Like the mirror chips in a rotating ball, these stories provide images of the shifting realities of a small world, Tempira, Guanacaste, before it became the trendy vacation destination and retirement paradise it is today.

Delight in these intimate word portraits which paint honest, personal, sometimes funny, sometimes painful views of the human ironies and contradictions in relationships and experiences with people in the same community over a twenty-year period. The author was not a visitor in Costa Rica. It was her home.

From 1964?1966, Susan Gordon was a Peace Corps volunteer in Costa Rica. She returned there in 1973 with her husband and lived in the same small town until 1981. Returning again in 1983 for a 4-month stay, she prepared her doctoral dissertation research in folklore studies at UCLA. Her last visit was in 1994, but Ms. Gordon continues to maintain contact with close friends there.

After completing a Ph.D. in 1986 (dissertation: Characterizing ?the Other?: Costa Ricans? Ambivalent Attitudes Expressed Traditionally About Each Other and Their Nicaraguan Neighbors), Ms. Gordon worked as Associate Director of the California Council for the Humanities in Los Angeles. She moved to Israel in 1998.