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Source: http://www.vozdeguanacaste.com/en/feed

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<title>Financial chaos and millions in unpaid accounts to collect: what Liberia’s new mayor is inheriting</title>
<link>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/financial-chaos-millions-unpaid-liberias-new-mayor-inheriting/</link>
<comments>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/financial-chaos-millions-unpaid-liberias-new-mayor-inheriting/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Roberto Cruz]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Mon, 29 Apr 2024 22:36:52 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Community]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Guanacaste Votes]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Liberia]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Financial chaos]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[José Javier Calvo]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Municipalidad de Liberia]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[National Liberation Party]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Pipo Castañeda]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://vozdeguanacaste.com/?p=92305</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The mayor of Liberia “Pipo” Castañeda is leaving the new authorities who take office a financial mess and more than ¢11 billion in accounts receivables that need to be collected.
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/financial-chaos-millions-unpaid-liberias-new-mayor-inheriting/">Financial chaos and millions in unpaid accounts to collect: what Liberia’s new mayor is inheriting</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[The mayor of Liberia, Luis Gerardo “Pipo” Castañeda, is leaving the new authorities who take office this Wednesday, May 1, a financial mess and more than ¢11 billion (about $21.5 million) in accounts receivables that need to be collected in areas such as providing services and municipal taxes.
Added to the list of “community liabilities” is the delay in priority projects to improve the quality of life of Liberia’s inhabitants. The president of the municipal council, Alejandro Morales, cited a municipal police force, a new landfill and a project with alternatives to decongest the road that connects the downtown area with the Daniel Oduber Quirós Airport (on route 21) as some of the most urgent.
For the next four years, lawyer José Javier Calvo, of the National Liberation Party, will govern the largest canton in Guanacaste and the one with the second largest budget, only surpassed by Santa Cruz. But in what state will he find the canton’s affairs?
<blockquote>The finances of the Municipality of Liberia remain at a disastrous level,” sums up the president of the council, Alejandro Morales, who holds Mayor Castañeda responsible for doing nothing to organize municipal finances as stipulated by accounting standards.</blockquote>
Vice Mayor Arianna Badilla agreed with him, who summarized it as “awful accounting management.” Council member Ricardo Quirós, of the Social Christian Republican Party, also agreed, describing the financial part of the local government as a “disaster.”
The Voice of Guanacaste requested an interview with Mayor Castañeda about the condition in which he will leave the municipality, but he declined to comment and requested the questions by email. Although the questions were sent to him, at the time of publication, there was no response.
<div id="attachment_92297" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="max-width: 1034px;"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-92297" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2022-setiembre-Gerardo-Castaneda-Municipalidad-Alcalde-Liberia-Cesar-Arroyo-Castro-2-1024x682.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="682" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2022-setiembre-Gerardo-Castaneda-Municipalidad-Alcalde-Liberia-Cesar-Arroyo-Castro-2-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2022-setiembre-Gerardo-Castaneda-Municipalidad-Alcalde-Liberia-Cesar-Arroyo-Castro-2-300x200.jpg 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2022-setiembre-Gerardo-Castaneda-Municipalidad-Alcalde-Liberia-Cesar-Arroyo-Castro-2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2022-setiembre-Gerardo-Castaneda-Municipalidad-Alcalde-Liberia-Cesar-Arroyo-Castro-2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2022-setiembre-Gerardo-Castaneda-Municipalidad-Alcalde-Liberia-Cesar-Arroyo-Castro-2.jpg 2000w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Outgoing mayor, Luis Gerardo “Pipo” Castañeda, speaks during a municipal event at Mario Cañas Park during the celebration of Liberia’s 2022 cantonate.</div>
<h3>An unsolved problem</h3>
The weaknesses in the Municipality of Liberia’s financial management have been going on for so many years that it isn’t even possible to pinpoint a date. It was not an unknown issue for Castañeda, who had also governed the municipality between 2011 and 2016.
Vice Mayor Badilla affirmed that this deficiency has been going on since 2014. And she added that there is still non-compliance on the part of the municipality in applying the accounting standards required by National Accounting and the Comptroller General of the Republic called IPSAS (International Public Sector Accounting Standards).
A report presented to the council by municipal accountant Lidieth Alvarado in August of 2022 acknowledged that they have not had financial statements since 2018.
Likewise, a note from National Accounting addressed to the municipal council on March 20 details that the Municipality of Liberia has never presented complete and correct financial statements to that entity.
<blockquote>The only time they sent information was in September of 2022 and this corresponded to data from 2018, 2019 and 2020, but it was incomplete and did not meet the quality and requirements requested,” the document reads.</blockquote>
The problem was also evident in the report from the Comptroller General of the Republic on Financial Management in the Municipality of Liberia (DFOE-DL-IF-0004-2020) sent in July of 2020. The report indicates the absence of up-to-date records of accounting transactions, both in the system and in the accounting books, as well as the balance sheets from 2018 to 2020. As a result, there are no financial statements for those periods either.
Moreover, they don’t make bank reconciliations, they don’t have the updated value of the municipality’s assets nor information on accounts payable and depreciation of assets.
Although the problem came from previous administrations, the Comptroller’s Office issued seven orders to the municipal council, Mayor Castañeda, the internal auditor and other local government authorities to correct the weaknesses in accounting management and strengthen financial management.
When asked about compliance with what was ordered, the press office of the Comptroller General of the Republic reported that there are two of these directives still in the process of verification.
<blockquote>Once this process is concluded, the corresponding actions will be executed. In cases of determining non-compliance, it’s possible to open investigations and apply the corresponding penalty code if offenses are proven,” they explained.</blockquote>
Weakness in financial management is not a problem unique to the Municipality of Liberia. This was reflected in the Financial Management Capacity Index, prepared by the Comptroller’s Office in 2023.
In that measurement, the Municipality of Liberia, like five other local governments in the province of Guanacaste, was located at a basic level of the index (between 25% and 50% capacity to manage their finances). The municipalities of Nicoya and Santa Cruz, with budgets similar to that of Liberia, obtained the best rating with an intermediate level of management capacity (between 50% and 75%). Meanwhile, Abangares and Nandayure remained at the initial level (financial management capacity less than 25%).
According to the president of the Municipal Council of Liberia, Alejandro Morales, lack of clarity in accounting information directly affects Liberians since it prevents the local government from taking out loans and making agreements with other public entities to develop projects that would benefit people.
This becomes relevant in a local government where current income is absorbed by operating and administrative expenses, and there is little left to invest.
Vice Mayor Arianna Badilla believes that the accounting mess problem could not be addressed in this administration due to the lack of capacity of the people responsible.
The way to fix it, she said, is to hire an accountant with the knowledge of how a local government works. In addition, the DECSIS computer system that the municipality already has but hasn’t implemented urgently needs to be set up.
This system, according to Badilla, allows information to be integrated from all municipal departments and can generate financial statements “with a single click.”
<img decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-92329" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ING_1recuadros-Merce-1-1024x758.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="758" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ING_1recuadros-Merce-1-1024x758.jpg 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ING_1recuadros-Merce-1-300x222.jpg 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ING_1recuadros-Merce-1-768x568.jpg 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ING_1recuadros-Merce-1.jpg 1080w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
<h3>Millions overdue</h3>
The other burning issue that the future mayor and the new municipal administration will receive is delinquency. This is the sum of the debts that Liberian residents have with the municipality for providing services or payment of taxes.
A report from the Municipal Planning Department, issued in July 2023, detailed that the amount accumulated by the year 2022 was ¢10,483,000,000 (about $20,555,000).
The amount increased to ¢11,143,000,000 (about $21,850,000) by the end of 2023, according to a document obtained by this news outlet. That means that last year closed with accounts receivables pending higher than the initial budget for 2024, established at ¢10,013,000,000 (about $19,633,000).
And that’s not all. According to the planning department’s analysis, the amount could be higher since part of the problem is that the figure is not refined and there is no certainty as to exactly how much these debts add up to.
“The review of the pending collections and the decisions to take the respective measures to clear that figure through the uncollectable debt account or other forms cannot continue to be postponed,” the report indicates.
The main debts that taxpayers owe to the local government come from municipal business licenses, real estate taxes, garbage collection and treatment service, cleaning and maintenance of parks and roads, use of the municipal cemetery and rentals of spaces in the market.
For example, in 2023, the local government should have received a total of ¢6,225,000,000 (about $12,205,000) for business permits, the item with the highest accumulated debts. That amount includes outstanding amounts from previous years and those from 2023. As of December 31, they had collected ¢2,151,000,000 (about $4,217,000), but ¢4,074,000,000 (about $7,988,000) remained pending payment, 65% of the amount placed in collections. (See box: Highest payments pending).
The Planning Department also points out that the actions taken by the municipality to lower accounts receivables are limited to publicity, publishing payment dates or purchasing vehicles for collection management, which is insufficient.
<blockquote>There is no recovery goal for delinquent payments. Even though the council has provided support with appointing external lawyers, they don’t monitor the work of these professionals. Furthermore, additional human resources have been assigned to that area and it remains the same,” commented the municipal president, Alejandro Morales.</blockquote>
The council member added that if collection improves, the municipality could “easily” reach ¢12 billion (about $23,530,000) in current income instead of the ¢7.5 billion ($14,705,000) that are set per year.
<img decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-92308" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ING_2recuadros-Merce-1024x675.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="675" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ING_2recuadros-Merce-1024x675.jpg 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ING_2recuadros-Merce-300x198.jpg 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ING_2recuadros-Merce-768x506.jpg 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ING_2recuadros-Merce.jpg 1080w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/financial-chaos-millions-unpaid-liberias-new-mayor-inheriting/">Financial chaos and millions in unpaid accounts to collect: what Liberia’s new mayor is inheriting</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
]]></content:encoded>
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</item>
<item>
<title>A climatic event is causing havoc in Guanacaste and no, it isn’t drought</title>
<link>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/climatic-event-causing-havoc-guanacaste-and-it-isnt-drought/</link>
<comments>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/climatic-event-causing-havoc-guanacaste-and-it-isnt-drought/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[César Arroyo]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Thu, 25 Apr 2024 19:34:29 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Nature]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Region]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[agriculture]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[climate change]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[drought]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Environment]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[livestock]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://vozdeguanacaste.com/?p=92282</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A Guanacaste farmer suffers from the impacts of the climate on her farm. Her case is replicated throughout the dry corridor and could get worse
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/climatic-event-causing-havoc-guanacaste-and-it-isnt-drought/">A climatic event is causing havoc in Guanacaste and no, it isn’t drought</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[Teresa Ramos invested ¢200,000 (about $400) in labor to clear the land where she planned to harvest corn last year.
“The work was done and the corn was planted. The corn sprouted, but it didn’t rain again… and it dried up due to lack of rain,” Teresa recalls. Her farm is in La Esperanza, a windy town located between the mountains of Nicoya and Santa Cruz.
“That investment was all lost. It’s hard to recover it again now,” she says.
Teresa couldn’t sell her corn to the hotel in Nosara that always buys it from her. For a small producer like her, one year without that harvest is a big blow to her household’s economy. On the farm, she also produces coffee and beans, two crops that, like corn, have suffered from extreme and changing climate conditions.
The land she works, and the community where she lives, are immersed in a region known as the <a href="https://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/anuario/article/view/40697/42487" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Central American Dry Corridor</a> (Spanish acronym: CSC), a huge swath of territory that runs across the southern Pacific of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guanacaste, a part of Puntarenas and the dry arc of Panama.
They have the common characteristic of having at least four months of drought, according to the United Nations <a href="https://www.fao.org/americas/priorities/central-american-dry-corridor/es" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO</a>).
<a href="https://www.fao.org/americas/priorities/central-american-dry-corridor/es#:~:text=El%20Corredor%20Seco%20Centroamericano%20es,alimentaria%20de%20las%20poblaciones%20locales." target="_blank" rel="noopener">The same organization warns</a> that this corridor is an area that is highly vulnerable to extreme weather events, “where long periods of drought are followed by intense rains that strongly affect the livelihoods and food security of local populations.”
<div id="attachment_92263" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="max-width: 1034px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-92263" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2018-Marzo-FOTOREPORTAJE-Cesar-Arroyo-40-1024x683.webp" alt="" width="1024" height="683" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2018-Marzo-FOTOREPORTAJE-Cesar-Arroyo-40-1024x683.webp 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2018-Marzo-FOTOREPORTAJE-Cesar-Arroyo-40-300x200.webp 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2018-Marzo-FOTOREPORTAJE-Cesar-Arroyo-40-768x512.webp 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2018-Marzo-FOTOREPORTAJE-Cesar-Arroyo-40.webp 1500w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Teresa Ramos is 61 years old and on her farm, she grows beans, corn, coffee and vegetables.Photo: César Arroyo Castro</div>
Teresa has seen these extreme events with her own eyes on her farm, when her plants dry up due to lack of rain and also when they are washed away by heavy downpours.
This is the second installment of three articles in which The Voice delves into what the CSC is, how being part of it impacts us, and what specialists predict about the future. <a href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/guanacaste-dry-future-map-explains-why/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read the first part here.</a>
<div class='vdg-posts vdg-posts-fancy-listing lea-tambien' >
<article>
<div class='article-wrapper'>
<div class='vdg-entry-info'>
<h3 class='entry-title'><a href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/guanacaste-dry-future-map-explains-why/">Guanacaste has a dry future and a map explains why</a></h3>
</div>
<div class='entry-summary'>
From Mexico’s southern border to Panama, we share a territory full of challenges and uncertainties.
</div>
<a href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/guanacaste-dry-future-map-explains-why/" class="lea-tambien-a">READ ALSO</a>
</div>
</article>
</div>
<h3>Starting over</h3>
What happens on Teresa’s farm is replicated on a large scale in the rest of the CSC: It’s more difficult for the territories in this strip to develop socio-economic activities that depend on rain due to their vulnerability to weather events, according to Pavel Bautista, a researcher from the Mesoamerican Center for Sustainable Development (Spanish acronym: CEMEDE) at the National University (UNA) in Nicoya.
“In a territory like the Central American Dry Corridor, the case of droughts is defined for Costa Rica almost every eight years. And year after year, we have tropical storms that mean floods; evacuations have to be carried out; the material goods of the people who live there are lost,” Batista contends.
Losses in Guanacaste due to the impacts of natural phenomena between 1988 and 2018 were $538 million, <a href="https://www.mideplan.go.cr/node/1825" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to a report</a> from the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Policy (Mideplan).
Infrastructure is the most affected area with 50% of the total, approximately $260 million in losses, followed by the agricultural sector with 28%, which is equivalent to about $149 million.
Although it may seem contradictory, what affects the dry corridor the most aren’t droughts, but extreme rainy events such as hurricanes or tropical storms.
According to the same document, only 14% of the losses in the province are due to droughts. On the other hand, 77% are caused by intense rains.
<div id="attachment_92257" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="max-width: 1034px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-92257" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2017-OCTUBRE-Inundacion-Nate-Filadelfia-Cesar-Arroyo-28-1024x682.webp" alt="" width="1024" height="682" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2017-OCTUBRE-Inundacion-Nate-Filadelfia-Cesar-Arroyo-28-1024x682.webp 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2017-OCTUBRE-Inundacion-Nate-Filadelfia-Cesar-Arroyo-28-300x200.webp 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2017-OCTUBRE-Inundacion-Nate-Filadelfia-Cesar-Arroyo-28-768x512.webp 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2017-OCTUBRE-Inundacion-Nate-Filadelfia-Cesar-Arroyo-28-1536x1024.webp 1536w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2017-OCTUBRE-Inundacion-Nate-Filadelfia-Cesar-Arroyo-28.webp 2000w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />A woman walks next to the dike in Filadelfia that was broken after Tropical Storm Nate in 2017. The economic damage caused by this storm in the province was more than $81 million.Photo: César Arroyo Castro</div>
“From the point of view of extreme events, the main problem in Guanacaste is excess water,” comments Lenín Corrales, a specialist from the Climate Action Unit of the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (Spanish acronym: <a href="https://www.catie.ac.cr/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CATIE</a>).
Corrales explains that Guanacaste’s position is quite complex when considering the meteorological conditions, because due to the El Niño Effect and the trade winds, “at any time, a lot of water comes in a single shot.”
This excess water has also affected Teresa’s corn and bean crops.
“When the harvest is already there, it rains too much. Then the plant falls and if it’s already harvest season, it sprouts when it falls to the ground and then what the grain does is it germinates again. Then it’s also lost already,” explains the producer.
<h3>“Everything changes”</h3>
UCR researcher Hugo Hidalgo was part of the Central American Dry Corridor Comprehensive Program (Spanish acronym: <a href="https://vinv.ucr.ac.cr/es/noticias/guanacaste-se-volvera-mas-arida-y-habra-menos-disponibilidad-de-agua-en-el-futuro" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PICSC</a>), an interdisciplinary project that was carried out for five years focused on a cross-border region in crisis due to drought and poverty.
The problem in Guanacaste, according to Hidalgo, is that it already has a relatively higher dryness than the rest of Costa Rica. And this dryness may worsen due to climate change.
“It seems that in the first half of this century, what will govern is an increase in dryness caused by increases in temperature. In the second half of the century, what these scenarios predict is terrible. Because there’s not only the increase in temperature, but also decreases in rainfall,” affirms Hidalgo.
The scenarios to which the researcher refers are found in a report prepared by the National Meteorological Institute (Spanish acronym: <a href="http://cglobal.imn.ac.cr/index.php/publications/proyecciones-de-cambio-climatico-regionalizadas-para-costa-rica-escenarios-rcp-2-6-y-rcp-8-5/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">IMN</a>), designed to define climate change adaptation policies more precisely in the short and the long term.
The report mainly considered two scenarios, one that has to do with low greenhouse emissions and one about high emissions (RCP2.6 and RCP8.5, respectively, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).
Teresa has heard a lot of talk about climate change and what it could mean for her farm. However, it remains a big enigma for her. The first week of May was always the perfect time to start planting corn, but nothing is certain anymore.
“Climate change is very difficult because, for example, we [can be] having normal rains, [then] from one moment to the next it stops raining for about 15 days. Suddenly a low pressure [system] comes in or I don’t know what — “a phenomenon,” said the weather guy. And then soon it changes, and everything changes,” she comments.
There are studies to try to reduce future uncertainty about production in the dry corridor as much as possible, <a href="https://ebrary.ifpri.org/digital/api/collection/p15738coll2/id/133209/download" target="_blank" rel="noopener">such as the one with an emphasis on Costa Rica</a> carried out by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
Taking the study into account, and focusing on the three largest crops produced in the province, Lenín Corrales explains that the sugar cane yield could increase by 29% if climate change weren’t present. However, even with the most optimistic scenario, the low emissions scenario (RCP2.6), production will have yield reductions between 9% and 18%.
“So, even though there is water to produce sugar cane, there will always be effects because the problem isn’t just water, but also temperature,” says Corrales.
It is precisely the temperature that also puts another major economic activity at risk: livestock.
In livestock farming, an indicator called the Temperature-Humidity Index (THI) is used, explains the specialist. This index should be kept at 70 for dairy cattle and 75 for beef cattle so that cows don’t go into a state of stress and have their milk production affected or stop growing.
“It turns out that in southern Guanacaste (the cantons of the peninsula), there’s already a THI of 86. In other words, even if you take water to the pastures, the temperature is already affecting the stress of the livestock. And climate change projections say that by 2050, the THI could reach 89,” he says.
Regarding rice, the specialist from CATIE explains that projections show a decrease between 5% and 10% in production. But using other forms of rice production such as dry farming (a cultivation method that uses rainwater, without the intervention of artificial irrigation) is not estimated to change significantly by 2050.
