🇺🇸004: Bari Lehrman, USA, 18 years
Photos (left to right): 12-year-old Bari at her Bat Mitzvah, Snorkeling with a whale shark and Bari with her family in Costa Rica
This week in episode 4 we will hear from Bari Lehrman, a mother of two born in New York. Bari chats with us about making the switch from bagels to rice and beans, falling in love during a boat trip to the Cocos islands and the pros and cons of raising two children in Costa Rica.
Full name: Bari Lehrman
Age: 40s
City of birth: New York, USA
Residence in Costa Rica: Playas del Coco, Guanacaste
Instagram: @bari.lehrman
Email: bari@papagayoluxury.com
Anisa Hill [0:05]:
G’Day, friends, I'm Anisa Hill and welcome to the Move to Costa Rica podcast. Here we tell the stories of people who have done just that; move to Costa Rica. This Week in Episode Four, we hear from Bari Lehrman, a mother of two born in New York. Bari chats with us about making the switch from bagels harassing beans, falling in love during a boat trip to the Cocos Islands, and the pros and cons of raising two children in Costa Rica. If you like this episode, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts by searching for move to Costa Rica podcast. Before we dive in, remember to subscribe for new episodes released every Thursday, head to triple W dot move to Costa Rica podcast.com. This podcast was recorded in the office of Atlas Trust and Escrow in Playa Del Coco clustering. Without any further delay, here is your host, Malcolm Hill.
Malcolm Hill [1:06]:
Welcome guys to the move to Costa Rica podcast. I'm so excited today. We have Bari Lehrman with us, she's going to tell us her story. I've known Bari for approximately two years. Today, we want to jump into your whole story as much as we can. And I first of all want to start off with the very beginning.
Bari Lehrman [1:30]:
Okay, I was born in New York in Rockland County, a suburb about 25 miles north of the city.
Malcolm Hill [1:37]:
Okay
Bari Lehrman [1:40]:
I had a wonderful childhood, the best of both worlds. So, access to the city whenever we wanted it, but also growing up with lots of green space around and woods and hiking trails. Probably, I guess you could say a standard New York suburban childhood.
Malcolm Hill [2:01]:
Sorry. What is the standard New York suburban childhood?
Bari Lehrman [2:05]:
Well, I guess the standard suburban childhood differs depending on who you ask. So yes, I lived in a house with my family on a quiet street, where we had lots of neighbors that were kids our age. We would wait at the bus stop for school in the morning, go to school, come back, and everybody would grab their bicycles in the warm weather. And we would just ride our bikes all afternoon and the guys would have a catch and play football in the street. And you know, the moms would yell out the door just at dark; dinner's ready, you know, and everybody comes in for dinner. And my brother is two years older, so we were very close. So we would always hang out my friends, his friends, it was always just a big jumble of kids hanging out, we had a lot of freedom. And it was great. And my schooling was fabulous. What was nice about where I lived was because it was so close to the city, it was really diverse. So we had every kind of person you could imagine. So many different languages spoken at my school and ethnicities and racial background. And, it didn't seem like there was like a popular group and an unpopular group. Everyone just had their crew. They mix and it was really cool.
Malcolm Hill [3:30]:
Like how long had your parents been in that area?
Bari Lehrman [3:34]:
They moved away when I moved away. But they had been there probably about 20 years, 25 years.
Malcolm Hill [3:41]:
And all your childhood was in that same area like the same house?
Bari Lehrman [3:45]:
Same house, same next door neighbor, same friends, it was all very stable. I grew up in New York, secular Jewish family. So that definitely had its particular cultural traits, right. But you know, we had a pretty solid family. My parents are still married. We were always just wonderful terms really open and fun and spend a lot of time together. You know, very big emphasis placed on education and on strong family values. And I remember being able to pretty much as a teenager, do whatever I wanted, as long as I let them know what time I was coming home and as long as I got good grades in school. So long as I got good grades in school, it was like I was allowed to do whatever I want.
Malcolm Hill [4:35]:
And then you get out of high school. And what's the next step for you?
Bari Lehrman [4:40]:
Well, during high school, I guess you could say I started to undergo a little bit of a transformation. I got really into the Grateful Dead music fan and I became like a super hippie chick with the revolution mid-60s, early 70s, California. They were at the center of all of that.
Malcolm Hill [5:05]:
And what was it about them that you particularly?
Bari Lehrman [5:11]:
I like the music, but I remember going to my first concert, and it just being one of the most mind blowing experiences I ever had. Because people were just doing whatever they wanted, dressed however they wanted. It was like the perfect expression of personal freedom that I ever saw. Whether it be riding a unicycle, juggling balls with a parrot on his head down the street, and that was normal to other people making and selling their clothes and music everywhere, and people just dancing everywhere. And it was just like a jaw dropping glimpse at an alternate reality that I didn't know could was impossible. That's what drew me in the most was just the idea that there were different ways to live. It didn't even occur to me before. It didn't occur to me that there was anything other than the path that was made before me by my parents. And we are you know, we're like a fourth generation Jewish immigrant family. All of my grandparents came from Russia and Poland. Very, very poor, struggled really hard to move up the ladder. You know, if we go back to the story of my grandfather, you see the cliché American dream, you know? He was seven years old selling underwear from a car on the Lower East Side. And, what he then became, back then I think everything was a lot more streamlined. And there weren't as many people who would break the mold. That said, my father, you know, is a very interesting character. And he definitely followed the path that was set before him. And he went to school and he went to boarding school. And he later became a lawyer. But he always regretted it. And he always would say to me growing up, not even in deep conversations, but just comments, Oh, don't ever be a lawyer or, follow your dream or go on adventures, he was always adventurous. So even though I grew up, kind of in the mold, he was always showing me by example, how you should go and do things. So he would not think twice about getting on a plane and going to Ecuador for two weeks and leaving my brother and I with a babysitter and go.
Malcolm Hill [7:35]:
Did you do that when you guys were younger?
Bari Lehrman [7:37]:
My whole life, he and my mother would get up and they would go. And this was back in the late 70s, early 80s, when he would go places that nobody else was going. And I mean, our first time that we came to Costa Rica was 1985.
Malcolm Hill [7:50]:
Can I ask you how you old you were then or would you prefer not to say?
Bari Lehrman [7:53]:
I was eight. And I remember there was one hotel in one day today was very small. It had four rooms. I was not happy about eating rice and beans for breakfast. I wanted a bagel. And yeah, I think that was way before Costa Rica was even on the map of any kind of internet.
Malcolm Hill [8:14]:
It would have hardly had it like any tourism.
Bari Lehrman [8:17]:
No, it didn't have. And, you know when we were really little, he would travel with my mom not by himself. But once my brother and I were a little bit older, he started to take us with him. So we came to Costa Rica. The first time I went to Africa I was 11. We went to Kenya to Tanzania. And we went to India, Nepal and Israel. And I mean, we didn't…
Malcolm Hill [8:44]:
You didn’t hate when you were little, like hate to travel.
Bari Lehrman [8:47]:
Yeah, I mean for a 12 year old from New York to travel through India and Nepal, is definitely an eye opening experience. You know, and I remember being in the streets and being in the marketplace and with all those people in the poverty and the smell and the dead dogs and the lepers and I remember that very vividly. I was a very good student. And I was able to take other AP classes, which are advanced placement. So those are college level classes that you take while you're still in high school. And I was so into the whole Grateful Dead movement that every weekend, every long weekend, every summers, I would go and I would follow them. So I would get into a station wagon or in a van with some friends and we would drive wherever we had to drive and we would spend time on.
Malcolm Hill [9:32]:
How did mom and dad feel about that?
Bari Lehrman [9:36]:
My father was okay with it as long as I did well in school and wasn't stupid. I was always very respectful. I was raised to always be respectful, but I was also very headstrong. So I would say I just want to let you know that I've already decided and this is what I'm going to do. So it wouldn't be an asking permission kind of thing. It would just be a notifying thing.
Malcolm Hill [9:56]:
Okay, after high school, did you go to college or otherwise?
