What you can save in Uvita

We are staying near Uvita, on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. This morning I went to a little shop that has a couple samples of almost anything you could want. I noticed too late that the clerk was putting my groceries in a paper bag and held up my cloth one.

“Oh good, “ he said pleasantly in English, “save a trip.”

“Save a tree,” corrected the young woman at the register. “A tree.”

The affection with which she’d corrected him and the good humor with which he laughed and repeated “tree” set us off.

“Save a bird,” I said.

“Save flowers,” she added.

“Butterflies” were his contribution, to which in turn we added, bees, grass, fish, monkeys (she poked him affectionately at “monkey,” evidently a private joke} and finally snakes.

So saving all those things in my bag I paid and left happily. The bag, by the way, is from a Cirque du Soleil type youth circus in Cambodia which promotes itself as saving street children. You can save a lot with the right bag.

About Pamela Schoenewaldt

Pamela Schoenewaldt, historical novels of immigration and the search for self in new worlds: WHEN WE WERE STRANGERS, SWIMMING IN THE MOON, and UNDER THE SAME BLUE SKY (all HarperCollins).