Pláticas nocturnas

In Pláticas nocturnas (‘evening chats’) I will be writing about my life as a North American who immigrated to Costa Rica 45 years ago, long before coming here was cool. I worked as a translator in a small publishing house while studying at the University of Costa Rica, and after graduating, returned to the United States for a Ph.D. in linguistics. I then came back to this southern-most country of Central America, where I've been teaching linguistics at my alma mater --the University of Costa Rica-- for 34 years.

For nearly 20 of those years, I was also a translation consultant for the United Bible Societies, working side by side with Native American translators in Central and South America. In many cases we became close friends, and the experiences I had with them immeasurably enriched my life and helped to give it perspective.

For years, friends and family have urged me write about those experiences, convinced that they were worth sharing with others. Until now, what I have put to pen has been limited to personal correspondence. However, it occurs to me that an appropriate medium for such reflections may well be a blog or bitácora --as they are often called in Spanish-- after a ship captain's log.

Having been born and reared in Colorado, I am a native speaker of English. Having come to Latin America at 20 years of age (first to Mexico and then to Costa Rica), I am an English speaker who has heard and uttered many more words in his adopted language of Spanish than in English. It seems fitting, therefore, that this blog (or bitácora) reflect in some way the bilingual nature of my existence. I am uncertain at this point how that will be realized. I am only certain that it will be.