“There have to be changes. It’s not just changing activity for activity, for example, I don’t know, that rice farmers become touristologists, but that the same activity itself could improve its adaptation to climate change if it changes production technologies,” he assures.
Although this also is a challenge for producers like Teresa who, according to the CATIE Climate Unit specialist, Andrea Zamora, “have fewer possibilities of accessing technologies and less capacity to adapt.”
<div id="attachment_92265" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="max-width: 1034px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-92265" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2018-Marzo-FOTOREPORTAJE-Cesar-Arroyo-34-1024x683.webp" alt="" width="1024" height="683" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2018-Marzo-FOTOREPORTAJE-Cesar-Arroyo-34-1024x683.webp 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2018-Marzo-FOTOREPORTAJE-Cesar-Arroyo-34-300x200.webp 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2018-Marzo-FOTOREPORTAJE-Cesar-Arroyo-34-768x512.webp 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2018-Marzo-FOTOREPORTAJE-Cesar-Arroyo-34.webp 1500w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Felipe Díaz, Teresa’s husband, spreads the coffee beans that they produce on the farm to dry in the sun.Photo: César Arroyo Castro</div>
<h3>The seeds saved</h3>
Teresa is 61 years old, with a head full of gray hair and enviable resilience. In order not to depend so much on her three main crops (corn, coffee and beans), she decided to start producing avocados and oranges, and she built a greenhouse with the support of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (Spanish acronym: MAG). In it, she plants cilantro, lettuce, celery, parsley, chives, green beans, cucumbers and cherry tomatoes.
She sells her products through the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/people/Asociaci%C3%B3n-Agro-Org%C3%A1nica-Guanacasteca/100063520195724/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Guanacaste Organic Agro Association</a>, which she is part of. Through one of the organization’s projects, she also managed to build a water reservoir to harvest during the months of the dry season.
<blockquote>Last year in February and March, we planted corn and beans; by means of the water from the reservoir, we were able to do a little bit for the dry season,” Teresa recalls.</blockquote>
These types of projects can make a lot of difference in a region where dryness is going to increase.
<div id="attachment_92261" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="max-width: 1034px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-92261" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2018-Marzo-FOTOREPORTAJE-Cesar-Arroyo-82-1024x683.webp" alt="" width="1024" height="683" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2018-Marzo-FOTOREPORTAJE-Cesar-Arroyo-82-1024x683.webp 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2018-Marzo-FOTOREPORTAJE-Cesar-Arroyo-82-300x200.webp 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2018-Marzo-FOTOREPORTAJE-Cesar-Arroyo-82-768x512.webp 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2018-Marzo-FOTOREPORTAJE-Cesar-Arroyo-82.webp 1500w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Panoramic view from La Esperanza in the hills of Santa Cruz, where Teresa Ramos has her farm.Photo: César Arroyo Castro</div>
Oceanographer and UCR researcher Erick Alfaro, who was also part of PICSC, explains that there is sufficient evidence that the dryness is going to have a very important impact on the region’s future.
<blockquote>This doesn’t mean that it will stop raining in Guanacaste. What it means is that we have to implement greater management of water resources,” explains Alfaro.</blockquote>
Repairing damage after climate events costs money, and anticipating them in the best way, like Teresa’s reservoir, requires investment.
<a href="https://revistas.tec.ac.cr/index.php/tec_marcha/article/view/5750" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A Costa Rica Technological report</a> (Spanish acronym: TEC) prepared by Melissa Marín-Cabrera, biologist in Natural Sciences for Development, evaluated investments in climate change projects between 2011 and 2022. In the entire country, the investment was barely $24 million. During that period, Guanacaste was the province with the most communities where related projects were implemented, with an investment of a little more than $6 million.
The areas in which the province received the most support in relation to the rest of the country were strengthening capacity (32%) and water resource management (40%).
Of the $24 million, only 15% was invested by the government. International organizations manage most of the budget with 43%.
“There’s no comparison between the losses due to extreme events in the country and what is being invested in climate change,” emphasizes Corrales.
According to the specialist, <a href="https://cambioclimatico.minae.go.cr/plan-nacional-de-adaptacion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Climate Change Adaptation Plan</a>, the regional plans and the decarbonization plan are “things that dance to the music of the government in power.”
“Drought is very important. However, scientifically, it is something that happens periodically, more or less each decade. So sometimes one says that the country has losses simply because it doesn’t prepare well, but one already knows,” he adds.
The president of the association to which Teresa belongs, Irene Castañeda, explains that one measure that small producers can take is to improve the vegetation cover of the soil on their farms to optimize water infiltration. In addition, simplify the delivery of public funds so that they can invest in their farms.
“It would start with the application of the <a href="https://www.mag.go.cr/legislacion/2006/ley-8542.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">organic agriculture law</a>, the distribution of 0.1% of the gasoline tax, almost making it automatic, strengthening that program and making it efficient,” says Burgués.
While waiting for the political will to invest in adaptation measures, there are other types of more community-based and more family-based measures that Teresa puts into practice.
The rains and droughts have killed the seeds that were passed down through her family from generation to generation.
<blockquote>There are seeds that have already been lost. It’s hard to have them again. By losing the seed, we lose what we’ve consumed our entire lives,” she laments.</blockquote>
That’s why she shares them with her neighbors and relatives.
“Because if one loses it, maybe another doesn’t, so that person goes and gives it to those who don’t have it. This is how we’ve still conserved several seeds,” she says.
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/climatic-event-causing-havoc-guanacaste-and-it-isnt-drought/">A climatic event is causing havoc in Guanacaste and no, it isn’t drought</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
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<title>Garza community is trying to raise about $41,000 to replace the school’s deteriorated roof</title>
<link>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/garza-community-tries-raise-41000-replace-schools-roof/</link>
<comments>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/garza-community-tries-raise-41000-replace-schools-roof/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[José P. Román Barzuna]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Mon, 22 Apr 2024 22:16:44 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Community]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Garza]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[MEP]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://vozdeguanacaste.com/?p=92240</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The school's Board of Education, together with the Dreamcatchers foundation, raised approximately ₡2,400,000 (about $4,700) with recreational and cultural activities such as the Garza Fest.
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/garza-community-tries-raise-41000-replace-schools-roof/">Garza community is trying to raise about $41,000 to replace the school’s deteriorated roof</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[When looking at the roof of Garza’s elementary school, in the district of Nosara, from inside and outside, it’s hard to believe that the Ministry of Public Education (MEP) <a href="https://guanacastealaaltura.com/escuela-garza-nicoya-nueva-infraestructura-tras-cinco-anos-espera/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">inaugurated the infrastructure just seven years ago</a>, after rebuilding it after the impacts of the Sámara earthquake. Rust, caused by the ocean breeze and lack of maintenance, is eating away at the school’s roof at an accelerated rate since it is located across from the beach.
There are leaks in the classroom ceilings, holes in the institution’s roof and the gym is closed due to the detachment of the metal that covers it.
“It’s sad, the school is quite new and the roof is so damaged,” commented the institution’s cook, Karen Marchena, while she accompanied The Voice on a tour of the educational center. “There is too much destruction due to salt residue on the metal sheets. This year, we have a feeling that with the wind and the sheets being a little loose there will be more leaks and more times when things will get wet in the classrooms.”
The rainy season that’s just around the corner threatens to flood the institution’s hallways and interrupt lessons.
To lessen the impact of the downpours, the community is scrambling to raise funds to fix what is urgent, the replacement of the school roof, which costs around ₡21 million (about $41,000), according to the budget estimated by a representative of the Benavides Castillo CR Construction company, Jader Benavides.
<blockquote>I would say that 80% of the metal on the roof is in poor condition. In addition, approximately 15% of the purlins (that hold up the metal sheets) are rusted,” Benavides explained to The Voice.</blockquote>
The school’s Board of Education, together with the Dreamcatchers foundation, raised approximately ₡2,400,000 (about $4,700) with recreational and cultural activities such as the <a href="https://scontent.fsyq3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/434735427_10160240407468883_7112331457576897440_n.jpg?_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5f2048&_nc_ohc=Ykf-gIMv61kAb4XWut5&_nc_ht=scontent.fsyq3-1.fna&oh=00_AfAE3QT9j28LFVGn6qDc5OED2WdJ3JXaU3s-VPLZlImRNA&oe=66277FFB" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Garza Fest</a>, according to the foundation’s social projects director, Cinthya Gonzáles. In addition, they have another ₡4,600,000 (about $9,000) raised through <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/empower-nosaras-future-a-roof-for-hope-in-garza?member=32431473&utm_campaign=p_lico+thank-all-share&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=product" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GoFundMe</a>.
The president of the board, Katherine Villalobos, affirmed that they already have enough money to buy the materials. Now what they lack is the cost of labor.
In the coming days, the board and the foundation plan to organize more activities, including a race, to reach the fundraising goal.
<div id="attachment_92193" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="max-width: 810px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-92193 size-full" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/tat9swBQ.jpeg" alt="The metal sheets from the gym roof that came off in December ended up in the middle of the street. Members of the Board of Education and teachers moved the metal to avoid accidents." width="800" height="600" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/tat9swBQ.jpeg 800w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/tat9swBQ-300x225.jpeg 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/tat9swBQ-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/tat9swBQ-500x375.jpeg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />The metal sheets from the gym roof that came off in December ended up in the middle of the street. Members of the Board of Education and teachers moved the metal to avoid accidents.Photo: Cesar Arroyo</div>
<h3>MEP promises to intervene</h3>
“Ohh wow…. In seven years? It’s totally rusted. That is dangerous and absolutely everything is at the point of being full of holes,” admitted the director of the Educational Infrastructure Administration (Spanish acronym: DIE), Lourdes Sáurez, when The Voice showed her photos of the state of the school’s roof during an interview.
Sáurez expressed that, since she took the helm of DIE at the beginning of 2023, she doesn’t remember receiving any request or petition for help from the school. The official said that the school’s maintenance must be assumed by both the board and MEP.
“It’s a mutual responsibility but [the educational board] must keep us informed, because we don’t have people in the regions nor do we go around looking school by school to see how they are.”
<div id="attachment_92196" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="max-width: 1034px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-92196 size-large" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/DJI_20240328172832_0032_D-1024x576.jpg" alt="According to the president of the board, they rent the gym space to raise funds and cover school expenses such as the electricity bill, despite the danger of another metal sheet detaching from the gym." width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/DJI_20240328172832_0032_D-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/DJI_20240328172832_0032_D-300x169.jpg 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/DJI_20240328172832_0032_D-768x432.jpg 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/DJI_20240328172832_0032_D-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/DJI_20240328172832_0032_D-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/DJI_20240328172832_0032_D-scaled.jpg 2560w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />According to the president of the board, they rent the gym space to raise funds and cover school expenses such as the electricity bill, despite the danger of another metal sheet detaching from the gym.Photo: Anatoly Haindrava</div>
After seeing images of the school’s deterioration, the official promised to send an engineer at the beginning of May to firm up help over the next two months.
“I commit to sending an engineer to visit them in the first weeks of May, to make an assessment to find out why it deteriorated so quickly and what is needed. Then with his visit and the money they have, the improvements that we are going to make between June and July are validated,” she stated.
If, despite Sáurez’s promise, the board would like to assume responsibility for changing the roof on its own, the leader commented that they should request authorization from MEP.
“They need authorization from us to know what material they’re going to put on, lest they put a metal sheet of a lower caliber or of poor quality that’s going to be worse if anything. Then we just know about the project and we ask for a final report on what they did,” she explained.
<h3>Classes will continue regularly</h3>
Changing the roof would take 12 weeks, according to the time estimated by the representative of Benavides Castillo CR Construction.
The school’s director, Evelyn Rojas, emphasized that she will not suspend any classes during the roof repairs.
“The idea is not to suspend any classes. We take the little ones to other classrooms so that they don’t miss classes,” she commented.
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/garza-community-tries-raise-41000-replace-schools-roof/">Garza community is trying to raise about $41,000 to replace the school’s deteriorated roof</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
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<title>How tourism development tears apart the myth of a paradise</title>
<link>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/how-tourism-development-tears-apart-the-myth-of-a-paradise/</link>
<comments>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/how-tourism-development-tears-apart-the-myth-of-a-paradise/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Noelia Esquivel]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 12 Apr 2024 20:43:26 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[costa rica]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Desarrollo inmobiliario]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[gentrificación]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[guanacaste]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://vozdeguanacaste.com/?p=92176</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A fierce real estate development is silently dispossessing the inhabitants of the most desired beaches in Costa Rica. At the same time, the forest disappears, violence intensifies and the myth of the most stable democracy in Latin America is shattered.
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/how-tourism-development-tears-apart-the-myth-of-a-paradise/">How tourism development tears apart the myth of a paradise</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[A fierce real estate development is silently dispossessing the inhabitants of the most desired beaches in Costa Rica. At the same time, the forest disappears, violence intensifies and the myth of the most stable democracy in Latin America is shattered.
Two howler monkeys swing on the rope that takes them from one tree to the other. It isn’t exactly a rope but rather an electric cable. They reach the transformer and we cringe, thinking of what we would do if they get electrocuted. Who do we call? A Chilean woman is painting her new fast food restaurant and tells us that here, on Avellanas Beach (in Guanacaste, in the northern Pacific area of Costa Rica), monkeys fall to the ground roasted every week. They only call the rescue centers when the babies are alive.
It gets worse with each new condo. The more luxury construction there is, the more electricity the cables carry and the more baby howlers end up orphaned, burned and on the streets. “Before, they moved between the tree branches…but we cut them off,” says the Chilean.
Fascinated, two women and their blonde children come out of a beachfront restaurant and take out their cell phones to take photos and videos of the howler monkeys on the power lines. They are living the idyllic promise that Costa Rica sold them: the jungle across from the ocean. Go surfing and leave your sandals under a tree instead of an umbrella. Have a piña colada with your feet in the sand. Buy a house in the mountains with an ocean view. Don’t worry, English spoken.
The coasts of Guanacaste are an example of the global tendency to gentrify cities and neighborhoods, to make them “trendy” and, in the process, dispossess their original population in one way or another. It happens everywhere in Latin America. For example, there are campaigns to <a href="https://twitter.com/GatitosVsDesig/status/1585691648360697856" target="_blank" rel="noopener">save Mexico City</a> from its excessive charm for foreigners. And in Guatemala, an article in the New York Times describes the luxurious <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/es/2024/01/18/espanol/guatemala-cayala-desigualdad.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cayalá, in the capital</a>, as that paradise for the wealthy in the middle of a violent city.
But Guanacaste has a distinctive characteristic: <a href="https://ojoalclima.com/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fadmin.ojoalclima.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F10%2Fca.jpg&w=3840&q=75" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In 100 years, it could be practically a desert</a>. And parallel to this growing desertification driven by climate change, the jungles and beaches are being filled with condominiums (or, as real estate agents love to call them, gated communities), digital nomads and empty luxury houses, waiting for the next Airbnb guest.
I lived in this province for seven years and I had never seen it so clearly. To get here, we traveled on a gravel road full of treacherous holes that hide behind the dust. Waze navigation app tried to sneak us into one of those neighborhoods with private security and large golf courses to save us from the untamed road, but we were unsuccessful. The guard explained to us that you have to have an invitation from a member of the gated community or a reservation at the luxury hotel to use the paved route.
On the other hand, in the nearby towns, we find what we find in any town in Costa Rica: wooden houses with their chickens and children outside, colorful pulperias (convenience stores), a plaza, two ladies fighting off the heat by fanning themselves with the newspaper while they wave goodbye to us, even if they don’t know us. As we get to the beach, there are ads for surf classes, yoga classes, restaurants that charge you $7 for a coffee (that’s right, in dollars), new condominiums that promise to be ecologically sustainable.
“How can they be ‘sustainable’ if there are 80 condominiums with a pool? Eighty!” asks the Chilean, who is also trying to take advantage of the benefits of the area’s rapid development, but worries about the way in which it happens. She herself is an example of Guanacaste’s paradox: The largest source of employment in the area is also the one that leaves them homeless.
<div id="attachment_78496" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="max-width: 2570px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-78496" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/IMG_3004-scaled.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1707" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/IMG_3004-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/IMG_3004-300x200.jpg 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/IMG_3004-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/IMG_3004-768x512.jpg 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/IMG_3004-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/IMG_3004-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" />Poorly planned urban growth in communities causes animals to lose opportunities to move around safely. The photo shows howler monkeys hanging from electrical wires in Nosara.Photo: Cesar Arroyo Castro</div>
We are in the least populated province in the country, but it has <a href="https://cfia.or.cr/noticias/guanacaste-es-la-provincia-que-registra-mayor-intencion-de-metros-cuadrados-de-construccion.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the fastest increase in “intention to build.”</a> In other words, it is where construction permits are processed the most – even more than in the capital, which is the most populated province in the country.
One of those residential projects in Santa Cruz in Guanacaste called itself, without any reservations, “The Enclave.” Enclave: territory that is governed by its own rules. That reminds us Central Americans of that time of quasi-enslavement banana production by the United Fruit Company that left little more than the destruction of habitats and lives in the region.
Half of all this construction is concentrated precisely in Santa Cruz, but the canton continues to have <a href="https://ciodd.ucr.ac.cr/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Indice-de-Desarrollo-Humano-Cantonal-y-su-Ajustes-por-el-PIB-Ajuste-datos-al-2023.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">human development indexes</a> well below the country’s average. Where does all that wealth go? In the midst of this real estate boom, the residents – those who moved there to work in tourism, construction or cleaning, and those who grew up there – live with the anxiety of not knowing if they’ll have water tomorrow or not, even though they have a golf course right next door that’s always green. Or teachers at the local high schools and health personnel at primary care centers (EBAIS), who find it <a href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/nosara-real-estate-bubble-makes-rents-more-expensive-for-the-middle-class/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">increasingly difficult to find places to rent at reasonable prices</a> because the people who rent their houses prefer to divide them into rooms and maximize profits.
Added to this are the levels of violence and homicides, which have become exacerbated to record numbers in 2023 and which the Rodrigo Chaves administration has failed to control. In the middle of the week, we woke up to the news that at 7 a. m., a man was killed in the middle of the street, a few minutes from our Airbnb.
Teacher Ana Lucía Picado’s children summarized my last lines in a single sentence. “Mom, how can you even think about going to Nosara?! That’s where they kill people all the time, it’s very far away and very expensive.” Ana Lucía is one of the four teachers who, <a href="https://mailchi.mp/vozdeguanacaste/bocasnosaraen" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to The Voice of Guanacaste</a>, have already resigned from the public high school in Nosara, also in Guanacaste, one of those gentrified paradises where renting a studio near the beach doesn’t rent for less than $2,000 a month. Many teachers earn less than that.
None of this happens by chance. In the 70s, Costa Rica proposed this development model that was inaccessible to some, paradisiacal to others, with an ecotourism project on the Papagayo Peninsula. The project was developed from tax havens and <a href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/the-seven-commandments-that-sink-papagayo/">quickly forgot several of its promises</a> to nearby communities. Since then, the model survives but inequalities are skyrocketing and communities are breaking down.
Education, health and access to an ecologically balanced environment are the pillars of Costa Rica’s democracy, the most stable and lasting one in Latin America. Here, however, they become myths of a country that many fear is rapidly fading. And we have to ask ourselves if only digital nomads and foreign millionaires will survive in their gated communities on the most valuable pieces of land.
