In mid-May, 2000, just after our school duties were completed, my wife, Sue, and I accompanied Barb Davis to San Jose, Costa Rica. At the airport, we met up with Tom Davis, who had been busy operating the itinerant free health care clinic, la clinica de la mariposa, for about two weeks. We settled in to our room at Kap's Place B&B in San Jose and began our ten-day adventure.

Although Tom had made several visits, starting in 1997, it was at this time, in May and June, 2000, that la clinica began to involve it's first senior-level students from Northwestern Health Sciences University and it's chiropractic program. Since that time, students and professional health care providers of a variety of alternative and allopathic modalities have been involved in the project. The first two students were both named "Mike," but allowing for their differences in size, one became "Miguel grande," and the other, "Miguel pequeña." During the time we observed these students, their enthusiasm and maturity proved valuable to la clinica. The "Mikes" are credits to their profession.

The in-country organization, supported by the CFCA, was up and running and several neighborhood clinic sites had been identified for la clinica's use. Our only experience with a clinic was the day we traveled to "Guiari," a neighborhood near the center of the beautiful University town of Heredia, not 10 miles from San Jose. We were at the clinic from about 9 AM to 5 PM, with a magnificent break for a midday feast. The meal was organized by the neighborhood clinic organizers, "las promotoras."

My training and experience is in teaching and research, while Sue is a professor of community health nursing, having served as a public health nurse in Iowa before completing her MA in medical anthropology and her PhD in nursing. Although we were at the clinic as visitors, Tom quickly had me doing odd jobs and Sue, who is fluent in Spanish, working as a nurse-interpreter. We thoroughly enjoyed our contact with the two students, the in-country staff, and the people in the neighborhood.

Sue has had experience as a VISTA volunteer teacher with Spanish-speaking migrant workers in southwest Kansas (1974-75), and I have served as a Peace Corps Volunteer teacher in southeast Asia (1967-69). With our experience, we are somewhat sensitized to the variety of attitudes, fortunate and unfortunate, that people visiting another culture and lower-income neighborhood in a "helping role" can bring to the work. During our time with the people of Guairi and the la clinica volunteers, we observed interactions of respected equals. The visiting and CFCA staff, already part of a Costa Rican-based effort, was respected and welcomed. The patients were greeted, interviewed, treated and counseled with respect, as well. We were gratified and proud to have been a brief part of la clinica during its day in Guairi.

Our remaining experience was more personal, involving a fine bus trip west of San Jose and Heredia to San Ramon and in a cab going north about five miles to the "cloud-forest" resort, "Villa Blanca," owned by a former president of Costa Rica. At La Villa, our cottage was charming: clean and spare white stucco with a corner "kiva" fireplace for morning warmth. Sue and I especially remembered waking at 5:30 AM to the sound of howler monkeys in the nearby trees. We also remember fondly the sumptuous meals at the lodge and, after a nature hike, the dozens of varied hummingbirds, some moth-sized and iridescent blue, that surrounded us, near their feeding station, on our park bench.

Finally, as a way to put our experience with Costa Rica and the people of the country in perspective, we relate the following. During one of Sue's and my several rice-beans-and-chicken noon meals at Isabella's, near our first Costa Rican home, Kap's Place, we sat behind a family of three, mother, father, and young son, about eight years old. While we spoke and ate our meal, Sue kept smiling at the young boy, whose mother was smiling, too. In about ten minutes, the family finished their meals, and they made their way to the front, where the boy asked his folks to buy him something sweet. With the candy in hand, the boy walked back through the crowd to Sue and handed her the candy. She was thoroughly charmed and almost speechless. She could only exclaim, "que amable!" With that, the boy and his proud parents, amid smiles on all sides, bid farewell. Our experience at Isabella's was typical of the greeting we had from the people of Costa Rica.