How to live well...

My main "academic" project for this program is to investigate one or more questions that I have about language and culture. I wanted to choose something I would be passionate about. One of my previous posts about "Finca La Bella" was about "living well" and what that means to different people. This will be part of my project. I want to find out why families choose to live in this rural community instead of moving to a larger city, where they could make more money. The following is my proposal for the project.

Inquiry Project Proposal:

In the San Luis community, most of the families are, in one way or another, involved in agriculture. San Luis is a rural community and an agrarian society. Many of the families grow some or most of their food. The agrarian lifestyle involves hard work, manual labor, and personal sacrifice. Given the right opportunity, a family could live in the city and have more money. Some would argue that having more money equates to a "better life". For the duration of my time in San Luis, I will be investigating the reason(s) why families choose to live in a rural community as opposed to a larger city which could have more economic opportunities. I will also be investigating how Costa Ricans, specificially the people in San Luis, define what it means to be successful.

Questions:
- Why do families choose to live in a rural community as opposed to a large city?
- To the people in San Luis, what does it mean to be successful?

Methods:
- Survey many people in the San Luis community, (men and women) ask them to answer and expand upon the following questions:
1. If you knew that you could make more money if you lived in the city, would you leave this area and move to the city? Why or why not?
2. In your opinion, what does it mean to be successful?

Note: I will need to translate these questions into Spanish. I will also need a Spanish-speaker to translate the answers. I want to fully understand the answers I am given.

Materials needed:
Time for interviews
Translator
Camera