 
María Fernanda Cruz Chaves is a Costa Rican journalist. This text is part of the collaborative journalism alliance <a href="http://otrasmiradas.info" target="_blank" rel="noopener">otrasmiradas.info</a> 
<hr />
This article is the author’s opinion and does not necessarily reflect the editorial position of this medium. If you want to share an opinion article, send an email to comunidad@vozdeguanacaste.com
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/how-tourism-development-tears-apart-the-myth-of-a-paradise/">How tourism development tears apart the myth of a paradise</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
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<title>Guanacaste launches medical care in Endocrinology</title>
<link>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/guanacaste-launches-medical-endocrinology/</link>
<comments>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/guanacaste-launches-medical-endocrinology/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Noelia Esquivel]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 17:59:14 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Health]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Liberia]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Liberia Hospital]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://vozdeguanacaste.com/?p=92143</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Since February, Guanacaste has been able to count on an endocrinologist at the Liberia Hospital.
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/guanacaste-launches-medical-endocrinology/">Guanacaste launches medical care in Endocrinology</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[After exams and medical tests in 2023, Elizabeth Platero, a resident of Liberia, heard her diagnosis at the age of 41: thyroid cancer. With that came the concern about how she would receive the necessary treatment.
The Enrique Baltodano Hospital in Liberia, where she goes, did not have the Endocrinology specialty, which would treat Elizabeth’s cancer and other disorders of the endocrine system, such as glands and organs that produce hormones. Due to the urgency of treating her cancer, the case was taken on by a general surgeon.
“Cancer is cancer, we cannot allow it to be overlooked,” Elizabeth recalls the words of the surgeon before starting her treatment and undergoing the series of surgical interventions she had to undergo.
After surviving two operations with the general surgeon and having to go to “Hospital México” to continue with the cancer removal process, her story began to take a turn in February 2024, when the Liberia Hospital opened the Endocrinology service.
Guanacaste was the only region in the country whose hospitals did not have the specialty. In the past, people residing in this province and requiring attention in this branch of medicine, like Elizabeth’s case, had to travel frequently all the way to San José. For Elizabeth, the enormous waiting lists made it impossible for her to receive the iodine therapy she required immediately.
<blockquote>Appointments are scheduled for 7 am, and you have to travel from the day before. The bus ride takes five to six hours. Additionally, I spend money on lodging and food; you can easily spend up to 50,000 colones ($99.89) just to go to one appointment,” Elizabeth recounts.</blockquote>
For the first time since her diagnosis in May 2023, her case will be led by a specialist in the field, who will start her radiation treatment at the Liberia Hospital.
“We saw a significant need. Guanacaste is the only province without the Endocrinology specialty, and here what one tries to do is to find the institution’s blind spots,” explains endocrinologist José Miguel Pérez, in charge of the new service in the region.
According to data from the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (Spanish acronym: CCSS), 60,276 people in the country received attention in the Endocrinology specialty through outpatient consultations in 2023. The institution’s data does not detail how many patients were from the province.
Other findings allow the identification of a need for attention in the region. Last year, according to data provided by the CCSS, 26,200 people with diabetes [a disease associated with the Endocrinology specialty] in Guanacaste received attention through outpatient consultations, while another 15,799 were treated for metabolic syndrome.
For Dr. Pérez, diabetes, besides being one of the most frequent conditions in his office, is also one of the most unattended in the province. “Now that I’m consulting in Guanacaste, I’ve come across a lot of poorly managed diabetic patients who have no idea about what they should eat or how to inject insulin.”
The Ministry of Health determined that around 20 people per day were diagnosed with diabetes mellitus in 2023, a chronic disease that can lead to various complications, including <a href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/chronic-kidney-disease/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">kidney failure.</a>
Although it is one of the most common conditions, obesity, metabolic syndrome, and thyroid diseases are also recurrent and require specialized attention.
<h3>Teamwork</h3>
At the moment, only Dr. Pérez attends to patients in the province, but his goal is to expand care and training throughout the Chorotega Region through interdisciplinary services.
<blockquote>The idea is to set up several interdisciplinary sessions, one of the first ones we want to establish is a thyroid clinic, which deals with oncological pathology, thyroid cancer,” patients like Elizabeth, who live with this diagnosis, will be able to receive endocrinological care and oncological surgery.</blockquote>
On the other hand, according to the specialist, in a few months, he will work together with the gynecology department to address pregnant women with gestational diabetes, thyroid problems, and other conditions.
“Patients, for example, in my case of cancer, we carry a mental and emotional burden because cancer is not easy. For me, it’s gratifying knowing that I’ll be close,” says Elizabeth with a semblance of hope and gratitude towards what she’s living.
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/guanacaste-launches-medical-endocrinology/">Guanacaste launches medical care in Endocrinology</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
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<title>Complete guide to survive without the La Amistad bridge (and also to understand MOPT)</title>
<link>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/guide-survive-without-amistad-bridge-and-understand-mopt/</link>
<comments>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/guide-survive-without-amistad-bridge-and-understand-mopt/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[José P. Román Barzuna]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Tue, 02 Apr 2024 00:44:24 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Community]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Liberia]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Nicoya]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Region]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Santa Cruz]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Alfaro buses]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Tempisque River]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[transportes inteligentes]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://vozdeguanacaste.com/?p=92102</guid>
<description><![CDATA[In this guide, you can find the details to cross the Tempisque by boat, travel by car along the routes indicated by the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation (MOPT).
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/guide-survive-without-amistad-bridge-and-understand-mopt/">Complete guide to survive without the La Amistad bridge (and also to understand MOPT)</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[*This guide is constantly being updated so that you have the latest information. 
During the next three months, you’ll have to be patient in order to travel between Guanacaste and San José. Starting April 1, and until July 24, according to the promise made by the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation (MOPT), the La Amistad bridge over the Tempisque River will remain closed for repairs.
On March 20, the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation published a series of measures and alternative routes for traveling between the provinces. Since there were several questions still unanswered, at The Voice, we made the necessary inquiries and with this information, we prepared a guide with everything you need to know to decide which of the six alternatives best suits you when traveling to and from Guanacaste.
In this guide, you can find the details to cross the Tempisque by boat, travel by car along the routes indicated by the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation (MOPT), go across the gravel road through the Hacienda El Viejo, take the ferry, journey by bus or reach your destination by plane.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-92103 size-large" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-01-1024x71.png" alt="" width="1024" height="71" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-01-1024x71.png 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-01-300x21.png 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-01-768x53.png 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-01-1536x106.png 1536w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-01-2048x142.png 2048w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-01.png 3334w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
The MOPT promised a free boat service to cross the Tempisque River starting on Wednesday, April 3.
Although the bridge was closed on April 1st, the director of the Maritime Port Division, Verny Jiménez, commented that the boats are not ready yet. The official estimated that the service could be enabled until next Monday, April 8.
“The boats have yet to be taken (to the river). They are not ours, they belong to the National Learning Institute (INA, Spanish acronym). The INA has to move them,” he mentioned.
Who can use the boats?
Anybody can use this service. The only thing you have to do is get to the docking points (see next answer) and wait for the boat to be available.
What is the boat’s route?
The boat route is planned to start next to the La Amistad bridge (on the Nicoya side) and go to a pier that MOPT set up on the Bebedero River. According to Jiménez, another alternative is for the boat to leave Puerto Níspero and make its way to Puerto Madero.
How many people can travel per trip?
Each boat has a capacity of twenty people per trip. Each person will be seated and wearing a life jacket.
If I go by car, is there an area set up to leave it before boarding the boat?
No. If you arrive by car, you’ll have to find a place to park it on your own. If you leave the car there, it’s at your own risk, according to the director of the Maritime Port Division, Verny Jiménez.
What’s the schedule for each trip?
There is no specific time for each trip, but the boats will be available between 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. The boats will go from one point to another on the route and the trips will be made when there are people needing the service.
How long does each trip last?
Each trip takes approximately five minutes.
Why set up a boat and not a ferry to cross the river?
Jiménez commented that there are two reasons that prevent a ferry from being set up on the Tempisque River: There are no ferry boats available and, even if there were, the river’s water has a lot of sediment that prevents this type of boat from being able to navigate the channel.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-92105 size-large" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-05-1024x133.png" alt="" width="1024" height="133" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-05-1024x133.png 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-05-300x39.png 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-05-768x100.png 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-05-1536x200.png 1536w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-05-2048x267.png 2048w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-05.png 3348w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
Among the alternate routes, MOPT announced two municipal roads to decongest the intersection at the entrance to Liberia. One of them is temporarily closed and the other can’t come into play until a legal problem is resolved.
Peninsula – La Cruz
If you come from the peninsula heading in the direction of La Cruz or vice versa, you can use the road that connects the El Capulín neighborhood directly with the Inter-American Route. This route is paved but has a lot of potholes. 
Take note, the road is currently closed while CONAVI works on installing a modular bridge over the Liberia River. Dorian Ulate, engineer of the Technical Unit of Road Management of the Municipality of Liberia, said that there’s no a defined date for its installation. The infrastructure will allow passage through the area in both directions (La Cruz-Liberia) since there was a single-lane bridge up until now.
Peninsula – San José
If you come from the peninsula heading in the direction of San José, you should know that the Municipality of Liberia will prepare a cantonal road through the National University sector that takes you directly to the Inter American Highway crossing the La Cruz neighborhood.
But pay attention! This route proposed by MOPT isn’t ready. According to Ulate, from the Municipality of Liberia, they’re just now working on rebuilding the road and going this way isn’t yet allowed. Why? The route crosses a property that is owned by the administrative board of the Guanacaste Institute and the Municipality has to sign agreements to be able to begin the improvement work. The work consists of making a gravel road, since what is there currently is a path that crosses a pasture with gates and no signage.
“Right now, passage isn’t allowed. Taking a car there is prohibited because it’s a plot of land, so we’re passing through private property, and secondly, it’s damaging the car,” Ulate affirmed.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-92107 size-large" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-03-03-694x1024.png" alt="" width="694" height="1024" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-03-03-694x1024.png 694w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-03-03-203x300.png 203w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-03-03-768x1134.png 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-03-03-1041x1536.png 1041w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-03-03-1388x2048.png 1388w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-03-03.png 3334w" sizes="(max-width: 694px) 100vw, 694px" />
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-92109 size-large" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-02-1024x71.png" alt="" width="1024" height="71" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-02-1024x71.png 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-02-300x21.png 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-02-768x53.png 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-02-1536x107.png 1536w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-02-2048x143.png 2048w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-02.png 3334w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
According to Brian Campbell, administrator of Hacienda El Viejo, people should only go this route if they have no other choice. This road is used every day to transport sugar cane and is not intended for regular vehicle traffic. It’s not a safe option and there are many parts without cell phone signal. In addition, the road is made purely of dirt and gravel.
Where does this route go and how many kilometers would I have to drive?
MOPT recommended the route from Filadelfia to Bagaces. This route is approximately 60 kilometers (37 miles). However, Campbell recommends traveling by the other route that connects Filadelfia with Pijije, which is about 50 kilometers (31 miles) long.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-92111 size-large" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-05-868x1024.png" alt="" width="868" height="1024" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-05-868x1024.png 868w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-05-254x300.png 254w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-05-768x906.png 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-05-1301x1536.png 1301w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-05-1735x2048.png 1735w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-05.png 3334w" sizes="(max-width: 868px) 100vw, 868px" />
Is it safe to travel through Hacienda El Viejo?
The administrator of the hacienda himself does not recommend using these routes. The route has no lighting, little (or no) cell phone signal, no type of signage and there are routes where the road is one lane. If you lean towards this alternative, you should be careful with the tractors and agricultural equipment that constantly take over the road.
Is it a route suitable for all types of cars?
Mainly for high vehicles. The poor condition of the road can be complicated for automobiles. It isn’t recommended for trucks either because there are parts that are very narrow.
Are there hours of use?
There are no hours of use. The routes are open 24 hours a day.
Does traveling through the hacienda have any cost?
Using these routes has no cost. It’s a private road that can only be used in the dry season. At this time, given the crisis due to the closure of the bridge over the Tempisque, the possibility was offered that other people who don’t work for the company could use it.
How long is the estimated travel time on this route?
The estimated time is an hour and a half. You have to travel slowly, about 30 or 40 kilometers per hour (18 to 25 miles per hour) all along the route. However, there may be times where you will have to wait for agricultural machinery to finish its work before being able to continue the trip.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-92113 size-large" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-03-1024x71.png" alt="" width="1024" height="71" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-03-1024x71.png 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-03-300x21.png 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-03-768x53.png 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-03-1536x106.png 1536w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-03-2048x142.png 2048w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-03.png 3334w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
Where are the docks?
Naranjo – Puntarenas Ferry 
In the direction of Playa Naranjo – Puntarenas: <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ferry+Playa+Naranjo/@9.9650766,-85.091904,10.54z/data=!4m14!1m7!3m6!1s0x8f9f80c5543002fd:0xaaa7a0fe89b63941!2sFerry+Playa+Naranjo!8m2!3d9.942048!4d-84.971058!16s%2Fg%2F1hc2xp7f8!3m5!1s0x8f9f80c5543002fd:0xaaa7a0fe89b63941!8m2!3d9.942048!4d-84.971058!16s%2Fg%2F1hc2xp7f8?entry=ttu" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google maps</a>
In the direction of Puntarenas – Playa Naranjo: <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=coonatramar&rlz=1C1VDKB_enCR1100CR1102&oq=coonatramar&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqCQgAEEUYOxiABDIJCAAQRRg7GIAEMgYIARBFGDwyBwgCEAAYgAQyBwgDEAAYgAQyBwgEEAAYgAQyBwgFEAAYgAQyBggGEEUYPDIGCAcQRRg8qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#rlimm=9749718769543097339&lpg=cid:CgIgAQ%3D%3D,ik:CAoSLEFGMVFpcFB1VmpqR3ZnVXl3bTJiX2dHQ1IwdUdtYmZFV1FCVkhNWE15RVBs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google maps</a>
Paquera – Puntarenas Ferry 
In the direction of Paquera – Puntarenas: <a href="https://www.google.com/maps?s=web&rlz=1C1VDKB_enCR1100CR1102&vet=12ahUKEwippruxiaKFAxUbbDABHe2tB9AQ5OUKegQIVBAP..i&cs=0&um=1&ie=UTF-8&fb=1&gl=cr&sa=X&geocode=KVnB7lcD1aGPMbkYVgB27rT2&daddr=Provincia+de+Puntarenas,+Puntarenas,+La+Nicoyana" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google maps</a>
In the direction of Puntarenas – Paquera: <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ferrys+Naviera+Tambor/@9.9777012,-84.8484037,15z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x8fa02ec8e67cd4fb:0x3d26a885279dafd9!8m2!3d9.9777012!4d-84.8484037!16s%2Fg%2F1tkl4cnr?entry=ttu" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google maps</a>
What are the ferry schedules after the La Amistad bridge closure?
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-92115 size-large" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-01-1024x888.png" alt="" width="1024" height="888" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-01-1024x888.png 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-01-300x260.png 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-01-768x666.png 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-01-1536x1331.png 1536w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-01-2048x1775.png 2048w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-01.png 3334w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
How long does the trip last?
Paquera – Puntarenas Ferry 
The trip lasts approximately one hour.
Paquera – Puntarenas Ferry 
The trip lasts approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Where do I buy tickets?
Naranjo Beach – Puntarenas Ferry
You can purchase tickets at the site <a href="http://www.coonatramar.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.coonatramar.com</a>. To buy them, you have to open an account in specialticket (within the Coonatramar site) <a href="https://coonatramar.specialticket.net/auth/signup" target="_blank" rel="noopener">at this link</a>.
Paquera – Puntarenas Ferry 
You can purchase tickets at the site <a href="https://www.quickpaycr.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.quickpaycr.com/</a>.
Take note! It’s important that you keep in mind that both companies will only have 50% of their tickets available on their website. The rest of the ferry capacity can only be bought in person at each company’s ticket window. Both purchase sites are in front of the dock. This means that if you don’t find space available on the websites, you can go to the respective ticket windows. Sales at the windows begin one hour before departure.
How much does it cost to travel by ferry?
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-92117 size-large" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-04-1024x689.png" alt="" width="1024" height="689" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-04-1024x689.png 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-04-300x202.png 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-04-768x517.png 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-04-1536x1034.png 1536w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-04-2048x1378.png 2048w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-04.png 3334w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-92119 size-large" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-04-1024x71.png" alt="" width="1024" height="71" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-04-1024x71.png 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-04-300x21.png 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-04-768x53.png 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-04-1536x107.png 1536w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-04-2048x143.png 2048w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-04.png 3334w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
Which routes will travel by ferry and which will travel through Liberia?
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Route 1501 (San José – Quebrada Honda – Corralillo – San Antonio – Santa Bárbara – Ortega – Bolsón and vice versa) will be used by the company Alfaro Limitada and will travel by the Playa Naranjo ferry.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Route 512 (San José – Nandayure – Jicaral and vice versa) will be used by Ryozumo and will travel by the Paquera ferry.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Routes 1507 (San José – Nicoya – Hojancha – Samara – Playa Carrillo – Estrada – Nosara and vice versa via La Amistad bridge) will be used by Transportes Inteligentes de Guanacaste (TIG) and will travel through Liberia.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Route 1502 (San José – Santa Cruz via La Amistad Bridge; San José – Belén – Tamarindo via La Amistad Bridge; San José – Tamarindo via the Inter-American Highway; San José – Playa Flamingo via the Inter-American Highway; San José – Playa Flamingo via La Amistad Bridge) will be used by TIG and will travel through Liberia.</li>
</ul>
What are the bus schedules?
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-92121 size-large" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-02-2-513x1024.png" alt="" width="513" height="1024" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-02-2-513x1024.png 513w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-02-2-150x300.png 150w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-02-2-768x1534.png 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-02-2-769x1536.png 769w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-02-2-1025x2048.png 1025w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/rutas-alternas-puente-1-02-2.png 3334w" sizes="(max-width: 513px) 100vw, 513px" />
Are the rates the same?
None of the bus companies requested an increase in fares, according to the Public Services Regulatory Authority (Spanish acronym: ARESEP).
Furthermore, the ferries won’t charge either the buses or the passengers traveling on those buses, confirmed the maritime companies.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-92123 size-large" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-07-07-1024x127.png" alt="" width="1024" height="127" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-07-07-1024x127.png 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-07-07-300x37.png 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-07-07-768x95.png 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-07-07-1536x190.png 1536w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-07-07-2048x254.png 2048w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/titulos-puente_para-nota-07-07.png 3356w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
During the La Amistad bridge closure, the airline Sansa has increased the number of flights between Guanacaste and San José. The trips connect Juan Santamaría Airport with Tamarindo, Nosara and Liberia.
How many flights will connect San José and Guanacaste?
Mora estimates that the flights between San José and Tamarindo will go from three daily to approximately six. In addition, between San José and Nosara, they will increase from four trips daily to approximately seven, and between San José and Liberia, they will go from 11 flights to 13.
According to Sansa’s sales manager, Pablo Mora, it isn’t possible to define a fixed number of flights per day. The commercial manager recommends looking at the airline’s website <a href="http://www.flysansa.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.flysansa.com</a>. Flight availability information, schedules and prices are available for any date from April to October of 2024.
Although MOPT commented on the availability of flights between the capital and Nicoya, Mora confirmed that they did not set up flights to the canton.
How much will the trips cost?
A one-way trip from San José to Tamarindo, Nosara or Liberia can cost you between approximately ₡46,000 ($93) and ₡75,000 ($150). The return flight has the same rate. When you select the travel date, the <a href="https://www.flysansa.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">website</a> will indicate the exact cost of the flight. The price may vary depending on the luggage you are taking with you.
How do I get tickets?
Tickets can only be purchased through the site <a href="https://www.flysansa.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.flysansa.com/</a>.
