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Francophone Festival
March 15, roundtable, “Why do I speak and read French?” 9:30 a.m., Liceo Franco-Costarricense, Tres Ríos; film, “Home,” 3 p.m., Sala Joaquín Gutiérrez, 4 th floor, UCR Language Faculty, San Pedro.

“Hoy Quiero Decirte”
Presentation of video by Alonso Solís and Leyenda, March 15, 7 p.m., Jazz Café, Escazú.

Concerts at El Observatorio
Madera Nueva, salsa, March 15, 9 p.m., El Observatorio, across from Cine Magaly, Barrio La California, 2223-0725.

Mundoloco Concerts
Features M'Bembe, African percussion, March 15, 9:30 p.m., Jazz Café, San Pedro.

Caribbean Concert
By Banda Nacional de Limón, including some Calypso and “Square dance,” March 15, 7 p.m., Fine Arts Theater, School of Fine Arts, UCR. Free.

Costa Rica has presented a bid for its pre-Columbian stone spheres to be inducted into the exclusive World Heritage list by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Cultural or natural sites or monuments can make the list if UNESCO deems them to have “outstanding universal value,” according to the international Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage

Experts in archaeology, art and other fields visited several sites in the Southern Zone last week, where many of the spheres, of varying sizes, have been discovered.

Regarded as indigenous treasures, hundreds of the almost perfectly round monoliths have been spotted in different parts of the country since the 1940s. Today they can be seen in gardens of government buildings and private homes. Many are no larger than a bowling ball. Some are larger than life, such as 15-ton boulders. They're usually made of granodiorite, a hard, igneous stone similar to granite. Archaeologists believe native inhabitants chiseled, pecked and ground granodiorite boulders using rocks of the same material to create the spheres.

Archaeologist Francisco Corrales said the carved stones reveal much about the Costa Ricans' pre-Columbian ancestors.

“The finding leads us to believe that these spheres were symbols of social prestige and hierarchical positions” during the Chiriquí period from 800 to 1500 AD, Corrales told The Tico Times. The Chiriquí were ancestors of the Brunca, one of Costa Rica's eight indigenous groups.

“This is important because it reinforces the fact that they (the spheres) were created by indigenous people who had a complex society, capable of constructing such things. (The Chiriquí) were experts with stone,” he said.

Freddy Montero, cultural program officer for UNESCO's San José office, said the recent visit is the start of a long and important process.

"It's not as though UNESCO arrives, declares world heritage and leaves," said Montero. He explained that the greatest value of this first step is it should encourage a process on a national and local level to work to improve research and preserve the spheres.

UNESCO representatives seem interested in the uniqueness of spheres. Nuria Sanz, who visited from UNESCO's World Heritage Center in Paris, France, told the newswire EFE that she's aware of cultures that also work with this form but "not in the same context or crafted in the same way" as the Costa Rican spheres.

Montero, who is liaising between the Paris office and the National Museum in San José, said the experts are drawing up recommendations for a work plan that would carry the Costa Rican spheres onto the coveted heritage list. For Costa Rica, he believes this process will prove even more important than the world heritage declaration itself.

No timeline has been set yet, but Montero acknowledged that in the past UNESCO has committed up to 10 years to working with national governments and local authorities to meet standards of preservation and research. The time it takes depends on how well a country has prepared before presenting its bid to the World Heritage Center. In Montero's eyes, Costa Rica has invested much in researching its spheres but "there's still a lot of work to be done."

The metropolitan area was alive with festivals this weekend as the country entered the hottest month of the year. In San José, artists celebrated the Festival de Verano de Transitarte, a three-day event with activities in parks throughout the city.

Children bounced on inflatable play structures, bands performed in front of engaged audiences and restaurants passed out corn on the cob and tamales.

“It's an event that unites all the artistic disciplines,” said Sugey Coto, who promotes cultural activities for the San José municipality. “We have dance, theatre, music, design and literature. It's a good range for all of the family.”

Escazú, a town just west of the capital, responded with their own line-up of activities, including a parade of oxcarts from the center plaza to the mountain side district of San Antonio, an arts and crafts fair and live music.

“This is a very important celebration. It's the day of boyeros (oxcart drivers) in Escazú and in many parts of Costa Rica, but especially here,” said 12-year-old Pablo Sandí as he led a team of oxen up the hill. “It means a lot to us, the people from the country, because we can show what we do every day.”

For those who missed the weekend's festivals, there's more next weekend. The oxcarts will reappear at an event in Cartago scheduled for Sunday, March 21, and San José will host the third annual gallo pinto festival, an event that celebrates the dish of rice and beans that has become a national symbol. Last year, the festival cooked up the biggest dish of gallo pinto Costa Rica has ever seen, which served 50,000 people.

See video about Escazú's oxcart procession and San José's Transitarte fastival here:

Exactly 365 days since the first brick was laid for the National Stadium in La Sabana, project engineers and members of Costa Rican Sports and Recreation Institute (ICODER) announced Friday that the stadium is now 70 percent complete. The stadium, which will be the largest ever erected in Central America, is expected to be completed by February 2011.

“We are very proud to have accomplished this much in a year,” said Osvaldo Pandolfo, vice minister of health and sports. “As you can see, the base and the foundation of the stadium are already in place. The remaining thirty percent (of work) will be focused on completing the field, the installation of electricity and the smaller details, such as putting ceramic in the bathrooms…At this time, we anticipate the stadium to be entirely completed by February.”

Since receiving the green light from the government of Costa Rica to build the estimated $80 million stadium, which was a gift from the government of China, Chinese laborers clad in fuchsia jumpsuits and red hardhats have worked around the clock to construct the shell of the mammoth stadium. Where there was vacant land one year ago, the stadium's towering columns now cast a shadow over La Sabana park and the surrounding neighborhood.

On Friday, four students from the Colegio Técnico Don Bosco unveiled a model of the finished stadium they created for an architecture design project. Enclosed in a clear dome, the model of the stadium provides a glimpse of what the completed project will look like next February. The oval-shaped stadium will feature two arching overhead columns that span the length of the stadium, tiered blue, red and white seats, an enormous television screen at the north end of the field and a plush natural grass playing field surrounded by a running track at the heart of it all.

“We had a blueprint for the design and a lot of guidance on how to construct the model from the engineers who were working here,” said Elizabeth Vargas Zúñiga, one of the students that worked on the model. “It was tedious and took a very long time, but we are pleased with the result. We think we have created a good vision of what the stadium will look like when completed.”

According to ICODER, an event may be held at the stadium in May prior to the conclusion of President Oscar Arias' term in office. Soon after establishing diplomatic relations with China in 2007, Arias visited the Eastern giant and was received by the Chinese President, Hu Jintao. During the visit, the Chinese government announced their intention to “gift” the National Stadium to Costa Rica.