April of 2009 proved to be a very active month for the team at Project Green Jungle. After a very long trip from NY to San Jose via an overnight stay and 1hr Tri-rail Train ride through South Florida at 6AM, we were left a bit tired when we finally arrived.
We arrived for a 14 day stay in San Jose and settled in before hopping on the bus to the Caribbean Side of the country. The bus ride is filled with waterfalls, mountains in the clouds, and usually a few nail-biting moments of Pole Position-style driving.
This was a momentous trip for us because out of our 14 full days in Costa Rica, we only had 2 days without anything scheduled, we had our days filled with water tests, bio-surveys, educational trips, cultural trips,turtle tours, meetings with locals interested in helping and concerts!
Once on the Caribbean side, you are struck by the absolute poverty that a large portion of these people live in. You realize that they live their lives in the balance. Trash and recycling takes a second seat to providing enough food to feed their children. Working in pesticide laden fields of bananas becomes a way to barely eek out enough wages to stay afloat.
There were three people who contacted us on the website that met up with us down in Puerto Viejo. We had a few organizational meetings and planned out the trips for the rest of the time in country.
Our first planned trip was to the remote Bribri village of Kachabri.
Some of our volunteers and visitors hadn’t been to the village before, and were lucky enough to find Jairo and a Shaman from another clan on property. We also noticed upon arrival that there was a decent sized group of students from the University in San Jose camping on premises. This was the first time I saw any outsiders other than myself at this village, in fact, you generally need permission before you travel to some villages on the reservation.
During the tour, we were lucky enough to have both Jairo and the outside Shaman present to talk us through the winding maze of trees, shrubs, plants, flowers, and roots that are used by the people of this area. I always find myself overcome while on the reservation. They live in a certain absolute way, they have for so long. The sheltered life they have been living for hundreds of years is starting to show fractures.
Jairo expressed his need to talk to me so we walked over to a small clearing around their organic gardens, and told me he wanted to build us a house on property. This was unexpected, and a great honor for our project to know they are as excited as we are to begin building their community in a positive way.
While our future endeavors will help make our project self-sufficient within two years of our field station being operational, we are in need of assistance to get some of the projects off the ground. Through the building of our house on property, reliable transportation, and the revenues needed to re-market and start our Kachabri Campaign, we will ensure the timeliness of this project.
If you are interested in making a donation, you can visit our donate page HERE.
Popularity: 1%