How many people can travel per flight?
Each small plane has a maximum capacity of 12 passengers. The luggage weight will depend on the ticket you purchase.
Will they only increase the number of flights from San José to Guanacaste?
No. The reinforcements are both ways: from Guanacaste to San José, and from San José to Guanacaste.
How long does each flight last?
Although flying is the most expensive option for getting around, it’s also the fastest option. Flights between San José and Guanacaste last approximately 45 minutes.
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/guide-survive-without-amistad-bridge-and-understand-mopt/">Complete guide to survive without the La Amistad bridge (and also to understand MOPT)</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
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<title>Mother and Immigrant: A childhood marked by helplessness and courage</title>
<link>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/mother-and-immigrant-a-childhood-marked-by-helplessness-and-courage/</link>
<comments>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/mother-and-immigrant-a-childhood-marked-by-helplessness-and-courage/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[César Arroyo]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 22 Mar 2024 18:09:13 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Special Stories]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[childhood]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[género]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[human rights]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[immigration]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[pregnancy]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://vozdeguanacaste.com/?p=92021</guid>
<description><![CDATA[In the last twenty years, teenage pregnancies have decreased significantly in Costa Rica. However, this continues to be a latent public health problem. Sharon is one example of a woman who gave birth to a girl when she was a minor. Her story is marked by immigration, sexual violence and the tireless search for a dignified life. She has lived almost her entire life in Guanacaste and – like so many other immigrant teenage mothers – she has had to face economic and social helplessness.
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/mother-and-immigrant-a-childhood-marked-by-helplessness-and-courage/">Mother and Immigrant: A childhood marked by helplessness and courage</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[Sharon was so little that she doesn’t remember how old she was when she crossed the border. She doesn’t remember the journey either or anything else that she experienced and left behind before then, but she does know the reason why. She and her grandparents left Nicaragua because there was need in their home – there was hunger – and immigrating seemed like a path that would give hope to her family.
Although she hadn’t been taught to dream but rather to make do, she arrived in Costa Rica as a girl who wanted many things, but as time went by, she didn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. Immigrating had not changed her life, and vulnerability, poverty and hunger were still there, tangible.
When she was only in fifth grade, she lost patience, “took to the streets” and met her current partner. She was 12 years old and she went to live with him. Since then, she felt ready to be a mother.
Sharon is now 26 years old and has spent more than half of her life in Guanacaste. She has long legs, prominent cheekbones and dark skin. She speaks with a soft voice and short sentences, and she smiles every time she finishes a sentence. She likes Mexican soap operas and romantic movies, but possibly what she likes most in life is being a mother.
Sharon has six children, ranging in age from one month to nine years old.
The first time she got pregnant, she was 17 years old. She was afraid of not knowing how to push, of not understanding that animalistic need, that unbridled rhythm of a body that splits open to give birth. She was afraid of doing it wrong, of inhaling when she should exhale and that – while panting– the girl would suffocate.
Doctors and nurses held her hand and told her to calm down, that she could do it, that everything was going to be alright, that she should push one more time. And another. And another. And Sharon listened. From some corner of her soul, she drew the strength to use all of her energy and break out in silent screams and tearless sobbing until she heard, for the first time, the lively cry of her daughter. Her legs were shaking so much that she thought she had turned into a bug, a cricket with skinny, fragile legs that couldn’t stop moving.
She knew that she was still herself when they placed her daughter on her chest. She saw her face and felt her warmth, and she felt like the happiest person in the world.
Before giving birth, Sharon searched the Internet for unusual names. She searched for them by letter and by meaning until she decided that her daughter would have a name of Arabic origin that she says sounds beautiful and uncommon. We’ll say that the girl’s name is Kenza.
In 2017, when Kenza arrived, she was one of 1,497 babies born in Costa Rica to Nicaraguan teenage mothers between 15 and 19 years old, according to statistics collected by the <a href="https://www.unfpa.org/data/CR" target="_blank" rel="noopener">United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)</a>.
Although the numbers of births by teenage mothers have decreased considerably in Costa Rica in the last 20 years, young pregnancies continue to be a latent public health problem. In 2022, 268 out of every 1,000 women (between 15 and 19 years old) became mothers. In almost one-fifth of those births, the pregnant teenagers were Nicaraguan, like Sharon.
***
With a hoarse and tired voice, Carmela invited everyone she saw on the streets of Managua to buy a scratch-off lottery card from her and try their luck. It was a hazardous job not only because of its nature, but also because it put her own luck to the test. She never knew if she’d have enough money to take home at the end of the day. She was 16 years old and she was already the mother of a baby a few months old.
When she gave birth for the first time, she didn’t believe it was real. She saw the baby with his skin so tender and his eyes so bright, so recently formed, that she thought he was a doll. That fantasy of plastic and playful motherhood was broken every day when she counted the coins she had earned selling scratch cards and she realized that it wasn’t enough for milk, diapers, food. That’s why, like thousands of other Nicaraguan women, she made the decision to immigrate to Costa Rica alone, without her child.
She wanted to make money to send to him and give him a better life. She settled in Playas del Coco, in the canton of Carrillo, and she invented her own businesses to try other types of luck. She became a seller of tortillas, nacatamales and souvenirs. During those comings and goings, she met her current partner and, at 17 years old, she became pregnant again. That time in a country that wasn’t hers.
The day she had her second child, Carmela was alone in the house. She grabbed hold of a wall and pushed. She squatted down and pushed. She forced her lungs to breathe downwards, as she had been taught during her first birth, so that the baby wouldn’t climb upwards but instead would seek its way out toward the light. “I brought him into the world by myself,” she says proudly.
And as time passed, pregnancies came, births took place. By the time she turned 23, Carmela was already the mother of five children. Of the four who were born in Costa Rica, three came into the world at home. She decided to do it this way because she was afraid of the hospital, afraid that because of her immigration status, they would take her children away from her or they would deport her to Nicaragua with her entire family. Her youngest daughter – who was born premature – was the only one she gave birth to at the Hospital in Liberia.
There is a repetitive cycle that makes it difficult for pregnant immigrant women to access health care. Along with minors, they are the only two populations for which the Social Security Fund makes exceptions to provide care without insurance and free of charge. But misinformation and fear intertwine and keep these two vulnerable populations away from health care. This happens every day, affirms gynecologist and obstetrician Daniela Ordóñez.
“The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that every pregnant woman go to at least eight prenatal care appointments. However, many come just to give birth or even have out-of-hospital births,” she said, referring to women who come in during an emergency, sometimes with newborn babies in their arms, like what happened to Carmela.
The doctor also clarifies that a teenage pregnancy is always classified as high risk because it occurs in a body that is still developing. Daniela works at the Los Chiles Hospital, near that hot and porous border line that divides Costa Rica from Nicaragua. She constantly sees cases of pregnancies in minors who have a vulnerable immigration status.
According to UNFPA, in 2022, of the 466 teenage girls who became mothers in Guanacaste, only six out of 10 went to the eight prenatal consultations recommended by WHO. However, 98% of the young women did give birth in a Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS) health center.
According to Daniela, the fact that girls and adolescents arrive at the CCSS’s clinics means that a social worker can then support them and give them information about their sexual and reproductive rights.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-92016" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/1-1024x682.webp" alt="" width="1024" height="682" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/1-1024x682.webp 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/1-300x200.webp 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/1-768x512.webp 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/1-1536x1024.webp 1536w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/1.webp 2000w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
When Carmela was little, she never imagined being a mother, but she didn’t see any other way. She never had time to question it. She’s still selling colorful bracelets and necklaces with turtle charms to tourists on the beach. She works with her daughter, who is now a teenager, and tells her – or rather warns her – not to “throw her life away” with a premature relationship, not to “make a mess of it” with an unwanted pregnancy, to be careful, to “not be like her,” to look towards the horizon and discern that life puts different paths in your hands.
***
“In all of the cases, I’ve seen a lot of hopelessness, helplessness. The girls give a feeling as if they are no longer there, as if they hit a wall. They had a pregnancy and they no longer see any other possibilities than to dedicate their lives to taking care of that baby. They don’t see opportunities for anything else and it’s hard to motivate them. In addition, the families repeat it to them; they tell them that they asked for it, that they threw their lives away. There’s always talk of blame.”
The person who said that is Karla Marín, a psychologist. For five years, she has been working with Cepia, an organization that seeks to improve the quality of life of children, adolescents and families in vulnerable communities in Guanacaste. Karla is the coordinator of the youth group. During the last few years, she has seen several teenage mothers, all Nicaraguans, [participate in the group. Some don’t come looking for help for themselves directly, but rather for their children in one of the programs offered by the organization, such as daycare services or aid for minors with disabilities.
According to her, when they identify a case of teenage motherhood, they usually notice certain patterns that are repeated from one generation to the next. The teenage girls know that their mothers were mothers when they were very young, and the mothers know that their grandmothers were, too. From her experience, Karla says that breaking with this normalization and these cycles is an educational, economic and social challenge, comprehensive work that involves not only young people, but also families, communities and public institutions.
“We had the case of a girl who came in when she was 16 years old and already had a three-year-old daughter. Cepia already knew about the case because the girl became pregnant when she was at school. Her mother took care of the baby as if it were her own and this caused the teenager to not take responsibility of any kind for her daughter. The girl is no longer part of Cepia, but we found out a few months ago that she’s pregnant for the second time,” she said.
Karla says that she has been able to notice two extremes of family support. Sometimes it’s zero and talk of blame can become violent; other times, it’s excessive and gives rise to little awareness and responsibility regarding motherhood.
Another issue linked to teenage pregnancy that Karla considers essential is improper relationships. “Boys and girls come with a lot of doubts about sexuality. They know almost nothing because no one has ever explained to them about contraceptive methods, taking care of themselves, not even the subject of personal hygiene. And then there is the ‘sugar daddy’ tendency, which has to do with the coastal location we are in. The issue of dating men has become normalized. The girls say, ‘I’m going out with a man, he’s going to pay me and it’s not bad.’ So here they begin to be told that this is not good, that there’s a law that prohibits it and they begin to become aware.”
Karla added that there’s a fine line between improper relationships and sexual exploitation. In some cases in which Cepia has had to intervene, it’s the families themselves who encourage their daughters to have a relationship with an older man because that means valuable income for a fragile family economy.
The United Nations estimates that, worldwide, nearly 15 million girls under the age of 18 get married each year. That’s about 37,000 girls a day. Getting married young or living in a common-law marriage also deeply affects access to education and, therefore, the ability to get a decent job and have an independent life.
“Reporting situations such as sexual exploitation and improper relationships is not embraced by part of the population, especially people who come from Nicaragua, because in that country, there is no legislation that punishes improper relationships like what happens in Costa Rica,” said Evelyn Durán, UNFPA reproductive health analyst.
She also mentioned that it’s hard to know how many teenage pregnancies in Costa Rica are linked to improper relationships. However, there is an indicator that can shed light on the matter. In 2022, more than half of teenage mothers (52.5%) between 15 and 17 years old claimed they didn’t know the age of their child’s father, while a third (28.9%) didn’t declare the father.
“These numbers worry us because we’re talking about percentages of births in which the girls say that they aren’t going to comply with the <a href="https://www.pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?param1=NRTC&nValor1=1&nValor2=46246&strTipM=TC" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Paternity Law</a> and they aren’t going to provide evidence if they are in a situation of violence,” said Evelyn. This legislation allows mothers to declare the father of their baby – born out of wedlock – so he legally assumes his shared role and responsibilities in pregnancy expenses and child support.
On the other hand, Law 9406 of the Penal Code establishes that an improper relationship is a relationship of power established by the age difference, which can be 5 years difference when girls and boys are between 13 and 15 years old, or 7 years difference when they are between 15 and 18 years old.
This law – in force since 2017 – is a result of an investigation carried out by UNFPA with data from the 2011 census. Among the investigation’s findings, the organization found that of the girls between 12 and 14 years old who reported being in a common-law marriage, about 89% lived with a man at least 5 years older than them, while among adolescents (between 15 and 17), this percentage was 72%.
In addition, the data show that three out of every four girls and adolescents who lived in a common law marriage did not attend school and that six out of 10 already had at least one son or daughter. “Many times what the system does is blame the girls, when instead the challenge is to give them a vision of human rights. These girls are in a more vulnerable situation, maybe they’re not going to have a pension and they’re close to reproducing the cycle of poverty,” added Evelyn.
***
<h3>The faces of violence</h3>
Sharon is terrified that any of her six children will go through what she went through.
The first time she was sexually abused, she wasn’t even seven years old yet. It was her uncle, in Nicaragua. Her body froze and she didn’t know what to do except to remain silent. The second time she was sexually abused, she was 13 years old, already in Costa Rica. It was her maternal grandfather, with whom she had immigrated to Costa Rica. When Sharon told her grandmother, who had raised her since she was a baby, the response left her stunned and with a shadow of helplessness covering her soul. “It’s a temptation from the devil,” she told her. “It happens to anyone.”
“I never thought that someone’s family could do that to them. I loved my grandfather as if he were my dad,” Sharon says. However, the third time she suffered sexual violence, it wasn’t a family member, but rather a man who, in her own words, “took advantage of her need.” A man who offered her money that she couldn’t refuse because that day she had ended up alone, she was far from her home and she didn’t even have a cent. “I even dream about that person. Even one of my daughter’s teachers, to whom I had never told that secret, suddenly reflected on it and told me that she could tell that I’m suffering and it’s true. I can’t even sleep at night because I have that idea. I can’t forget it,” Sharon says as one of her daughters hangs on her legs again and again, begging for attention.
She doesn’t know what to call what happened to her that day when she felt so helpless and tarnished. In coastal provinces such as Guanacaste and Puntarenas, peak tourism seasons, gentrification and harvest times for crops such as melon, coffee and sugar cane increase women’s risk of falling into sexual and labor exploitation networks. This has been documented by David Ruiz from the Warnath Group, an American organization that has been working for more than 20 years on human trafficking in different countries around the world.
“In Guanacaste, there are mixed migratory flows due to the proximity to the border and many take advantage of the vulnerable condition. This is due to the irregular legal situation that some of the immigrants have. We have had cases in which trafficking networks recruit in Nicaragua and sexually exploit people in some bars and restaurants in Costa Rica or, for example, they catch people who come in a vulnerable condition and promise them a house where they supposedly are going to give them shelter and food,” he added.
David also says that human trafficking “is more domestic. It occurs in the family, it occurs in homes, it occurs in communities, it occurs even through the people who are closest to the victims, people from whom trust and protection are expected.”
***
Sharon lives in a one-bedroom house with just one bed. The day she talked to The Voice, she was wearing a blue spaghetti-strap top that showed off the well-defined collarbones of her slim body.
With her long fingers, she points to a corner – as if she were drawing other places with her mind and conjuring them up out loud – and says that here is the place for the TV and there is the kitchen and over there is where the clothes are kept. She puts her hands on the bed and says, “I sleep here, the baby here, the little girl here, one of my boys here, my partner here.” When night falls, the bed becomes infinite. She sends her other children to sleep with a sister-in-law who lives nearby and who also helps her from time to time with food for the children, when their situation is difficult.
At three in the morning, she can feel the baby searching for her breasts. According to WHO, a breastfeeding woman should consume a minimum of 1800 calories a day, depending on her physical activity. Although Sharon prefers to endure hunger so that her children can eat, milk continues to flow from her breasts so that the girl continues to have round cheeks, strong lungs and a vibrant heart.
The family lives in Martina Bustos, a community located 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from Liberia, which is distinguished by its limestone land, sometimes so white that it dazzles as if it were snow. The community is named after the woman who owned those lands, a 23-hectare (57-acre) property that she wanted to donate so that people who lived in poverty could have land and build a decent home. The donation was never legalized and that’s why, even though there are families who have lived there for more than 25 years, Martina Bustos is considered an informal settlement. Many of the community’s residents are of Nicaraguan origin.
Sharon appreciates having that space. While there, she got a job – in addition to her six children, she takes care of her neighbor’s four children. Her husband is unemployed. She is the breadwinner of the home.
While the voices of her six children and one of the children she cares for flow around her, demanding a glass of fresh water, a change of clothes, a moment of listening, Sharon talks about motherhood, trying to do many things at the same time. time. Kenza, her eldest daughter, takes the youngest in her arms, Charlyn, a baby just one month old who seems to want to shake off the stifling feeling with a tiny, almost timid cry. Kenza is nine years old and is already learning to take care of kids. She knows how to get rid of colic and has a special ability to make her sister calm down and sleep.
Sharon wants Kenza’s path in life to be completely different from hers. She already talks to her about it. She tells her to be careful, to study, to be a good girl. And Kenza listens to her. She likes math and dreams of going to university.
“The longing that one has as a mother is to help them get ahead, to recommend that they study, to give them advice and to continue on their path, that they don’t give up their studies for things on the street like I did, because sometimes you feel like you regret not having studied because you don’t have a good job. So, to keep myself well, I fight for my children,” she says in her gentle voice.
***
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-92014" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2-1024x683.webp" alt="" width="1024" height="683" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2-1024x683.webp 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2-300x200.webp 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2-768x512.webp 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2-1536x1025.webp 1536w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2.webp 2000w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
When Melany realized she was pregnant, she went into denial. She was 14 years old and, with the help of her friends, she searched the internet for different natural remedies to abort the pregnancy. She made mixtures of different herbs and drank the concoction several times. As a last cry for help, she also mixed medications and looked for a secret clinic in San Jose, but she didn’t have the means or the confidence to go that far. She knew the risks. When she reached the third month of pregnancy, she accepted what was coming – she was going to become a mother.
Six months later, her water broke early one Monday morning.
“When we got to the hospital, my mom asked if they could do a C-section because I was 15 years old and I’m small. I felt like I wasn’t going to be able to have it. Then my mom asked if they could do a C-section and they told her no, that I had already gotten myself into that and that I had to have it, that I had to endure.”
But if it was about enduring, Melany had already done that for a while. She remembers that she was first taken to the Filadelfia Clinic, where she says she felt like they didn’t believe her when she told them that her water had just broken. “They told me I still had two weeks left.” She waited two hours until her mother decided to take her to the hospital in Liberia, where she had to endure another 10 hours for her baby to be born naturally while – she felt – the health professionals who were assisting her repeated that “if she had gotten herself into that, she had to endure the consequences.”
According to the National Survey of Women, Children and Adolescents published in 2018 by INEC, 58% of women who had a vaginal birth or a cesarean section between 2016 and 2018 reported having suffered some type of obstetric violence.
The first day Melany was alone in the house with her son, three days after giving birth, she froze, staring at a wall. She had no idea how to become her child’s mother. She didn’t know what to do if the boy started crying. She didn’t know if her arms were going to have the ability to imitate the rhythm of someone who knows how to rock such a small baby to relieve colic or make him smile for the first time.
From then on, she felt depressed. “I got postpartum [depression],” she says. It hit her so deeply that at some moments, she thought about ending her life. “Imagine, [being] a girl, a teenager and a mother with postpartum [depression]. There were a lot of things [going on in] my head. I thought that one day I was going to throw myself in front of a car,” she says now, far from the person she was in those days.
One of the most difficult things about those first months was breastfeeding. In-person classes had resumed after the COVID-19 pandemic. Melany walked from her house to the high school and stayed there all day. She could feel how, little by little, her breasts were filling with milk. She was learning not only to fulfill a new role, but also to endure the physical and emotional pains that only mothers know. When she couldn’t take it anymore, she would run to the bathroom, a set of five toilets shared by more than 600 women at her school. And right there, in the midst of the teenage tumult, she squeezed out by hand the warm liquid that her son couldn’t drink.
