The Tortilla Lady

Kindness arrives wrapped in paper towels

Kindness embodied in tortillas de queso, photo by Author

One of the sweetest things about living in Costa Rica is that kindness has a way of showing up at your front door.

Sometimes carrying tortillas.

A few days after I moved into my little casita, I was just settling in for an afternoon siesta when I heard a knock. It was Virginia, my neighbor from down the hill, smiling as though she’d been delivering happiness her whole life.

She held out a paper-wrapped bundle. Inside were two enormous homemade tortillas de queso, still warm from the griddle.

Now, we had also been expecting another neighbor to deliver dos cajas de huevos—thirty fresh eggs from his chickens—but he wasn’t feeling well, so the eggs would arrive mañana.

I’ve since learned that mañana isn’t always a date on the calendar. Sometimes it’s simply a state of mind.

Back then, I was still figuring out how to feed myself in a country where I couldn’t read half the labels in the grocery store. Before Costa Rica, I’d lived with a proud Wisconsin Cheesehead who considered bacon a food group and viewed potatoes as a vegetable, a starch, and occasionally dessert. He loved to cook, and I happily let him.

Somewhere along the way, I’d forgotten that I once did, too.

So there I stood, staring into my pantry at a lonely can of tuna while holding what looked like the culinary equivalent of a warm hug.

Virginia spoke almost no English. My Spanish consisted mostly of enthusiastic nouns and hopeful hand gestures. But somehow she managed to explain that these weren’t just tortillas. They were meant to be enjoyed with natilla and a good Costa Rican coffee.

Well… Those beautiful tortillas deserved a better fate than being paired with canned tuna. The tuna would simply have to wait.

I’ve been here long enough now to know that the real nourishment wasn’t wrapped in that paper towel. It was wrapped in the generosity of a neighbor who expected nothing in return.

Years later, I honestly don’t remember what I had for dinner that night, but I remember Virginia’s smile. And isn’t that the way with life’s best meals?

Some gifts are wrapped in paper.

The best ones arrive warm.