While in Costa Rica last week, me and my crew took an excursion to the Manuel Antonio national park to take in the beautiful, lush greenery that is Costa Rica and follow a trail to a popular local beach. When we were walking towards the entrance of the park, we wandered into a souvenir shop. As we thumbed through Costa Rican tank tops, beach towels and locally made crafts, one of the shop workers, Kuya Rudy, walked towards me and asked, “Pilipino?” And at that moment, we began a fantastic conversation with these Filipino migrants who live and work in a small town in Costa Rica called Manuel Antonio. They invited us back to lunch after our short hike and stint at the beach and here’s what I learned about them.

Ate Gina is the woman to the left of Kuya Rey. She is his wife but she clearly ran the whole show. The storefront, the kitchen and the finances were all under the reign of this Pinay. She told me her story of migrating to Costa Rica and that her business sense migrated with her too. She hopes that in two years, if they work hard enough, they’d like to buy this building to expand their store, restaurant and bed and breakfast. She gave us all discounts and told us there was no other kind of beauty in the world than Filipina beauty.

This is Kuya Reynaldo, the cook, the anchor in this family’s chain migration. He came to Costa Rica as a key cutter and then graduated to be a cook at a bed and breakfast. When his employer abandoned him at his workplace, he decided to pick up the work and run the place himself. He brought his wife and family members. Now, he owns this small souvenir shop and restaurant in Manuel Antonio. He cooked and served us Pork Adobo with plantains.

Ate Edna was one of the first to greet us. She gave us a warm smile and invited us to have lunch in their karinderia as she promised us pansit and adobo. She is also the cook of the restaurant and does the books. When I thanked her for our delicious food, she told me how nice it is to speak Tagalog again.

This is Kuya Rudy, a salesman of salesmen, charming and funny, fluent in Spanish, Bisaya, Tagalog and English. He could probably sell ketchup to a man dressed in white. Here he’s pictured with his merchandise mostly manufactured in Costa Rica and some in the Philippines. His humor was typically Filipino, silly and punchy. He made sure he converted all our colones to dollars and all the shoe sizes from 39’s to size 7’s (or something). He told me to come back with my asawa and kids in the future.

#migrante #diaspora #globalFilipino #centralFilipinoAmerica #costarica

#