Bari Lehrman [10:00]:
Well, I graduated high school early. I graduated half year early because I had all of these…
Malcolm Hill [10:04]:
Because of those IPI classes.
Bari Lehrman [10:06]:
Yes. And the beginning of college coincided with the death of Jerry Garcia who was the lead guitarist and lead singer of the Grateful Dead. So Grateful Dead land kind of disintegrated right before I had to start college so.
Malcolm Hill [10:20]:
That's pretty.
Bari Lehrman [10:22]:
It was helpful.
Malcolm Hill [10:23]:
Harming and all.
Bari Lehrman [10:24]:
I went to college and I did not fit in at all. It was a very conservative, small school. I was from, you know, Jewish girl from the New York City suburbs and had no idea of the wealthy kind of boarding school culture. We say the wasp bee culture, which is the, like wealthy American, white Protestant culture. So a lot of these kids came from that culture. They've been going to boarding schools their whole lives and very elite private schools. And none of them were Jewish. So there was like fat background. And then I was like a super hippie, and they were all very preppy. And I didn't fit in at all. So every weekend, I would leave and I would go, I would actually hitchhike. I was there for a year. And then I transferred, and I transferred to a much bigger University in Vermont, which was a state that I knew and I loved, and I had friends in. And once I transferred, everything was fine. I got my own apartment, I lived with my one to two, and I never was involved in college life. I have my own life, outside my own friends, my own scene, I went to class, and I did my work. I did really well. I graduated 13th in my class actually. I majored in sociology, minor in literature. So my father would say, he said, you know, a very expensive education with zero marketable skills. So, you know, that's debatable. But also with college, I got to a point, the same with high school where I was just done. Like I got to a point where I said, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm done. And I was able to graduate early. I was able to graduate in three and a half years. I left school happier early and I just call some friends from Grateful Dead Man at the gym in Brooklyn, in New York. And I said, can I come stay with you? And they said, sure. And I went from rural, beautiful, peaceful, agricultural, Vermont and moved right into Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and this was in 99. So Williamsburg now is a very hip, fashionable place to live. In the late 90s, it was very different. And so I was with them for a couple months, just doing some odd jobs and wanted to travel and thought about coming to Costa Rica and doing a Spanish Immersion class so that we.
Malcolm Hill [12:46]:
And, did you speak any Spanish at that point.
Bari Lehrman [12:50]:
I had the very basic High School Spanish that like everyone else had, which we all think is not enough. But I will tell you that when put to the test, that high school Spanish was a bright light in the darkness.
Malcolm Hill [13:06]:
Yeah. Okay, you're 21 you think about Costa Rica, you want to do a Spanish Immersion course? Why? What were the motivators for Costa Rica for that course over anywhere else?
Bari Lehrman [13:20]:
And choosing a place that my mother would feel less nervous about me being. So if I would have chosen Mexico or Honduras or Nicaragua, or any other place, I think that she would have had a nervous breakdown. But Costa Rica just was the safest seeming place, and I went to an immersion school in San Pedro and in San Jose. So, it was not anywhere near any kind of touristy area, I lived with an older woman, a divorced older woman by herself Margarita. And I would walk to the school every day, it was every day, five hours a day, Monday through Friday, I had the weekends free to travel. And in my class, I had a German boy, Japanese woman, a Japanese woman, a German boy. And then there was another I think there was a German woman and then there was me and we didn't really have a lot of common language. And because I was in the city, nobody spoke English anywhere. There were no tourists anywhere so perfect for learning Spanish and it was about six weeks and I left there feeling so confident about my Spanish skills. So I think my high school base coupled with you know, six week immersion, and immersion in all aspects. And I studied hard. I studied every night and I went over vocabulary and everything. And I was very, very confident until I actually put myself into a group of Costa Rican people my age and realize I didn't understand a word they were saying to each other. Because, what you learn in the classroom is so different from what people actually speak.
Malcolm Hill [15:02]:
Did you head back home after that?
Bari Lehrman [15:05]:
I went back to New York City, and I had to move out of my friend's place. So I moved into my own place in a very wild part of Brooklyn. And I actually got a job at a criminal justice and child welfare reform, like a nonprofit job doing research and where I needed my Spanish. I was there about a year and a half. And then I was starting to get the itch again. I started that became familiar to me. And at the same time that I was starting to feel like I was ready for a change an old friend from the Grateful Dead scenes, who had moved to Costa Rica and bought some land. And he was looking for a house sitter, because he was going away for a few months, and he needed a house sitter. And so I wrote him back and I said, Amen, and I quit my job, like a week later. And within a month, I was on the plane flying Costa Rica.
Malcolm Hill [15:57]:
Wow, that's pretty rapid.
Bari Lehrman [16:00]:
Yeah.
Malcolm Hill [16:01]:
It’s a pretty quick decision by.
Bari Lehrman [16:03]:
I when I'm done, I'm done. You know?
Malcolm Hill [16:06]:
Yeah.
Bari Lehrman [16:07]:
And of course, I know nothing about the geography of Costa Rica. And I did not even take a moment to even look about where.
Malcolm Hill [16:13]:
You have the love because you've done the course.
Bari Lehrman [16L17]:
Yeah, and I had my basics then. The house was in the OSA Peninsula, in a teeny little town called [Inaudible 16:24]. OSA is the wildest part of Costa Rica. It's kind of like the final frontier. So it's the South Pacific peninsula where a Corcovado National Park is. So lots of primary rain forest, still a lot of indigenous people up in the mountains. It’s the hardest to get to, the most isolated, the wettest, The Most Extreme. It was just the end of the road. I mean, I remember literally flying into San Jose and getting on a bus and being on a bus for nine hours. And it was very, like chicken bus style. There were no actual chickens, but it was like an old rickety bus and all…
Malcolm Hill [17:03]:
Those like nice air conditioned pulled me back to get in today. Yeah.
Bari Lehrman [17:07]:
And I remember just like gazing out the cracked window and the rain coming down and getting to three minutes, which is kind of like the big town in the OSA peninsula. And 30 minutes just consisted of two streets, you know, with an intersection in the middle of muddy streets. And, I remember actually seeing a woman at that time, she was probably like, 30, but I was 22. So she looked to me like this older woman, just like ripping into town and this formula with these like big rubber boots, and she had like a machete and she was a foreigner. She was blonde, she must have been like German or Austrian or something. And I remember looking at her and being like, she’s my hero. Yeah, I think I'm like, I want to do like person. And so I got to 15 minutes. And then I had to figure out how to get to this guy's house. And, the only way to get there was a collectivo. So you would share pickup truck rides with people. And you know, you would tell them where you're going. And so I get in the back of the pickup truck and the town does, but also it was 12 kilometers away, but it was like the longest 12 kilometers you've ever gone in your life. The roads were horrible. And we got to a point where the pickup truck couldn't go any farther because there's two rivers and there's no bridges. And so I just had my backpack and you know, they dropped me off. And he said, you know, follow that route. Follow that road to the end. And I did and I got to the house. And the house was an open air house, no walls. So really, it was just a poured concrete slab on the edge of the jungle with a roof. And the second floor was a half wall with a couple beds with some mosquito netting.
Malcolm Hill [18:48]:
Was that the intentional design to have no walls?
Bari Lehrman [18:53]:
Yes, that was it. Yeah. There was no electricity in the entire town. And the water was just laid about a month before I had arrived. But someone had come and dug up all of the water pipes. It was me coming from New York City and then overnight, going to the most remote place and I even knew existed on the planet, right.
Malcolm Hill [19:15]:
And to give people a bit more context, OSA is probably one of the most humid areas of the country year round. It probably receives one of the highest or really high rainfall for the country. And I've only been down there once but you feel like you're fighting against the environment, just every day.
Bari Lehrman [19:33]:
It’s just like living.
Malcolm Hill [19:35]:
Living your life. It's kind of like the jungle versus you as a human having to just deal with, like intense mosquitoes and the humidity and it's just unrelenting.
