Election Day!

Yesterday was the Costa Rican presidential elections, and it would have been worth coming here just to see how enthusiastic and passionate this country is about democracy and about voting. Seriously. I already wrote about how before the elections, I would see tons of cars and flags and rallies going on in the parks and streets. Well, yesterday was all of that taken to a whole new level.

Yesterday I woke up and my family just had such a gorgeous breakfast together. Papaya, cantalope, watermellon, hot dogs, ham sandwiches, COFFEE, and freshly squeezed orange juice (this is one of my favorite things about Costa Rica... a few times a week my mom gives me freshly squeezed orange juice.... just the juice from about eight oranges or so. most delicious thing in the world. If I don't have that, sometimes I have a strawberry and milk smoothie or a papaya milkshake. Mmmmmmm.) My mom prayed for the elections, and that God would guide the voters and the future president. This is another thing I really appreciate about my family and just about the culture in general. People really trust God with decisions like these.

After breakfast, my two older sisters came over to the house with their husbands and my one nephew. Some of them were wearing the colors of their preferred candidate and national party. Everyone in my family was voting for Otton Solis.



We got into two cars and drove across town to the polls. It was crazy! As we got closer and closer to the polls, there were more and more cars and demonstrators. It was all very peaceful and good natured though. Whenever we would see people with Otton's flag or colors, we would honk the horn loudly and cheer and wave out the window. It was crazy!





We went to vote, which is all done by written ballot. I tried to go in with my mom to vote, but they forced me to leave. :-( But I still got to see the setup. All the people who live in my town voted at one school. Outside of the school there were tons of tables set up for each candidate. I read in the paper that 300,000 volunteers gave their time around the country yesterday for the election. That number seems fairly large, but that is what I read in the paper.

Anyway. After we voted we came home and decided to walk downtown to see all the cars and people there. This was probably the craziest part of the whole day. We went to el Parque de Guadelupe, and there were hundreds of people standing along the road waving flags at all the cars and buses on the busy street. It was a fiesta!




Some people wore masks, including one of Ronald Reagan!



Another thing I loved: my older sister and her husband brought their dog, Argus, with them on the walk, and he sported the colors for Otton. Tons of kids and people on the streets got a huge kick out of that, and came over to socialize and show their support for Otton as well.






After finishing our walk, we went to my older sister Beij-Hiu's house, and ate lots of bread, fried plantains with refried beans and guacamole (also the greatest food in the world... panacotes as they are called- basically a smashed plantain fried twice.) We also took part in the great American tradition of watching the Superbowl. Woohoo. I am way more clueless about the NFL than my Costa Rican family. Haha.

When we came home, we tuned into the results, and at about 8:30pm, it was announced that Laura Chinchilla won the election with about 46%. Otto and Otton both took about 20-25%, and the other four candidates split the rest. My family was disappointed in the results, but it is kind of cool that Costa Rica has their first female president! And I got to be here while it all happened!