Getting more than just my feet wet

The week before last I had a wonderful opportunity to visit for the first time a special and unique part of Costa Rica: an indigenous reserve. There were few indigenous people in Costa Rica when Colombus and later Spaniards arrived at the beginning of the 16th century, and there continue to be few today. I don't know much about their history, so won't postulate any reasons for their current small population. They live in protected areas primarily on each side of the Talamanca Mountain range, which splits southern Costa Rica in half. The group I visited was Cabecar, one of the larger groups in Costa Rica. My general impression and understanding of the indigenous groups is that they mostly existed isolated or pushed away from most of the development of Costa Rica over the past two centuries, but have become a bit more integrated into the society recently, some moving off of the reservations for work as well as there being presence of schools and state run clinics and hospitals either on the indigenous territory or very close to it. Yet, they maintain some of their old traditions, and some reserves live almost identical to their ancestors as the indigenous reserves have been some of the last places in Costa Rica to receive running water and electricity (more than 99% of Costa Rica has electricity-according to the state utility company commercials). The reserve I visited was called Cerere, and is located in the county of Valle de La Estrella in Limón province.

(the rest of the group crossing the river)

Matt D., a volunteer who actually just left the country, had arranged a celebration of International Book Day as one of his last activities. The indigenous reserve is actually a good hour or more into the hinterland than his site, but he had gotten to know the principal and some of the teachers, so planned the activity. Seven of us volunteered to help Matt carry out the activity, and I'm quite sure that we all got as much out of it as we put in. We all got on the bus at varying points, and eventually were dropped off in the middle of some banana fields (which is essentially the middle of nowhere). Matt thought that a walk through the banana fields would be better than spending money on the mini-bus taxis that run to the indigenous territory. He was right, it was a hot, but refreshing walk. After crossing two streams and one river (by foot-see picture) we arrived at the school, which is at the edge of the reserve closest to the big roads, and the families live farther and farther up the road, into the forest and mountains. We were shown our accommodations-the floor of the principal's office, where we placed foam sleeping pads provided from the clinic. Once lathered up with mosquito repellant, it wasn't a bad place to sleep. We ate breakfast and lunch in the school cafeteria with the kids and teachers, and had romantic candlelight dinners at a family's house that lived next to the school-candlelight as they don't have electricity. The food was excellent, the fried fish we had one night was some of the best fish I've had since being here.

During the first day we had about an hour to do some games, get to know you activities, and active reading activities with the kids. Our group was split up in groups of two or three, and each group worked with two grades. As I'll explain more in another post, Costa Rican elementary school kids go to school for half the day, so this meant that my group worked with first graders in the morning and fourth graders in the afternoon. The second day we had them all day and read a few books ('Where the Wild Things Are', 'The Story of Ferdinand', 'the Grouchy Ladybug', 'Aesop's Fables', and 'From Head to Toe'), did some crafts related to the books, as well as played some games. It was very interesting to see differences between the kids and the kids I've interacted with in Liverpool and Puerto Viejo. By far, for me, the biggest difference was how quiet and shy the kids were. I'm sure there are many a reason for this, but it was quite noticeable how much more timid the kids were around us compared to any other group of kids I've worked with. In one of the fourth grade classes in Liverpool, when given the chance to answer questions, almost all the kids try to answer, many will comment on the answers given by others, and it takes effort to keep them quiet. Whereas, in what we thought were fairly interesting and easy to follow activities, we were often faced with a room full of silent students. I'd pry, they understood what was going on and the question, but were either too shy or scared or uninterested to answer. Yet, the students generally seemed to enjoy the crafts, and the first graders were super creative with the monster masks they made to go along with 'Where the Wild Things Are'.

(overseeing some Simon Says action)

These two days spent in the school were topped off by a campfire held at the elementary school. It was a great success. It didn't appear so at first, as at the announced starting time only one of the teachers and her family had arrived. She had brought the snack supplies, so a few of us went down to make refried bean and tuna salad sandwiches by the light of our flashlights (refried bean sandwiches are surprisingly good). When we came back up, we were delighted to see that a bunch of people had arrived and we had even missed out on Matt's story, which was apparently quite a thriller. A few of the community members told a story, Chris and Tarah led the students in a dramatic retelling of 'Where the Wild Things Are', using the masks they had made in class. We then handed out sticks and marshmallows, and introduced the American cultural tradition of roasting marshmallows to the community. It was a big hit. But, then again, how could roasting marshmallows not be a big hit with elementary school kids.

(a traditional wooden raised house in the reserve)

I had to leave the following morning-and with Chris H.-crossed the river and two streams at 4:30 in the morning to catch the 5:00 bus from the main road (the only bus that leaves the town near the reserve. So, yes, I've added 'fording a river using a flashlight to catch the early bus' to my life's accomplishments. This was unfortunate, as the rest of the group got to go to a traditional festival complete with traditional food at a site fairly deep in the indigenous territory. Yet, giving marshmallow roasting advice to some indigenous kids is a pretty sweet experience in and of itself.