Bari Lehrman [19:47]:
I arrived and my friend was there and he was leaving two days later. He's the only other person there. I hadn't seen him in many years also. So it was kind of like a reunion of sorts. He did have a local indigenous man named Oscar who is his caretaker who was always around just helping him out. Who was an amazing, gentle, kind, man with an unbelievable knowledge of plant medicine, and just the area. The people just to give you an idea, the town. The town, had probably about 20 families living in it and was very poor. So most of the houses were just four holes with black plastic walls, dirt floors, no electricity, extremely poor. Most of the families were indigenous families and the men were gold panners [Spanish 20:42], so they would illegally sneak into the park and pan the rivers for gold. And that was how they would make their very scant living. They were selling enough gold to live in a dirt floor house with four poles and black plastic walls with no electricity. So, that was very shocking. Also, it was a very humble, very just, like I said, a frontier feeling. Well, my first so my friend was there to receive me to kind of say, Okay, this is Oscar and watch out for the snake in the compost. And when the pigs come, you have to do this. And, you know, when you're going to the bathroom, make sure you don't leave the top open. Otherwise, you know, he gave me kind of like the name of the man. And he had 50 hectares is that bordered Corcovado National Park, but on the north side. Which he traded most of it for motorcycles and other things, so very old school way of doing business. And he said, I want to take some people on a hike of a trail that we got into the park for when I'm gone in case they want to guide people. Do you want to come and I said, sure. Sounds fantastic. A hike in the rain forest sounds great. And just to make a note that rain forest and jungle are the same thing with two very different connotations so.
Malcolm Hill [22:07]:
Explain the difference for us.
Bari Lehrman [22:09]:
Well, rain forest is like this beautiful natural paradise where there's like butterflies and rainbows and beautiful plant diversity, where everybody you know, lives in harmony. Jungle is like poisonous snakes and thorny plants and don't touch that and watch out for the wasps and crazy humidity. And so we went on a hike the next morning, and we woke up. I mean, you wake up with the sun, you wake up at five. You know, they gave me a pair of rubber boots to borrow and a backpack and we went on this hike. And I mean, I was in good shape, but I was not prepared at all for the first two hours of uphill hiking through the jungle. And you get kind of get in under the tree cover and all of a sudden I get stung by 12 wasps in my ear. And I'm like, Oh, I'm getting stung, and Oscar grabs a handful the mud and like whacks me in the head with the mud. Yeah, because mud is good for the wasp stings. But at the moment, I don't know that. I just know that first I'm getting stung by wasps and then this guy is. And we keep going and then it starts to like rain but like torrential downpour, cats and dogs. And I slip and I tumble down the mountain like five meters into a huge tree covered with needles, and they have to help me out and then the rain stops and the sun comes out and we have a picnic and then we walk down and we're walking kind of back to the…
Malcolm Hill [23:37]:
All of this on the first day? You get like stung by wasps, slapped in the face with mud, you fall down the hill.
Bari Lehrman [23:44]:
Yeah. Get poked by the needles, get soaked in a rainstorm, and then as we're walking down the river. I didn't know at the time that this was what they call it Cabeza de agua, which is, you know what a Cabeza de agua is?
Malcolm Hill [24:00]:
No idea.
Bari Lehrman [24:02]:
If you have a river and it's kind of dammed with natural debris upstream, and then when all the debris lets loose, and a huge gush of water comes down.
Malcolm Hill [24:10]:
Like a water head.
Bari Lehrman [24:13]:
Yeah, I guess I don't know. Well, that happened. And so we ended up having to spend the last two hours hiking down the river with our backpacks on our head with water at chest high level. Until we got back to the house.
Malcom Hill [24:25]:
It's just you and the guy. What was his name?
Bari Lehrman [24:29]:
Yeah. Me and my friend and this guide that he was trying to teach the route to and Oscar. So the three guys and myself.
Malcolm Hill [24:37]:
Wow.
Bari Lehrman [24:39]:
And we got back at a dark. We got back at about six at nights, we were gone for about 12 hours. When I woke up the next morning, my friend was gone. He had left to catch his flight back to the US and I was alone and I had a raging fever and got so sick I could not get out. I couldn't move for like four like eight or nine days. Oscar and this other local guy Enya, they would go up into the mountains with their machetes, and they would cut plants and come and brew me tea, and make sure and bring me bananas and just make sure that they took care of me. These two older gentlemen who were just, you know, I look at them like medicine men kind of, you know.
Malcolm Hill [25:21]:
Yeah. An indigenous knowledge to pull stuff out of the jungle, which kicked you about the day before.
Bari Lehrman [25:29]:
And so I was planning to spend six months in the house. But the truth is, when I got well, I was terrified, I juts wanted to leave. So it was like.
Malcolm Hill [25:40]:
How long did it last?
Bari Lehrman [25:43]:
I stayed there for a couple months.
Malcolm Hill [25:45]:
Okay.
Bari Lehrman [25:46]:
But I was in a cage with no walls, basically. I had an propane tank. So I had an oven and a stove and an oven, there was a whole another thing was learning how to live with no electricity. I'm not even about the light. It wasn't about the light. It was no refrigeration, and that kind of climate because it was just me. So if I cut open…
Malcolm Hill [26:05]:
Did you have a fridge?
Bari Lehrman [26:06]:
No fridge.
Malcolm Hill [26:07]:
So anything you did, did you stop eating meat, or did you just eat fish?
Bari Lehrman [26:13]:
I didn't eat meat. I was a vegetarian anyway, so I would eat eggs. But if I cut a tomato, I had to eat the whole tomato that day. That's when I learned about rice and beans. And I realized how important the rice and beans are to Costa Ricans because you can make a pot of rice and you can make a pot of beans and not have a refrigerator for a couple of days and still stretch them out. And that became my human interaction was my walk every two days to the Pulpiria, which is the little store in the center of the village. I would walk there and I would buy a few things and talk to the woman who own the Pulpiria. And she would talk to me in Spanish and she would correct me and I would spend a half an hour with her. And the Pulpiria was the center of anything that would happen in the town and they had a generator. And so every night, from six to seven, you could go in the darkening Twilight and you would see all of the men of the village not the women just come in with their big cowboy hats and their big belt buckles and the rubber boots in various kind of cowboy postures. And they would put the news on for the first half hour six to 6:30. And they would all just stand in the muddy Street and watch the teeny little flickering black and white television and they were watching the news.
Malcolm Hill [27:30]:
This is in the year like 2000 2001 right?
Bari Lehrman [27:33]:
Yeah. And then they would watch cartoons for the second. So it was the news and then the cartoons. Yeah, well, it's just the men because women were home with the kids cooking. And you know, and I saw very few women. I remember one day being at the Pulpiria and showing up and there was a girl there a young girl about eight or nine years old, barefoot, and dirty, you know the little like mangy dog. And she was filling up her backpack. And then she went she left you know, and I said who is that? And she said, that's a girl from one of the villages up in the mountains. And there's still little pockets of indigenous people who live up in the mountains. And once a month, this girl was the one who would be sent to go and get like salt and candles and matches and flour. And she would walk for hours each way by herself in the jungle with her dog to come and get supplies for the little Village. So it was like wow. And I was there for like I said a couple months and then I was like you know what? You know, I'm 21 or 22 or I think maybe I think I was 22, 23. Like I want to like learn how to dance salsa, I want to scuba dive, I want to do something with the jungle. I wanted the beach. Basically, I was like I want the beach and I want a little more of that.
Malcolm Hill [28:51]:
Where did you go from there?
Bari Lehrman [28:56]:
So I left and I took the bus up to Puntarenas.
Malcolm Hill [29:03]:
Okay.
Bari Lehrman [29:04]:
Yeah. And I wanted to go down Montezuma in the Nicoya Peninsula because I had heard that it was kind of like a booking in kind of town. And so I got my ticket and I got on the ferry. And I was ferrying over and as I was on ferry, I struck up a conversation with two guys around my age early 20s. They were so friendly. And they were like peers, you know, it was people that I could relate to. They were going to university, they were on vacation, they were drinking beer, they have their dog, and they were going to spend vacation at a friend's house on the beach in Hawaii. And as we're talking they kept saying you should come with us, you should come with us. And I'm saying no, no, I don't get to the car with strange men I don't know and by the end of the ferry ride, which was an hour, they said we'll drag you to Montezuma and I said fine. And they had a little pickup truck just one row seats, not a double cab. So they have their dog in the back. And they both just drink a beer the whole time. And we're gonna track and off. And the roads, you know, I don't know if they're paved now, but back then they weren't paved. So you're just like bouncing along on these beautiful roads. I mean I remember the scenery just was breathtaking in the southern part of the Nicoya Peninsula where you have those mountains with the cow pastures and the palm trees and it's just endless and little houses dotting the hillsides. And it was so picturesque and it was just so magical that it was just mind blowing.
