Tico Tales - Encuentro Culturas

Occasional Tales from our Life in Costa Rica

A couple of weeks ago Sophie brought home a notice describing her school's upcoming Cultural Encounters day. The note said that Sophie should choose a country (any country) to represent with a costume and a potluck dish. We said that Sophie would represent Mexico. We based this decision on the fact that Amy had seen a kind of Mexicany-looking dress in a store window (instant costume!) and felt confident about pulling off a simple Mexican recipe (guacamole, anyone?). Well, the staff at Sophie's school thought it very funny that she would be representing Mexico. The exchange went something like this:

"Why Mexico?," they asked.
"Easy costume, easy food," we said. "Why not Mexico?"
"But why doesn't she represent the United States?"
We said that we couldn't think of a costume that would clearly represent the U.S. (short of a full-on Uncle Sam get-up, which would be very cool but hard to make).
The teachers suggested that Sophie wear jeans and a t-shirt.
"Um . . . that's what everyone in Costa Rica (and 100 other countries) wears everyday. It will look like she forgot to dress up."
"OK," they said. "How about a t-shirt and jeans and a cowboy hat??!!"

In the end, Sophie wore her little white dress (which we realized after purchasing it was actually made in Ecuador) and brought a big tray of Mexican wedding cakes (even easier to make than guacamole!). There was one little boy in Sophie's class who dressed to represent the U.S. He wore a T-shirt and shorts and a baseball cap. We think he was a surfer dude. (Cowboys and surfers; now we know how some Costa Ricans view Americans!) There was a girl representing Mexico, too. Her mariachi ensemble complete with giant sombrero totally blew Sophie out of the water.


Sophie's teacher brings the class out to show off their costumes for all the parents.


Here's Sophie and some of her classmates. Sophie is in tears after being struck with a bad case of stage fright. She's flanked by a boy and a girl both representing Costa Rica. Isabella on the far right is wearing a Mongolian costume.


It's hard to tell from the photo, but many of the costumes were really elaborate. There were Japanese geisha, Spanish flamenco dancers, a couple of Venetian gondoliers, and lots of kids in traditional Costa Rican costumes.


Later, the kids changed out of their costumes to play. Here's Sophie and her friend Camille in a traditional Costa Rican ox cart.

The school arranged for pony rides, too. Sophie thought that was pretty cool.