by Rod Hughes
Want to see rural Costa Rica as it was until electricity, TV and the auto caught up with it?
The July 25 celebration of Guanacaste province’s annexation to Costa Rica (as this is written, 183 years ago) is the place to do it. Everyone gets into the mood, including Housing Minister Fernando Zumbado who kicked off this year’s festivities, not with a long-winded speech, but by whipping out his accordion and dancing, according to the newspaper, Al Dia.
Folk dance is very much a part of this colorful festival,.which lasts all week. So is the food, with delicacies that, in this day of packaged food, has all but disappeared from daily fare—it isn’t all rice and beans, by a long shot.
In San Jose the Ministry of Culture has organized not only song and dance but exhibits of the typical trappings of the old life in the northwestern province when the oxcart was the favorite mode of transportation—and the only one.
In the old provincial capital of Nicoya, (Liberia is, today, although Nicoyanos still begrudge the honor) the celebration is taken seriously, indeed, with fireworks and a concert Wednesday, plus plus a corn festival where you’ll taste corn in a variety of dishes and forms difficult to imagine.
Traditionally, the unicamera congress, the Legislative Assembly, abandons its San Jose headquarters to meet in sessions there during annexation week. (It is hoped that they will get more work done in this fresh environment than they did last week, when absences caused the body from reaching a quorum three of the five days.)
Guanacaste province was part of Nicaragua up until the 19th century when the residents opted to hold a plebesite and voted to voluntarily become a part of Costa Rica.