Malcolm Hill [30:35]:
Yeah.
Bari Lehrman [30:36]:
After being closed in by the jungle, it was a really nice reprieve also.
Malcolm Hill [30:39]:
These guys, were they Costa Ricans, did you speak Spanish with them then? Like your language had gotten to the point where because I imagine being in the little town you would have improved really quick or even the job you had back in New York, your Spanish would have got better doing that too.
Bari Lehrman [31:00]:
You know, when I was in the car with them, that's when I learned the word my very specifically learning word my on that trip because every other word out there in my life.
Malcolm Hill [31:14]:
My in this country is like dude or bro or mate in Australia, or deal in Spain. Here. It's my.
Bari Lehrman [31:20]:
But it's used way more profusely. So once I learned my, I was able to understand that so much more.
Malcolm Hill [31:29]:
Because you're like, for a while did you think like, does that word have 17 different meanings? Is this like a secret word? I don't understand.
Bari Lehrman [31:40]:
I don't think I didn't identify it as its own word. I think I just remember saying, Wow, I thought I spoke Spanish pretty decently. I think I speak it decently but I don't understand it very well. It's so much harder to understand than it is to speak. Right?
Malcolm Hill [31:55]:
So you get to Montezuma.
Bari Lehrman [31:58]:
I do not get to Montezuma.
Malcolm Hill [32:00]:
Okay, you didn't get the Montezuma.
Bari Lehrman [32:03]:
En route, they managed to convince me to go with them to my face instead and to spend the week with them and their friends on their college vacation. And if I don't like it, they'll take me a Montezuma the next day. And so we ended up pulling into my place and my place sympathy they said back then was also was much undeveloped, there was like two bars and boat in the whole area. And nothing. Nothing was there. Montepape which is a little fishing town right next to center. And we'd go to Louise's house and then I spent a week with seven Costa Rican guys all around my age. They set up a little mattress in the corner of the living room for me and they cooked to me vegetarian meals every night. And they never hit on me. They were very respectful. They treated me like I was just a buddy. And they drove me around. And they showed me everything that from their perspective of the area. One of them of course, I started a little romance with who lived in my pipes. And so when the other guys left, I ended up staying. And I stayed in my use for probably three or four months. I got a job working at a little bar that was a dive, complete. That's how I learned how to make refried beans. And in Peppa conus and I was also I didn't say this, but I was a scuba diver. I started scuba diving with my father in my late teens because he was an avid scuba diver. And we always were looking for trips to do just the two of us. So every year we would try and go meet wherever we could in the world and do a trip together. And I was like 19 years old, they were always dive trips. And so we would travel wherever we could in the world and meet up and do a dive trip together. And so I had taken this, gotten this love of travel and was trying to figure out a way to support myself while I was traveling. So I figured I should become a dive master or dive instructor. And that way I can travel and make money.
Malcolm Hill [34:14]:
Was there an option to do it there to get the qualification?
Bari Lehrman [34:18]:
Miraculously, there was a little teeny dive shop. And I was able to do my advanced and my rescue courses there and it was miserable. It was you know, my pace and Santa Teresa as you said is a huge tourist destination but for surfers. And it's a destination for surfers because it's got big waves, big waves. So when you're trying to get a little teeny boat out into the ocean, down there to scuba diving, it's just not pretty. I mean, that was the only time I ever actually got seasick while diving and vomited through my brain. Like I had to just deal with it. So my buddies had a very teeny tiny little fishing population and there was like another little beach where you had a couple of teeny little finders that would get out. And they had a system of like rolling boats down on logs into the serve, because there's no Marina, there's no place to leave your boat, and they would battle out through the break. And then I was ready for a break. And so at that point, I went back to New York. So I went back to New York, and I worked and I saved up a little bit of money, and then decided to go to Honduras. My boyfriend met me there and we rented a little house. And we probably spent like, four months naming there, and I became a dive master. And I worked and he worked. And we were just living there for a while. And then.
Malcolm Hill [35:40]:
So you are in a full nomadic stage of life, you would just move in two, three months here, two or three months there.
Bari Lehrman [35:48]:
Yeah, and when I needed money, I would come back to New York and work. I had a job that enabled me to kind of come and go. And so if I needed a couple thousand dollars, I'd go back to New York for six weeks and then able to leave again.
Malcolm Hill [36:00]:
That's how we set up, alright.
Bari Lehrman [36:03]:
Yeah.
Malcolm Hill [36:06]:
So how long did this kind of going from place to place a last for? How many more years of that did you do?
Bari Lehrman [36:15]:
Well, I after Honduras, you know, I was at this point like 24, right? And I was with this guy, and, and so it was kind of like a moment of truth as a woman who, you know, eventually wants to get married and have a family and do all these things, you know, where I said, Okay, I'm in this relationship. And we had a lot of cultural differences that we got along great, live together, great. We traveled together great, but there were some things that I just didn't know, you know, in the long term, how feasible it would be. And so I said, you know, what, I think we need to go live in my country for a little bit together and see if the dynamic changes. And so we just kind of went like this on the map. And we picked Asheville, North Carolina, which is an amazing, amazing town. Fantastic.
Malcolm Hill [37:05]:
Why did you choose Asheville, North Carolina?
Bari Lehrman [37:09]:
Because I loved Vermont, so much. And I wanted a place that was Vermont-esque, but that wasn't so cold with such long winters. And Herman, his name was Herman, he had some friends who lived in Asheville that he loved. And it is known to be a center for like arts and music and natural beauty.
Malcolm Hill [37:32]:
Could you work from there?
Bari Lehrman [37:35]:
Well, I mean, so we went, and we just got odd jobs, you know, kind of minimum wage odd jobs. You got a place to live and we had a wonderful community. We made some amazing friends that still are some of my closest friends. And we were there for a little under two years, I would say, and he would come and go, because he was a tourist in the US. You know, after about a year, I remember thinking, all right, you know, I'm ready for change. I'm ready to be done with this relationship. I'm ready, you know, and I started to get the itch again. Just it was kind of like, whenever I was in the US, I just felt like I needed to go. So I would be there for a little while. And then I would just be like, I need to get out of here. This isn't where I'm supposed to be. Wasn't that I was longing to leave it was just that I like didn't feel comfortable in my skin When I was in the US. It was just this like, like, this isn't where I belong. This isn't where I belong.
Malcolm Hill [38:32]:
So you left Asheville.
Bari Lehrman [38:36]:
Well, so he left first, because of his reason, I kind of packed up and put everything in storage and submitted my apartment and then when I got to Costa Rica, and he was waiting for me at the airport, I broke up with him. And then I got on a bus.
Malcolm Hill [38:58]:
Hold on, say that again. So he was at the airport here waiting for you to come.
Bari Lehrman [39:03]:
Yeah.
Malcolm Hill [39:04]:
When you arrived and you laid it all out?
Bari Lehrman [39:06]:
Well, I waited for a couple of hours. Yes. Yes. And, I needed to get on a bus and just go somewhere where I felt safe, and I felt supported. And when I was in Honduras, I had randomly on the street met a woman who lived in Costa Rica, who lived in here and Playa Del Coco, I mean, her name is Lily, you know, and I sent and I just remembered Lily lives in Playa Del Coco. I'm sure she'll take me in. And so I just got on the bus and I came to Coco. And I came here and she was so happy to see me and she said I'll help you find a place to stay. She was also a dive master working at a dive shop. She said, you can come to where I work, you can dive every day which I did. And back then there were still no cell phones. So I remember you know, walking down to the park which is different from how it is now and waiting in line for the public payphone. There were six, only two of them were so you would have to wait for like an hour. You know, and I would call my mom, say mom, I'm okay, this is where I am, you know, or going to the internet cafe and to send one email, take 45 minutes, you know, and I didn't have a bytecode and record and have a Coco's much smaller back then.