Melany is 17 years old and is Costa Rican. She doesn’t have a story of immigration like Carmela and Sharon, but the three of them are connected by the challenges faced by women who have babies as girls. The social stigma. The lack of opportunities. Violence in all its crudeness.
***
Sharon says she wanted five children but she had six. When she left the hospital in Liberia after giving birth to Charlyn, she was told to return in four months to have her tubes tied and make it clear to her body that she won’t give birth anymore. If she could have chosen another path, she would have liked to be a police officer. “Police or security guard, that seems nice to me. I’m sure you learn a lot.”
When she had Kenza, her first daughter, she was offered birth control pills, injections and condoms, but she lived far away and she didn’t have the financial means to travel to the hospital every month. For some time now, CCSS health centers have offered intrauterine contraceptive methods, such as the “Copper T” and subdermal implants, but the information necessary for young women to get these methods remains poor, distant, many times inaccessible.
Sharon speaks harshly about her history in front of her children. She is blunt because she wants them to listen to her and not repeat what she did. If they don’t have enough information at school, she tries to give it to them, mainly to Kenza who is already approaching puberty. “When Kenza was born, I saw her and hugged her and kissed her. I told her that I was going to give her all the love that they never gave me… I am giving love to my children and I am always looking out for them, what they lack and what they don’t lack, making sure no one touches them. I’m always watchful,” Sharon says like a defiant lioness, defending her cubs.
Kenza is slim, agile and eloquent. She has a completely shaved head and a purple skirt that covers her knees. She has big eyes and very white teeth. While she cradles her little sister in her arms, she says that she also dreams of being a mother, but she doesn’t want it to be soon because she likes going to school and eating soup with meat in the cafeteria. Her mother listens to her and smiles.
Sharon doesn’t remember how old she was when she crossed the border, but she hopes her children never have to immigrate to find a better life. Sharon pushed every time she had to and with all the strength in her soul to bring them into the world, but she hopes that her children can make decisions that are different from hers, that they have the tools, the knowledge and the drive to create a brighter, less uncertain path for themselves.
She left school when she was 12 and “took to the streets.” As a teenager, she learned to be a mother and being a mother, she learned to dream. For her and for her children.
 
This research was supported by the Consortium to Support Independent Journalism in the Latin American Region (CAPIR), a project led by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR).
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/mother-and-immigrant-a-childhood-marked-by-helplessness-and-courage/">Mother and Immigrant: A childhood marked by helplessness and courage</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
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<title>CTP: Buses must travel by ferry through Puntarenas during the La Amistad bridge closure</title>
<link>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/ctp-buses-travel-ferry-puntarenas-during-amistad-bridge-closure/</link>
<comments>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/ctp-buses-travel-ferry-puntarenas-during-amistad-bridge-closure/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Noelia Esquivel]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Thu, 14 Mar 2024 21:34:36 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Region]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[ferry]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Hojancha]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[La Amistad bridge]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Nandayure]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[naranjo beach]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Nicoya]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Nosara]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Paquera]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Puntarenas]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[samara]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Tempisque River]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[TIG]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://vozdeguanacaste.com/?p=91998</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The CTP notified bus companies that travel between Guanacaste and San José of what routes they will have to take due to the temporary closure of La Amistad bridge. 
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/ctp-buses-travel-ferry-puntarenas-during-amistad-bridge-closure/">CTP: Buses must travel by ferry through Puntarenas during the La Amistad bridge closure</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[The Board of Directors of the Public Transportation Council (Spanish acronym: CTP) notified the bus companies that travel between San José and the cantons of Nicoya, Hojancha, Nandayure, Jicaral (Cóbano) and Ortega y Bolsón (Santa Cruz) that they will have to make their trips using the Puntarenas ferries while La Amistad bridge is closed for repairs.
The CTP made the decision on March 8, but the bus companies were not notified until Wednesday, March 13 in a letter, of which The Voice has a copy. It took the companies Transportes Ryozumo and Transporte Inteligente de Guanacaste (TIG) by surprise.
Bus drivers won’t be authorized to make stops other than the ones already authorized
The Voice consulted the CTP for details about this decision, but the press department responded via email that the director of the CTP’s Board of Directors, Freddy Carvajal, won’t comment on the subject yet.
The Ministry of Public Works and Transportation (MOPT) won’t provide explanations until the beginning of next week, they added in the response.
Due to the decisión, Ryozumo company plans to file an appeal, and TIG intends to ask for further explanations about who will be responsible for the costs of using the ferry, their representatives said.
The Transportation Intendant of the Public Services Regulatory Authority (Aresep), Edward Araya, told La Voz that with the ferry route, bus companies and bus users will be responsible for ferry ticket fares, that range from $40 to $49 for buses and between $1.5 and $2 for passengers.
Both complain that the CTP did not consult them prior to the decision.
<blockquote>We’re very concerned for several reasons,” said Óscar Alfaro of TIG. “As much as we want to harmonize two transportation systems, it’s not that simple, and travel times are longer. In addition, the CTP agreement isn’t clear about who will assume those costs either,” he added.</blockquote>
Alfaro stated that although the costs of traveling between Nicoya and San José via Liberia or via ferry are similar, they prefer to use the route through Liberia.
In the case of Ryozumo, although they had planned to use the ferry, they question two points. First, the route they will have to follow forces them to leave Nandayure, leaving out passengers from Loma Bonita, Barra Honda, Quebrada Honda, San Juan and Pueblo Viejo of Nicoya, communities that they currently travel through with their route.
According to the company’s administrator, Ricardo Zúñiga Sanchún, it would be more useful for customers if the bus departs from Loma Bonita and heads towards Nandayure from there.
On the other hand, the CTP guideline indicates that they must use the Paquera ferry instead of the Naranjo beach ferry, which forces them to travel 26 more kilometers (16 miles).
<blockquote>We’re surprised by the decision. We don’t understand what they intend with that,” questioned Zúñiga Sanchún. “We’re going to file an appeal within five business days because we don’t agree,” he added.</blockquote>
Aresep also confirmed that no company has requested a rate adjustment due to the changes in routes and lengths of the routes. In addition, it considers that “it would not be reasonable to do so” only for the three months that the La Amistad bridge will remain closed.
“There are no legal mechanisms to adjust fares on a transitory basis and in case of making a fare adjustment, it has an average duration of three months, therefore, it would not be reasonable to do so”, said Araya.
The routes between San Jose and Flamingo Beach and Tamarindo will make the journeys heading towards Liberia and afterwards towards Limonal, where they’ll continue with the usual route.
However, MOPT has not yet officially announced the public transportation alternatives that will be available for those who travel across the bridge on a daily basis for medical reasons, to study or to work, for example.
<div class='vdg-posts vdg-posts-fancy-listing lea-tambien' >
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<div class='vdg-entry-info'>
<h3 class='entry-title'><a href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/mopt-evaluates-a-boat-bus-at-the-tempisque-river-due-to-la-amistad-bridge-closure/">MOPT evaluates a “boat bus” at the Tempisque River due to La Amistad bridge closure</a></h3>
</div>
<div class='entry-summary'>
MOPT intends for the trips to be directed toward students and people who need to cross La Amistad bridge for work.
</div>
<a href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/mopt-evaluates-a-boat-bus-at-the-tempisque-river-due-to-la-amistad-bridge-closure/" class="lea-tambien-a">READ ALSO</a>
</div>
</article>
</div>
<h3>New routes, new schedules</h3>
The decision to use the ferries also involves changes in the bus route schedules, as detailed by the CTP in the letter sent to the bus companies.
However, at the end of last month, the bus company Coonatramar had requested modifications to its authorized schedules from MOPT’s Maritime Port Division to increase the number of routes per day, Miguel Vega, Coonatramar’s communication manager, explained to The Voice.
If the alterations are approved, that could modify the changes already established by the CTP.
Below are the planned schedules, as well as the corresponding ferry.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-91962" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Nandayure-San-Jose-Ferry-Paquera-400-a.-m.-630-a.-m.-615-a.-m.-930-a.-m.-100-p.-m.-3-p.-m.-1920-x-1540-px.png" alt="" width="1920" height="1540" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Nandayure-San-Jose-Ferry-Paquera-400-a.-m.-630-a.-m.-615-a.-m.-930-a.-m.-100-p.-m.-3-p.-m.-1920-x-1540-px.png 1920w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Nandayure-San-Jose-Ferry-Paquera-400-a.-m.-630-a.-m.-615-a.-m.-930-a.-m.-100-p.-m.-3-p.-m.-1920-x-1540-px-300x241.png 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Nandayure-San-Jose-Ferry-Paquera-400-a.-m.-630-a.-m.-615-a.-m.-930-a.-m.-100-p.-m.-3-p.-m.-1920-x-1540-px-1024x821.png 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Nandayure-San-Jose-Ferry-Paquera-400-a.-m.-630-a.-m.-615-a.-m.-930-a.-m.-100-p.-m.-3-p.-m.-1920-x-1540-px-768x616.png 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Nandayure-San-Jose-Ferry-Paquera-400-a.-m.-630-a.-m.-615-a.-m.-930-a.-m.-100-p.-m.-3-p.-m.-1920-x-1540-px-1536x1232.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-91960" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/4.png" alt="" width="1920" height="817" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/4.png 1920w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/4-300x128.png 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/4-1024x436.png 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/4-768x327.png 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/4-1536x654.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-91958" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/3.png" alt="" width="1920" height="817" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/3.png 1920w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/3-300x128.png 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/3-1024x436.png 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/3-768x327.png 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/3-1536x654.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-91956" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2.png" alt="" width="1920" height="817" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2.png 1920w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2-300x128.png 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2-1024x436.png 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2-768x327.png 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2-1536x654.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-91983" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Nandayure-San-Jose-Ferry-Paquera-400-a.-m.-630-a.-m.-615-a.-m.-930-a.-m.-100-p.-m.-3-p.-m.-2.jpg" alt="" width="1920" height="1080" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Nandayure-San-Jose-Ferry-Paquera-400-a.-m.-630-a.-m.-615-a.-m.-930-a.-m.-100-p.-m.-3-p.-m.-2.jpg 1920w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Nandayure-San-Jose-Ferry-Paquera-400-a.-m.-630-a.-m.-615-a.-m.-930-a.-m.-100-p.-m.-3-p.-m.-2-300x169.jpg 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Nandayure-San-Jose-Ferry-Paquera-400-a.-m.-630-a.-m.-615-a.-m.-930-a.-m.-100-p.-m.-3-p.-m.-2-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Nandayure-San-Jose-Ferry-Paquera-400-a.-m.-630-a.-m.-615-a.-m.-930-a.-m.-100-p.-m.-3-p.-m.-2-768x432.jpg 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Nandayure-San-Jose-Ferry-Paquera-400-a.-m.-630-a.-m.-615-a.-m.-930-a.-m.-100-p.-m.-3-p.-m.-2-1536x864.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-91952" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/1.png" alt="" width="1920" height="817" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/1.png 1920w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/1-300x128.png 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/1-1024x436.png 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/1-768x327.png 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/1-1536x654.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" />
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<title>Guanacaste has a dry future and a map explains why</title>
<link>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/guanacaste-dry-future-map-explains-why/</link>
<comments>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/guanacaste-dry-future-map-explains-why/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[César Arroyo]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Wed, 13 Mar 2024 19:52:35 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Nature]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Region]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[climate change]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[drought]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Environment]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://vozdeguanacaste.com/?p=91938</guid>
<description><![CDATA[From Mexico’s southern border to Panama, we share a territory full of challenges and uncertainties.
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/guanacaste-dry-future-map-explains-why/">Guanacaste has a dry future and a map explains why</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[A dry plain with very skinny cows looking for grass among fields of dust. Yellow hills covered with leafless trees and dry ravines that look like stone pathways that lead to nowhere. That’s Guanacaste’s landscape during the dry season’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXPP41JG2Qg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“summer of dusty roads,” as Malpaís sings</a>.
This postcard picture isn’t exclusive to the province; it’s repeated in the countries that are part of the <a href="https://www.fao.org/americas/regional-initiatives/central-american-dry-corridor/en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Central American Dry Corridor</a> (Spanish acronym: CSC), a huge strip of the Pacific territory that runs through southern Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guanacaste, part of Puntarenas and the <a href="https://edo.jrc.ec.europa.eu/gisdata/scado/land_degradation/pa/ATLAS_DESERTIFICACION.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dry arch of Panama</a>.
The term “Dry Corridor” has been used in the region for decades, but its use became more frequent beginning in the 90s and early 2000s, explained Lenin Corrales, a specialist at the Climate Action Unit of the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (Spanish acronym: CATIE).
“It’s hard to attribute the coinage to a specific person or entity, but it has been the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) that has given the greatest momentum to the term in recent years,” he said.
A specialist from the same department, Claudia Bouroncle, explains that there are different ways of measuring or delimiting the dry corridor.
“It’s not like defining the boundaries of a country because these criteria can vary quite a bit,” she said. “On the FAO map, it’s defined by area units that have at least four consecutive months of drought”, so the boundaries tend to be quite dynamic and can vary in time, explained Bouroncle.
That same organization <a href="https://www.fao.org/3/cb5228en/cb5228en.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">has studied the impact suffered by the nearly 11 million people</a> who live in this corridor, many dedicated to agricultural activities, especially small-scale production of basic grains.
<a href="https://www.fao.org/americas/regional-initiatives/central-american-dry-corridor/en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Eighty percent of small producers now live in poverty</a>, according to FAO figures, and their ability to sow and harvest is getting more and more critical.
<div id="attachment_91929" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="max-width: 1034px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-91929" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2019-Mayo-Pozo-de-agua-vacas-Flacas-sequia-ganado-Cesar-Arroyo-10-1024x682.webp" alt="" width="1024" height="682" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2019-Mayo-Pozo-de-agua-vacas-Flacas-sequia-ganado-Cesar-Arroyo-10-1024x682.webp 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2019-Mayo-Pozo-de-agua-vacas-Flacas-sequia-ganado-Cesar-Arroyo-10-300x200.webp 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2019-Mayo-Pozo-de-agua-vacas-Flacas-sequia-ganado-Cesar-Arroyo-10-768x512.webp 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2019-Mayo-Pozo-de-agua-vacas-Flacas-sequia-ganado-Cesar-Arroyo-10-1536x1024.webp 1536w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2019-Mayo-Pozo-de-agua-vacas-Flacas-sequia-ganado-Cesar-Arroyo-10.webp 2000w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Marta Carillo herds the cattle in the last days of April, just before the May rains begin. She and her family feel that the dry season of 2019 was one of the hardest they have ever experienced.Photo: César Arroyo Castro</div>
According to the FAO, changes in rainfall patterns in the region put corn and bean production at risk by 2050.
“[The drought] is becoming longer and more intense. Then farming families begin to have problems defining what to plant and when to plant, and this increases over time,” explained the specialist.
Although <a href="https://migracionesclimaticas.org/que-son-las-migraciones-climaticas/#:~:text=Las%20migraciones%20clim%C3%A1ticas%20%C2%ABcomprenden%20el,sea%20de%20forma%20temporal%20o" target="_blank" rel="noopener">climate migration</a> appears to be a problem in the region, there isn’t enough information to understand its magnitude, affirmed Erick Alfaro, oceanographer and researcher at the University of Costa Rica (UCR).
“In our region, many of these issues end up in reports and papers. While it’s true that the region knows that this is going to be a problem in the future, it should be reflected in research published in scientific journals, which is not happening,” he pointed out.
<h3>Where the land is rough</h3>
The problem of drought in Guanacaste is not minor. Between 2014 and 2016, when the province went through the last major drought, <a href="https://www.cne.go.cr/recuperacion/declaratoria/planes/Plan%20General%20de%20la%20Emergencia%2038642.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the government allocated ¢3,540 million (about $6.8 million USD) in subsidies</a> for purchasing and distributing food supplies for livestock, and the future outlook is not favorable.
And although the impacts are usually measured mainly in the primary sector, in other words, agriculture and livestock, the tentacles of climate change in the dry corridor will extend to tourism, another of the province’s key activities.
Guanacaste is the area in the Central American region that will be impacted the most due to the increase in temperature, according to a report from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) called <a href="https://repositorio.cepal.org/items/9c8147de-9cab-4ab2-9469-617063408af9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“The economics of climate change in Central America.”</a>
“By 2050, the increase in temperature in December will be greater than in 2020, rising by 1.50 °C to 2.90 °C, with Belize being the least affected country and Costa Rica, especially Guanacaste – the most important leisure tourism area in this country – the most impacted,” it details.
And it adds that tourist sites could be affected by other problems derived from high temperatures and changes in precipitation, such as droughts, water shortages and loss of biodiversity.
Panoramic view that allows you to see part of the Papagayo Gulf Tourism Complex (Spanish acronym: PTGP), an area between the Nacascolo districts of the canton of Liberia (in the northern part of the bay) and Sardinal de Carrillo (to the south).
<h3>Taking a beating from water</h3>
The region is experiencing and will continue to experience much longer periods of drought, but when water comes, whether due to the rainy season or the Caribbean’s wet climate events, it hits hard and will continue to cause much stronger battles.
In fact, extreme rain events, such as tropical storms, have caused the most losses in the province, according to CATIE’s Climate Action Unit specialist Lenin Corrales.
“The issue of drought in the Dry Corridor, from my perspective, has a certain reputation, but in reality in Guanacaste, only a small percentage suffers from drought and the big losses are due to other climatic processes,” he emphasized.
<div id="attachment_91931" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="max-width: 1034px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-91931" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2017-OCTUBRE-Inundacion-Tormenta-Nate-Cesar-Arroyo-8-1024x682.webp" alt="" width="1024" height="682" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2017-OCTUBRE-Inundacion-Tormenta-Nate-Cesar-Arroyo-8-1024x682.webp 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2017-OCTUBRE-Inundacion-Tormenta-Nate-Cesar-Arroyo-8-300x200.webp 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2017-OCTUBRE-Inundacion-Tormenta-Nate-Cesar-Arroyo-8-768x512.webp 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2017-OCTUBRE-Inundacion-Tormenta-Nate-Cesar-Arroyo-8-1536x1024.webp 1536w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2017-OCTUBRE-Inundacion-Tormenta-Nate-Cesar-Arroyo-8.webp 2000w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Roberto Parrales leaves his house with his three dogs in the middle of Tropical Storm Nate and heads towards the shelter from the Tucurrique neighborhood in Santa Cruz.Photo: César Arroyo Castro</div>
Between 1988 and 2018, only 14% of losses were due to droughts, while 77% were a result of intense rains. This is reflected in a study prepared by the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Policy (Spanish acronym: MIDEPLAN) on the <a href="https://www.mideplan.go.cr/node/1825" target="_blank" rel="noopener">impact of natural phenomena for the 1988-2018 period</a>.
The onslaught of droughts and rains are so strong in the province that universities are making an effort to better understand how these events will behave in the future in order to explain them to the communities.
UCR researchers Erick Alfaro and Hugo Hidalgo participated in the Central American Dry Corridor Comprehensive Program (Spanish acronym: PICSC), an interdisciplinary project focused on a cross-border region in crisis due to drought and poverty. Cuajiniquil and El Jobo, in La Cruz, were the two communities in which they worked.
“I believe that for a region like Guanacaste or the Central American Dry Corridor, it is vital to know what is going to happen. It’s one of the biggest uncertainties that exists at this moment, not only caused by El Niño or La Niña, but also by phenomena such as tropical cyclones and others,” Hildalgo emphasized.
But many times, not even the communities immersed in that strip of land know what they are experiencing and how it impacts them today and will harm them in the future.
