I went to Costa Rica for the first time in 2005, and it was with great pleasure that I returned again this year. I was joining a group of sixteen and seventeen-year olds from my High School in England, along with a small contingent from Scotland. We came to do the opposite of what the tourists do; to experience Costa Rica’s natural beauty, yes, but with the primary intention of helping the people. It would be three weeks of extremely physically demanding work, in an environment as far away from what I am used to as you could imagine.
But before making it to Costa Rica, I first stopped in bordering Panama, spending a week in its capital, Panama City. The American influence that the Panama Canal has had on the country is staggering; it is by far the most Westernised of the Central American nations and therefore to me suffers from a lack of culture. Prostitution is widespread (the majority of which seemed like normal girls in bars who turned out to be “working”), and immigration from South America is very apparent, with many Colombians coming to the country in order to earn more than they would do back home. Having said this, the American dollar wages are still pitifully low, an advantage only for foreigners like me, whose home currency permits an excellent exchange rate. I was fascinated by my time in Panama and hopefully I will be able to see other parts and get to know it better, but it definitely has a strange atmosphere; indeed, I read somewhere that the feel in Panama is as if the nation were “waking up from a bad dream”. I would tend to agree: its long history of mismanagement and bad leadership have caused a certain mellow haze to be cast over the city, which isn’t altogether agreeable. Despite new measures to overcome the nation’s problems, corruption and bad policing are still immediately observable, and the divide between the rich and poor is very obvious.
So I was sad to leave Panama. I had made a lot of friends, and we had partied almost every night, but hey – I was going to Costa Rica. The 16 hour first-class bus journey to San José, Costa Rica costs an incredible price of only $25, although three of these hours are spent at the Paso Canoas border crossing, which is one of the most hectic and scary places I have visited, a real mess that reminded me of when I arrived in Tijuana for the first time. Firstly, our bags were searched on the Panamanian side, then we were separated from our bags and had to walk –in the dark- about 500 metres to the Costa Rican side where we joined an hour long line. Latin Americans don’t understand the concept of queuing and waiting your turn, so it took even longer for us to be dealt with by the solo customs official. After this, our passports were given over to someone without any uniform, who gave us them back an hour later after another check. Amazingly, I made it to San José without problems, but I won’t be back to that border crossing in a hurry.
Upon arrival, I made it to a hostel where I was given a hammock to sleep on and the next day met my group; they were absolutely knackered from such a long flight, but up for a few Imperials (the national beer) nevertheless. It also gave me great pleasure to be reunited with one of the most inspirational people in my life, the EcoTeach guide Inti, who would be helping us on our projects. I managed to get a bed that night, and in the morning, we were off. Whenever Inti wasn’t there, I would be the interpreter, as none of the group spoke a word of Spanish, but on today’s bus journey headed towards the Caribbean coast, he was happy to speak to us about current events in his proud home.
Unfortunately -as Inti realises but not enough ticos do- Costa Rica is at a critical stage in its history. The country is about to vote on whether or not it wants to sign a controversial Free Trade Agreement with the United States, commonly known as the TLC. Many citizens are being persuaded that this will be the way forward for happiness, but how much of this proposed prosperity is translated into reality is debatable. We were illustrated a prime example of the country’s preoccupations today, when we passed through miles and miles of banana plantations, which are destroying the land and creating a monoculture that is never going to be sustainable. As Inti pointed out “look what has happened to Mexico: yes, now it can earn more, but you could argue that their standard of living has actually lowered because of the American agreements”.
Boats were required to take us to our first project, a turtle camp where we toiled hard on various construction tasks. Situated in Parque Nacional Tortuguero, this part of the Caribbean coast is conserved by families who earn their living by inviting eco-tourists and biologists to come and learn about and help protect the turtles. Numbers of four species of turtle were dwindling to a worryingly low level around ten years ago, but due to the efforts of the beach schemes, the numbers are rising. For the majority of the time our job was to develop the site itself, but it was very satisfying, if a little bit of a culture shock for the kids. The daily routine was that we would rise early and work in the day, release some turtles at around sunset, and in the night time have a good meal and talk about the world and what the Americans are doing to it.
