Much to our horror, the seller has almost accepted our offer – he’s given a strong indication that he’ll accept something only slightly above our offer, whereas previously he’d refused to even consider budging. This has put us in a tizzy and we’ve been talking about it all day, veering between a yes and a no, alternating between dreaming of a beautiful place in the jungle overlooking the sea and terror of it all going terribly wrong. We walked down to the site this evening trying to imagine it and hoping, perhaps, for a sign, a sloth or something. Of course, anything can be a sign if one wants, so I eyed every flight of birds, every glittering shell or pebble on the beach, wondering if it could give guidance.
Ultimately, we decided no. We can afford the land without too much trouble, but the next stage – of clearing it and actually building on it – it beyond our means right now, and will remain faraway if our money isn’t earning interest. It may pay off well in the long term, but in the medium term it will only tie us down. And for me, personally, while I really have enjoyed being in Puerto Viejo, there are many things about it that I will find increasingly hard to take, even more so if I feel trapped here. There is the distance from my family, the fact that it will be extremely difficult to build in a way that both preserves the jungle and that is secure for our paintings etc. The food in Costa Rica is, well, poor. And I keep coming against the foreigners living here, speaking of how different things are in Costa Rica, of the risk of theft, of the slow bureaucracy, etc, in a way that I find quite hard to take as it’s how foreigners visiting Pakistan also speak and it makes me blind with rage. I would be one of them, those floating in a refined layer above the Afro-Caribbeans of Limon province and the few indigenous peoples here. Employing them, living amongst them, buying from them, but separate. I suppose that is how it will be no matter where we live, eventually, given that we are uninterested in living in either the UK or Pakistan for the long term, so maybe I’ll just have to accept it eventually.
I tried to ask one person about that separation between the foreigners, the ‘expats’, and the locals, but she misunderstood, I think, and thought I was asking about racism directed at myself. That had not occurred to me, I suppose thanks to being a Pakistani from Pakistan, and from a very well-to-do background at that. The only place I am nervous about racism is at airports and embassies.
So, anyway, we have relinquished that potential future, at least for now. It has made other futures more possible, perhaps.