“We found that sometimes they were unaware of their own climate. And we worked to make them see what products and tools they had at their disposal in terms of weather forecasts, seasonal forecasts, etcetera.,” explained Alfaro.
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/guanacaste-dry-future-map-explains-why/">Guanacaste has a dry future and a map explains why</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
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<title>Advertorial: La Cruz exalts its marine wealth in a new community mural</title>
<link>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/advertorial-la-cruz-exalts-its-marine-wealth-in-a-new-community-mural/</link>
<comments>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/advertorial-la-cruz-exalts-its-marine-wealth-in-a-new-community-mural/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Roberto Cruz]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 08 Mar 2024 21:55:24 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Advertorial]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Paid Content]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[La Cruz]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Lxs Rurales]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[UCR]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://vozdeguanacaste.com/?p=91903</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The wall along the road going up to La Cruz’s lookout point is now decorated with images that represent the marine species that are part of that Guanacaste community’s treasure. … <a class="readmore" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/advertorial-la-cruz-exalts-its-marine-wealth-in-a-new-community-mural/">Read more</a>
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[The wall along the road going up to La Cruz’s lookout point is now decorated with images that represent the marine species that are part of that Guanacaste community’s treasure.
The artistic group Lxs Rurales got the people of Santa Cruz involved in creating a 30-meter (98-foot) mural on a wall belonging to the waste collection center. A blank gray wall was the ideal canvas to remind La Cruz and its visitors of the marine treasure that lies beneath the coast’s turquoise waters, which can be seen from the lookout point.
The roosterfish, the humpback whale and the elusive catshark are some of the species that refresh the urban landscape for those who leave neighborhoods such as El Jobo and Soley daily. It’s about bringing the ocean to the street, explained Ruth Bonilla and Mario Cárdenas, artists in charge of the initiative.
<blockquote>It’s an area that felt lonely. Because of the type of colors we use, the space stops feeling so dead, so dark. Adding an image is a way to bring the area alive, and the community gains from that,” explained Ruth Bonilla, who is originally from La Cruz. Bonilla said that she has a special bond with the ocean thanks to her father, a fisherman from La Cruz.</blockquote>
The art project took a month of planning and five entire days of painting with a variety of paint brushes, acrylic paint and spray cans. Neighbors and youth from the area’s Guides and Scouts pitched in to prepare the wall and create the artwork’s general design. The initiative received ₡3 million (about $5,800) in funding from Parque La Libertad and the Ministry of Culture and Youth, and also had support from the Municipality of La Cruz.
<div id="attachment_91901" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="max-width: 1034px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-91901" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/DSF3562-1024x576.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/DSF3562-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/DSF3562-300x169.jpg 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/DSF3562-768x432.jpg 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/DSF3562-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/DSF3562-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/DSF3562.jpg 2400w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Lxs Rurales transformed the appearance of a wall at La Cruz’s waste collection center. About 30 people from the community helped paint the mural. Photo:Ari Muñoz</div>
From the point of view of those who pass through that part of La Cruz, the wall’s dimensions (2.5 meters, or 8 feet, high and 30 meters, or 98 feet, wide) give a sense of motion to the image. “I was impressed by the possibility of painting species of this size– we made a whole school and that reminded me of being on the coast and seeing how the fish surround you,” commented Mario Cárdenas.
The mural is an expression that reminds all of us that we have to protect Guanacaste’s marine biodiversity. “La Cruz has a gorgeous coastline that we can lose if we are careless,” Cárdenas emphasized.
With this work, the artistic group also wants to reclaim art as a means of expression that is accessible to the public. Lxs Rurales has changed the look of other areas for communities in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Peru and Honduras.
<blockquote>By bringing the image to public spaces, we allow it to be accessible to all people. The mural breaks down inequalities with the community,” added Ruth Bonilla.</blockquote>
You can follow Lxs Rurales’ work <a href="https://www.instagram.com/lxs.rurales/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">on their Instagram profile</a>.
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/advertorial-la-cruz-exalts-its-marine-wealth-in-a-new-community-mural/">Advertorial: La Cruz exalts its marine wealth in a new community mural</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
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<title>Political violence against women continues to go unpunished in six municipalities of Guanacaste</title>
<link>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/political-violence-unpunished-municipalities-guanacaste/</link>
<comments>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/political-violence-unpunished-municipalities-guanacaste/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Noelia Esquivel]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 08 Mar 2024 13:38:42 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Region]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Arianna Badilla]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Carlos Cantillo]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[francina uribe]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[genre]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Luis Gerardo Castañeda]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[municipality of carrillo]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Municipality of Liberia]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[political violence]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://vozdeguanacaste.com/?p=91868</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Four years ago, as soon as the local government officials for the 2020-2024 term took office, the vice mayor of Carrillo, Isabel Francina Uribe, hurried to organize a meeting with … <a class="readmore" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/political-violence-unpunished-municipalities-guanacaste/">Read more</a>
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/political-violence-unpunished-municipalities-guanacaste/">Political violence against women continues to go unpunished in six municipalities of Guanacaste</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[Four years ago, as soon as the local government officials for the 2020-2024 term took office, the vice mayor of Carrillo, Isabel Francina Uribe, hurried to organize a meeting with her fellow female elected colleagues in Guanacaste. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0yfzhud7NenfWTVNwK2WKSutk3v5oyDTMSA14vJmkBaavk5GYbk1ZQqzM76Ph6k2al&id=995722633910123" target="_blank" rel="noopener">They met on June 24, 2020 in the Municipality of Carrillo</a> and since then, they formed a WhatsApp group called “Guanacaste en tacones” (Guanacaste in high heels).
“Colleagues, you are going along a route on which, at the end of the road, you’re going to have legal support. I had zero. I didn’t have any legal support [when I started],” Uribe remembers telling them. “Know that if at any time, actions and situations like this begin to occur, you are not alone.”
Uribe was referring to the approval of Law 10,235, the <a href="https://www.tse.go.cr/pdf/normativa/Ley10235-violencia-contra-mujeres-en-politica.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">law to prevent, address, punish and eradicate violence against women in politics</a>, which came into effect two years later, in May of 2022. The legislation seeks to combat actions or speeches against women in public service that undermine the recognition and exercise of their political rights.
Her and her newly elected colleagues’ hope and enthusiasm was a temporary joy. Two years after the law was published, six of the 11 municipalities of the province still haven’t made a regulation for it, a necessary step for the institutions to establish how to punish violent expressions against women.
That’s why women in local governments — both popularly elected officials and any other civil servant — continue without a clear path to file complaints and request penalties. The story is different in <a href="https://www.imprentanacional.go.cr/pub/2023/03/27/ALCA53_27_03_2023.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hojancha</a>, <a href="https://www.imprentanacional.go.cr/pub/2023/12/07/comp_07_12_2023.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tilarán</a>, <a href="https://www.imprentanacional.go.cr/pub/2023/01/10/comp_10_01_2023.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cañas</a>, <a href="https://www.imprentanacional.go.cr/pub/2023/04/28/COMP_28_04_2023.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bagaces</a> and <a href="https://www.imprentanacional.go.cr/pub/2023/03/20/COMP_20_03_2023.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Liberia</a>, which have already made it official.
The lack of budget allocated for publishing the regulations in La Gaceta (the Gazette) or the lack of political good will of the municipalities and the municipal councils of La Cruz, Liberia, Carrillo, Santa Cruz, Nicoya, Nandayure and Abangares coincided so that even today, the law is a piece of paper without clear consequences for those who fail to comply.
<a href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/MLC-DAM-OF-381-2023-Resp.-oficio-AL-FPLN-CDR-786-2023.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In a letter, the mayor of La Cruz, Alonso Alán, had justified not publishing the regulations</a> — already approved by the council — alluding that it’s an expensive procedure.
“The costs of publishing in La Gaceta are extremely high when it comes to long documents like the regulation in question, which is around 1.25 million (about $2,400) for the 2 law publications,” he wrote. “This forces us to prioritize the documents to be published according to their cost and the cash available at the time.”
In Nicoya, council member María Auxiliadora Pérez affirmed that “it’s not a budgetary issue, but rather a bureaucratic issue.” Pérez is part of the legal commission, where creating the regulation is stalled due to a saturation of pending issues, she said.
<blockquote>Super sad, but in all honesty, I believe it will be left to the next council [which takes office in May],” added Pérez, <a href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/vice-president-of-the-nicoya-municipal-council-denounces-sexist-comments-made-against-her-by-council-member/">who experienced political violence first hand two years ago by a fellow council member of hers</a> who told her in a public session: “I was writing a message to you but it was better that I deleted it, since you are a woman.”</blockquote>
In Liberia, Vice Mayor <a href="https://www.muniliberia.go.cr/muni/app/webroot/files/documents/73_1932_actaextraordinaria2192023.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Arianna Badilla was the one who pushed for the council to approve the regulation</a>.
“This law cannot be executed by itself, but rather, there has to be an internal regulation that is the basis of the law,” she told The Voice in her office in the Municipality of Liberia, where Mayor Luis Gerardo Castañeda relocated her when they began to have friction between them a year after they had taken on the municipal administration together.
“It’s the municipal council itself that’s responsible for carrying out the disciplinary procedure,” explained the chief of staff of the presidency of the Supreme Election Court (Spanish acronym: TSE), Andrei Cambronero. “And if, only if, that council considers that the offense warrants the removal of the offending person from office, then the matter is transferred to the Supreme Election Court,” he added.
<div id="attachment_91883" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="max-width: 2010px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-91883" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/image-4.jpg" alt="" width="2000" height="1500" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/image-4.jpg 2000w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/image-4-300x225.jpg 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/image-4-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/image-4-768x576.jpg 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/image-4-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/image-4-500x375.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px" />Pie 2: The female officials elected by popular vote gathered together on June 24, 2020 in a meeting promoted by the vice mayor of that canton, Isabel Francina Uribe.Photo: Facebook of vice mayor of Liberia, Arianna Badilla</div>
<h3>In and out of the hallways</h3>
Isabel Uribe, Carrillo’s vice mayor, who promoted that meeting and the “Guanacaste in high heels” chat, has been the vice mayor of the province who has raised her voice the most to denounce political violence.
“It’s a monstrous situation,” described Uribe, who was incapacitated for a month eight months before that meeting due to depression associated with her work. Although she had duties assigned by the mayor, Carlos Cantillo, she feels that her work was purposely boycotted to tarnish her as a political figure.
“On many occasions, my salary was the budget to carry out the projects,” she said indignantly.
She affirms that she was not invited to activities of the mayor’s office, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/trivision361/videos/817058929710267/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">she was not notified of the mayor’s periods of absence, when she was the one who should assume the responsibilities and powers, as established by the Municipal Code.</a>
On one occasion, they even <a href="https://www.facebook.com/MunicipalidadCarrillo/posts/pfbid0j5j7zPJtZKRuHCymvnhZPs3DJYRf5KmTe9J9UGqHGTHUWuSb8oKqCoTEhqL3oUfol" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cropped her face out from a group photo published on the municipality’s social networks</a>.
And as was predictable, the local government was inundated with comments.
“And the rest of the photo? Or by chance did they not realize that there were other municipalities that took the same photo and published it in full?” demanded a citizen in the comments. “Why did they cut out the Vice Mayor? We’re still in the stone age, minimizing the work of women,” said another.
<iframe style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FMunicipalidadCarrillo%2Fposts%2Fpfbid0jPXeFtcMZPrfEB7VdcmTPdUA7MF4hmPUCph1pBt5qwpLMxw6tbarJV3Ytsa8umRTl&show_text=true&width=500" width="500" height="731" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>In an interview with The Voice, the mayor of Carillo, Carlos Cantillo, said that that was the photo shared with him by a female official from the Municipality of Liberia who took the photograph. And then he asked the person in charge of social media for the Municipality of Carrillo to post it.
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=670580185118743&set=pcb.670580238452071" target="_blank" rel="noopener">However, the photograph published by the Municipality of Liberia about that activity does include Uribe.</a>
Cantillo also shakes off Uribe’s accusations, saying that he has felt “that she has wanted to be the figurehead of the institution, when I am the mayor.” He also alleged that whenever he could, he “ran” to obtain the necessary budgets for the projects she promoted, and that if another official acted as a leader in his absence, it was because she was in “ignorance,” he said, of the municipal procedures.
<h3>Name violence to recognize it</h3>
Costa Rica joined 11 Latin American countries that have legislation against belittling women in politics.
With this law, Congress officially introduced the recognition of this type of gender violence in the State’s public institutions. Political parties also should have created internal policies, and propaganda messages promoting violent or stereotypical messages are prohibited.
The legislation condemns a list of actions that range from assigning women tasks that do not correspond to the investiture or hierarchy of the position, to preventing access to information necessary for carrying out tasks and undermining their political capacity due to their gender status (<a href="https://www.tse.go.cr/pdf/normativa/Ley10235-violencia-contra-mujeres-en-politica.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">see from article 5 on in the link of this image</a>).
<h3>Fear of competition</h3>
Before the legislation was published, not even the TSE recognized political violence in the appeals for electoral protection that popularly elected female officials had filed since 2011 when they felt their political rights had been violated.
“[The appeals are filed] particularly by vice mayor’s offices, which were and are mostly occupied by women, in which they alleged that, due to gender, the person who held the mayor’s office had manifestations of political violence such as not granting them functions or undervaluing their work,” explained TSE official Andrei Cambronero.
“However, over time, the TSE did not pronounce any ruling in which the situation of political violence was recognized as such.”
The vice mayor of Liberia, Arianna Badilla, is the only vice mayor from this term in the province who <a href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/pipo-castaneda-about-appeal-electoral-protection-arianna-badilla/">has presented appeals for electoral protection due to political violence</a>. She filed one before the law was passed, and another after the legislation went into effect. In both, she has claimed that the mayor eliminated functions that she had previously been assigned.
<a href="https://www.tse.go.cr/juris/electorales/3949-E1-2022.html?zoom_highlight=%2210%2E235%22" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The TSE has sided with her.</a> 
<blockquote>The mayor that the appeal was filed against [Luis Gerardo Castañeda] reduced the functions of Mrs. Badilla Vargas without justifying that decision,” the judges concluded. “It is proven in the file that the tasks that she retained are insufficient to adequately exercise the first vice mayor’s office.”</blockquote>
Both Badilla and Uribe believe that one of the mayors’ main annoyances was perceiving that they also had ambitious political projects. Both, in fact, wanted to aspire to become mayors.
Uribe, however, wasn’t given the chance because her candidacy was going to be with the Aquí Costa Rica Manda (Here Costa Rica Rules) Party, which the TSE stopped due to non-compliance with the requirement of gender parity in municipal candidacies.
To the TSE chief of staff of the presidency, Andrei Cambronero, it’s necessary to further socialize the paths that should be followed to “be clarifying when to resort to one instance or the other.”
<blockquote>The multiplicity of doors that the law generated so that women can see their rights protected were many and it’s necessary to be appropriating this law so that there being various forms of protection or guardianship does not become a difficulty of access, because I don’t know where to turn,” he added.</blockquote>
The vice mayors of Liberia and Carrillo also think that even a reform of the Electoral Code should be considered, so that the functions of the vice mayors do not depend on the decision of the person holding the position of mayor.
Both also question the correct application of the law, since in the municipalities, the municipal councils are the ones that must apply penalties. And what happens if they are completely aligned with the incumbent mayor, Uribe questions.
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<title>MOPT evaluates a “boat bus” at the Tempisque River due to La Amistad bridge closure</title>
<link>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/mopt-evaluates-a-boat-bus-at-the-tempisque-river-due-to-la-amistad-bridge-closure/</link>
<comments>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/mopt-evaluates-a-boat-bus-at-the-tempisque-river-due-to-la-amistad-bridge-closure/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[José P. Román Barzuna]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Wed, 06 Mar 2024 23:38:57 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Community]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[La Amistad bridge]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Tempisque River]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://vozdeguanacaste.com/?p=91850</guid>
<description><![CDATA[MOPT intends for the trips to be directed toward students and people who need to cross La Amistad bridge for work.
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/mopt-evaluates-a-boat-bus-at-the-tempisque-river-due-to-la-amistad-bridge-closure/">MOPT evaluates a “boat bus” at the Tempisque River due to La Amistad bridge closure</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[The Ministry of Public Works and Transportation (MOPT) is considering setting up a “boat bus” service to transport people across the Tempisque River in response to the La Amistad bridge closure, scheduled from April 1 to July 24.
MOPT intends for the trips to be directed toward students and people who need to cross La Amistad bridge for work. If they set it up, it will be a free service, assured the Director of the Maritime Port Division, Verny Jiménez.
“We are proposing that the State hire a boatman, a type of boat bus that is dedicated to taking people across throughout the day. Then you arrive at the place, get on the boat, they take you to the other side and that’s it. Later, when you have to return, you do the same thing,” Jiménez explained.
With less than a month to go before the closure, MOPT doesn’t have details about what it would cost to provide this service or about the seating capacity the boat would have.
They will obtain the information on a tour of the area that they will take this Thursday, March 7.
<blockquote>We haven’t even gotten that [the boat’s capacity] because we have to sit down and negotiate with a boat owner who wants to provide us with the service,” commented the official.</blockquote>
The authorities will check to make sure the boatman who is going to provide the possible service has the necessary permits to sail and that the ship has chairs and life jackets available for people who use the service.
“Each boat has its insurance. In order to give them a certificate of seaworthiness, they have to have policies with INS,” he explained.
According to Jiménez, it is possible to set up the service in the next three weeks because since it’s free, it doesn’t have any rate that has to be approved by the Public Services Regulatory Authority (Spanish acronym: ARESEP). Furthermore, he said that MOPT must make the decision this week.
<h3>What about a ferry across the Tempisque?</h3>
Before the bridge was built, a ferry was the means of transportation for people crossing the Tempisque River. However, the director of the maritime division ruled out the possibility of restoring that service.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-91843 size-full" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/recuerdos_nicoya-4.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="567" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/recuerdos_nicoya-4.jpg 800w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/recuerdos_nicoya-4-300x213.jpg 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/recuerdos_nicoya-4-768x544.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />
Jimenez listed two reasons why MOPT decided to set up the route: there are no ferries and, even if there were, the water in the river is no longer navigable for this type of boat.
According to the official, a study of the river bottom indicated that the Tempisque River has a lot of sediment. That means that these boats can’t navigate the channel.
<blockquote>The first thing we would have to do is dredge to be able to set up the ferry there. We did calculations and it could end up costing us approximately $600,000. That raised the costs a lot,” he said.</blockquote>
On the other hand, the State doesn’t have ferries. Currently, there are five ferries in the country: two belong to the company Coonatramar and make the trip from Puntarenas and Playa Naranjo; another two belong to Naviera Tambor and make the trip from Puntarenas to Paquera.
According to Jiménez, there is a fifth ferry that belongs to the company Naútica JJ. MOPT thought about the possibility of renting that ferry, but the price for almost three months of service exceeded $700,000. The cost of dredging would have to be added to that figure.
“It had to be ruled out because using that ferry for such a short time at that price that they charged us wasn’t panning out,” the official concluded.
Last week, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/alcaldia.denicoya/posts/pfbid0KhfZ96QSqACL4BUmvoetpQioStWK3JyDw51xi86aBWkPAyTjSMwRtKs5rbLMtjEBl" target="_blank" rel="noopener">authorities from the municipalities of Nicoya and Santa Cruz met with the National Road Council (Spanish acronym: CONAVI)</a> to assess possible plans for transportation by land, sea and air to mitigate the consequences of closing the bridge.
“Each idea on the table is going to be assessed by both the Minister, the President and CONAVI’s executive management and from there, generate this action plan that we will be presenting in a week, a week and a half,” the director of CONAVI, Mauricio Batalla, said during the meeting.
