Page 56 - issue

cart. The driver said to leave him alone
– he needed to make a living. I gave him
two dollars. We drove to the hotel. San
Jose struck me as ugly. Different kinds of the street names were so that I could get
buildings seemed to sprout from the
ground, sitting next to each other with-
out rhyme or reason, like a bunch of
weeds. It seemed as if there were no
zoning laws, just a concrete jungle. I had numbers. But he said not to worry – he
imagined old buildings with lovely
Spanish-style architecture, but I didn’t
see any.
The weather was balmy at 80-plus
degrees. The room in the hotel seemed
fine, and the air conditioner was work-
ing (sort of). In the meantime, I called
Sidney Scharf, a local Jewish cab driver,
who picked me up from the hotel and
gave me a little drive around town for
$20 an hour. He is a very sweet man
who grew up in Costa Rica, but his man-
ner of talking with his hands made it
seem like he was from Italy. He showed
me the multimillion soccer stadium only
a few blocks from the hotel, a gift from
the government of China; a store that
sold kosher products whose prices
would make you dizzy; the shul where
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we would be davening; and the kosher
restaurant where I ordered food for the
rest of the trip. When I asked him what
back to the hotel by myself, he explained
that many of the streets in Costa Rica
don’t have street signs. As a matter of
fact, many of the buildings don’t have
would show me buildings – like the
high-rise near the hotel, so I would know
how to get back.
He took me to a supermarket, where
I did a little shopping before Eli arrived.
While we were there, Sidney was in
touch with people to ascertain which
products were kosher. The juice of this
company was okay, and Bimbo Bread
was okay (the word “integral” on the
label meant that the bread was whole
grain). I bought cereal for breakfast and
rice milk with an OU hechsher. (I
noticed that a number of products had
the OU symbol.)
Friday morning, Eli and I went to the
synagogue for the first time. Just getting
there was an adventure! While there was
an official pedestrian crosswalk at the
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intersection near the hotel, that was the
first – and last – one we saw on our 25-
minute walk to shul. Even at the cross-
walk, we noticed a woman whiz by in her
car barely dodging us – and it dawned
on me that she drove straight through a
red light! I later found out that red lights
in Costa Rica are like Obama’s red lines.
The upside of all this is that you can’t be
accused of jaywalking in Costa Rica!
Another thing I noticed was that the
curbs are not uniform in height, and
unless you are careful, you could trip.)
We made it to shul in one piece, but
getting in was another matter. The large
metal gates were shut. Two men
emerged from the guard booth, one of
them with a list of names. My name was-
n’t on it. I explained that I had registered
and had even received a confirmation.
The security guard went inside and out
came another guard who was not Latino
but Israeli. He asked me a few questions
in Hebrew and then let us in. (Thank
G-d for my TA elementary school edu-
cation!) We went into a little room,
through a metal detector, and out again
and then found ourselves in a grassy
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