Lidia Blanco, director of the Costa Rica Suzuki Festival, was the soul of efficiency. She greeted everyone with a wide smile. In my case, she was always asking about my toe (more about that later). She carried about with her a clipboard to make notes of the hundred or more details involved in organizing such a busy workshop. It wasn't easy due to the variety of activities and changes of venues, but with her "bombero" team helping her, many fires were put out before they became cataclysmic.

The Ortega Saborios, who were my host family for the second year in a row, took us to wonderful places. One evening we went to a Costa Rican cantina called La Fiesta de Pollo Manzana. This was an outdoor café filled with Costa Ricans enjoying each other's company, Imperial beer, music and good food. The chicken was so tender and juicy that it spoiled us forever for Swiss Chalet chicken, a popular chicken restaurant in Canada.

Another night the family took us to what we now call our traditional Peruvian dinner where as a Peruvian/American/Canadian, I could enjoy my fill of Anticuchos, a barbecue beef heart shiskabob, a Peruvian yellow chili called Aji in several dishes, and dulce de leche flan. Both Thomas and Jeffrey joined me on the Anticuchos while Steve watched with some trepidation.

A real highlight for the boys and myself was when Jeannyna Saborio took us to the Sinfonica Nacional, the music academy in San Jose. Her daughter Paola plays with the Youth Symphony and they were to play a concert for a special ceremony. The Japanese Embasssy had donated a huge collection of new instruments - violins, cellos, brass instruments, and even a baby grand piano - to the academy. There was an official ceremony and our first taste of political life in Costa Rica. The Orchestra played with a beautiful sound.

I need to make special mention of my beloved and beautiful hostess Jeannyna Saborio. I call her my Italian Goddess. Jeannyna is a very busy lawyer who somehow manages to balance her equally busy home life as wife and mother with her practice, which she does from home. Every morning finds Jeannyna working with her girls as they practice their violins. With all she has to do on a daily basis, Jeannyna literally adopted me as a kind of auntie. She took me shopping, to the movies, to restaurants, and above and beyond the line of duty, she even took me to the Hospital.

Early in the week I had stubbed my big toe rather brusquely on a too high concrete step. It was painful but I thought nothing of it. I was able to get around well enough wearing open toed sandals. However the third day in, that toe was not looking very good. So after classes, we drove to the private Catholic Hospital. I stepped out of the car and stood mouth agape. Was this a Hospital or the Hilton Hotel? A long covered walk way led us to a sparkling clean building, all marble floors, shiny walls, and highly polished woodwork.

I was admitted immediately. A nurse led me to the Orthopedic Specialist. Apparently Specialists are always on staff. He sent me for X-rays where the young lady constantly enquired about my comfort and was very cautious about moving my foot. Then we were led to a waiting room unlike any Hospital waiting room I have ever seen. Large cushy leather couches one could sleep in. We hardly sat down when the Dr called us in again. He held up the X-ray, "You have a fracture," he stated. He bandaged the two first toes together to support the injured one then prescribed an antibiotic and anti inflammatory drug that we picked up right away at the pharmacy on site.

He also looked at my shoulder which has been painful for more than a year and diagnosed a muscle tear there which he said is common with age. For this he recommended a physiotherapist whom we saw the next night. Yes, Jeannyna took me to that appointment as well. One session which is all I had time for in my visit, did me more good than had dozens in the past several months. Nothing in Canada could compare for the kind of solicitous, effective treatment I received, including the price!

Jeannyna was very gracious in taking in Thomas for a day to recover from stomach ills. He just needed a good rest and was soon back on his feet ready to enjoy the rest of the week.

"Everything in Costa Rica is small," bubbled Shirley as we began our trek to Poaz Volcano, exactly one year ago. "The country is small, the roads are small, the people are small." Last year's drive to Poaz Volcano had been a bit of a wild ride. We got lost so many times I felt like we met almost everyone living in the area as we stopped for directions. Not a problem however. In fact this wild ride became a theme in our friendship and someday one of us will write a song called "I look forward to getting lost with you!"

So this year when we set off to a second active volcano, called Irazu, we all expected it to be the same convoluted experience and we welcomed it.

Shirley Guzman is one of the prettiest, perkiest and like Jeannyna, smartest ladies in the Western Hemisphere. She is the mother of Camilla and Pepe and the wife of Carlos. Every moment with her was fun.

