Happy Land

Many foreigners confuse Costa Rica with Puerto Rico. This does not bother the Costa Ricans so much as the more common failure to distinguish between their peaceful republic and the rest of Central America--which last week continued to tremble with political earthquake shocks. Costa Rica, they insist, is a very different cornucopia of good things.

One informed observer in emphatic agreement with them is Dr. John Biesanz, 31, who went to green Costa Rica on an exchange professorship from Winona State Teachers College in Minnesota. For 16 months he and his wife, Mavis, gathered facts and polled opinion, crisscross and endways. When Dr. Biesanz went into the Army, Mrs. Biesanz finished his report. Costa Rican Life (Columbia University Press; $3), published this month, is a lighter-reading, 272-page Middletown of Central America's cleanest, happiest country. Some findings:

P:Costa Rica has Central America's highest standard of living, one of the highest in any tropical country. "In Costa Rica we don't have classes--there are rich and poor, but the rich are not so rich as in some countries, and the poor are not so poor." Coffee workers earn from 27-c- to 54-c- a day. Servants are paid from $1 to $5 a month. Government workers get along on $26 a month. Costa Ricans spend about half their income on food.

P:Costa Rican girls rank culture, personality, good health and a liking for home life (in that order) among the traits they want in their husbands. Faithfulness they rank, fifth: good looks, 24th. Said one: "I don't think there is a faithful husband in Costa Rica."

P:Although the U.S. is not the most popular nation in Costa Rica (ranking below Mexico, Argentina, Spain, France, El Salvador), Costa Rican girls fancy Americans as husbands: half of those questioned (56) would like to marry Americans. One reason: "Americans are more considerate, faithful and helpful, and less jealous." Costa Rican men never dry dishes.

P:Costa Rica's population is 700,000. In 1940 it had only 174 doctors, 224 druggists, 55 dentists. There were some 400 lawyers, 3,000 teachers (education is free and compulsory but only one in ten reaches the sixth grade), only 500 soldiers, 150 priests. Costa Rica's population is increasing phenomenally (27% between 1930 and 1940, compared to a U.S. gain of 7%). But two children out of 15 die before their first birthday.

P:Eligible citizens are fined $1, Government employes lose a month's pay, for not voting. The President serves four years, cannot be reelected.

P:Almost everybody in Costa Rica gets up before 5:30 a.m.; the children start school by 7. Most popular sport: billiards.

P:Costa Rica depends on coffee, calls the local coffee bean the "grain of gold." There is reason for this eulogy: the Costa Rican bean assays at 86% liquid coffee-making essence, as compared to the Brazilian bean's 29%. Costa Rica's politics revolve around coffee; the coastal banana has only secondary political influence.

The findings of Dr. Biesanz and his wife did not bear out the belief of ancient, exploring Spaniards that Costa Rica is heaven. But they could agree with other travelers, enchanted with Costa Rica's orchids, soft laughter, democratic tradition, lush countryside, that it is like no other place on earth.

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