Imagination

A few months back, I was sitting on my porch relaxing, watching the world go by when I noticed the little neighbor girl, who is probably about 5.  She was sitting on the windowsill talking animatedly to her playmate, which was her shadow being cast on the adjacent wall.  She chatted on, one hand on her hip, the other waving in the air with emphasis -- lost in her private fantasy.

A few weeks later, I noticed these two little boys playing on the stoop of a beachfront bar. There were a few rocks between them.  Maybe the older brother was teaching the younger one how to play jacks?  How's that for some "Leave It To Beaver" flashback.

It's beautiful to see young minds at play without any outside electronic stimulation.

Rio Sucio

Driving from the capital, San Jose, out to the Caribbean coast you cross a bridge which passes over a river named Rio Sucio. Translated, Rio Sucio means "dirty river" and it is where two rivers meet and connect.  The Rio Sucio runs down from the Irazu volcano and is really murky.  It intersects with Rio Hondura, which is a clear mountain stream.

The color and clarity difference between these two rivers is striking.  They run along side each other a short ways, then cross under the bridge where the waters mix.  

 Looks like oil and water.

Bikini Contest

I met a girl who relocated here a number of years ago to start working as an administrative assistant for a well known surf company.  This surf company puts on an annual fund raiser for a local non-profit organization that works closely with the community offering job training, mentoring, after school programs and the like, in an effort to give low income youth alternatives to the less than positive roads that often attract people in their situations.

Her first year here she was the main coordinator for all of the fund raising activities, which included a bikini contest.  Near the sign-up deadline she still had no one on the list so she decided to walk around our small town (where there is no shortage of cute young girls in next-to-nothing bikinis) to see if she could recruit a few using the $700 grand prize as enticement.  To her relief, she found a handful of young women who were more than willing to prance around stage in hopes of some easy cash.

On contest night, these ladies show up for the contest and unbeknownst to Ms. Coordinator, she had recruited the handful of "working girls" that work the town at night.  Of course, being new in town there is now way she could have known who these women were, but everyone else who had been here more than a hot minute knew immediately who the women were.

Can you imagine the dismay in finding out that she had recruited prostitutes to do a bikini contest to raise money for this non-profit whose aim is to steer young women in an opposite direction!?!??!

Which brings me to my question.  Isn't a bikini contest (as fun as it can be) a bit questionable in the first place given the goal of the non-profit?

Funny story though.