Juan Gabriel Hernández Matamoros has seen through his gray eyes more than half of the independent life of Costa Rica. Sitting elegantly in his home in Los Lagos de Heredia, this almost 108-year-old man keeps intact memories of a country that he has seen change over the years.
His pleasant stories allow us to know what this homeland was like in the first decades of the last century, when it was barely 100 years old after having separated from the Spanish Crown.
At the turn of the last century, there were no roads, he recalls, just dirt roads that got dusty in the summer and muddy in the winter. The transportation par excellence was carts and beasts, as horses were popularly called, which traveled along those rustic trails with saddlebags loaded with goods and food.
In those leather or rope bags, Don Juan carried his lunch when he had to travel long distances from Naranjo to Alajuela. Today, that trip can take about 40 minutes by car, but in his youth it took up to a full day.
“There were no cars, you had to ride a horse, because there was no other way to walk. We went from Naranjo to Alajuela along roads where the beasts would go up to their chests in the holes; there was nothing else; They were very good and gentle horses”, he narrates.
Don Juan was born in October 1913, in the heart of the canton of Naranjo. He lived there for a large part of his life and met his wife, whom he remembers with great affection and with whom he fathered a long lineage that has allowed him to meet great-great-grandchildren.
Already in his thirties, he lived through the civil war of 1948, in which he was even arrested by the Figueristas, and also saw the emergence of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS), whose name he sings with happiness. “Seguro Social, Pura Vida!” he enthuses, raising his thumbs.
When he was about 18 years old, Don Juan Gabriel went along with other Naranjeños to drop off coffee at the railway station in Alajuela, where the grain was sent to Limón to be exported. On the way, he passed a nap in Greece, used as a resting place; there he ate and gave the horses and oxen water to drink.
On his way back to his town, he brought barrels of cement imported from Germany in the wagon, which he picked up on the railway. The material was destined for the construction of the church of Naranjo, since the earthquakes of the time destroyed the previous hermitage.
Although around 90 years have passed since he made those voyages, don Juan perfectly remembers what those tins looked like; They were made of wood and were covered in sheets of zinc.
The lack of roads was not an impediment to going for a walk, as he did when he visited the Poás volcano on his beloved “little horse”, a gift from his parents at the age of 16 and with which he was photographed on his adventure by the steep paths.
“To go to the Poás volcano, you had to go by horse from Naranjo to Grecia, from Grecia to a certain part; then, there was a pasture; After that pasture, you had to go up a mountain for which sticks were placed on the road so that the horse could walk”, he recalls.
With the oxen he also visited Puntarenas, where the road was lost in the sand and it was necessary to advance along the seashore to the heart of the town; account that there was no pier and the ships had to dock offshore.
“Puntarenas, when it was formed, was near Piñuela, there were some bushes and that many crabs; they had nests there, holes, it was very poor, ”he says.
From San José, he remembers the now-defunct tramway and the old La Sabana airport, which he describes as a pasture where planes generally arrived from the United States.
Oldmen came from all over the Central Market to drop off merchandise; It was full of shops and they sold beautiful and colorful scarves that were used to decorate the clothing. “It was nice to go to San José because there was so much to buy, there were corridors, and it was full of shops selling clothes and everything”, he comments.
One of the biggest shortcomings that Costa Rica had in the past was access to services, especially health. If someone got sick around 1920, there wasn't much to do, especially if the person lived far from the capital, the only place where there was a hospital. In Naranjo, there was not even an apothecary, as the pharmacy was called.
Don Juan recounts that in his town there was only the office of a doctor, named Abram Rodríguez, whom he remembers as “a gentleman doctor” much loved by the neighbors, in charge of seeing the sick and referring them to the healer. This last character was in charge of making remedies with some strange waters that he kept. "That was the medicine, there was no good medicine," he explains.
During the presidency of Dr. Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia, the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS) was created, which don Juan describes as one of the greatest works in this country, despite the fact that he never received a pension.
Medicine was not the only service that was in short supply in Naranjo at the beginning of the last century. There was also no electricity; the locals used candles and boxes of matches until they installed a dynamo that finally allowed them to carry electricity. That generator was moved by the current from a nearby stream, but it was not efficient.
In the absence of electricity, the pot of meat with vegetables from the home garden was prepared with firewood, stoves, and tinamastes. “The kitchen was made of earth, the stove was with four legs and then tinamastes, that was the name of the kitchen where they put the firewood to cook.
“At that time, you had to eat only vegetables, squash, chayote, tacacos, everything. Olla de carne, that was what existed in those days. When you arrived at the house they would say: 'Let's have a pot of meat for lunch.' Very rich, very good”, describes this jovial centenarian.
Don Juan Gabriel affirms that the houses were not very solid at the beginning of the last century. His, for example, had a roof supported by bamboo poles, whose tiles used to fall to the ground when it trembled.
The floors were dirt and the furniture was simple, as described; They were like canoes and their aunts would come there and meet.
In those years there was a close relationship between clothing and food. People used to buy sacks of flour and with that bag they made shirts and clothes. The footwear was not very elaborate either, since the custom was to make soles and glue strips on them, something similar to sandals, while closed shoes were nailed.
Other people walked barefoot. Don Juan Gabriel says that this was a problem when they played matches in the pastures of Naranjo, since the nails of the barefoot players could break the shins of the opponents.
Don Juan Gabriel entered school at the age of seven, but he only attended the third year of primary school, because his parents took him out to to help them with the farm.
In that school they were taught agriculture, one of the economic strengths of Costa Rica at the time. Also, if a boy misbehaved or did a mischief, he was to kneel on grains of corn.
This orange native describes his school as a large house with a door, where he would receive classes from the only teacher there was. Many years later, don Juan returned to school, this time imprisoned, because he refused to fight in the civil war of 1948. At that time, he says, the Naranjo school was turned into a barracks by the Figueristas.
In that unexpected barracks, he spent about two weeks. His children remember that they saw him through the school gates, but they could not speak to him.
“We didn't go to war, frankly we hid, so they wouldn't take us, several would come and take one to fight. Several came to my house, about four to take me; I opposed it and one of them hit me on the head with the rifle butt”, he says while letting out a laugh.
For 48 years, Don Juan has lived in Los Lagos de Heredia, where every day he reads his newspaper and watches the matches of the team he loves, Saprissa, whose player he admires is Mariano Néstor Torres.
