www.CostaRicaTicas.com

I don't know how many of you truly know any Tico's, or their extended families, but I have found many of them to be some of the kindest people I have ever encountered. True, a lot don't llike gringos. But, who can blame them?
Personally, I like to bring gifts for my friends' K*ds and their Abuela's. Nothing expensive. Something thoughtful. They light up, like a christmas tree.
I realized on the streets of Rio, a long time ago, that as much as I would like to, I can't save the world. But, I am not going to kick someone when they are down, either. A couple bucks here and there sure isn't going to kill me and I am sure we all have NO IDEA how much that could mean, in the right places.
What goes around comes around. In spades.
If life has been good to you, you need to give back in some way. You gotta.

Elk,

Good points and I agree. I always bring toys for the bebes and when I run out, we go downtown to the Universal store where I buy more. Last July, my chica friend, her 2 little daughters and myself were spending the day together; the zoo, McDonald's, etc. Towards the end of the day we went to the Universal store where there's plenty of toys, albeit expensive, with import taxes, etc. I set a limit as to how much the girls could spend. They had their eyes on the Barbie dolls that were out of that price range and their mother told them so. When the 4 year old started getting tears in her eyes, it was all over....I told them to get the Barbie dolls....2 of them at $25.00 each. No doubt, those were the only Barbie dolls those 2 girls will ever get in their lives. It was the best money I spent the whole trip. I really enjoyed the time we spent together, and the mother couldn't thank me enough. Everytime she saw me after that, the first thing she would do is tell me how happy her girls were.

Zebra

Like anything we encounter in life, the choice of giving money to a beggar or not is a very personal one. Several good points for the pros and cons of this action have been presented in this thread.

I have developed the “Pay It Forward” viewpoint in resent years. Just the fact that I can and do have the means to travel to CR and partake in my vice of choice shows that I have been granted a “blessed” life.
Sure some of it is due to my own hard work and some of my life directions I choose. However if I were born in Central America, would I still be where I am today? If I were not blessed with the great family and upbringing I enjoyed, could I be the one begging on the streets? Not questions I can answer easily.

All I know for sure is that I can spare a few coins for the ones I feel good about giving money to. I don’t even care what the money I give them will go to. If it for food for themselves or their family, great! If it for their next drink or fix, oh well, maybe they get a moments worth of escape from the sentence of having to live the life they have. I guess I just need to feel as though I have passed on a small token of my blessing in life on to someone who may never rise above where they are today.