Malcolm Hill [40:21]:
Whereabouts in Coco were you then? Like which part? You're at Lily's place, I guess?
Bari Lehrman [40:25]:
No, I wasn't at Lily’s. I was renting a room in a house behind the soccer fields by the church.
Malcolm Hill [40:33]:
Okay, super central line right by the beach, right close to the Central Park and was Las Palmas. It was probably already built.
Bari Lehrman [40:41]:
No, no, there was nothing. That road wasn't even paved. No. This one, the road to Oakland path had just been paved, like a month earlier.
Malcolm Hill [40:51]:
So you get here to Coco, Lily helps you to settle in? Did you then get a job working as a diver shop? Like what was the next step?
Bari Lehrman [41:01]:
The next step was kind of mending my heart. And then catching a bus and going back to Honduras. And getting and spending the next four months in Honduras and becoming a dive instructor. I was there and my time up there ended because I was meeting my father to do one of our annual dive trips. And this year, we were going to Cocos Island, which is a small island in Costa Rican territory. It's about 300 miles off the coast. It's just an isolated, beautiful island covered in and green rain forest. Just the park rangers live there. Nobody else. You have to stand a boat, it's in protected waters. And it's so you go on a boat and you stand the boat the whole time. And then you come back. And it takes a day and a half to get there and day and a half to get back. And it's pretty intense. And conditions are hard. And you know, thousands of sharks everywhere. This particular trip, we were also going down to Malpelo Island in Colombia. So the Galapagos and Malpelo in Cocos form like a golden triangle of ocean currents. So I had to leave and take a bus back to Costa Rica. And it's pretty shady, and I get back and I get to me, Barry, and I get on the Coco bus to Coco. And I got robbed on the bus, like, right when I'm like, I'm home. And I have all of my money, right? And I let my guard down. You know, I was exhausted. And I let my guard down. And after being two days on the bus, or three days. Anyway, so I got to Costa Rica and then I and, you know, I had been to Playa Del Coco many times, and I always just liked it, actually. I always thought that the beaches compared to all the other beaches in Costa Rica, it was one of the ugliest beaches and I didn't like have no charm. And so I would always say I don't ever want to live in Coco. But at the same time, it was the only place where you have like an industry for land based diving. I had explored Drake bay for diving is that a condo which was beautiful, but that's that was a peninsula. So like what you said the humidity I had like funguses in my ears and my toes and in all my clothes. And it's like you could never escape it. And it was just too intense. And so I kept coming back here because of the diving. And then so when I met my dad, and we met down and put that in as to get on the boat to go to Cocos Island. On the boat. I met my husband, who was a dive instructor. He had been working on the boat for about two years at that point. Miguel is from Spain. And I'm a diver and he had been living in Costa Rica for four years at this. He had lived in cocoa, he lived in temple or he lived in Coco previously and then he was two years on the boat. This was 2003.
Malcolm Hill [44:01]:
Tell me about that first time meeting Miguel.
Bari Lehrman [44:06]:
Well, we had a lot of friends in common, just from kind of the dive circuit. So I knew Lily and Diego and Cecilio and all of these people that I had known and met so right off the bat we had an affinity just because we had a lot of friends in common. It was just very seamless. We just started talking and kind of never stopped and it was a very chaste environment because you know you're on a boat with all of these other people. There was about 21 or 22 guests and a huge staff like 15 or 16 staff and not a lot of places where you can be at privacy. And so we would just sit up on the bow of the boat every night and drink tea and you're out in the ocean under the stars and these amazing wild places you know where nobody else goes and in the daytime having these perfect for romance, perfect.
Malcolm Hill [44:57]:
You met Miguel there you in his professional capacity as a dive master, more or less running his trip, then you've got your dad there as well, who can probably perceive.
Bari Lehrman [45:09]:
The love first.
Malcolm Hill [45:11]:
Because how many days were you on the boat?
Bari Lehrman [45:14]:
15 days. You know, at that point, I was really in love. He was certainly in love, too, although he'll be sorry to admit it.
Malcolm Hill [45:20]:
So you do this trip to the islands. And you both fall in love at the end of it. You get back to Monterenas.
Bari Lehrman [45:29]:
I was at a crossroads, I had to figure out what am I doing with my life?
Malcolm Hill [45:34]:
Thrown into that is this new?
Bari Lehrman [45:36]:
Right. And I was 26. Right. So Miguel had a day off. So he came to San Jose with us and he took us up to see paws volcano. And he, you know, he charmed my father with top of world history, and Opera and wine and all of these things.
Malcolm Hill [45:53]:
For those listening at some point, we will have Miguel on the show to tell us because he's an extraordinary man, who, every time I spend time with him, I realize how uncultured I really am. And how Spanish men are just wonderful. They know a lot of things about things Australian men have no idea about.
Bari Lehrman [46:17]:
And then I was leaving to go to New York and Miguel was getting back on the boat. So he would work 12 to 15 days on and then he would have a day and a half off. So we got that to end. When I left Miguel, he had said, come back, come back in a month. And I have three weeks off, my family's coming from Spain come back. And we can spend time together and see if this is something that we should pursue. And I was wildly independent at that moment. And I was thinking I don't have enough, I can't afford it. I just have all my money stolen. I can't come back. And I can't afford it. He said I'll send you a plane ticket. I said no, I won't accept a plane ticket. I don't want a man to buy my plane ticket. And we left and we got to New York. And I remember going to my parents’ house. I haven't been there in a very long time and walking in and sitting down with my mom and her saying, you know, tell me about your trip. And like the first thing out of my mouth was just like, I just met my husband. You know, like, no. You know, I think like a cautious nod. You know, I think for them as my parents, it seemed my unconventional lifestyle. I think that they were always just worried, they just didn't want me to be alone. They wanted to know that wherever I was, I would be with someone who could take care of me if I needed it. They just want to see me accompanied. And I maybe hadn't always made really smart choices in the past. And so the fact that my father loved this man also it was like a huge bonus. She didn't want me to leave the country. She wanted me to stay and I said I want to pursue diving and she said can you do it from here. So I promised her I would go check out the Florida Keys, which I did. I flew down to Florida. I checked out the keys, I came back my vibe, I had to go to North Carolina had to pack up and sell everything that I owned. I gave my car to charity. And then, I didn't speak to Miguel for two weeks because he was on the boat and there were no cell phones, there was nothing. So it was almost like a dream. You know, like it never happened. And when he got off that last trip, he said can I please send you the plane tickets and I said, please send me the plane tickets. And so he got me the plane tickets and two weeks again, he got back on the boat, another two weeks of no communication. And then I flew down to Costa Rica. I was so nervous. And he picked me up at the airport in San Jose. And we had like one night together, you know, and then his whole family flew in from Spain the next morning.
Malcolm Hill [48:50]:
Wow after one night together and would it would have been like the first night not on the boat. Right?
Bari Lehrman [48:55]:
Yeah.
Malcolm Hill [48:56]:
Because the rest of your love affair being on the boat. Wow.
Bari Lehrman [49:00]:
So we were like heavily chaperoned the whole time. Like always.
Malcolm Hill [49:05]:
That's so rough. The first basically month you spent together you had parents around.
Bari Lehrman [49:09]:
All the time. Yeah. But when I moved back down, he wanted to show his family the best of Costa Rica. So we went to Tahoe gone in the hot springs and right now we rented a house on the beach, you know with a little private pool. And so it was very much like mine. So by the time that week was over, and I had to fly back to New York and finish closing up my life, I was very clear that I was just going to move back down to Costa Rica. So I went back to New York and that's when I gave my car to charity. I finished putting all whatever I had left in storage. And with my savings I think I had $750 in my savings account and I bought a plane ticket and I flew down two weeks later. It coincided with his day off. So I met him in Puntarenas. We went for a drive up the coast to check out different dive shops like in Flamingo and Coco and Pliemosa. He introduced me to a couple people, and he installed me in the guest room of his best friend's house, Diego. And then he left for two weeks, and I pretty much had to figure it out at that point. And that was the whole next year, he stayed on the boat for a year.
