By Amanda Roberson
Tico Times Staff | aroberson@t…

Communication between boats at high sea and base camps is about to become easier for the Costa Rican Coast Guard, thanks to a donation of equipment made yesterday by Christian Albrechts University in Germany, according to a statement from the Public Security Ministry.

The equipment, valued at an estimated $5,000, will allow Coast Guard officials at sea to communicate more quickly with nine central stations around the country, explained Public Security Ministry spokeswoman Patricia Meléndez.

“The equipment the Coast Guard was working with was very antiquated; this is a lot more modern,” she said.

Christian Albrechts University is recognized worldwide as a center of scientific research, and students from about 100 countries, including Costa Rica, have studied there.

About a year ago, one of the university’s research boats anchored at the Pacific port of Caldera for an exchange between German and Costa Rican scientists. The Coast Guard also helped place buoys in Costa Rican waters to provide data for university scientists.

The donation was made yesterday during a ceremony attended by Vice-Minister of Public Security Gerardo Láscarez, German Ambassador Volkner Fink and Costa Rican Coast Guard Director Carlos Alvarado

by Rod Hughes
We never thought we would see it happen in Costa Rica, the original “take me as I am” country.
Banks in this country are offering personal loans for extreme makeover plastic surgery that costs $2,000 and up, according to an article in the daily paper, Al Día.
Plastic surgery here has been in large part a sector of what some call “medical tourism,” the patients foreigners from developed countries. The surgeons are well-trained and some are bilingual, speaking fluent English they polished taking the specialty at U.S. universities.
According to plastic surgeons consulted by Al Día reporter Franklin Arroyo, although most of the resident patients are women, they are not all models. The younger Ticas (Costa Rican women) seek vibrosuction to remove fat cells and others seek breast augmentation, says Cristián Rivera, while the older women want breast reduction or re-shaping. Still others, he continued, want skin surgery for stretch marks after weight reduction.
But even a few Costa Rican men have caught the makeover craze for facial surgery and liposuction, according to Jorge Mora, vice president of the Costa Rican Plastic Surgeon’s Association. Women over 40 crave facelifts, he added.
But not all women are enthusiastic about going into debt. María Elena Rivera, a masseuse, told the paper, “I’m not satisfied with financing. It’s better to save up and pay cash.” (Judging from her photo in the paper, she really needs no alteration.)

by Rod Hughes
Costa Rica’s under-20-year-old All Star team beat Scotland Saturday in the world tournament for youthful soccer teams, but the hoped for miracle didn’t happen. The figures still turned out badly for them and they were eliminated.
The soccer world is full of might-have-beens. If the Canadians had beaten the Congo team…But the Congo was just too strong and Canada lost, 2-0. If the Ticos had made just one more goal…
Mark Reynolds of Scotland opened the scoring just 18 minutes into the game but Pablo Herrera tied it for Coata Rica in the second half and Jonathon McDonald capped the victory during the waning minutes of make-up time by blasting in the winning goal.
For this game, past deficiencies had been cured, so the Costa Ricans can be proud of their youth. Despite a savaging by sportswriters, their recond was respectable.

by Rod Hughes
The Costa Rican government has agreed to foot the $10 million shortfall in funds allocated to rebuild the east tower at Calderon Guardia Hospital. The wing was destroyed in a fire July 12 of last year that killed 19 patients and nurses. Total cost of the reconstruction is $25 million.
The shortfall was caused when the Costa Rican government severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan last month, in favor of recognising mainland China. Taiwan had set aside a grant to help pay for the project, one of several aid programs canceled by Costa Rica’s change of foreign policy.
Eduardo Doryan, executive president of the Social Security Administration (Caja) has announced that bids are now being accepted for the work. The daily paper La Nación reported that, once the winning bid is accepted, the winning company will have 70 weeks to complete the shell and to equip it.
So long and complicated is the government bidding process in this country that Doryan refused to even speculated on the project’s completion date.
The six-story tower, 15,000 square meters in all, will contain 280 beds and will house obstetrics, gynocology and delivery rooms as well as radiology and CAT scans, etc.

