A Man In Love With San Luis
Hugo Perez
You tiptoe your way home in the dusky twilight, not quite a sunset but not quite night. The mile-long journey is treacherously gravelly. You skirt your way around pools of brown mud and stumble clumsily over loose stones in the road. You make your way up to a house that isn’t yours, and to be honest, it isn’t a thing like your home back in the States.
You open the door to a room full of people who aren’t your family, but their warm, contagious smiles say, “You’re home now.”
Your heart swells a little at the sound of the nearly four-year-old shrieking “MUCHACHA!!!” from her position bouncing on the couch.
You look around the house in which you sit. Just a few small rooms. The multi-colored tile floor that was swept clean this morning is now gritty from the mud trekked in from outside as Hugo and Guilmara dash around preparing an entirely homegrown dinner: fish from the pond, lemons grown in the backyard, and the best homemade tortillas you’ve ever tasted.
Hugo Perez and his wife, Guilmara, met when they were young. Hugo grew up here, in San Luis, but, as a 16 year old boy, he thought this place was a “hueco.” He left this hueco, this hole in the valley completely deprived of excitement with its lack of bars, lack of “discotecas,” and lack of “chicas,” in 2006 to go to school in Heredia, a town not far outside the capital city of San José.
There, in Heredia, he found the excitement he was looking for. He met his wife, Guilmara, who was working as a bartender at the time. They married young, Hugo around 22 and Guilmara around 21 years old. It was 2008. In 2011, still living, working, and studying in Heredia, Hugo became a dad to Brithanny.
Your glance pans around the house again. It’s small, but clearly big enough for this sweet family of three. It’s a little shabby, a little dirty, but that’s to be expected of a farmhouse that’s so old that Hugo tells you his grandparents used to live here. You wonder how he ended up back here, in the hueco, when he was so keen on moving to the big city. So you ask him.
“Brithanny wasn’t happy in Heredia. We had five locks on the door and iron bars everywhere, por su seguridad (for her security). We moved back here when she was two, and she’s happy here. She can play outside and run around. She has her animals. She has her dog, her goat, and her ducks in the fishpond in the backyard. Here it is safe. If someone knocks on the door in San Luis, we say ‘come in!’ We invite them in, they sit at our table, we tomar café together. We don’t hear a knock at the door and think, ‘that’s a persona mala.’ We think the best of people here.” ***
Hugo goes on to talk about how when he went to Heredia, he was looking for something exciting, something new. But what he found there wasn’t what he wanted. He was dissatisfied as a young boy. Then, in the city, there was an abundance of bars, discotecas, and chicas, and he found himself dissatisfied once more.
Hugo left Heredia and returned to San Luis without finishing his schooling at the university. For him, having to work, and study, and support his wife, and raise his young daughter was simply too much. He was seeking something more meaningful, something more worthwhile, and he found it in the tiny town where he got his start.
Hugo now works for a local government called the ADI de San Luis, or the Associacion de Desarrollo Integral de San Luis. He enjoys working there because it gives him the opportunity to work on initiatives that aim to maintain the low levels and nearly complete lack of crime, delinquency, drug and alcohol use, prostitution, etc. here in San Luis. The initiatives also intend to help San Luis continue to grow and prosper as a community. Hugo tells you the reason that he loves working for the ADI is because he is “in love with San Luis.”
“Estoy enamorado con San Luis.”
Additionally, Hugo spent the last four months, February through May 2015, working on UGA Costa Rica’s Certification for Sustainable Tourism (CST). He compiled a roughly 150 page document during those four months, outlining the many ways that the University of Georgia Costa Rica campus is a model for sustainable practices.
Hugo’s eyes light up when he talks about the CST, and he explains it by comparing the certification to the way that hotels earn “cinco estrellas.” Hugo explains that the sustainability certification is essentially a process of earning “cuatro hojas” of sustainable practice. So while hotels earn 5 glowing yellow stars for their service and quality, sustainable tourism locations can earn four green leaves.
When asked why he is so passionate about sustainability, Hugo has a lot to say.
“Today, everything is all about dinero dinero dinero. That’s all anyone thinks about. But I think that we, as humans, are here to maintain the equilibrium of the earth, not to destroy it.” ***
Hugo returned to San Luis because he felt he could make a difference here. He works at the ADI de San Luis and is heavily involved in the community here. Soccer is his passion, but because of a knee injury, he can no longer play. Now, every Saturday, he makes the nearly 4 hour drive to San José and back to take classes for his soccer trainer certification. He is pursuing the highest level of certification, which takes 3 years, and he already has two completed years under his belt.
But Hugo’s interest in soccer and coaching goes far beyond the surface. He coaches several local fútbol teams here in San Luis, all for kids under the age of 13. He tells you that the reason he loves coaching in San Luis is that it combines his love for the sport with his ability to better his community.
“I use coaching as an opportunity to teach young people about values, discipline, and the importance of community and culture here in San Luis. I love having the ability to mold young people while doing something that I love.”
This morning I could not wait to get out of the house. This morning I could not wait to get to campus because of the stress of all my looming deadlines, this paper being one of them. This morning I felt squirmy and irritated because I found bugs in my bed last night.
But now, I feel nothing but gratitude for this family. I feel nothing but gratitude for their willingness to open up their home to me for four nights. Grateful for their honesty about who they are, where they came from, where they are now. Grateful for their hospitality and their humility. Grateful for they way they speak slow, over-enunciated Spanish and gently correct me when I fumble over my words and absolutely butcher the pronunciation of their beautiful language. Grateful for the fact that they gave up one of their beds, one of their bedrooms, and slept three to a bedroom, and two to a twin bed, so that I could be comfortable for a few short days.
And, as much as I feel like they’ve over-accommodated for me, I realize that Hugo and Guilmara have more than they need. Hugo shows me pictures of their trip to Nicaragua last Christmas and points out the many “niños pobres” and how their clothes are ripped and dirty. He speaks solemnly about how much poverty there is in Nicaragua and how he, Guilmara, and Brithanny spent their Navidad passing out food and gifts to the people of Nicaragua. This family who lives so simplistically in comparison to the overabundance in which I live, spent their Christmas passing out gifts to the “poor.”
It hits me. I am a spoiled American girl. I may not have been raised to have “everything you ever wanted,” but didn’t I really? I never went hungry, never skipped a meal, never thought twice about swiping my debit card for a $5 coffee at Starbucks. I have more tee shirts than I can even wear, enough dresses to start a boutique, rows of shoes lining the floor of my closet. At what point did I ever think I wasn’t spoiled? Because now, I see so clearly that I am. Spoiled by the excess that I’ve grown to accept as normal and necessary.
Thank you Hugo and Guilmara, for opening your home and hearts. Thank you for sharing your sweet Brithanny for Disney movies and dancing to the credits every afternoon. Thank you for Animal BINGO games with funny voices and a mysterious Spanish version of Simon Says that only has two commands. Thank you for a heartfelt “buen probecho” before every meal and an enthusiastic “welcome home” every night. Thank you Hugo Perez, for showing that there is so much more to love, life, and happiness than all the material things of this world.
Quotes loosely translated from Spanish to English