Malcolm Hill [50:27]:
However, by that point, you'd kind of decided, like, I'm gonna be in Costa Rica, like my life. Like, moving forward with like, a career in the US was out of the question. It was like, this is where you were gonna be.
Bari Lehrman [50:40]:
I think in the beginning, we were doing like increments of two years, two year plans. So like, I'm gonna stay here for two years. And then two years, I'll see what I do for the next two years. And so he was on the boat for a year. So we would only see each other for one and a half days, every 15 days. So it was…
Malcolm Hill [51:02]:
That would have been awfully tough.
Bari Lehrman [51:04]:
Very tough. There were not a lot of women, foreign women back then who I related to. And now I have some Costa Rican women who are very dear friends of mine. But back then, it was different. The town was much smaller. I just didn't have things in common with a lot of the women and I had come from a community of really awesome strong women. So I felt very alone. And Lily at that point, she had got married and she was pregnant and having a baby. So she was kind of in her own. Since I was really lonely, I cried every day, I had no cell phone, and I had no car. I was, you know, I was lonely. It was lonely. And you know, there was no internet. So it was just a very different time. But I got a job as a dive instructor so I was working. And that was also a huge learning curve, because I had to earn respect as a woman as the one woman in a group of 11 local men. Well, it wasn't just the dive instructors, it was the captains and it was the fishermen. And the mates are just like the, the crew, the guys, and they would torture me, they would make me cry. Some of them would make me cry on a regular basis, and make me feel horrible. And there were moments where I was like, why? Why am I even? Yeah, but then I was like, because I want to marry Miguel and live happily ever after you know.
Malcolm Hill [52:3]:
Miguel. So Miguel finished that job. And then what was the next chapter here in Coco?
Bari Lehrman [52:36]:
Well, he finished a job. And in retrospect, it was amazing, because I had to create my own life independently of him. So, he wasn't my crutch.
Malcolm Hill [52:47]:
He was no you relying on like what he done to feel as though you had your own sort of life here?
Bari Lehrman [52:55]:
I had to make my own friends I had to, you know, make my own money. I had to do all that. And so when he got off the boat, he came to Coco and he had these ideas of buying a van and doing tourism, right? Because back then like nobody was really doing very much of it. And I left for about a week to go visit my family. And in that week that I left, he had met up with one of his old clients from Cocos Island, a friend.
Malcolm Hill [53:25]:
A dive client?
Bari Lehrman [53:28]:
Dive client. And they had a couple drinks. And the next thing I knew they bought a boat together and decided to start a dive operation. This was while I was away. For people I think so many people have this like fantastical version of what they think it is myself included at certain points and then reality slaps him in the face.
Malcolm Hill [53:49]:
What would you say that most people get wrong about like you're moving here when you're in your mid-20s? And you came back and forth quite a few times. You met and understood the culture probably more than others moving here and making that decision. But what would you say that most or many foreigners get wrong about Costa Rica Before moving on? What's wrong about their perception?
Bari Lehrman [54:15]:
I think they expect it to be like how it is where they're leaving from. I think that one of the big advantages of moving here in my early 20s was that basically I spent my whole adult life here. So I haven't been indoctrinated to any kind of system of living I guess doing business and except for what I've learned here.
Malcolm Hill [54:43]:
Like in what ways do you think that's made you a different businesswoman here in Costa Rica compared to what you would have had, if you have stayed in the States?
Bari Lehrman [54:53]:
I don't think that we would have had even half of the opportunities available to us in the States or in Spain that we had here. So when we started our charter boat business and all of the other things that we've done, we used to use the saying all the time, in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. So Miguel, and I consider ourselves to be one eyed. So in short, in Madrid, we didn't fit in, we didn't have what it takes in that kind of high competitive, highly organized market and society to make it work like both of us, you know. So up there, we're the one eyed man. So everybody else felt stronger and faster and more capable. And here, at least when we came in the early 2000s, it was like, there were still a lot of blindness, you know? Like, when we started our business, our charter boat business, the one thing that made us stand out above everybody else was that we showed up on time. That was it. And we responded to emails and phone calls. That was all it took, and everyone else has caught on, you know what I mean? Like I don't think we could have created what we have now. We were able to create it because there was like a vacuum. There was nobody else doing.
Malcolm Hill [56:15]:
I moved here, I think almost the same age, I was 26. And when you talk about opportunities, for me, one of the things I love about this country most is I see many more opportunities here for someone like myself, and a couple like my wife and I, than I see back in Australia, even now.
Bari Lehrman [56:35]:
I think the whole country has a small town feel to it. So you know, it's like, you have this small town where everybody knows everyone, so your reputation carries very far, but the whole country like that. So even if you jump to another town or another time or another town, you're always going to find someone who knows someone that you know, that can pass on a recommendation. So I feel like, you know, if you build a good reputation in Costa Rica that will carry you very far in Costa Rica. Something else that's absolutely crucial to success is learning Spanish.
Malcolm Hill [57:12]:
Why would you say that's critical?
Bari Lehrman [57:15]:
Because it's the country's language. Because you're always going to come up against people who don't speak English. And it's kind of egocentric to not at least make the constant effort. I think that you will be way more respected by so many people, if you speak their language. And I also think you'll understand what's going on around you. I mean, there's so much that's going on that if you like really want to be a really productive part of the community that you have the language. So it's hard, it's really hard learning Spanish.
Malcolm Hill [57:51]:
With your language journey, I've specifically heard even Costa Rican friends mutual friends of ours, comment to me about not only how perfect your Spanish is, but also how quite often you use vocabulary that people didn't even know existed in the Spanish language.
Bari Lehrman [58:10]:
If you have the opportunity, I think some of like, the key ways to learn another language is the high school base, the immersion was crucial. And then kind of like a self-immersion, you know. I went off on my journey where I wasn't surrounded by other tourists. So like, if you're going to go to Tamarindo, and learn Spanish, you're not gonna learn Spanish, you know? You have to go to a place where you're forced to speak it. And if you have the opportunity get yourself a boyfriend or a girlfriend who only speaks that language, it's like the perfect way. Or a nanny, or just somebody that you're sharing a lot of time and space with, you know.
Malcolm Hill [58:48]:
Somebody you have to converse with on a day to day basis.
Bari Lehrman [58:51]:
Yes.
Malcolm Hill [58:51]:
In Spanish and only in Spanish, because then you're forced to have to use it.
Bari Lehrman [58:57]:
Yeah, and you know what it's a really lonely journey. I remember many, many times, like being at a party, or sitting at a table and everybody's talking and I'm desperately trying to understand what they're saying. And as soon as I think I got it, and I want to pitch in with some kind of comment, it’s already changed because the time it takes for me to think and to put the words together. And so it was a couple years of you could either speak or you could listen but you couldn't do both. So you had to choose.
Malcolm Hill [59:23]:
Like, I can totally relate to.
Bari Lehrman [59:28]:
So it's lonely, you know, it's lonely, and you're not who you are. Like, if you're used to speaking all the time and being really interactive, you can't when you're learning and so you feel like part of your personality is repressed. You know, it's hard, but it's so worth it. It is so worth it. You know.
Malcolm Hill [59:43]:
I remember when I was first learning, and I went through much of that time stuff you said like not knowing what was being talked about and missing out on people's laughter and just feeling super kind of out of the picture of the conversation. And one thing I remember that I always used to think, which was totally silly, but I always used to think they probably talking about me. And then I ended up learning the language well enough. And I just realized, no, they're just talking about normal people stuff like every other normal person, like.
Bari Lehrman [1:00:16]:
Flip it around and you think of any person who doesn't speak English very well, when they try to speak to you in English. Nobody's saying, oh, that video or, or, you know.
Malcolm Hill [1:00:26]:
They saying how great, you know that I can talk to this guy.
Bari Lehrman [1:00:30]:
But I think that to actually like really become a part of the community and find that other level of success is speaking the language, I think that's crucial and it's ongoing.