by Rod Hughes
“Daddy’s not coming back,’ commented five-year-old Valeria Salazar matter-of-factly, reported the daily paper Al Dia.
Valeria is the sole survivor of a family of six swept away in a flash flood Sunday afternoon while on a family outing, a tragedy that has hit hard not only their community of Palmitos de Naranjo but this entire family-oriented country.
“Daddy” was Luis Fernando Salazar, 42, his wife Rosales Barquero, 36, and their three sons, Luis Alejandro, Esteban and Jose Andres, 15, 12 and 11 respectively. They were on the grounds of Hotel Tierras Enamoradas in San Ramon.
By family accord, Enia, the sister of Valeria’s father, is caring for the little girl who enjoys playing with her cousins and, according to the Al Dia report, seems relatively unaffected by the event—as yet.
By all accounts, it was an exemplary family. They were rappelling (descending on ropes from the wall of a narrow canyon) as part of the hotel’s tour. The hotel has issued a press release saying that the flash flood came without warning and all safety procedures were in place. But the Tourism Institute (ICT) told Al Dia that the hotel had not submitted to a safety inspection to allow a permit by the Ministry of Health.
The tragedy underscores one of the dilemmas of adventure tours here—the divided responsibility among government agencies when it comes to licensing such tours. It also serves as a cautionary note for swimming or performing other activities in tropical rivers, especially during the rainy season. One always remains wary of whether clouds are gathered upriver because it can be perfectly dry where one is at riverside but a cloudburst may be happening on higher ground.
Carlos Herrera, accident prevention expert with the Red Cross, told the paper yesterday that rivers often give clues of a sudden head of water, such as turning a chocolate color, which indicates that the soil upriver is not absorbing the rainfall. Often, limbs, tree trunks and even accumulations of garbage tossed into rivers can cause a temporary dam that breaks unexpectedly, he added.
As Red Cross rescuer Luis Hertas explained, “The force of the water carried away the family and the guide that accompanied them (and) only the little girl was saved.”
The father was an exceptional employee at a Naranjo bank for 22 years and his eldest son a student at the Experimental Bilingual High School in Naranjo and the two younger sons attended sixth and fifth grades at the Palmitos grade school.
The tour is called “canyoning” here and contains some elements in common with mountain climbing. It is relatively new here but is growing in popularity undimmed by the tragedy. The paper noted that eight students speaking Hebrew went on the tour inconcernedly yesterday as an example of its popularity with mainly younger international tourists.

by Rod Hughes
Private enterprise in Costa Rica continue to lend aid to better the lives around them.
In Quepos, for example, the famous Marina Pez Vela sportfishing company is donating a much-needed bridge. President Oscar Arias is scheduled to place the cornerstone of the tourism company’s bridge over Quebrada Suya in a ceremony Friday.
And Walmart CentroAmericano corporation has turned over to the mayor of Escazu, a western suburb of San Jose, a donation to finance scholarships for students with scarce resources plus a $10,000 check to Hogar Salvando al Alcoholico, an alcohol addict rehabilitation center. The company is also building a pedestrian footbridge and a system of “smart” traffic lights.

by Rod Hughes
Actor/director Mel Gibson met informally yesterday for an hour with President Oscar Arias at the president’s home in Rohrmoser. But the chat was more than a casual social visit.
Gibson offered personal economic aid to indiginous people in isolated areas of Costa Rica. Needs for this cash-starved segment of Costa Ricans are many, such as housing, rural schools and piped, potable water. Most live in remote, mountainous areas where they cultivate traditional crops for their own consumption, using techniques that differ little from their pre-Columbian ancestors.
The Gibson visit did not produce any immediate concrete public commitment but the actor was very frank in stating his intentions. He also said he was looking for an opportunity to use Costa Rica as the location of a movie.
The most recent Gibson-directed movie was shot in southern Mexico. (He speaks rudamentary Spanish but his conversations with Arias were in English, a language the president speaks well.) The movie’s scenario revolved around indiginous American themes, sparking his interest in the subject.
Meanwhile, the government’s housing plan continues to expand into these remote sectors. Saturday, 300 indiginous persons on the Ujarras Indigious Reserve at Buenos Aires, Puntarenas province, exchanged their ramshackle huts, made of odds and ends of wood, for 69 brand new homes under the National Indiginous Housing Program, thanks to Family Housing Bonds.

