A VISIT WITH THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLE OF COSTA RICA

So the last time I wrote I was telling you about our non-existant volunteer project here in Costa Rica.  We gave it over a week–hoping that a project would materialize, but it hasn’t.  It’s been sad, frustrating and beyond disheartening.  However, we have been trying to do our best to go that extra mile and lend a helping hand in this country. I have a few updates that I will be sharing with you over the next couple of days (as we just arrived at a hotel that has internet and I’m able to get some time back online).

Today, though, I want to share with you a pretty amazing experience we had visiting an indigenous tribe in a small town called Kachabri on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica. To get to this town, we had about an hour drive from Puerto Viejo, then took a small boat across a lake, and then took a bus for another hour until we reached the small Bribri village. Indigenous people of Costa Rica (meaning those who have lines of ancestry and have lived in remote villages and follow certain beliefs and rituals that have been passed down through the generations) have been fading through the years in Costa Rica, as it is hard to sustain their more primitive lifestyle. So to visit one of these tribes is a rarity, and to be able to get an intimate glimpse of how they live is quite uncommon.

We traveled to the town of Kachabri with an organization called Project Green Jungle, that is helping the small Bribri tribe with their conservation efforts . The Bribri tribe consists of about 500 indigenous people ranging from newborn babies to octogenarians. The village that we visited consisted of about 30 people and we met almost all of them! The Bribri have their own language (it resembles Spanish, but has a tribal sound to it as well). They live in little huts without any electricity, and rely on farming for their food. We got a tour of all the plants in the jungle from one of their shamans, and learned how the Bribri tribe uses these plants to help cure everything from a headache to a broken bone. We were also treated with a ceremonial drum and dance routine.  As part of the ceremony we were given some chicha, a traditional fermented maize drink

The men of the Bri Bri tribe circle around in a ritual dance.

A ceremonial drink of chicha

At the end of a very interesting day with the Bribri tribe, we were able to help support their small community by contributing to their conservation efforts monetarily. They were extremely gracious to us for our donation, and we were just as gracious for being able to get a glimpse of their way of life.

Matt and I at the village of Bribri