Why Costa Rica?

We first visited Costa Rica in 2015 and fell in love! We liked the people, the countryside, the weather, the focus on family, community, heath, education and the environment!

We loved how Luca met a Tico child less than 2 hours off the plane, and ran away to play, neither of them able to understand the others language, but it mattered not, they made it work! I especially loved, how his Mum waved to me from across the pond, in a way that made me understand this was normal practice for her, she and I kept our distance from the kids and let them be, we parented the same way! At that point in my parenting journey it was unusual for me to find another Mum with the non helicopter approach, I almost wept! We never exchanged a word, but she will always hold a special place in my heart! 🙂

Luca was in his element doing all the adventure things on offer:

He has wanted to be a Zoologist since he was about 3 ,(the Kratt brothers, his earliest influences!), Iggy as Luca aptly named him, appeared each morning to sunbathe much to his delight!

We came home saying, we should move there!

However, we had a home renovation to finish, Luca had good friends, I had gone back to school, we both had jobs, I was on numerous boards and committees for health and education, trying to “make a difference”, we were really trying hard to settle, we really were! We got back on the treadmill and kept going….

We did put the house on the market a year later, (we lived in place where the average sale takes 2 years), we were thinking, lets see if there is interest, we will move on at some point, but no rush, besides is Costa Rica even feasible, is that really the “responsible thing to do”, so many unknowns, lets just open the door and see what happens…

Then winter of 2017, Luca got sick, VERY sick, with an unknown viral infection, we almost lost him, at the most extreme the ICU Dr pulled me aside and said, we are running out of options, I don’t know what to do! I am a RN, pediatric and neonatal trained, I knew she was throwing everything at him she could think of, we had brain storming sessions trying to think of things to try, but nothing was working. It was TERRIFYING, I tear up just thinking about it even now, that fear will never leave me!

One morning 6 weeks after it all began, he woke up and was fine and has never looked back. Truly that is how it happened, no one could fathom it! The whole thing knocked us sideways and frankly I am not sure Rich and I are completely over it yet. It did make us look again at our life and priorities, simplifying was what we identified we needed to do, but how?

Luca had been in the education system for 4 years by then and although he loves school and does well, we were less than impressed with what was going on, (this is not a reflection on the individual school, but the system itself, and is not restricted to Canada, these are issues a lot of western countries are facing with regards education and health). Coming from a health background the unhealthy lives of many, especially children, and its spin off effect I find alarming, all the work I was putting in to try and change things felt completely ineffective. I also REALLY struggle with the fear based approach of raising children which is now considered the norm. I see how detrimental it is to our kids, both in the short and long term, I feel a deep grief for this generation of children and what they have lost.

But what to do….

Then…..Rich got a job offer in Newfoundland and someone wanted to buy our home for what we wanted, all in the space of a month. We still had Costa Rica in our mind, but I was too nervous at that point to be too far away from a pediatric hospital where I could speak the language. We had lived over a hour away from one when Luca was sick, with no pediatric cover and I wanted to change that until I felt more confident about Luca’s health. St John’s seemed perfect, it got us on our way, we liked the idea of exploring Newfoundland more, (had visited and loved it), I could get all the specialist referrals for Luca easily, as they all knew each other, we could take a break from renovating houses, consolidate and have no debt, then reassess as the year went on. MAYBE, an island off by itself in the middle of the Atlantic, may approach life differently, and we could find the balance we are looking for lifestyle wise..

We jumped, 3 weeks after Rich accepted the job off he went. I sold the house packed up and followed with Luca, Pica and Kea ,(our cat, who we sadly lost last year), a couple of weeks later.

Newfoundland outdoors is incredible, our fitness has vastly improved. Luca is literally back to climbing mountains, his lung function amazing, we are all big hikers and really have pushed ourselves to see how Luca does, he has more than met the challenge.

Doctors really feel it was a one off unfortunate event, (I have another word for it!!!!).

Rich and I had work, I had started University studies again, we lived in a lovely home, had good vehicles, Luca had made good friends, no debt, it all looked great, except, well it wasn’t…..the same frustrations with lifestyle, systems, and work prevailed for all of us, and we were starting to see the effect on Luca in a more obvious way now. We just had to admit the more conventional way does not work for us. One day over winter we said to each other, let’s look at Costa Rica again and see if we can make it work, there has to be a better way for us all, we just need to find it. Then Rich found Cloud Forest School and we saw Luca there, just like it was made for him, he went through the application process and got in!!!!!!

Welcome

This cemented it for us, we would make it work!

We go into this saying it is for a year and we will take it from there, our path may well continue to take us on somewhere else, who knows, time will tell…