Letter to the donors of my PCPP project:
I'm sure you're all anxious for an update on the activities which you helped fund for the Second Annual Copa Indigena de Costa Rica! Well, wait no longer!
Friday morning, May 11th, thirty indigenous boys and girls ages 12-17 boarded the bus that my community counterpart, Fernando Sanchez, and I contracted for the eight hour trip to the Maleku Indigenous Reserve near San Rafael de Guatuso in the northern part of the country. All the kids and the few parents that were going on the trip were rather anxious, some had bags that were obviously packed too ful, and others had forgotten some absolute essentials...like soccer cleats! After waiting for a few stragglers and taking a pre-departure picture in front of our antiquated bus (below), we left Zapaton at 11am.
The first two hours were full of excited shrieks and screams from the back of the bus where the more gregarious youth always tend to congregate. In a strange role-reversal from my summer camp days I was in charge of making sure the girls stayed on one side of the bus and the boys on the other! Luckily the kids were very respectful and we didn't have any problems. Two hours in we stopped for a bathroom break. Once back on the bus all the kids were pretty tired and things quieted down.
We passed through the capitol, San Jose, and the airport. The kids were super excited about seeing planes on the ground, and one taking off seeing as most of them had never seen a plane that didn't look like a fly in the big blue sky. We passed Taco Bell, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Outback Steakhouse, KFC...etc. They all said: "Oooh, que rico!" How delicious! And I got excited for an opportunity to express to them my intense disgust toward most of those locales. We had a fun argument and I tried to dumb down the science enough to get a visceral reaction out of them. Only one kid said he wouldn't eat french fries if he knew it would shorten his life!! Behavior change is a process, that's for sure.
We passed through the metropolitan area and entered the mountains north of the city, through Alajuela and past Volcan Poas, up through San Ramon and out towards La Fortuna and into a cloud forest type climate. The region was very dry and hadn't yet received its first rain of the year following dry season. La Fortuna is home to Volcan Arenal, one of the largest and most iconic volcanoes in the area, again something the kids had only ever seen on television. I can't underestimate how much these kids were impressed by seeing these parts of the country, parts that they had heard stories about, which their parents had visited on horseback 35 years ago, where their grandparents had gone to pick coffee 60 years ago. They will be taking stories and an expanded awareness of their country back to their families and their community. All thanks to you folks.
As the sun started setting our bus driver turned on the stereo and a Mix-CD titled "Party Time", yes, in English. Songs like "Jack and Diane", "Hurts so Good", "Jungle of Love", some ACDC tunes and Aerosmith got everybody singing and dancing on the bus. It was a riot, spirits were really high. The parents and I made the executive decision to not force them to sit in their seats. After all they may never get the chance to dance shamelessly while propelling 45 miles per hour around dangerous curves and over precarious bridges again in their lives. But the drive proved to be longer than we had planned and after asking countless people on the road-side we finally got there at about 7pm.
Driving into the Reserve we saw ranch houses made of palm trees and some great big wooden sculpted pillars. We were welcomed into a huge ranch with drums and rain-sticks inside, and given a quick lesson in the indigenous language of Maleku. There were some amazing carved masks. The man who greeted us, also known as Jaguar, immediately informed my 30 adopted children that there were 80-90 SINGLE YOUNG PEOPLE in the reserve, and he encouraged them to get to know eachother! I was a little thrown off. Here's me, separating girls and boys on two sides of the bus, and here's him, promoting the romantic mingling of my youth with his! In the end I realized how funny it really was. And of course, the young guys were hooting and hollering about how many girlfriends they'd have by the end of the weekend.
The next morning we had the day-long soccer tournament. Amazingly, it started raining! We liked the idea that we brought the first rains, rejuvenating the soil and filling the rivers. Each of the territories shares the belief in the importance of protecting nature and river systems especially.
Zapaton, our team, played really hard but they were just outplayed all day. In fact, we didn't score ANY goals! I felt pretty bad for the team, but I enjoyed it as a learning experience for them. Now they realize why I have been trying to put pressure on them to train with concentration and intensity. Hopefully they take to training with a new passion now that they see how much more fun it would be to be winning! By the end of the day our four games were all losses, but we made so many friends. Almost all the kids made at least 5 or 10 different friends from reserves as far south as the border with panama and as far east as Limon and the Caribbean coast.
That night we did some presentations. Each territory gave a presentation about the specifics of their culture and their traditions. Everyone learned a lot and had fun. We talked about the importance of indigenous solidarity and political involvement from the youth, the future leaders of each territory. And I turned a blind eye to a boy from my town having some "close-quarters" conversations with some Maleku girls - however, his Mom didn't have the same reaction!
The next morning we were out of there and got back on the bus after a dip in the local river. We got back to Zapaton at about 4pm and had some more fun on the bus.
Overall, I can't begin to express the totality of emotions, knowledge-transfer, and individual growth that I noted amongst my kids and the other groups. For all of their lives they've felt isolated when they leave the reserve. They are surrounded by a sea of lighter-skinned, curly-haired Costa Ricans. But this weekend, for the first time, they were able to feel A PART of something bigger. They had never had the experience of being surrounded by young, indigenous youth. They didn't notice until afterward how comfortable they had been in that milieu.
Next update for the week of June 1st after the Final Tournament which will take place in the ESTADIO NACIONAL!!!
Here's where you can see more photos.
Much love from the youth of Zapaton, and gratitude from me, and from the Peace Corps as a whole. You've really made a difference in these kids lives.
