People-to-people relations precede Costa Rica-UAE ties
CENTRAL AMERICAN NATION CHERISHES UAE’S SUPPORT DURING HURRICANE OF 2017
The UAE and Central American nation Costa Rica established diplomatic relations in 2010 but people-to-people relations started several decades ago, a diplomat has said.
A Costa Rican resident who has stayed the longest in the UAE has been living in Sharjah for almost 40 years now. She married an Emirati and embraced Islam. She is happily living here with her daughters and will soon have granddaughters, a top Costa Rican diplomat told Gulf News in an interview.
Around 121 Costa Ricans are living in the UAE; 55 per cent of them are in Dubai, and the rest of them are in other emirates, said Francisco Chacon Hernandez, the Ambassador of Costa Rica. “They are very happy. No one has come up with any problem or complaint,” he said.
Costa Ricans are working in various sectors such as aviation, IT, pharmaceuticals, education and fitness.
He said Costa Ricans are trying to spread the message of happiness, an underlying value of their culture. “When we meet, we greet ‘Pura Vida’ [like ‘hello’], in Costa Rica, which literally means ‘pure life’, denoting the quality of life and happiness. The greeting reflects the happy state of mind and attitude towards oneself and others,” Hernandez said.
The envoy said he felt, “before we were very far away [from the UAE] but now we are very close” with the opening of the Costa Rican Embassy in Abu Dhabi in July 2017.
The UAE is expected to open its embassy in Costa Rica soon, which will further enhance the bilateral relations, he said. The first resident Ambassador of the UAE to Costa Rica, Juma Al Rumaithi, is now in Costa Rica.
Hurricane aid
Costa Rica still cherishes the surprise help from the UAE in the aftermath of a hurricane that destroyed a city and left more than 40,000 people without drinking water, the ambassador said.
It was just before the official visit of Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis to the UAE in January, to address the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week.
During the bilateral meeting, His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, asked Solis what the UAE could do for the hurricane-affected people, Hernandez said.
Solis explained the situation to the UAE leader. The very same evening the president received a call from Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed, with a generous help to solve the drinking water problem in the hurricane-affected areas.
“Around 40,000 people got fresh water [with that help], which revived farms, irrigation and fresh water sources. It changed the lives of many people,” the ambassador said.