Malcolm Hill [1:00:45]:
Yeah, and then it's not you've learned it and tick that box.
Bari Lehrman [1:00:48]:
And then, something that you and I have also talked about that I think, at least was crucial for us was doing many different things. Because we started the business, but we didn't even take a salary for the first year. And then even the first four years, we didn't really make enough money to live. And so it was like, how many other things can you do?
Malcolm Hill [1:01:07]:
Why has that been crucial to have a mixture of kind of tasks that bring you income?
Bari Lehrman [1:01:14]:
Because we never would make enough money and just one thing. So like, the first the early years with Marco, you know we had partners, investors, and so you know we didn't have the money to put in that they had. So the first whole year was just sweat equity. So it was, you know, working with no income, so we still had to make money to live. And then when we had our first child, you know, you need money. And so…
Malcolm Hill [1:01:42]:
And you realized that very quickly after you have your first child.
Bari Lehrman [1:01:45]:
You know, so you start to kind of take stock of what am I good at? What do I do? What can I offer to the people around me? And it was very basic things at least back then. And also, because there was so few people here and there was such a lack of services, it was so much easier to find niches where something like…
Malcolm Hill [1:02:04]:
Like people lend you money to do to do something.
Bari Lehrman [1:02:06]:
Yeah. Like I taught yoga classes. I was never a trained yoga instructor. But I've been doing it for so long. And I could teach a great yoga class. And so I was a yoga teacher. And then…
Malcolm Hill [1:02:18]:
And then for a period of time, am I correct in thinking that you and Miguel worked as chefs? High end chefs for VIP?
Bari Lehrman [1:02:26]:
Yeah, yeah, Miguel was fabulous. He's a fabulous cook. And so people started calling us and we would go and cook them dinner. I'm a great baker, I started making wedding cakes for destination weddings. Miguel was a videographer. So he would go and take videos, we were just kind of whatever. Because there was again, because there were so few people here back then. And there was the need for all these services. So we were able to draw on our strengths and offer them. And that way, if one thing was kind of slow, we could bolster it with something else kind of thing.
Malcolm Hill [1:03:01]:
So the kids, if we can talk about the kids for a little. I think I met Lexi and Luca, maybe three, two or three years ago when I met you guys, you and Miguel for the first time. And I was immediately blown away by kind of their confidence in being able to converse with an adult. I was maybe 28 then, and just the fact that I was speaking Spanish and English totally fluently. English with like an American accent Spanish, like a local person here in Costa Rica. And just super polite, super confident. And I thought what amazing kids. I mean, I would love to hear a bit about bringing up kids in this country, what do you think they're exposed to that is unique?
Bari Lehrman [1:03:49]:
You know, growing up here with little kids, there is a certain freedom that they have. You know, it's a small town, it's rural. So from the moment they could move around, they were just outside all the time naked or in their undies you know, or in their rain boots. And always surrounded by chickens and dogs and playing with a dirt and just getting messy and…
Malcolm Hill [1:04:15]:
And because it's always warm, they could be outside like every day.
Bari Lehrman [1:04:19]:
Every day. Lots of times outside, sort of on the back of the bicycle go to the beach, very little time in the car, which actually later in life turned out to be almost like a problem because they don't like to be in the car. If it's a half an hour, that's a lot of time in the car.
Malcolm Hill [1:04:35]:
So they still struggle with long drives.
Bari Lehrman [1:04:38]:
They don't like them. You know now if we take turns putting on music and everybody has to say that, you know we can make it work. But they're home, it's not just this house. It's like the whole town. So there's like a level of comfort in the whole town and we live in a neighborhood where we know all of our neighbors and everyone in the supermarket knows us. And so even when they were little they can raise stepping down supermarket aisles and somebody hadn't hired him, you know, and. So there's like a certain amount of freedom and like lawlessness, I guess.
Malcolm Hill [1:05:01]:
Would you say that that still kind of exists with the whole town kind of looking out for each other?
Bari Lehrman [1:05:18]:
Definitely. Yeah. You know, we think about and, you know, this is controversial, so I might kick myself or even bring it up. But even just like bike helmets, bicycle helmets, you know, when I grew up, we would tear around the neighborhood with our bikes. Helmets didn't even exist. And the kids here still do it. They jump on the bike, they run, they ride three people on one bike, they're all over the place, they’re climbing trees, and they’re doing this. But when we go to New York, if my kids get on a bike with no helmet, they're out. You know, and so it's like here, there's like little things like that. Like barefoot for example, Luca is used to being barefoot all the time. The soles of his feet are like leather. He plays soccer barefoot, he does everything barefoot. And when we go to…
Malcolm Hill [1:06:04]:
And he’s used to it so it's not weird.
Bari Lehrman [1:06:06]:
It's not weird. When we go to New York in the summer, my mother is always Luca put your shoes on, you know. And he'll go outside on a beautifully manicured lawn and paved road barefoot, and she's worried about his feet. And I'm looking around here at the terrain and thinking his feet are just fine. And he always tells a story about he went to summer camp a couple years ago, and they were playing kickball. And he always played barefoot, and he would kick the ball and he would get home runs all the time. And the other kids decided that they were going to take off their shoes too, because they wanted to get homeruns like Luca. You know, so they wouldn't know. And then they would like, jam their toes. So the whole barefoot thing was like a huge thing. So it's just like little things like that. I feel like there's like little freedoms, and something that I realized about myself a long time ago when I wanted to move here was that like, one of the things that pushed me out of the US I think was this repulsion of like the mundane. Like, I didn't want to become a person who just like their day, every day, it's this and this and this, and, you know, and every day is that Groundhog's Day. I always wanted to feel like there's a little adventure in every day. And I can get back here. Even though some days I say okay, we gotta get the kids lunches packed, get them to school, do the laundry, you know, you still have these very mundane moments. But you know, there's a tarantula in the bed that you have to, you know. Or like that you can't get to school and there's all these cows in the road.
Malcolm Hill [1:07:46]:
Or, it's raining so much that everywhere is muddy or, like there's a million things that happen here every day that get in your way that delay you. But they're just there's so much part of it that it's my field feel.
Bari Lehrman [1:08:02]:
It's a perspective. It's like it's either a pain or it's an adventure.
Malcolm Hill [1:08:06]:
And I've gone to the bank is usually a one to two hour event for me.
Bari Lehrman [1:08:13]:
Yeah. And until you get to know the person who works at the bank, and you get on good terms with them. And you send them the message and they just have a document ready and you just go. Yeah, which is? Yeah. Which is a small town thing. Right.
Malcolm Hill [1:08:23]:
So education wise for the kids, would you say that you've been able to provide them the education that you wanted to?
Bari Lehrman [1:08:33]:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we Costa Rican public education is not what we are looking for. For us, for the kind of world citizens that we want our children to be to have triple nationality. Like, literally the world is…
Malcolm Hill [1:08:56]:
They’ve got Spanish nationality, they've got Costa Rican nationality and they have American nationality. You miss national? Wow. It's amazing.
Bari Lehrman [1:09:05]:
It's amazing. They get like fan out their passports so.
Malcolm Hill [1:09:08]:
I’d like to see a list of how many countries they can legally live in what country.
Bari Lehrman [1:09:14]:
Well, you know and truthfully and even now with pandemic times and when we play with all of the possible future scenarios, like if, if things like get bad East versus West war with China, blah, blah, blah, the thought that they can come and just be in Costa Rica, which feels like such a safe haven so.
Malcolm Hill [1:09:35]:
If you didn't know and you're listening Costa Rica hasn't had an army since 1948.
Bari Lehrman [1:09:41]:
Yeah. Around there and it's completely self-sustaining food wise, you know. I mean, we still need.
Malcolm Hill [1:09:48]:
And electricity wise.
Bari Lehrman [1:09:50]:
Anyway, so the Costa Rican public education, which is the best in Central America, but we want something different. For Primary School we send the kids to a local private school with, I would say 80% 85%, Costa Rican local kids, but fabulous. And the education has been really community centered, which I love.
Malcolm Hill [1:10:17]:
Yeah.
