Cow!!!

Mood: Lazyyyy
Music: Grupo Liberación - Ese Loco Soy Yo

This weekend, Sarah L., Sarah M., Stephanie F., Ashley, and I went with a group of twelve ticos to an indigenous community called Boruca in the south of the country. Although the bus ride was a complete and total nightmare (seven hours with 20 people crammed into a microbus is not exactly my idea of fun) and we only spent one day in the community, it was a great experience.

We stayed the night Friday at one of the schools we would be working at on Saturday. And when I say we stayed at the school, I mean that we slept on the floor in one of the classrooms. It wasn't bad at all, though, because they put a bunch of mattresses on the floor for us. Anyway, we got to the school around one in the morning, and nobody got much sleep, for a couple of reasons. First, there was no glass in the windows, so bats kept getting into the classroom. And second, they woke us up at 6:00 to get started.

After breakfast, we split up into two groups, and my group left to go to a different school, about forty minutes away. The students all showed up to give us a welcome presentation, even though it was a Saturday. They taught us how to say "good morning" in Boruca, and then a group of girls did a cumbia dance for us. After that, one of the teachers showed us some hand-carved, hand-painted masks from the community, and then her mother showed us how they go about weaving bags from natural fibers to sell to tourists.

Once they had given us a bit of an introduction, we got to work. First, we pulled all the decorations off the walls of one of the classrooms and sanded down the parts that needed it. Then we painted, although with frequent interruptions by the students, who brought us food every half an hour or so, haha. We only managed to get that one room painted, plus a little bit of the outside of the building... but even so, they were so grateful, and when we left, they had the kids breaking out the brushes and paint we had left them and continuing where we left off.

We went into town to the only high school for lunch. It was definitely interesting, because we had lunch in their cafeteria, and even with the lack of resources that they face, the lunch they served us still seriously outclassed any lunch served in the cafeteria of a US high school. The classrooms there aren't really rooms at all, just a couple of desks and a blackboard huddled together under a tin overhang... I can't imagine trying to have class in the rainy season. You wouldn't be able to hear anything, much less stay focused.

Like I said, it was only a one day trip, so after lunch and a quick visit to a museum of indigenous art, we piled on the bus for the seven hour ride back to Heredia. I got lucky, though, since the bus driver passed through Sto. Domingo, and he dropped me off right in front of my house. I was completely and totally exhausted, but what the hey, I can sleep when I'm dead, so then I dropped off my stuff and went out with Danny :)

And that's about it. Excellent weekend.

Pura Vida,
Sarah

New words:
lijar - to sand
gacilla - safety pin
weave - tejer