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<title>Mayor of Santa Cruz shakes off audit findings on road work quality</title>
<link>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/mayor-santa-cruz-shakes-off-audit-findings-road-quality/</link>
<comments>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/mayor-santa-cruz-shakes-off-audit-findings-road-quality/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Noelia Esquivel]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Thu, 22 Feb 2024 23:33:36 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Community]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Santa Cruz]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Jorge Arturo Alfaro]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Municipality of Santa Cruz]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://vozdeguanacaste.com/?p=91799</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A municipal audit report questions the quality of the repairs done on these roads. 
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/mayor-santa-cruz-shakes-off-audit-findings-road-quality/">Mayor of Santa Cruz shakes off audit findings on road work quality</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[An audit report from the Municipality of Santa Cruz warns that the local government had work done on streets without giving priority to the real needs of the communities. In addition, it calls into question the quality of the work on some roads.
In total, there are five routes questioned by the auditor: Jobos, Paraíso – Hernández, Bernabela – San Juan, Camarenos and El Aguacate in San José de la Montaña.
The report from auditor Luis Barrantes, dated January 19, 2024, explains that the audit investigations began after residents of San José de la Montaña denounced that the Municipal Road Management Technical Unit fixed a road that didn’t benefit the community. The other communities complained about the poor condition of the roads that had been worked on.
The mayor, Jorge Arturo Alfaro, refutes the accusations and thinks that they were politically motivated prior to the municipal elections.
<blockquote>We were in politics [when the report came out]. There are many people who lend themselves to politics. I’m not saying that’s the case of the auditor, but if there’s a rumor, there’s probably something to it…. What these people want is to return to the two-party system,” Alfaro remarked.</blockquote>
<h3>Mayor says that repairs are preventive</h3>
Potholes and poorly placed materials on the roads of Jobos, Paraiso – Hernández, Bernabela and los Camarenos are “a sign that there could be possible inconsistencies in the quality of the materials used (…) and the obvious risk in terms of durability,” specifies the report.
Despite what the report says, the auditor admitted that he does not have the capacity to analyze the real state of the roads. The report’s criteria is based on “a deterioration just by how it looks” and requires an analysis by the National Laboratory of Materials and Structural Models (Spanish acronym: LANAMME) of the University of Costa Rica (UCR), he said.
Barrantes commented that he requested the analysis from the laboratory, but LANAMME’s press department told The Voice that nothing is in process due to a request from the auditor. The only request they have from the local government is the one made by the technical unit’s engineer, Mary Paz Castillo, to evaluate the Bernabela road and obtain advice to improve it.
According to the laboratory, they carried out the road inspection in November of 2023 and are in the process of preparing the report with the results.
A response from the technical unit to the audit report says that in Jobos, Paraíso – Hernández and in Camarenos, the mayor’s office applied an asphalt emulsion against erosion. This work, according to the document, is intended to protect the subbase and reduce dust.
“It’s like saying: here I have these beans. I’m going to cover them well with this plastic so that dust doesn’t fall on them and bugs don’t get on them. And as soon as I can, well, I’ll prepare them,” explained the mayor. “[Camarenos] has held up through all the fiestas and heavy vehicles. Now we want to repair potholes a little for the meantime [until] we have the money to be able to pave [it].”
In the event that the auditor verifies that the repairs were deficient, the official affirms that he will present the evidence to the Comptroller General of the Republic.
<h3>One plan and another…</h3>
In the case of the El Aguacate route in San José de La Montaña, the audit report questions around two kilometers (1.25 miles) of the route that the municipality had work done on. To Barrantes, the municipality did the work without prioritizing the needs of the people who live on the street and without taking into account the Five-Year Road Preservation and Development Plan (Spanish acronym: PVQCD).
The five-year plans are documents that define the roads that will be a priority to repair for the municipalities. Although Barrantes says that compliance with them is not mandatory, he thinks that following them is a way to give priority to the needs of Santa Cruz residents.
<blockquote>It’s not a serious offense because they’re not stealing any money or anything illegal. The issue is prioritization of the use of public funds,” Barrantes argued.</blockquote>
To the mayor, the investment in El Aguacate is part of a project to connect San José de La Montaña with the 27 de Abril route and “give another transitable option to those people in that sector. Logically, we don’t have the resources to do it completely,” he explained.
Both the mayor and the auditor expressed that the municipality is currently developing a new five-year plan. However, Alfaro affirmed that since 2017, all of the roads that were worked on have been included in an investment plan for road improvement that was made by the municipality together with the Municipal Development and Consulting Institute (Spanish acronym: IFAM).
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<title>The Voice of Guanacaste receives a grant to promote artificial intelligence and to be innovative with young audiences</title>
<link>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/the-voice-guanacaste-receives-grant-promote-artificial-intelligence-innovative-young-audiences/</link>
<comments>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/the-voice-guanacaste-receives-grant-promote-artificial-intelligence-innovative-young-audiences/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Noelia Esquivel]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 16 Feb 2024 16:56:17 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Region]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[scholarship]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[The Voice of Guanacaste]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://vozdeguanacaste.com/?p=91784</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The Voice of Guanacaste is one of seven media outlets in Latin America that have been awarded grants by the International Fund for Public Interest Media (IFPIM).
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/the-voice-guanacaste-receives-grant-promote-artificial-intelligence-innovative-young-audiences/">The Voice of Guanacaste receives a grant to promote artificial intelligence and to be innovative with young audiences</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[The Voice of Guanacaste is one of seven media outlets in Latin America that have been awarded grants by the International Fund for Public Interest Media (IFPIM).
With the funds, we will continue to develop GuanaData, our investigative journalism and artificial intelligence project, we will experiment with innovative formats that bring quality information to younger audiences and we will strengthen our nonprofit financing alternatives.
<a href="https://ifpim.org/2023-grantee-cohort/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">IFPIM selected The Voice as a leading independent media outlet</a> experimenting with promising innovations for greater economic resilience.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/72x72/1f4e2.png" alt="📢" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" /> The International Fund has awarded 17 new grants across nine of its focus countries.
The funds will be used to sustain important news media voices, foster transformational change, and enable sustainable media ecosystems.
Read about our new grants <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/72x72/27a1.png" alt="➡" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" /> <a href="https://t.co/goesUmvGZX" target="_blank">https://t.co/goesUmvGZX</a> <a href="https://t.co/6uT9ytKNBF" target="_blank">pic.twitter.com/6uT9ytKNBF</a>
— International Fund for Public Interest Media (@TheIntlFund) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheIntlFund/status/1758105659202044245?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" target="_blank" rel="noopener">February 15, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Voice has demonstrated its leadership in regional journalism from different perspectives: investigation, data journalism, solutions journalism and podcasts. At the same time, we have been involved in cross-border investigative projects and we promote community unity activities to help the province progress.
At the end of January, we launched our <a href="https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaN9Wt6J3jut9rRFk80h" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WhatsApp channel</a> to give our audiences updated information in context as immediately as possible. At the end of 2023, we also launched our <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@vozdeguanacaste" target="_blank" rel="noopener">TikTok</a> account, which joins our other networks: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/vozdeguanacaste/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Instagram</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/vozdeguanacaste" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/VozdeGuanacaste" target="_blank" rel="noopener">X</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@VozdeGuanacaste0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">YouTube</a>, and our newsletters: <a href="https://vozdeguanacaste.us6.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=5b6d9b94b1f96c84fd74372f3&id=7a49db8cc4&utm_source=Newsletter+List&utm_campaign=59a8cc2126-1711_2023arteycreenciasen&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-faaa00ac8d-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D&ct=t(arteycreenciasen)" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the biweekly one</a> and Nosara.
IFPIM’s mission is to promote a change in the way emerging media outlets are financed and to provide support to ensure that they remain independent, inclusive and resilient. Its vision is for people around the world to access trustworthy information through media outlets that defend the public interest.
IFPIM points out that in recent years, independent media have faced increasing political attacks, financial challenges and weakened business models. When independent media become weakened, this impacts the entire society, democracy is threatened and corruption can be expected to increase.
The grant for The Voice of Guanacaste is for two years, and we are excited and happy to undertake this new challenge to extend quality journalism to every corner of Guanacaste.
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/the-voice-guanacaste-receives-grant-promote-artificial-intelligence-innovative-young-audiences/">The Voice of Guanacaste receives a grant to promote artificial intelligence and to be innovative with young audiences</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
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<title>A doctor and politicians: The faces of the new female mayors in Guanacaste</title>
<link>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/doctor-and-politicians-faces-new-female-mayors/</link>
<comments>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/doctor-and-politicians-faces-new-female-mayors/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Noelia Esquivel]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Tue, 13 Feb 2024 22:41:53 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Guanacaste Votes]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Region]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[municipal elections]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://vozdeguanacaste.com/?p=91740</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Carrillo, Hojancha and Tilarán elected women as mayors for the first time in their history.
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/doctor-and-politicians-faces-new-female-mayors/">A doctor and politicians: The faces of the new female mayors in Guanacaste</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[In a produce store in Sardinal in Carrillo, a young woman no more than 23 years old says that the results of the elections in the canton surprised many people. Three days have passed since people cast their votes and she’s still thinking about that victory, in which a woman ousted the National Liberation Party (Spanish acronym: PLN) from Carrillo’s mayor’s office.
“Normally Liberation is the most popular and people think that a woman can’t govern,” she says with a slight tone of indignation at how history has placed men in the majority of leadership positions.
Sardinal is the only one of Carrillo’s four districts where the Social Democratic Progress (Spanish acronym: PSD) candidate, Diana Méndez, had the majority of support.
Although she only won one of the districts, she accumulated enough votes to win the canton against PLN’s candidate, Luis Carlos Rivas, current second vice mayor and trusted advisor to Mayor Carlos Cantillo, who has been in power for almost two decades.
A large part of PSD’s victory took place just a few meters from the produce store, in the very heart of the coastal district, where Diana Méndez’s brother and pharmacist colleague opened the first pharmacy in the area.
But since he died from COVID-19 in 2022, Méndez and her family have taken over the reins of the store. It’s a small place, going almost unnoticed if it weren’t for the subtle sign that says “Pharmacy” outside the business.
<div id="attachment_91722" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="max-width: 2570px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-91722" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04883-scaled.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1441" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04883-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04883-300x169.jpg 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04883-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04883-768x432.jpg 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04883-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04883-2048x1153.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" />In the mid-90s, the brother of mayor elect Diana Méndez opened the first pharmacy in Sardinal, a district of Carrillo. “When [my brother] died, we saw that the community loved him very much. There were no pharmacies in El Coco or Playa Hermosa 27 years ago and all those people went up to Sardinal,” she says about how her brother planted a seed so that she too would be recognized in the community.Photo: Rubén F. Román</div>In addition to this, Méndez is the pharmacy director in the Carrillo Health Area and from that position, she has led pro-health initiatives in the canton.
Although Méndez is now taking office for the first time as a publicly-elected official, her campaign team gave a lot of importance to her professional title: Dr. Méndez Masis. That’s what they called her and they continue to call her.
<blockquote>She wants a positive change for the town after 20 years of practically the same leadership, and she achieved all this by walking, showing people commitment,” says Méndez’s husband, Mario Pizarro, behind the pharmacy display counter.</blockquote>
Lorena Rivas, a Nicaraguan who has lived in Sardinal for so many years that she’s lost count now, perceived this. Although she couldn’t vote, she was informed about the electoral process.
“If the other party remained, it was going to be the same,” she says, sitting in the shade of a tree in the town park. “They are doors to new opportunities and she has a very nice way.” That’s how she felt when Méndez and her team went around the community from house to house asking for the vote, including hers.
“I’m very happy because Liberation had been here in Filadelfia for 18 years and didn’t help the small towns,” Yanil Cascante, a native of the district of Belén who voted for PSD, had told us an hour earlier in Filadelfia. “She is or she was a doctor at the [Social Security] Fund and she’s humble and very good.”
<div id="attachment_91724" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="max-width: 2570px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-91724" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04815-scaled.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1441" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04815-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04815-300x169.jpg 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04815-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04815-768x432.jpg 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04815-1536x865.jpg 1536w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04815-2048x1153.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" />In Filadelfia, the main town in the canton of Carrillo, neither party had noteworthy banners. The sign for National Liberation candidate Luis Carlos Rivas stood out on a nail salon on a corner near the municipal offices.Photo: Rubén F. Román</div>
<h3>Rubbing shoulders to clear the field</h3>
Starting in May, Méndez will become Carrillo’s first female mayor. Women also triumphed for the first time in Tilarán with Katherine Alfaro from PLN and in Hojancha with Verónica Campos, with the Social Christian Unity Party (Spanish acronym: PUSC).
Of the three, Méndez is the one who is entering politics for the first time. The other two women elected already have municipal management experience. Alfaro has been the vice mayor of Tilarán since 2020 and Verónica Campos was vice mayor since 2016 with the Citizen Action Party (Spanish acronym: PAC). In January, she assumed the role of mayor after the former leader, Eduardo Pineda, retired.
Before them, only five women had held the position in the province since 2000 and only during one term (2016-2020) were two elected simultaneously.
<div class="flourish-embed flourish-table" data-src="visualisation/16806663"><script src="https://public.flourish.studio/resources/embed.js"></script></div>
To researcher and political analyst Eugenia Aguirre, Méndez’s case is the exception, and she points out that we must not overlook that the vast majority of women elected as mayors have a political background.
“There are no new figures arriving. The women who run for mayor have a lot of experience; only six of them in the global total don’t have formal political experience,” she explains.
Until now, the norm was that female figures were relegated to second or third place, which is why many women only reached the position of vice mayor.
“More than half [in the entire country] have served as vice mayors, council members or acting mayors due to the resignation of mayors, and that gives them a lot of legitimacy.”
For Hojancha’s newly elected mayor, Verónica Campos, her career path determined almost everything.
<blockquote>In Hojancha, Mr. Eduardo Pineda had three consecutive terms. The people showed satisfaction with him as mayor, and as I have been with him in the last two terms working shoulder to shoulder, it gives me experience in the municipal regime,” she thinks.</blockquote>
“People kept the flags and saw the people: Eduardo as the ideal candidate and his work team to work within the municipality. Now I became a candidate and people see the person and they keep the flag and they see the best option or government plan,” she adds.
This is, in fact, the moment in Guanacaste’s and Costa Rica’s history in which more women have been simultaneously elected as mayors, an achievement safeguarded by the horizontal gender equality established for the first time in these elections, which required political parties to equalize the number of mayoral candidates among men and women.
“Gender equality totally changed the electoral offer,” says Aguirre, who summarizes it like this: “More women manage to reach positions when they even manage to be nominated, because previously it was difficult for them to be supported within the [party] groups.”
The requirement did not mean that the women’s nominations were easy. For Méndez, it involved fighting side by side in her own group to demonstrate her ability within the party. Since the 2022 national elections, she has taken a leading role in the canton as campaign coordinator for the victory of President Rodrigo Chaves.
“It seems to me that it’s very difficult for women to make inroads because we live in a patriarchal system and men are positioned in politics. They have held those places for decades,” the mayor elected by Carrillo tells The Voice in a meeting room at the Condovac La Costa Hotel, where she welcomed us three days after the elections.
“I feel that there was structural gender violence, a merciless attack. Within the same team, there were people, sympathizers or party members who wanted to follow the same pattern: that a woman cannot do this, or that she cannot do that,” says Méndez.
<h3>More is demanded from women</h3>
In the room where we talked, there was a table with sandwiches and on the table, eight glasses with water and ice ready for the meeting she had after talking to The Voice. To dedicate herself to the campaign with victory in sight, she took vacations from her job in the Carrillo Health Area.
In preparation for assuming her position, she is taking on an extremely active role in the community. She spends her days in team meetings and participates in public events. Last week, she participated in the inauguration of the school year with President Rodrigo Chaves, at the school in Filadelfia.
“We are already preparing for the transition of government, to make sure of how everything is: review how the administrative part is, the human resources and assets, how the supply is,” she says. “So that later, they don’t tell me that something was lost that wasn’t there.”
Many believe that to be a woman in politics, you have to be brave. This is what people have told Verónica Campos. 
<blockquote>After the elections were over, three senior citizens approached me to tell me that I’m brave for being a woman, young and staying in politics,” she says.</blockquote>
“I have always admired your intelligence, but I didn’t vote for you, I couldn’t. It was very difficult for me to see you there, but you have demonstrated to me that you are very brave,” she says someone else told her recently. “I translate that ‘to see you there’ and that ‘brave’ into what it is to see a woman there.”
<a href="https://lac.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/gu%C3%ADa%20las%20mujeres%20en%20la%20pol%C3%ADtica.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Another aspect that promotes women’s participation in politics is family support</a>. When household chores are distributed and men take on the work that the home demands in a co-responsible manner. In that way, women have more time and energy to participate in political and public life.
<div id="attachment_91728" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="max-width: 2570px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-91728" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04898-scaled.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1441" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04898-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04898-300x169.jpg 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04898-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04898-768x432.jpg 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04898-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04898-2048x1153.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" />Three days after PSD’s victory in Carrillo, Méndez’s husband, Mario Pizarro, says that the victory is a mirror of the effort with which Méndez went around the town presenting her proposals. It was also noteworthy that her vice mayor, Kristian Faerrón, lives in Playas del Coco and has been a community leader in integral development associations and chambers of commerce and tourism.Photo: Rubén F. Román</div>
For Méndez and her husband, Mario Pizarro, that was one of the keys. “It was a very big effort,” he told us in the business he runs with Méndez.
“For us women, the family aspect is very important to enter politics. We can’t carry out the projects if the family isn’t supporting,” Méndez believes, with faith that this support will be with her until 2028.
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/doctor-and-politicians-faces-new-female-mayors/">A doctor and politicians: The faces of the new female mayors in Guanacaste</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
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<title>The green and white fades in Guanacaste’s highlands</title>
<link>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/green-and-white-fades-in-guanacaste-highlands/</link>
<comments>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/green-and-white-fades-in-guanacaste-highlands/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rubén F. Román]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 09 Feb 2024 15:09:24 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Guanacaste Votes]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Region]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Elecciones]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[guanacaste]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[PLN]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[PUSC]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://vozdeguanacaste.com/?p=91711</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Thais Ocampo has been an active member of the National Liberation Party (Spanish acronym: PLN) since Figueres’ campaign for the presidency in 1994. Every time elections are coming up, her … <a class="readmore" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/green-and-white-fades-in-guanacaste-highlands/">Read more</a>
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[Thais Ocampo has been an active member of the National Liberation Party (Spanish acronym: PLN) since Figueres’ campaign for the presidency in 1994. Every time elections are coming up, her house in Cañas is the hub of party meetings and an open kitchen for those who help out during election day. The rest of the year, the green and white party flag flies on the roof of his house.
Ocampo was a municipal council member for PLN in the 2016-2020 term and is currently the vice president of the party in Cañas, where National Liberation has won four of the five municipal elections held between 2002 and 2020.
In the last 22 years, PLN had only lost once (2010-2016) against the Citizen Action Party (Spanish acronym: PAC). But in the elections on February 4, the emerging party United We Can (Spanish acronym: UP), founded by Vice President Natalia Díaz, took the power away from them once again. The difference between the two groups was 473 votes.
Three days after the municipal elections, Ocampo was reflecting on PLN’s defeat in Cañas on the couch in her house. She believes that the community is expressing dissatisfaction to PLN about the lack of companies in the canton, low employment and the high cost of taxes in the canton.
