Our last day in San Jose was also our second lecture day. It was mainly about the people and way of doing business in Costa Rica. Our first lecturer was an entrepreneur in the restaurant business.
The second lecturer was a female economist who talked about the history of the country's economy and why it is successful today. Wars created turmoil throughout it's history, but it remained an agricultural success story throughout. After World War 2, the socialist party opened the economy up and things began to look up more than ever. Abolishing the military helped too. In the 1980s, wars in Central America and rising oil prices forced Costa Rica to depend on the US.

Nowadays, Costa Rica has the widest variety of exports in the world, moreso than the US and China. Numerous free trade agreements have opened up more opportunities for businesses. Costa Rica's central bank also encourages the flow of US dollars, which is a very attainable goal with all the tourism they bring in.

Next, we had a representative from the Peace Corps speak to us. She is stationed in La Carpia, the poorest slum in San Jose. It is comprised of Nicaraguan immigrants. She pointed out to us the many misconceptions of poverty. Many people think that people in poverty are simply lazy, and that is not the case all of the time. Sadly, the lack of family structure has sent many into generational depression, living day by day, meal by meal. Mothers are the breadwinners, and fathers are often absent. Self-esteem is extremely low. The goal of our speaker and the Peace Corps is to start educating children, which leads to mothers gaining some self-esteem. Eventually, they hope that this passes down through future generations. And thankfully, she believes it has.

The last two speakers spoke more about the culture of Costa Rica. The first one was a famous Costa Rican writer. His English was not very good. His main point was to look at history and culture from multiple perspectives, not just your home country's. I really liked that point. Americans should all take this advice. The last speaker spoke about the history of African immigrants to the country. Most are on the Carribean side, which we did not spend any time in. They were originally brought here as slaves. However, their integration into society was much smoother than in the US because of the wide variety of races and skin colors in the nation.

That's all she wrote for San Jose. We are now in Tamarindo at the beach. I will be writing my final blog about the beach experience in the coming days. We fly back home tomorrow, and I am ready to be back!