At the end of the week we moved on to an indigenous community called the BriBri. This group of people live in a reserve as far away from the real world as you could imagine; about an hours walk from the nearest road and through three rivers. They were the original inhabitants of the area we now call Costa Rica but have been forced up into the area of Talamanca (‘blue mountains’) where they live a simple life that we would consider a struggle. Indeed, it took us nearly a whole day to get ourselves and a week’s worth of food to the centre of their community, before we could even think about starting our project of constructing a clinic. All sixteen of us slept in a wooden shack which was falling to bits, but you could see the stars so clearly every night, and there was a quiet which made us feel totally at one with the environment. Building the clinic was very difficult because the tree that we would cut down was about three kilometres away; cutting it into planks without complex machinery was an unbelievably eye-opening experience. But the best thing to say about the BriBris is that despite all of the ‘problems’ they have, they don’t see them as troubles. Walking for two hours to school every day, for example, is just the norm for them, it is part of their lives and they don’t know otherwise, so complaining simply isn’t contemplated nor understood. We can learn millions of things from a community like this, a group of people that work together, share all they possess, appreciate the important things in life, and use the environment to sustain themselves and nothing more (as opposed to the monoculture Costa Rica is and will suffer from if TLC is ratified). In this way, they are an example to everyone that large-scale ‘solutions’ aren’t the way forward.
In the cultural exchange at the end of the week, we were allowed to enter their special conical-shaped temple, where we sang our national anthems and said thanks. I gave a speech which tried to express to the BriBris how much we appreciate their way of life and how much of a privilege it was to get to know such honest, kind, good people. It was with a very heavy heart that we departed, with only the thought of a warm shower and actually being clean driving me on as we exited the BriBri world.
The final week in Costa Rica was the most difficult; a punishing five-day hike through the Parque Nacional de Corcovado. The natural beauty that we experienced in these days of toil was breathtaking, and there is no better feeling than coming to the end of a 20km hike with sore feet and aching shoulders from carrying such heavy backpacks. The long, eight-hour hikes gave us the chance to be alone with ourselves, to think and analyse all that we had learnt whilst we trudged along step by step. It was in these moments that it struck me that after all that I had been told and all that I had experienced, the main problem that we face nowadays is the invasion of big businesses that are ruining the world. We not only lose all of the character and local expertise that makes our earth special, but also we damage the natural surroundings which have been there for millions of years.
As part of the bigger picture, the growing theme that I am realizing is that rules, regulations and paperwork are increasingly being made by fat cats in big offices who are totally out of touch with the needs of the people and the environment. In England, for example, the teaching industry has been robbed of what it should have: thought towards the development of the children. Instead, nowadays it is governed by the manipulation of exams; forming results which are just a mark on a piece of paper but still manage to cause unbelievable amounts of pressure, stress and worries. People are now treated like robots, the big companies governing the rules, the same as the monopoly of agriculture in Costa Rica which uses an army of Nicaraguan immigrants who will be paid in the short term to work on their banana plantations. But when the land no longer can produce bananas, Inti says, they’ll move to Ecuador, and after that is destroyed, who knows. This complete replacement of common sense couldn’t be summed up better by my last example: Costa Rican coffee is famous, but to drink the decaffeinated version it has to travel to Germany and back. Crazy.
We were light years away from the materialism of the modern world on our trek, but the feelings were as heartfelt there as ever before. We are destroying our rainforests at an incredibly alarming rate, yet this ecosystem holds the future of our lives (one time we walked for 10 minutes and found around 20 different species of leaves alone, all with different useful healing properties).
The week in the rainforests of Corcovado was more about personal achievement than helping others, but nonetheless it was very satisfying. It also pleased me a lot to see how far the group of kids had come on from when they arrived; firstly timid and scared to get dirty, afterwards a real team prepared to tackle anything. The trip culminated in white-water rafting down a river, followed by a Mexican buffet. It tasted good, but it wasn’t spicy enough for an adopted Mexican like me. We then had an argument that the ticas (Costa Rican women) were the most beautiful in the world. I told them they should visit Jalisco.
I was going to Cancun to meet my sister but our flights coincided, and there was a very emotional farewell at the airport. When you are put into a situation where you have to live at (very) close quarters with a group of people, it’s natural that it is difficult to say goodbye. Returning to Mexico felt great but it immediately felt sad to not have a new project to be heading to. But I had benefited immensely from the month away. Since arriving in Mexico in January I have learnt so many things about the world and how I am going to live my life, but I probably learnt the same amount of life lessons in just three weeks in Costa Rica. The ‘Rich Coast’ is a small country but one that has so much to offer, and one with such a special place in my heart. ¡Pura Vida!
Nicky Bremner