Bari Lehrman [1:10:18]:
And very culturally proud. So my kids were raised as Guanacaste, and they're proud to be Guanacaste. They're proud to be ticos. And they revel in that. And I think that's something that maybe like, at least in the US at the youth, patriotism somehow has turned into something negative. And I'm not talking about blind fanatical patriotism. I'm just talking about the concept in general. And I think that that's bad for children to not be raised to be proud of their country and proud of all of its accomplishments and understanding that it's not a perfect place in it by any means. But...
Malcolm Hill [1:10:57]:
It’s having pride in that.
Bari Lehrman [1:11:00]:
Right. And so they have that here and the school that they have been going to there's some basic core Christian values I think also that kids learn to hear which you lose in other countries, like in the States. And we see it with tourism, we see it with families that come, we see it with friends that come with their kids. We see a very marked difference between the way our kids behave and kids from other places.
Malcolm Hill [1:11:30]:
I see and I'm a 30 year old with a toddler, you know. And I see your 11 and 13 year old and every time I come to your house, they say hi to me, and they give me eye contact.
Bari Lehrman [1:11:43]:
They used to shake your hand. And they don't do that anymore.
Malcolm Hill [1:11:47]:
They used to shake my hand but they don't anymore. But like they are so well rounded from like, and hey, you know, they're 11 and 13. And they've got some interesting years coming up. But they're so well rounded emotionally compared to many other kids I've met of that age, that a [Inaudible 1:12:06] Miguel really.
Bari Lehrman [1:12:09]:
Well, I don't know if it's emotional well roundedness, it’s just well mannered. Like, Costa Rica is a country and if you take a step back in time, let's say even just 10 years in Costa Rica, or even now if you go into a town or you're in Dunkin Cartago or any place where you still where it’s not super touristy, if a Costa Rican man walks into a coffee shop, people go and he will shake the hands of every single person at every table and say good morning. And, it's like the small town feel in the country, right? So that's something that we always saw and loved. Just Costa Rican children are taught to respect their elders always, say hello, shake hands, eye contact, help, if you see somebody emptying the car, help with the bags, offer to help. You know, just well mannered
Malcolm Hill [1:13:03]:
One of the things I like about the culture here is it almost keeps you in check as a person. Because people very rarely slip up on politeness.
Bari Lehrman [1:13:16]:
Yeah, sometimes there's an element of superficiality to the niceness that it can be frustrating. But as far as if we're talking about manners, I feel like the youth here are so much better mannered than in other places, and we love that. And we've definitely taken advantage of that. And they learn it in school a lot also. Children are taught how to respect people around them, respect the adults, and respect traditions.
Malcolm Hill [1:13:45]:
And respect Gianna from what I've seen.
Bari Lehrman [1:13:49]:
Yeah, I mean, kids will be kids. But, the other thing that I think coming from where I come from, and living where I live, and having chosen this is that the kids here, my kids have a much wider perspective about life in general, because they're not isolated in their own little socio economic class group that's created when you live, you know, in suburbia in New York, or.
Malcolm Hill [1:14:19]:
Yeah, and give the listeners an example of like the house you guys live in, that you've lived in for the last 20 years. It's in one of the areas of this town which is mostly full of local people who have lived in the area for generations and generations and generations, and it's on a dirt road. And there's like a river running through it. But every single day your children see such a wide range of standards of living.
Bari Lehrman [1:14:47]:
Yeah. They’re unfazed by any of it, they're unfazed.
Malcolm Hill [1:14:50]:
Unfazed, yeah. They see the private residences here in the areas that have gated, you know, gated areas with security and then they've got friends who live in there. And then I've got friends who live, I'm sure in the houses just nearby you guys which are barely a concrete slab with some wooden chickens running around and feral dogs and to them, it's all the same. And it's beautiful to say.
Bari Lehrman [1:15:14]:
Yeah. So they have a lot more perspective and tolerance, I think with that. And also, kind of like a sense of social responsibility. So like every time they get new clothes, or they get new toys, we say, right, let's get rid of some other stuff. And it's always like, who can we give this to? Where does this go? It's never let’s throw it in the trash. It's like, who needs this? And how do we pass it on? And that's been ingrained in them forever. And there's no shame in any of it or anything. It's just like a sense of community responsibility. Well, manners. And you know, we always say when, because people do comment on when we go to the states at night, like we put the kids in camp, the counselors think, Wow, your kids are so well mannered. And they're so this. And we always say that it's three volts. So a third of it is what Miguel and I have taught them. A third of it is just who they are, their nature. And a third of it is the culture that surrounds them, and where they were raised, where they're brought up, because, you know, it takes a village to raise a family. Now we're at a point where our kids are just about teenagers. And we have hopes for them. We always say if they want to live the rest of their life here, that's fine. But they have to leave at some point and venture out to the world. That's obligation. So whether it's for university, or before, after more, whatever, that's fine, if they want to come back later, fine, but they have to go. So we need to prepare them for that. So that has been a little bit of a challenge, just because we've had to make decisions and say, okay, you know, where can we get them the education that they need, if we want to send them to a US University, you know? And it's almost like, the chapters of life like, like the childhood now is over another passing on to the next stage. So, the beautiful small village with the amazing school where they have their organic garden that they learn how to work in and they can ride their bikes to school, and the teachers have known them since they were little kids like that, that's all come to an end, which is sad to us all, but beautiful. And so now they have to travel a little further. We have to find something that's going to offer a little bit more. But it's also I would say the one negative thing. And I don't necessarily think it's negative. But I think a limiting factor to raising them here has been that it's a bubble. So you know, I think it's wonderful for like early years, but then you really have to get them out of the bubble so that they can go. If you want them to be world citizens so that they can go out into the world and function well. So just to finish that, like we try to send them away little by little like since they were younger, maybe three days in New York without us then a week, then 12 days, then space camp, then, you know, and try to just kind of push these little moments of independence on them in the wider world so that they get a sense of it.
Malcolm Hill [1:18:13]:
Well Bari, I want to say that I wish I can keep talking to you about these things for much, much longer. But it's been an amazing chat today, especially hearing from you know, you came here a lot of times before you ended up here, I guess. So it's different for everyone in regards to whether they just like move here out of the blue or whether they come and check it out a few times. It's really nice to hear the part about your story in OSA and about how challenging all of that was and then the bouncing around the long distance from Miguel. And I know we didn't even get too much into your kind of actual life over the last 15 years. How long has it been now?
Bari Lehrman [1:18:57]:
17 years.
Malcolm Hill [1:18:58]:
17 years, you're both at Coco. So I just want to say thank you so much. You're actually the first person I am doing this podcast with and whenever anybody asks me in the future, who was the first person you spoke to? It's going to be you Bari.
Bari Lehrman [1:19:14]:
It's my honor.
Malcolm Hill [1:19:16]:
It's very, very cool. So we're gonna have more information about Bari and about certain things from her story on the notes page for this episode on our website. And yeah, just want to say thanks for listening. It's been an amazing chat Bari.
Bari Lehrman [1:19:32]:
Awesome. Thank you, Malcolm.
Anisa Hill [1:19:41]:
Here's a sneak peek of the next episode. Born in Kenya and raised on the beaches of Cornwall in the UK, 29 year old Tommy made his way to Costa Rica four years ago to work as a surf coach for the prestigious surf simply.
Tommy Potterton [1:19:55]:
But it was exhausting and by the time winter comes in London especially, you don't see the sun because you know you're on the tube, you get on the tube in the dark, you get out, you have a little walk to work as the sun's rising, and you're in your office all day. And when you leave that stuff, and it broke me. I mean, I gave it me a really good go. And the money was great, and you kind of get this feeling of all the people around you are just like determined to succeed and they're so driven and that part of it was great, but I just felt like I wasn't living a healthy or an enjoyable life.
Anisa Hill [1:20:32]:
If you enjoyed this conversation, please rate, review, and share it with your friends on social media. For a full list of show notes, episodes to your inbox, information on becoming a guest on the show, and how to support the show on Patreon, head to triple W dot move to Costa Rica podcast.com. Remember, new episodes are released every Thursday by 6am Costa Rica time. Thanks so much for joining us. Until next time, Pura Vida.