It was Ash Wednesday so being good Catholics, we first visited the strikingly majestic Virgen de Los Angeles Cathedral in Cartagos, the historical Capital of Costa Rica. Cartagos is about an hour out of San Jose. We wandered around its plaza and gardens and looked at the many relics displayed in the lower halls. Believers with specific troubles, such as myself with my toe, could buy tiny silver charms in the shape of the body part in question and place it in the case, to ask Saint Carmen to heal them. There were thousands gathered over the years, displayed in huge glass fronted display cases. I demurred from finding a toe charm and suggested we go to lunch instead.

We arrived at the peak of Irazu, at an altitude of over 9,000 feet. "An Astronaut came up here to Irazu volcano and said it looked just like the moon," recounted Shirley. I pondered this. I am an oldtime Star Trekker so such things are of great fascination to me. Sure enough it looked like the moon. Two of the craters were filled with what could only be described as moon dust, or pumice. "There it is," I exclaimed. "I can now cross off going to the moon off my list!"

We walked a bit further until we came upon the deepest and largest crater. We had been walking through wisps of cloud but just as we peered over the edge of the larger crater, the clouds seemed to evaporate. We were rewarded with a view of a sulfurous green cauldron of a lake hundreds of feet below. Thomas having been a student of volcanoes most of his life could hardly contain his excitement. His mother is a geologist. He took hundreds of pictures then bounded all over so that we wondered if he was going to end up as one of the more recent sacrifices to the volcano Gods. "Contrary to what people believe, most sacrifice victims were not young virgins but virile young men," she warned. Fortunately Thomas did not make the ultimate sacrifice.

We stopped at the coffee shop on site. Shirley treated us to the most delicious chocolate cake I have ever tasted. I immediately named it the Volcano Cake and I have a date with both Shirley and Jeannyna to vist Irazu next year for another piece of that Volcano cake. It's worth the trip!

After the Salsa fiesta at Marietta's, Shirley and Carlos had invited us to her spanking new home in Sabanilla. Their large back yard overlooked the city lights. I'm kind of hoping they'll put in a nice swimming pool by next year.

They treated us to genuine Costa Rican hamburgers. What makes them special is that they come in the size of a dinner plate and are accessorized with ham and cheese. Very juicy!

TREASURED MEMORIES

Jeannyna's sister Evelyn brought along a large plate of special brownies. Jeannyna's father and mother, whose lush flower paintings decorate the Ortega house, both came to bid us farewell. After much chatter and laughter, we all took turns playing for the family. Paola wowed everyone with her Seitz Concerto. Shirley stopped by with gifts and hugs and Lidia called to thank all of us for our participation.

This is the fourth time I have visited Shangrilah, as I have come to know San Jose. Like the mythical city, San Jose is somewhat inaccessible nestled in a valley between many volcanoes and mountains. The country as a whole is rich in natural resources, diverse flora and fauna, and tropical rain forest. The beaches are to die for.

It was hard to come home to a cold brown Calgary. It felt like all the color had drained out of my life. I forced myself to go out to buy tropical plants to scatter about my house. I stocked up on pineapple, mangos, bananas and aguacate. I turned the furnace up to mild sweat temperatures. Yet I felt such a void.

Then one day it came to me. Yes, Costa Rica is beautiful. The climate is perfect. I love the birds and the flowers and the gentle breezes and the Volcano Cake and music. But it's the people that I miss more than anything, Lidia, Jeannyna, Erick, Paola, Giulie, their little brother Diego, her parents and sister and her son Francisco, Shirley and her family, Carlos, Camilla and Pepe, Marietta and her family, Blanca, all the wonderful people who made us feel like family, the tour guide at the Theatre, the taxi drivers, the hilarious actors at the Café Britt coffee history production, the waiters at every restaurant, the Internet Café guy, and on and on. All friendly helpful people.

I also realized I know lots of people in Calgary who are like that. Good friends, people I meet as I go about my business, colleagues, my Studio families, my students, Church acquaintances. My dogs who live to love me. My husband. I have Canadian counterparts to all those wonderful friends I have temporarily left behind in Costa Rica.

And to add to my good fortune, I can reminisce and relive many moments of our stay in San Jose and as part of the Suzuki Festival day there, with "the boys", my cohorts and companeros.

Shirley said in Costa Rica everything is small. But one thing for sure, their hearts are very very big.

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