San Jose Living

by Miranda Abbott Wittman

Maybe people know me as a beach-loving, sun-loving, and heat-loving ex-pat who came to Costa Rica over ten years ago. It’s true, I’m a familiar name in Playas del Coco. I loved to create community projects and was often organizing youth clubs, classes but also ran a women’s business networking group for about 5 years. I had a shop and a yoga studio and thought that I’d call Coco home forever.

So why am I now living outside San Jose, Costa Rica’s largest and most populated city? Well, that’s a question with multiple answers. First, you’ll have to understand a little bit about me. I am a mother of four children, an ex-ballet and modern dancer, artist, and writer. I originally moved to Coco to buy land and live self-sufficiently. I wrote my first book while living there and I enjoyed my time at the beach very much.

However, there were always a few issues that didn’t sit well with me. Those issues surrounded my family life. I often had the feeling that I wasn’t giving my kids all that I could have. When I’d return to Canada to visit family, we’d hit up all the attractions and I felt a bit of sadness that there were some really cool things my kids were missing out on. Now, there was a lot I was giving them, a life away from excessive screen time, less corporate America to surround them and, a carefree childhood filled with climbing trees and exploring the beautiful waters of the Pacific ocean.

Photo by Tavelzoo.com/

Education was also an issue in the back of my mind. Although there were both public and private schools in Coco, I felt they lacked the kind of school experience I was accustomed to.

My perception before coming was that their school would be more ecologically friendly with loads of time for outdoor exploration. But, that was far from my experience. The curriculum in the private schools worked primarily with printed workbooks, which were expensive, not ecologically friendly, and a cookie-cutter-like education that I was not interested in. The school days were long with much of the time indoors since the heat in Guanacaste is extreme, extensive outdoor time was impossible for much of the year. I taught for many years in Toronto and throughout Canada and saw the benefits of a well-funded school system. Although class sizes are getting too large and important art programs may be losing funding, it’s still a much more complete curriculum than I was able to find around my sweet beach town. Having offered educational programs there myself, I could see that it’s not the fault of any establishment but the problem lies in the nature of beach towns themselves.

Because beach towns focus on tourism so there is a transient nature to the population. With a high percentage of people leaving the beach each year. In my experience this is not because they did not like it, quite the opposite, they loved it. However, families from abroad seem to make Costa Rica a stop before more of their global adventures, committing to less than 5 years in the area. This causes uncertainty for schools, making it hard to grow, budget, and keep a steady teaching staff. Without long-term commitments, it’s difficult to have sports teams, clubs, and other needed programs.

For this reason, we decided not to leave Costa Rica, but to head for the city and the suburbs of San Jose. This decision even surprised me, but everything was pushing me in that direction, work opportunities, and other connections, I could no longer ignore.