By rachels522
My favorite thing that we did in Costa Rica was stay in an indigenous Bri Bri tribe.
To get to the remote tribe we had to take a two hour boat ride upstream. Occasionally we had to get out of the boat to help push it up the river because it was so shallow. After the ride we got to a picture perfect community with thatched huts. The buildings were way bigger than I expected and were completely made of wood and thatched palm. There was no electricity, except for one light in the kitchen area. For the full 4 days we were there we showered by jumping into a river. The tribe is in complete isolation and far upstream, so the river water is pretty much as clean as any water coming from a tap.
While in the Bri Bri we met many of the indigenous people. They taught us about agroforestry of cacao. Agroforestry is supposed to help recreate deforested areas but also use them for commercial enterprises. The Bri Bri people were selling the cacao and using other tree foods (citrus, banana, etc…) for sustenance. What we really learned from the agroforestry lesson is that agroforestry is a better alternative to deforestation but is by no means perfect. We also got to taste the cacao which was absolutely delicious. It was the purest dark chocolate you can imagine. We also got to learn a little Bri Bri. For example, Mia Mia means thank you. The tribe is currently facing a sort of crisis in that some people want to modernize and others don’t. The larger indigenous community just voted to put a road from the tribe to a city. There is the start of a road in front of the village. It doesn’t go very far and is completey dirt. The people say that it seems the government has run out of money and they think the road will disappear with the rainy season. Also they can’t decide if they should get computers for the highschool. Im not exactly clear how they would generate enough electricity for the computers or how they would pay for internet, but they are still thinking about it. One of the members of te community asked my group about if we think they should try to improve their technology. It is such a hard thing to have an opinion on. Obviously, it is amazing that these people have a unique cultural identity and the internet could seriously change that. On the other hand who are we to say they cant have internet if they want to use it to study and improve their standard of living?