were riding sleds down the sides of the central hill, and had been doing so long enough that they'd created clay toboggan runs, bare packed troughs down the sides of the hill, some of them more than a foot deep. Vendors were (of course!) renting and selling sleds. The police were walking through frequently, smiling at all and sundry.
Oh, yes, the police. One evening just before sunset I was walking home past a small park where a group of teenagers were hanging out together, talking, laughing, probably flirting, and generally being teenagers. Two cops patrolling together came up to the group...and walked on past with barely a nod. I realized after the police passed by that I had expected them to hassle the kids. Not that the kids were doing anything wrong, but a group of teenagers "loitering" in a park in the US late in the day would have been hassled and run off home. Or at least run off someplace else. Because in the US teenagers in groups in public must be up to no good. (Note that I expected them to be hassled. This isn't the same as thinking they should be hassled. Quite the contrary.) Even the young couples kissing on the secluded benches are left alone by the cops.
Last winter my dad was visiting Costa Rica--well, actually my entire family was visiting--and we passed a park where a group of maybe a dozen people were juggling. They had clubs, hula hoops (!), beanbags, all sorts of things. Most of them were pretty good, too, though some of them weren't. My dad assumed that they were buskers--soliciting money for their juggling. Nope. Just a group of friends who liked to juggle, who gathered in the park because hey, that's where the space was. They were keeping out of the way of people walking--including yet more cops on the beat--and weren't harming anyone. This is what parks are for!
Most Ticos don't have front yards and their backyards are mostly walled courtyards, so you don't exactly talk to the neighbors over the fence. I'm told that most Ticos don't entertain at home that often either. The park is where you meet the neighbors, meet your friends, meet people who juggle or fly kites or break-dance or whatever. There are small neighborhood parks everywhere, large metropolitan parks scattered more widely.
Last year after I got back to the US the streets and parks seemed like a post-apocalyptic wasteland, utterly devoid of people except in cars. It was creepy.
No, it was a Sunday at the park.
Every Sunday kite flyers, carnival rides, vendors, children, and adults converge on the park. I would have said that most of San Jose was at that park, except that every other park was similarly populated, though minus the kite flyers (hey, turns out it's the best kite hill in San Jose). So instead I'll say that most of San Jose was at a park on Sunday. And the parks aren't exactly deserted any other day of the week either.
Parks in Costa Rica are made for people. Which sounds like an obvious thing to say, except that parks in the US are made for...something else. I'm not sure what. Display, I guess. Piedmont Park in Atlanta, Georgia is frequently closed to festivals because the crowds "damage the grass." Children in La Paz were riding sleds down the sides of the central hill, and had been doing so long enough that they'd created clay toboggan runs, bare packed troughs down the sides of the hill, some of them more than a foot deep. Vendors were (of course!) renting and selling sleds. The police were walking through frequently, smiling at all and sundry.
Oh, yes, the police. One evening just before sunset I was walking home past a small park where a group of teenagers were hanging out together, talking, laughing, probably flirting, and generally being teenagers. Two cops patrolling together came up to the group...and walked on past with barely a nod. I realized after the police passed by that I had expected them to hassle the kids. Not that the kids were doing anything wrong, but a group of teenagers "loitering" in a park in the US late in the day would have been hassled and run off home. Or at least run off someplace else. Because in the US teenagers in groups in public must be up to no good. (Note that I expected them to be hassled. This isn't the same as thinking they should be hassled. Quite the contrary.) Even the young couples kissing on the secluded benches are left alone by the cops.
Last winter my dad was visiting Costa Rica--well, actually my entire family was visiting--and we passed a park where a group of maybe a dozen people were juggling. They had clubs, hula hoops (!), beanbags, all sorts of things. Most of them were pretty good, too, though some of them weren't. My dad assumed that they were buskers--soliciting money for their juggling. Nope. Just a group of friends who liked to juggle, who gathered in the park because hey, that's where the space was. They were keeping out of the way of people walking--including yet more cops on the beat--and weren't harming anyone. This is what parks are for!
Most Ticos don't have front yards and their backyards are mostly walled courtyards, so you don't exactly talk to the neighbors over the fence. I'm told that most Ticos don't entertain at home that often either. The park is where you meet the neighbors, meet your friends, meet people who juggle or fly kites or break-dance or whatever. There are small neighborhood parks everywhere, large metropolitan parks scattered more widely.
Last year after I got back to the US the streets and parks seemed like a post-apocalyptic wasteland, utterly devoid of people except in cars. It was creepy.