2/9/6

Yesterday was very exciting. I got an email from ARCR giving me the papers I need from the Costa Rican government to stay in the country while I wait for my residency application to be approved. I went to ARCR on the 19^th of January thinking I would be okay from that date. I entered the country on the 15^th of November and had 3 months to stay without papers, but, I found out I don’t get my papers until Interpol has cleared my record. I was worried I might have to leave for 3 days to remain legal. ARCR said it usually takes one month, so 3 weeks was very good and I breathed a sigh of relief. I went into Judas to have the papers printed up from the email, one for me and one for Linda. We really feel like Ticos now.

We are having shutters mounted on our windows today. Everyone assures us that it is necessary to discourage the few dishonest people who live in the neighbourhood if we go away for a few days at a time. Everything is going well.

My friends arrived from Canada on Monday, and while they were here he bought a small boat to use to build a cabin on his lot on Damas Island, near Quepos. Yesterday I put it on my roof racks and we took it down for him. Nice to see our friends from Quepos, but it was a long trip. There and

in one day. The roads were better than expected, and the return trip took only 2 ½ hr.

2/5/6

Life goes on. Nothing really exciting to write about for a couple of weeks now, and we have been real busy. We used the dirt from the drainage trench to landscape a bit, and took a big tree out of the driveway ( a very big job). Some nice afternoons on the beach. My friend Larry from Posada Aeropuerto brought his family to visit for a couple of days. Russ asked us to check out a real estate development on the beach in Manzinilla, a small town near here, so we drove up to see the Amistad Bridge over Rio Tempisque and came back down the back roads through Colorado and Manzanilla. At the bridge, we met a nice couple from Florida who were touring around and invited them to visit. They continued on to Arenal and showed up a couple of days later. We showed them around the neighbourhood, went swimming at the river, and our neighbours came over and met them in the morning. They really enjoyed experiencing the real ( non-touristy) Costa Rica. By the way, there is only a tiny beach in Manzanilla with no real estate development.

It never rains here in the dry season, so the past three days of hard rain have been very unusual. Good for the trees, but bad for the melon farms and salineras which, like all farmers all over the world depend greatly on the weather. This will put a real dent in the economy of this area. We went to a nice little party in El Roble last night, and the driving was very difficult in the hard rain. Today it looks like we’re back to normal with lot’s of sunshine already, it’s 7 am, birds singing, monkeys going through the yard, and the squirrel eating the fruit off my trees before they are ripe enough for me to eat. Big election today, but I don’t care. We’ll probably go to the beach again, and if the yard dries up, we’ll clean the mud off the floor in the house.

62 gas stations in the Pacific will begin selling today ethanol made in Costa Rica from Nicaraguan alchohol.  The ethanol will be sold at the same price as regular gasoline, and will have an average of 7.5% alchohol.  The stations who receive gas from the Barranca Plant are part of the pilot project, which if successful will be expanded nationwide.

According to the projects supporters, the consumers who choose ethanol will get several benefits: a better combustion in the cylinder, a cleaner motor (the alchohol cleans deposits from valves, hoses, injectors and tanks), and assurance that the quality is the same as regular gasoline.

However several functionaries of RECOPE have criticized the project.  Alchohol currently is more expensive than gasoline, so by adding it and charging the same price RECOPE loses money or has to make another product more expensive.  What does the country gain by substituting a more expensive product, particularly when it is imported?

In an ironic twist, and probably an appropriate one according to those who abstained from voting, the 7.7 million pieces of paper that are related to this election will eventually be recycled.  While today they are the subject of strong discussion, will be scrutinized one by one, and are kept under lock and key; tomorrow holds a different fate.

According to Jaime Madriz, Electoral Comptroller, once the ballots have served their purpose and have been kept safe for 6 or 7 months, the TSE will offer them to recycling companies.  The highest bidder will get them and convert them to diverse products.  Since the TSE cannot receive money, the auction is carried out in the form of a barter.  For this reason the TSE doesn’t spend any money on toilet paper, napkins or paper towels, they get it back in the trade.

So now you have another great reason to buy "natural" toilet paper! 

Although the TSE claims it is inaccurate to do so, Oscar Arias unofficially leads the voting by over 15,000 after the 712 polling stations that were not included in Monday’s final preliminary tally have been counted by hand. Arias received a total of 70,681 votes while 58,083 were for Solís.  The tally represents 11,56 % of the total.

According to PLN officialis, adding the 12,598 votes in the manual tally to the 3,250 vote advantage that Arias had in the electronically reported votes gives Arias a clear advantage of 15,626 votes.

However, the TSE maintained that the race was too close to call and that the manual counting is a seperate process from the electronic reporting.  "You can’t compare apples to oranges", said Luis Antonio Sobrado, a TSE judge. " The TSE cannot, nor should it, make official any electoral victory in the presidential race. Until the manual scrutiny is complete. "

Both candidates continued to call for patience and emphasized respect for the TSE and their willingness to wait for the official results.  Some campaign like sniping did occur though, related to Arias’ remarks of yesterday.

"To say now that we have won is untrue. I am enthusiastic, because the TSE gave us a solid majority. But they said to wait until the last vote is counted, and they are correct. It would be very presumptous of either candidate to say that we have won, it is not true"

Meanwhile, Ottón Solís said he would not refer to the PLN calculations.  "In developed countries, a candidate does not pressure another to recognize or not a defeat, nor do they pressure the entity in charge of the elections to declare a winner. The important thing is that the count is correct and I am optomistic about the results. "