by Rod Hughes
Next March 20, most Costa Rican phones will have an eight-digit numbers, at a cost to the Electrical Institute (ICE) of $15 million to bring all the machinery up to speed.
Some numbers will not change, such as 911 emergency, 115 ICE customer service, 118 fire department and the 128 Red Cross lines, plus the 800 toll-free numbers. The commercial numbers 900 and 905 will also remain the same.
Demonstrating how rapid phone line growth has been, the change from six to seven digits has only been in effect since March 31, 1994. But ICE promises that the eight-digits will be good for the next 40 years.
Interestingly, cell phone use has surpassed fixed operation lines. According to an article in the daily paper La Nacion, there are currently a million fixed phones in Costa Rica (roughly 765,000 home phones and 235,000 commercial lines) while cell phone lines are now at 1.5 million (a million under the GSM system and 500,000 TDMA).
But those who have been waiting forever for a new line should not get their hopes up, the paper warned. The new numbers do not mean that new lines will magically be created. ICE’s Claudio Bermudez told the paper that new machinery is being purchased for new lines but refused to specify which areas or communities would be benefited.
So lines are not only found strung on poles or in electronic switchboards but also at ICE offices, composed of people standing around to apply for a phone number of any number of digits.

by Rod Hughes
And immigration reform bill to speed up the torturous process of getting residency apparently is on a fast track in the Legislative Assembly, thanks to a multi-party accord.
Sponsored by Security Minister Fernando Berrocal and Immigration Director Mario Zamora, the bill would erase the currrent legislation that went into effect only last September but which President Oscar Arias refused to implement fully, pointing to its potential for human rights abuse and increased red tape as fatal defects.
Zamora, whose dynamic attempts to unsnarl the notoriously complex procedures and corruption at Immigration have earned him admiration of many—and a stiff reprimand from the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court—has called the current law “unworkable.”
Although it only submitted the bill to congress 10 days ago, the Arias Administration hopes to put the bill on top priority in August for the extraordinary congressional session where the Executive Branch as more say about what gets first treatment.
The bill has the full approval of the leaders of two of the biggest voting blocs in congress, Citizen Action Party floor leader Elizabeth Fonseca and Libertarians Mario Nunez and Jose Manuel Echandi. One would assume that it can count on the majority of votes from the President’s own National Liberation Party.
Zamora’s efforts to wrestle with the incredible snakepit at Immigration have earned him plaudits but also a few lumps so far, the worst administered by the court, which censured him for blocking the granting of residency visas obtained by the clearly bogus—but legal—marriage to Costa Rican women. Most of the women were poor and were offered a bribe to marry foreign men they had never met, even after the marriage.
But Immigration needs more than just a procedural overhaul. Zamora needs to revamp the computerized registry, among other changes. He says he has already talked with the Ministry of Finance for the extra funds to administer the reform.

7/9/7

I have decided to get another dog. I didn’t want to get one for a pet, because the tick problem here is extreme. They have repellents for fleas, and inoculations for rabies and heartworm, etc. They even have good poisons for the ticks so that if they bite, they die, and can’t lay eggs or reproduce. But it only takes one bite to infect the dog if the tick has a disease. They caused most of the health problems with Raz, and I didn’t want to watch that again. However, there is a minor theft problem here. It has been a long time since a house got robbed here, but two were broken into last week. It is usually one of the cottages that people only use for holidays, and not occupied, but I can’t always be here, either. I would like another Bouvier, but the hair is too long, needs to be shaved often, and it is hard to see the ticks on them. So, I am looking for a Rottweiler cross. They are good guard dogs, have short hair, make an excellent pet, and command respect, especially in this country.
Jose and I went to Chomes, where some people have Rottweilers, and they weren’t home, so we will go back another time. After Chomes, we went to El Roble looking for the soccer game that Jose’s brother was playing in. He wasn’t there, but we watched for a while. Then we went to Chacarita to another game, but he wasn’t there either. There was one more field in Chacarita, but we went for supper instead. There is a restaurant in El Roble called King Chicken that makes the best sandwich I have ever had. Two large chicken breasts on a kaiser with good sauce, tomato, lettuce, etc. that tastes great and fills up most humans.
I spotted my buddy Baden, (named after his father’s friend, Baden Powell) at the bar Nelson, so we stopped there for one. While we were there, Jose’s brother showed up, so we had one with him, and gave him a ride back to Judas. He insisted we stop at el Jardin so he could buy me a beer. We stayed there for two more, and made it home by 7:30. These little jaunts always provide entertainment, and new experiences. Because of the time between bars, or beers, no-one really ever gets drunk. Jose doesn’t drink at all, so one day I might teach him to drive my car, and have a designated driver. But for now, slow and easy does the trick.