Driving Me Insane

I once read a book that was written by a Brazilian who claimed that people drive the way they are. And not only that, he held that entire nations reveal themselves in their driving habits. It was a fun book, jammed packed with stereotypes of course, but not completely unintelligent. Germans, of course, came across as overly rule-concerned: No need to slam on the breaks for a cross-walker. What is she doing there anyway? I can’t remember what it said about Latvian or Andorran driving habits, but I can tell you a few things about Costa Rican driving myself after having lived here for four years.

It’s insane. And it’s not even as much the way they drive but rather the way they conceive of motorized travel. The stereotypical Tico seems to think that a delivery truck is no different from the horse their grandpa used to ride. They all ride them much too fast on non-existing lanes.

Most roads here, if paved at all, have no median and none of them have shoulders. Not only that, the side of the roads remembers a half eaten cookie rather than a curb. What should be a sidewalk is often some makeshift ditch for storm water and since there are daily down-pours during the six-months rainy season, pedestrians really have no choice but to step into the road, baby carriage, grocery bags and all.

So just imagine a downhill road, twelve feet across, on a rainy evening, with heavy rush hour travel in both directions. Spice it up with a couple of kids balancing between the certainty of either instant death or extremely wet and mucky legs, a wind-blown biker with a black cape, and few foot-deep potholes where the median should be and there you go: Costa Rica.

But there is one redeeming quality and in my time here I have caught a few glimpses of it: Everyone seems to realize it’s pretty bad. That doesn’t change the fast and unforgiving driving behavior, but if a Tica/o sees that you are caught at one of the many no-chance left turns with no turning lane or light, you can be sure s/he is going to flash the lights at you signaling you to go ahead and cut in front of you.

Don’t try that in Germany.

Math Review

In a week I clip thirty nails (not counting my own), every other week it’s sixty. That’s because toenails grow slower than fingernails. In a month, that adds up to180 clipped nails – again not counting my own. So, multiply that by 12 and we are at 2,160 nails. Now if we assume an average of about seven years of toenail clipping per kid, I will have clipped no less than 15,120 nails that are not my own.

Car Thief

Speed, mobility, freedom – every car commercial toys with our fear of being stuck just like the now outlawed cigarette commercials used to. Buy this, and you will be who you really are, right? And, to some extent, it’s true. Every time we get into a car, the world of highways, bridges, and tunnels lies in front of us and it’s up to us to determine where and how far we choose to travel on them: the mall, San Francisco, or Patagonia.

But then again, most of the time we get into the car just to go to the store for bread, or to pick up junior from pre-school, or to make it to work in time just like everyone else. And just like everyone else we get stuck at the first left turn. No matter what horse we’re riding, whether purebred, mustang, or mule chances are we will spend the better part of our time in a hell of exhaust fumes, asphalt, and red lights. Lucky you if you downloaded your favorite podcast and can travel at least in your mind.

Truth is, besides mobility and individual choice, the car also gave us suburban sprawl, strip malls, car dealer ships, eight lane highways, gas stations, snaking highway intersections, spoiled coastal views, pollution, and, ah yes, economic growth. The giving if not forgiving nature of the car….

But there is one thing it took and it did so without most of us noticing it: Increasingly, the car has robbed our children of their mobility and freedom.

How many kids walk or ride their bikes to school or over to their friends nowadays? How many of them have schools or friends that live even close to them? How many children play outside – and I don’t mean in a fenced-off yard, or tennis court. How many of them meet other kids by just being out on the street for an afternoon?

Truth is children have lost out while ‘our’ mobility increased and the country moved into double digit growth.

News Flash

Nothing gets more consistent coverage in German media these days than: childcare. That’s new. And that alone makes it noteworthy.

Like anywhere else, childcare traditionally is a mother’s problem and, hence, generally overlooked. Who really cares about how the next generation makes it through the first years of their lives? It’s a dirty job some idiot has to do – preferably done quietly and with a smile, right?

In a country without school lunches, where children generally appear back on the doorstep at 1:00 pm, and toddlers toddle at home, the prospects are bleak for many mothers. Part time work often remains the only ungrateful option. Well, thanks but no, many of them say these days, “Why ruin my life so that this madness can continue?” But mind you, it’s not voiced that way because the radicals can lean back these days and enjoy.

With an average rate of 1.3 children per women, the tables have turned. The idiots are those who look the other way now. Ah and, voilà, suddenly childcare is one of the main topics in German politics and media.

It’s fun to watch as one front page after another pinpoints issues around formerly scorned topics such as family, parenting, education, and women. That’s new. The role of the state in childcare now is hotly debated by panels of educators, faces are turning red over the principles of quality childcare and voices of panelists reach falsetto level as family values are debated.

Of course, there are always those atavists who declare that everything was better before and the world would be such a better place if only women were to return to the ‘Three Ks’ of Kinder, Küche and Kirche (children, kitchen, and church). But their days are so obviously numbered it almost makes you want to hear them say it one last time for old times’ sake.

This turn of events is good not only because it refreshes and broadens public debate but also because it’s crucial. Locking women out of public life and limiting their choices is not the way to go. It’s still the way most societies are organized, mind you, but most of them share one facet: Low levels of development. Go check it out.

Sweet Home Indeed

Getting on the plane and flying fifteen hours across continents, oceans, and time zones is a mind-boggling experience – every single time. And I have done it many times. It takes my soul several days to catch up with me. This is my late grandma talking and she was referring to a road trip from Cologne in the center of Germany back to her home up in Northern Germany. But she was right.
Going home is more than a geographic transplantation – it’s a time travel back to our beginnings: The sounds, smells, sights, and tastes of our past and, with that, the feelings that are indelibly connected to them.

Getting off the plane in Frankfurt, I am enveloped by a dull silence like that at an on-campus library on a late winter afternoon. The air smells of cigarette smoke from one of the ubiquitous so-called “smokers’ corner” across the terminal and conjures up images of fat arm-chairs and a queasy feeling of not belonging.
The doors to the bathroom are heavy and it takes the thrust of my entire half-dead body to pry it 1/3 open, just enough to squeeze through before it slams shut again – just short of my shoulder. Everything is big and heavy and I – at 1,82m – am small, once again. I can’t help but smile. I am back.

But then again there is a lot to be said about what’s good about that Alice-like state. Because while I am small I am determined to clamp my teeth down on every bit of cake, pastry, and bread that I can find. No regrets. The big plus: I can have coffee and beer with it now. And I do. Three weeks of complete debauchery leaves me no bigger but a little rounder.
I had a wonderful time and my nephew is about the cutest little creature you can imagine. However I, being the overly excited aunt, I managed to have a stuffed monkey fall into his basinet and wake him up from his serene slumber. The parents were more than forgiving and so was he, thank God. Poo on me.

Now that I am back – I can’t say home really, not yet – I feel out of sorts. I am not good at this time travel business. My soul is still caught at customs without any chance of getting out of there any time soon, it seems.
It’s June and it’s raining in paradise. At least that’s a well-known sound, smell, and sight to behold. It always rained when I was a kid. And I admit, I am grateful.