Politics

It's my first day off, and I'm trying to catch up on blogging. Here is a bit about the local politics of Turrubares.

When I first came to the country, there were unusually heavy rains that caused some major landslides outside of San Jose. On the main road between San Pablo de Turrubares and Orotina, a bridge collapsed. It was a provisional bridge, anyway, constructed when the original bridge collapsed. The town just hadn't been putting the new bridge on their priority. After all, if it hadn't collapsed, why allocate funds?

Now there is no bridge. This is a huge problem, because it isolates Tu Ru Bari park from San Jose. Tu Ru Bari park is an eco-adventure park with ziplining, rockclimbing, hiking, horseback riding, a butterfly garden, etc. It employs over 100 people, and is pretty much the only tourist attraction around her, all the way to Jaco Beach. And because there is no way to get to it anymore, it has closed for the time being, and layed off all its workers.

The Turrubares County council could potentially build a new bridge, but the local government is frozen. This is because the Mayor is of a different political party than the council and won't let the council do ANYTHING. He's sitting on top of 2 million dollars that he will not allow the council to spend. He also just got out of the hospital, where he landed after a drunk driving accident. Also, he throws garbage in the river, which makes Jill angry.

And the national government won't prioritize the bridge because it's the local government's job, and this is an exceptionally poor county that the country doesn't want to invest in. They would rather rebuild Escazu county.

There have been a lot of emergency meetings about the bridge. Jill got invited to one, and she brought me and Kenny with her. The streets don't have names here, so directions are a little sketch. But it was supposed to be at some Soda (Restaurant) in a town call Mud (Barro) and we drove off into the sunset. And drove around Mud's unpaved roads, through the cattle, past the dogs napping in the road, for a good hour. Asking everyone about a meeting. No, no one knows where it is. Finally, we find out, it's been cancelled. So we go home.

And now the owner of Tu Ru Bari is threatening to permanently shut down the park. He threatened to do it "tomorrow" if no conclusion is reached, but "tomorrow" was about a week ago. Then the leader of the San Pablo council threatened to go on strike against...wait for it...the San Pablo local government. Essentially, he is going to go on strike against himself, although really, it's against the mayor. It's in a stalemate now. Stay posted.