Guitar Festival
Andrés Matarrita and Ariel Pórras, 7 p.m., UCR, San Ramón.

Play: ‘Hasta que la muerte nos separe'
Drama, tonight through Aug. 24, 7 p.m., Centro para las Artes, opposite the Registry Building, UNA, Heredia.

Pedro Guerra in concert
Trova, 8 p.m., National Auditorium, Children's Museum.

National Symphony Orchestra Concert
Guest pianist Jacque Sagot, guest conductor David Gier, Fri., 8 p.m. and Sun. 24, 10:30 a.m., National Theater.

Coco Bongo party
Dancing, live music, 9 p.m.; Sun. and Mon., 8 p.m., City Club, Zapote.

10th Black Culture Festival
Features cultural activities, food tasting, through Aug. 31, around Black Star Line; 2008 Miss Black Beauty Crowning, Sat., 8 p.m., Black Star Line, Limón.

Free French language workshops for children
Through Aug. 30, 10 a.m., Librería Francesa, Curridabat. Info: 2283-4242.

Orchid planting workshop
Includes lunch and transportation, 7:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m., Orchimex de C.R., 2639-1034.

Powerade 20 km. race
8 a.m., start and finish line at Centro Comercial Plaza Belén, San Antonio de Belén. Info: 8323-7840, 8829-4742.

“Orgullosamente Cholos” cultural fest
Dance, music, food storytelling, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Salón Parroquial, Cot, Cartago.

Miguel Cabrera in concert
Trova, 9:30 p.m., Jazz Café, San Pedro, http://jazzcafecostarica.com.

New U.S. Ambassador Robert J. Callahan arrived in Managua yesterday afternoon with his wife, Deborah, to assume his new envoy role, which will begin as soon as his credentials are accepted by President Daniel Ortega.

Quoting Nicaraguan national hero Ruben Darío and commenting pleasantly on the country's natural beauty, the friendliness of its people, and the “outstanding” quality of its baseball, Callahan delivered a brief statement in Spanish, saying he “looks forward to working with the government and the people of Nicaragua as together we continue to build a mature, respectful and mutually beneficial relationship.”

His first words echo those of President Daniel Ortega, who last week called for a “relationship of respect” with the United States.

Ortega said that his government would act quickly to receive Callahan's credentials, remembering that the U.S. government extended the same “gesture of respect” to Ambassador Arturo Cruz, Nicaragua's envoy to Washington, D.C.

“The important thing is to create relations of respect, which means that we aren't going to remain quiet about the things that are incorrect about the United States policy,” Ortega said. “I am not going to be embarrassed about our principles. We say that we are anti-imperialists…I say it when I talk to them and I say it in public.”

Callahan, meanwhile, said that “diplomatic protocol” prohibits him from commenting on bilateral relations until he presents his credentials. However, he said, he considers himself an optimist and “someone who believes the future will be more prosperous, peaceful, just and democratic than the past.”

Callahan, a veteran Foreign Service member, was once the right-hand man to John Negroponte, the former U.S. ambassador to Honduras, considered one of the architects of the Contra war in Nicaragua.

This will be Callahan's fourth post in Latin America, most recently in Bolivia in 1992.

During his statement before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee April 16, after being picked ambassador-designate to Nicaragua, Callahan said: “I am no stranger to challenging assignments, and I do think that Nicaragua will prove to be just that.”

As the Costa Rican economy slows under the weight of a global downturn, President Oscar Arias' administration has acknowledged that it cannot achieve some of its original social and economic goals.

Arias will meet all day Saturday with his cabinet and heads of other state institutions to define new goals for his remaining 21 months in office.

In a 2006 National Development Plan, President Arias set ambitious four-year targets in education, infrastructure, healthcare, production and trade. Presidency Minister Rodrigo Arias said the administration must now “redefine” those goals based on “what we can realistically do.”

During Arias' first year in office, poverty and unemployment dropped, inflation fell and exports grew at a clip.

“That certainly won't continue because of external factors beyond this country's control” such as high fuel and food prices, Rodrigo Arias said. “If our environment changes, our goals have to change, too.”

“El Camino,” an award-winning independent film by Costa Rican writer, director and producer Ishtar Yasin, is premiering in major theaters around the country following years of anticipation.

“The work on the film started in 2000 with my grants,” Yasin said. “In 2006, we filmed it. Post-production took two years. I feel very emotional today. This is a long-awaited movie.”

The film, centered around two Nicaraguan children's experience with their parents' immigration, won awards at film festivals in Guadalajara, Mexico, Berlin, Germany and Fribourg, Switzerland. It was also Costa Rica's first showing at France's Cannes International Film Festival.

“‘El Camino' is the story of two kids who migrated from Nicaragua to Costa Rica in search of their mother,” Yasin said. “The majority of Nicaraguan mothers sacrifice for their children.”

Indeed, the female lead, 14-year old Sherling Paola Velásquez, could identify personally with the plight of her character as she never got to know the mother that left her and her younger brother with their grandmothers over a decade ago.

“It means a lot to me because my mother moved to Costa Rica,” Velásquez said. “I didn't hear from her or my father for over 10 years. I only had my brother.”

Velásquez and fellow first-time film actor Juan Bordas, also 14, were members of a small acting group, Dos Generaciones, in the Acahualinca neighborhood of the Nicaraguan capital, Managua, when Yasin came looking for actors.

“Ishtar presented me with a fragment of the script and then I had to improvise,” Bordas said. “I was fine because I had had experience with auditions before.”