Marjorie Blanco from San Carlos says that she is fulfilling her biggest dream, with great pride and effort. It is a dream for which she came to put aside her social life and even some other expense in ‘tastes’ to save every coin that would allow her to study aviation.She says having no other option since her family in Aguas Zarcas did not have the resources to pay for her tuition.
Humble origins
Her father was a bricklayer and her mother was a housewife, although sometimes she picked coffee to help with the household economy.That is why the money that came to the house was used to cover the basic needs of her, her five siblings and her parents.Today, at 36, her heart swells knowing that she has achieved her goal and today she is the only female Walmart pilot in Mexico and Central America.
She arrived at this multinational at the end of 2017 and, together with the national pilot Jeffrey Hernández, they are responsible for moving the different executives throughout the region and to the United States.
Blanco is the first senior officer and Hernández – who worked in Turkish airlines – the captain. But the goal of this Sancarleña is to become a captain and continue working at Walmart, either here in the region or in the United States.Precisely, another Costa Rican works in this last nation: David Mora who, by the way, was the boss of Marjorie Blanco in Costa Rica.
Material limitations, but with the goal in mind
Marjorie studied English at the National Institute of Learning and Tourism at the university. She got her first job as a clerk in one of the Café Britt stores at the Juan Santamaría airport.
Later on, she had the opportunity to go to Canada for six months, where she worked cleaning hotel rooms. She relates that her wish was to improve Shakespeare’s language.
Upon her return, she wanted to enlist as a flight attendant, but she couldn’t, so she started working at the counter for Sansa, the national airline.”At that moment I had love at first sight with the world of aviation when I traveled and did it behind the pilots’ seats and saw everything thinking that this is what I wanted to be”.
But she ran into a harsh reality: her parents could not afford the profession. So she made a decision: she would try to become a flight attendant to save every coin that would allow her to have enough savings to pay for the aviation career.
Blanco trusts that more women will be encouraged to fulfill their dreams, even if they seem difficult or impossible. And hopefully, she adds, that tomorrow there will be more Costa Rican women pilots.