“People say that the town is falling behind because there are no sources of employment, no McDonalds and no cinema. The problem is that companies don’t want to invest in Cañas,” she said. “The Liberation candidate has been vice mayor twice and they [the community] believe that from there, she can do everything that the community needs,” she commented to The Voice.
Ocampo also said that the management of Guanacastecan legislator Luis Fernando Mendoza, elected mayor of Cañas in 2016 and 2020 and legislator in 2010 and 2022, generated antibodies, figuratively speaking, against the party within the town.
<blockquote>A person who was very poor, who went barefoot and who became president of the Legislative Assembly [2013-2014] — that should be a source of pride for a town. You don’t know why it would be [the reason for the antibodies],” she said.</blockquote>
Cañas is not the only canton in Guanacaste’s highlands where PLN lost its mayorships to emerging parties.
In Bagaces and Abangares, cantons bordering Cañas, the Liberal Progressive Party (Spanish acronym: PLP) and UP were the winners, respectively. Although Bagaces is currently governed by the Social Christian Unity Party (Spanish acronym: PUSC), historically PLN has won the mayor’s office on more occasions.
<div id="attachment_91729" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="max-width: 1034px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-91729" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Purple-and-Pink-Modern-E-sport-News-Instagram-Story-1920-x-1080-px-1920-x-817-px-1-1024x436.png" alt="" width="1024" height="436" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Purple-and-Pink-Modern-E-sport-News-Instagram-Story-1920-x-1080-px-1920-x-817-px-1-1024x436.png 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Purple-and-Pink-Modern-E-sport-News-Instagram-Story-1920-x-1080-px-1920-x-817-px-1-300x128.png 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Purple-and-Pink-Modern-E-sport-News-Instagram-Story-1920-x-1080-px-1920-x-817-px-1-768x327.png 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Purple-and-Pink-Modern-E-sport-News-Instagram-Story-1920-x-1080-px-1920-x-817-px-1-1536x654.png 1536w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Purple-and-Pink-Modern-E-sport-News-Instagram-Story-1920-x-1080-px-1920-x-817-px-1.png 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />The majority of the government administrations in Bagaces, Cañas and Abangares have been dominated by National Liberation. But in these elections, the party didn’t secure any of those cantons.</div>
On election day, the current vice mayor of Cañas, Leidy Rodriguez, who was PLN’s candidate for mayor, was convinced that she would win. According to her, the polls predicted a resounding victory.
Days later, Rodriguez believes that Here Costa Rica Rules (a party led by President Rodrigo Chaves that didn’t have candidates for mayor) was a determining factor in the victory of United We Can.
<blockquote>They came together and mobilized people to vote for UP. It took us by surprise. We didn’t see it coming,” she asserted in her office at the municipality.</blockquote>
<div id="attachment_91712" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="max-width: 1034px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-91712" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04814-1-1024x576.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04814-1-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04814-1-300x169.jpg 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04814-1-768x432.jpg 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04814-1-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04814-1-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04814-1-scaled.jpg 2560w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />“There are people who simply say that Liberation has to be removed because they’re crooks, and what I say is that PLN hasn’t been in the government for three elections. Why do they continue to have that idea?” said vice mayor Leidy Rodríguez, who was PLN’s candidate in Cañas,Photo: Rubén F. Román</div>
Despite the defeat, Rodríguez thinks that the results reflect that PLN remains strong in Cañas. “To me, people haven’t tired of National Liberation because we came in second place against a party that united,” she expressed.
As in Cañas, PLN also came in second place in Bagaces and Abangares.
Katia Dobles, a resident of Santa Lucía in Abangares, was one of the more than 2,000 people who put their trust in UP in that canton, where the current National Liberation mayor, Heriberto Cubero, was seeking re-election.
Dobles explained that widespread dissatisfaction with PLN’s management in Abangares influenced many voters’ decision to seek change. “People were tired of promises not being kept,” she said.
In this context of discontent and looking for alternatives, UP, led by Javier Bogantes, a former Abangares municipal council member during the administration of José María Figueres Olsen, emerged as an attractive option for voters.
Neither of the two candidates elected in Cañas and Abangares are strangers to politics.
Alexander Elizondo, mayor elect of Cañas for UP, was a council member for PLN in the 2006-2010 term and since 2020, he has been a district council member for UP.
Political scientist Gustavo Araya believes that the results in these cantons don’t necessarily mean a decline of PLN. He describes the municipal elections as “an absolutely local phenomenon.”
<blockquote>In municipal elections, the party has some relevance but is not decisive. It can’t be said here that PLN or PUSC won because what matters in these processes is the candidate and the correlation of forces that they have within that canton. In Cañas and Abangares, PLN loses, but in Cañas, there ended up a person who was a council member for PLN…. and in Abangares, there’s someone who was a council member for PUSC,” he commented.</blockquote>
<div id="attachment_91714" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="max-width: 1034px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-91714" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04765-1-1024x576.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04765-1-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04765-1-300x169.jpg 300w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04765-1-768x432.jpg 768w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04765-1-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04765-1-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC04765-1-scaled.jpg 2560w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Currently the mayor elect from the United We Can Party in Cañas, Alexander Elizondo is a district council member for Bebedero.Photo: Rubén F. Román</div>
To Elizondo, PLN’s decline is summed up in how the party bases its campaign on promises that they don’t keep.
“People were already tired because they were always saying that they promised and they didn’t keep it. That’s where I feel that people have moved away from the traditional parties to join the emerging parties,” said Elizondo in his home in Bebedero and he pointed at a property across from his property where, according to him, the municipality promised a public park. Today it‘s still a vacant lot.
The consolidation of the multiparty system at the municipal level is the reason why political scientist Araya isn’t surprised by the results.
<blockquote>At the local level, there’s sufficient evidence to maintain that multipartyism is already reaching the municipal level. The traditional parties are going to be increasingly fragmented [traditional party figures change to new groups] and that means that a party like PLN no longer has to compete against two but against many more forces, and that makes it more difficult,” explained Araya.</blockquote>
In Guanacaste, National Liberation won two out of 11 mayorships, one of them, that of Liberia, with less than 100 votes difference, according to the preliminary results from the TSE. In 2020, PLN had the majority support in four cantons, while in 2016, it had secured eight.
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/green-and-white-fades-in-guanacaste-highlands/">The green and white fades in Guanacaste’s highlands</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
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<title>Prosecutor’s Office refutes what PUSC’s candidate for mayor of Tilarán said: There was an arrest warrant for Greven Miranda for domestic violence</title>
<link>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/prosecutors-office-there-was-an-arrest-warrant-for-greven-miranda-for-domestic-violence/</link>
<comments>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/prosecutors-office-there-was-an-arrest-warrant-for-greven-miranda-for-domestic-violence/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Noelia Esquivel]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Thu, 08 Feb 2024 20:20:47 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Community]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Guanacaste Votes]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Elecciones]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[municipal elections]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[PUSC]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Tilarán]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://vozdeguanacaste.com/?p=91671</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The Cañas Prosecutor's Office confirmed that it did issue an arrest warrant for Greven Miranda, who was a candidate for mayor of Tilarán for the Christian Social Unity Party
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/prosecutors-office-there-was-an-arrest-warrant-for-greven-miranda-for-domestic-violence/">Prosecutor’s Office refutes what PUSC’s candidate for mayor of Tilarán said: There was an arrest warrant for Greven Miranda for domestic violence</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[The Cañas Prosecutor’s Office confirmed that it did issue an arrest warrant for Greven Miranda Corrales for alleged domestic violence. Until last Sunday, February 4, Miranda was a candidate for mayor of Tilarán for the Christian Social Unity Party (Spanish acronym: PUSC).
The weekend before the elections, information circulated on social networks that there was an arrest warrant for Miranda after an alleged case of violence.
On Monday, January 29, the candidate posted a statement on social networks in which he <a href="https://www.facebook.com/unidosportilaran/posts/pfbid02kNqsK1t94fYGDuzbzYBXrXhuo6sGYdMw9JH4f5zwynG24SEiEf67pnBGfCCDX32Yl" target="_blank" rel="noopener">claimed that “such an arrest warrant never existed, nor exists.”</a>
On Sunday, January 28, The Voice of Guanacaste consulted the Public Ministry Press Department to find out if the arrest warrant existed.
On Monday, February 5, they specified that “the Cañas Prosecutor’s Office confirmed that it issued an arrest warrant for Miranda Corrales; however, before it took effect, the accused showed up at the Prosecutor’s Office, where the investigation statement was taken and then precautionary measures other than prison were requested, including not disturbing the victim. ”
They also added that the investigation into domestic violence continues underway.
When asked by The Voice on Thursday, February 8, Miranda again denied the existence of the arrest warrant and insisted that the only thing he knows is that precautionary measures were imposed.
“I went to the Prosecutor’s Office to appear in person and I have in my possession a document of the measures that they issued me in the Prosecutor’s Office that same day and at no time does it say arrest warrant,” he said.
However, they are different procedures.
The arrest warrant is issued by the Public Ministry when it requires the presence of an accused person, either to let them know that they are being investigated and what the evidence is against them, as well as to request precautionary measures against them.
It’s an official document issued by a prosecutor that the Judicial Investigation Agency (Spanish acronym: OIJ) carries out. It’s regulated under article 237 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPP).
Precautionary measures are judicial guidelines that are established with a person to continue with the investigation of denounced incidents in effect. They are regulated under articles 238 to 244 of the CPP and are issued when risks exist in the investigation process.
In the election results on Sunday, February 4, the National Liberation Party (Spanish acronym: PLN) beat Miranda by only 121 votes, <a href="https://www.tse.go.cr/svr2024/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to the tentative results from the Supreme Election Court (Spanish acronym: TSE).</a>
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<title>Emerging parties displace PLN dominance in Guanacaste</title>
<link>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/emerging-parties-displace-pln-dominance-in-guanacaste/</link>
<comments>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/emerging-parties-displace-pln-dominance-in-guanacaste/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Noelia Esquivel]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Mon, 05 Feb 2024 04:35:05 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Guanacaste Votes]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Region]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[guanacaste]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Liberia]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[municipal elections]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://vozdeguanacaste.com/?p=91658</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Three emerging parties have displaced the traditional dominance of the National Liberation Party (Spanish acronym: PLN) in the mayor’s offices of Guanacaste.
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/emerging-parties-displace-pln-dominance-in-guanacaste/">Emerging parties displace PLN dominance in Guanacaste</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[In an election day marked by rising abstentionism, three emerging parties have displaced the traditional dominance of the National Liberation Party (Spanish acronym: PLN) in the mayor’s offices of Guanacaste.
According to the ninth court of the Supreme Election Court (Spanish acronym: TSE), the United We Can Party snatched away the mayorships of Abangares and Cañas from PLN, and the Social Democratic Progress Party (Spanish acronym: PSC) caused another upset in the canton of Carrillo.
The third emerging party that is making its debut in one of Guanacaste’s mayor’s offices is the Liberal Progressive Party (PLP), which won the local government of Bagaces.
National Liberation only managed to hold onto the mayor’s office of Tilarán, and as of 11:30 a.m., the party was still battling vote by vote against PLP for Liberia, both with 19% support.
The second party that has traditionally been a political force in the province, the Social Christian Unity Party (Spanish acronym: PUSC), managed to keep two mayorships, although the cantons it governed completely changed. PUSC won in the municipalities of Nandayure and Hojancha, and lost the ones it had in Bagaces and Liberia.
The cantons of Santa Cruz, Nicoya and La Cruz re-elected their current mayors from the Authentic Santa Cruzan, The Great Nicoya and New Generation parties, respectively.
In addition, this is the first time that Carrillo, Tilarán and Hojancha elected a woman as mayor. In fact, the province has never before elected three women as leaders on a single election day.
The other emerging phenomenon is abstentionism, which went from 55.8% in the municipal elections in 2020 to 63.6% in 2024.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-91655" src="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/mapa-web-6.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="1284" srcset="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/mapa-web-6.jpg 800w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/mapa-web-6-187x300.jpg 187w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/mapa-web-6-638x1024.jpg 638w, https://vozdeguanacaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/mapa-web-6-768x1233.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />
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<title>Advertorial: New DHL branch office in Liberia connects Guanacaste with the rest of the world</title>
<link>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/advertorial-new-dhl-branch-office-in-liberia-connects-guanacaste-with-the-rest-of-the-world/</link>
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<dc:creator><![CDATA[Roberto Cruz]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 02 Feb 2024 16:48:40 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Advertorial]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Paid Content]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[DHL]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[DHL Express]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Liberia]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[office]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://vozdeguanacaste.com/?p=91750</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The leading shipping and logistics services company, DHL Express, opened the doors of its new branch office in Liberia to give Guanacaste closer access to a service network that reaches … <a class="readmore" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/advertorial-new-dhl-branch-office-in-liberia-connects-guanacaste-with-the-rest-of-the-world/">Read more</a>
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[The leading shipping and logistics services company, DHL Express, opened the doors of its 
new branch office in Liberia to give Guanacaste closer access to a service network that 
reaches 220 countries and territories around the world.
DHL expanded its presence in Guanacaste with the mission of making international shipping 
an easier and more personalized process for people and companies in the province, 
highlighted Claudia Ortez, manager of DHL Express in Costa Rica.
The new DHL point of service is located in central Liberia, 100 meters south and 50 meters 
east of Pizza Hut (next to La Casa de las Baterías). In addition to this branch, DHL has 11 
locations in the Greater Metropolitan Area and more than 50 business allies throughout the 
country.
The national manager of DHL explained that Guanacaste’s business ventures have a 
growing need to internationalize their products in the global market, and DHL is responding 
to that potential.
<blockquote>We have to be close to where there is business dynamism of large companies and local ventures. If you have a logistics partner with all the experience that DHL offers, you can strengthen the region,” said Ortez.</blockquote>
Do you need to send a package to another country efficiently and securely? You can go to 
the Liberia branch directly or contact them by phone at 2209-6000 to coordinate package 
pickup wherever you are. Liberty Express in Nosara is also an authorized agent to access 
DHL global services.
DHL package delivery and pickup in Guanacaste is done using a fleet of electric vehicles. 
Depending on location, the company has also implemented deliveries by bicycle and on foot. 
These efforts are aimed at ensuring that DHL’s operations are based on clean energy.
The logistics services company also opened a new branch office in the center of Limón, on 
the Caribbean coast. The company’s total investment in both regions exceeded $200,000.
<blockquote>Opening these new locations in Guanacaste and Limón is in response to our firm commitment to being the preferred partner in logistics solutions. At DHL Express, we’re committed to strengthening our leadership and continuing to provide secure, quality service in line with the expectations of our valued customers,” Ortez added.</blockquote>
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/advertorial-new-dhl-branch-office-in-liberia-connects-guanacaste-with-the-rest-of-the-world/">Advertorial: New DHL branch office in Liberia connects Guanacaste with the rest of the world</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/">Voz de Guanacaste</a>.
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<title>Prosecutor’s Office is investigating and looking to try five candidates for mayor in Guanacaste</title>
<link>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/prosecutors-office-investigates-looking-try-six-candidates-mayor-iguanacaste/</link>
<comments>https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/prosecutors-office-investigates-looking-try-six-candidates-mayor-iguanacaste/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Noelia Esquivel]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Wed, 31 Jan 2024 23:16:15 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Guanacaste Votes]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Region]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[municipal elections]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Municipal Elections]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[offenses]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[prosecution]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Public Ministry]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[sexual abuse]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Sexual Abuse]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://vozdeguanacaste.com/?p=91588</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The Costa Rican Attorney General’s Office is investigating three male and two female candidates who are running for mayoral positions in Guanacaste. Trials have already been requested against two of … <a class="readmore" href="https://vozdeguanacaste.com/en/prosecutors-office-investigates-looking-try-six-candidates-mayor-iguanacaste/">Read more</a>
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[The Costa Rican Attorney General’s Office is investigating three male and two female candidates who are running for mayoral positions in Guanacaste.
Trials have already been requested against two of them, meaning that the Prosecutor’s Office already believes that it has enough evidence to support the accusation. Three more remain under investigation.
The Public Ministry’s press department provided these details to The Voice of Guanacaste after information was requested from the Public Ministry about ongoing investigations against all candidates for mayor and vice mayor registered in the province.
Two of those who are under investigation are currently mayors who are now seeking re-election in the elections coming up on Sunday, February 4: Heriberto Cubero Morera from Abangares, with the National Liberation party, and Carlos Armando Martínez Arias from The Great Nicoya cantonal party.
The Prosecutor’s Office in Liberia has already requested opening a trial against Cubero for the crime of sexual abuse of an adult. It has become known that the incident involved a female employee of the local government.
The case is found in file 22-001020-0413-PE.
That mayor also has an investigation against him for illegal acquisition or processing of forest resources, as recorded in file 21-001405-0413-PE.
The Voice called Cubero twice and sent a written message to his phone, but the mayor did not answer by any means.
The mayor of Nicoya, Carlos Armando Martínez, is being investigated in file 23-001621-0414-PE for not fulfilling duties, the Prosecutor’s Office indicated.
Martínez said that it has to do with a complaint filed by a resident of the community of Nambí, who requested that a street be repaired.
“Everyone has the right to file a complaint because we live in a country of law. The case has been handled accordingly and we hope for a fair administration,” he said.
<h3>Accusations and Investigations Due to Violence </h3>
The candidate for first vice mayor of Nicoya for the Guanacastecan Union party, Sindy Vanessa Martínez Piñar, has accumulated three lawsuits in the Nicoya Prosecutor’s Office for “neglect of someone incapable,” in files 23-000748-041-PE, 23 -000621-0069-PE and 23-000698-0069-PE.
This crime occurs when the health or life of a person who is unable of taking care of themselves and, therefore, who must be cared for (a minor, disabled or elderly person, for example) is seriously endangered. This is classified in article 142 of the Penal Code.
Martínez Piñar claimed to be completely unaware of the case. “You see that I honestly didn’t realize what you’re saying to me. ‘Incapable neglect,’ I don’t even know for whom. I don’t have anyone who can’t take care of themselves, neither close to me nor family,” she told The Voice.
In Santa Cruz, the Deputy Prosecutor’s Office requested going to trial against the mayoral candidate for the Progressive Liberal party, Kendall Mauricio Zumbado Arrieta, for reckless driving. The case has been open since 2021 in file 21-001003-0412-PE.
Zumbado told The Voice that he would only comment on the case via email, but he didn’t send a response.
Finally, the candidate for mayor in Cañas for the Guanacastecan Union party, Melissa de los Ángeles Bulakar Herra, has been under investigation since 2023 in file 23-001317-0413-PE for real estate fraud, in other words, for selling or taxing assets in dispute, seized or encumbered, hiding their condition in order to receive compensation.
“And what is that?” she asked when The Voice contacted her. “For you to tell me that I have proceedings open in the Prosecutor’s Office, that’s new to me,” she said.
Since Sunday, January 28, The Voice has also inquired about an alleged case of domestic violence by the Social Christian Unity party candidate for mayor of Tilarán, Greven Miranda Corrales. The issue circulated on social networks during the previous weekend, and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/unidosportilaran/posts/pfbid02kNqsK1t94fYGDuzbzYBXrXhuo6sGYdMw9JH4f5zwynG24SEiEf67pnBGfCCDX32Yl" target="_blank" rel="noopener">on Monday, the 29th, Miranda issued a press release</a> stating that it was a false complaint.
At publication time, the Prosecutor’s Office had not confirmed the existence of a complaint or offered details on the matter.
<div class="flourish-embed flourish-table" data-src="visualisation/16673348"><script src="https://public.flourish.studio/resources/embed.js"></script></div>
 
Journalist José Pablo Román colaborated in reporting this story.
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