In Costa Rica the Indigenous territory of
Talamanca covers 43,643 hectares. Tropical
Adventures has been working in the
Bribri area of Talamanca, specifically in the community of Bambu for over three
years already. Click on the pictures to enlarge.
Here we have been lucky enough to
find people who are natural
leaders, like Danilo Layan Gabb. Thanks to his desire to see Bambu grow,
improve and become self-sufficient, Tropical Adventures has been able to gain
access to the areas where real needs are waiting for an urgent solution.
Last week, we visited for the first time, the
community of Alto Katsi. We crossed the Telire River by boat, and then we
traveled in the back of an old truck for about 45 minutes going up towards the
mountains. Then, at the end of the road, we had to walk, carrying boxes with
donations, for about an hour through rivers and trails. Even after two days of
sunshine, we were hiking all the way through deep in mud.
Danilo’s idea was to show us the elementary
school and the kids’ health conditions. Both of them were very shocking. Living in a
country like Costa Rica, little by little we start getting used to seeing
poverty, pretty much everywhere. People dealing with low or no salaries, kids
going to school where they don’t receive a good education, teenagers quitting
high school because they need to make money to help their parents, and the
stories keep on going.
At some point in our lives here in Costa Rica,
I don’t know when it happens, but we start thinking that these situations are
normal. We lose our sense of community
and we just choose to believe that it’s “just the way it is” and there’s
nothing we can do about it. Sometimes, we don’t even like to hear these stories
so that we can pretend everything is fine.
When I arrived to Alto Katsi, my first thought
was to stay in a loving space and to remind myself that there’s no “right” or “wrong”
in Alto Katsi. It’s just the way it is there and we’re all humans having
different life experiences, but we’re still the same. Like Danilo reminds me all
the time, “we’re all humans.”
The school is nothing more than a shack – if
you can call it that. It is falling apart completely. One of the main bases that
holds the structure is sinking due to the heavy rains the entire country
received in November of 2008. The roof built out of the traditional indigenous
leaves has holes everywhere and, finally, the floor is totally rotted out.
The building is very simple. What looks like a
wall is what separates the area where the kids receive the lessons and what is
meant to be a storage area. There are no seats or desks for the kids, just a tiny
blackboard containing this message: “The decision made by all the parents is to
pay the man who cut and finished the wood the amount of 1,100 colones (an equivalent
of $1.98 USD).” The restroom was destroyed by the heavy rains and winds.
There’s no running water at the school, not to mention a dining area for the
kids who desperately need some nutritional attention. After two days of
beautiful sunshine, the entrance of the school was still full of mud as if it
just rained an hour ago.
All of the kids were wearing old rubber boots,
some of those were already broken because that’s the only pair of shoes they
have. You could see that some of the clothes they were wearing were not their
size anymore, but maybe they keep using them because they don’t have other
option. They were all very shy at the beginning. Danilo directed the activity
speaking to them in the beautiful Bribri Language. The entire time I was there
they only spoke in Bribri. It’s a weird sensation to be in your own country and
not to understand a word of what people are saying right next to you. All I could do was to be quite and then I
took some pictures while they were talking.
While I was doing this, something called my attention. The kids’ faces
were all turned towards the boxes that we brought with us. They didn’t say a
word to me; they just keep staring at me. But as soon as I would glance at
them, they’d quickly look towards the ground.
After Danilo finished talking to them, he
finally told me they all speak Spanish (this is unusual for a remote location
like this). So I introduced myself and explained to them the purpose of my trip
to their community. You could see they were very grateful. They all started to
talk to me, welcoming me with big hugs and smiles. First, they just wanted to
express their gratitude for my going there and taking the time to meet them in
person. To be honest, I felt like I was
the lucky one!
As I explained earlier, we carried some boxes
with us all that way. The boxes were full of clothes and toys for the kids (donated
by the Chamber of Tourism of Puerto Viejo). It was hard enough just walking to
get there and trying to keep myself from falling in the mud, but carrying the boxes
certainly didn’t help at all. To keep
myself going, I had to keep thinking of the kids’ faces when they’d see the
clothes and toys.
When
Danilo told me to start giving away the toys, the kids faces lit up. They were
very respectful, always thinking first of their siblings or the younger kids
before themselves. It was really nice to see how ready and willing to share
they were.
There were more than enough clothes for all the
kids, especially the small ones. The smallest one received tons of clothes, so
many that the mom felt embarrassed at some point.
At least half of the kids in the school had
scars on their faces. When I asked Danilo about those, he told me it was a flesh-eating
worm called “papalomoyo.” Being from Costa Rica I hear about this kind of stuff,
but I’ve never seen the incredible scars they can provoke if you don’t treat
them on time or at all. Those marks are going to stay with those kids for the
rest of their lives. The only way to
treat the worm is with an injection called Glucantine. A daily dose is
necessary to administer for a full month until it dissolves and kills the worm
completely. Then some kind of antibacterial cream can be applied on the scar.
Of course these kinds of medicines can’t be
found there. The closest EBAI (small, free medical clinics located throughout
the country) is in Amubre, which is like an hour away by horse, crossing
several rivers and mountains. The next closest EBAI is in Suretka, several
hours by foot or a combination of hiking, a truck ride that costs the
equivalent of about $6 USD (who has that kind of money there?) and a boat ride across
the Telire river (another $1.10 USD).
The people from Alto Katsi used to work in the
plantain fields in the area. Now they are all out of work because of the
flooding. And, according to Danilo, they used to make an average of 1,500 colones
per day ($3 USD).
So, what this means is if they want to buy the
medicine to treat the papolomoyo, they have to be ready to spend more than $50
USD. Again, who has that kind of money there?
Before even posting this story on our website,
Nidia Bonilla, a woman from San Jose, got together 450,000 colones ( $818 USD)
to use toward rebuilding the
school.
She is taking a trip this next
Wednesday, February 11th, to Alto Katsi with some volunteer
engineers to see what it is that they can do with that amount to rebuild the
school.
Our goal is to prepare enough schools supply
packages for the 20 kids and hopefully help Nidia with more money to build
something decent for the kids where they can receive classes and have a working
bathroom.
Thanks to the Saint Patrick School in
Chesterton Indiana and their successful Holiday Campaign, we have some of the
school supplies we need for these kids in Alto Katsi. But what we have is not
enough. If you’re reading this and
there’s a way in which you can help us out to bring some joy to these kids
please, contact us toll-free at 1-800-832-9419 from the US or Canada, or
internationally at +(506) 25-74-4412, or
send us an email to info@tropicaladventures.com
Thank you so much for your endless support. It’s
because of people like you that we can continue doing our work.
Visit our Photo Gallery for more pics of this story: Alto Katsi Pics