A day in the life of a minority

As someone who identifies as Caucasian, it's not hard for me to find people who look like me in most parts of the world. However, people of northern European decent are not particularly common in Costa Rica. While it's true that nearly everyone in this country can trace their lineage to Spain, or perhaps Italy--although there are dark-skinned afrocaribbean people as well as a large Asian minority--most everyone has beautifully colored tan skin (the kind that those creepy orange girls can't hope to emulate) with dark hair and eyes. So me and my coloring are fairly rare. But at least I'm not blonde--blondes are quite popular here and I hear they get "heckled" the most. (Most men who heckle here aren't rude or creepy about it--they're just expressing verbally or with whistles that they like what they see--so the world heckle is a bit strong.)

My story as a minority needs some background.

Today I went to the Museo Nacional de Costa Rica. As far as museums go, it wasn't that awesome, but it was only $4 and they had a butterfly garden right at the entrance. Unfortunately I didn't have cash and they didn't take cards, so I had to find an ATM. The closest one wouldn't read my card, so I walked up the street another 10 minutes until I found another bank of ATMs. The first ATM I tried also didn't want to read my card. So I tried the one right next to it and it finally worked. Then I walked back to the museum. On my way there I heard bells ringing and could see the top of an old church. I decided to go there after the museum.

The museum had a room of precolombian artifacts, one of really old gold trinkets, and some model rooms from the colonial area. The building that the museum is housed in is very old and used to be used by the military. There's a part that they left halfway how it used to be, including a guard tower with tiny windows for shooting out of and prison cells, complete with 60-year-old prisoner graffiti. The coolest thing was probably the butterflies, to be honest.

When I left the museum the sun was out and it was a bit warm. I walked towards the church, which I don't really know much about, except that it's old. I took some pictures and noticed across the street were some shops. I was thirsty so I was on the hunt for water... but there was a Pop's so I got ice cream and water.

Now to the minority part.

I didn't want to walk around and try to eat the ice cream, as I got two scoops and they were larger than I anticipated. So I found a bench and sat in the sun eating my ice cream. The area I was in was only for pedestrians, so there was a constant stream of people going by. I kinda felt like a zoo animal. The kids stared at me because I had ice cream. The men looked at me as they walked by simply because I was a young woman. Sometimes the women looked too, just to see what their partners/children were looking at. Too many people looking at me! It's just ice cream! You can't even see my shoulders or my cleavage!

Americans might say that many Latinos have "low standards" but I prefer to think that they are more open-minded to all types of beauty. Women don't have to be particularly young or sexily dressed to hear something directed at them. Last week I walked to the grocery store wearing jeans, a t-shirt and tennis shoes. My hair was in a ponytail. A vision of lust, no? Well, I still got one whistle that day. sheesh! One interesting thing that I have noticed about the cat calls/whistles is that usually the men are older, maybe mid 30s and up. Guys who look to be around my age usually keep their mouths shut, thank goodness.

It's interesting to think about what each culture sees as different or interesting. In the States I'm only a little different. Maybe I catch people's attention in America because I blind them with my ridiculously pale legs. But otherwise I'd say I blend in with the majority pretty well.