First impressions of Boruca
Lots to tell seeing I have been here less than a week so far.... I'll skip all the dull stuff about cramped flights and so on, bar the fact that I had to catch a 4wd bus, at 6 this morning with about a hundred other people to spend 2 hours bouncing along rain washed muddy tracks to the nearest town -The positively bustling metropolis(!) of Buenos Aires- with internet... (it's not that bad really, just don't expect regular reports... oh and the nearest post office is here aswell,closed today!!!)
So as you can imagine up in the village of Boruka where I am staying life is quite rustic. I am live with a family of four in their house, a pleasant room of my own and a thatched cabana outside where the cooking is done by Louisa over a wood fire, and I sit in the hammok in the evenings with my book watching the vampire bats flutter round me. The people here are so nice, really. I have been just accepted into the family as one of them I feel... sent next door to pick up the baby's medicine... helping catch the young chicks that had escaped from their enclosure. It is funny though, in so many ways it doesn't feel that different to home, in that people are still just human, nothing more nothing less, just people getting on with the necessities of daily life, getting on with one another, curious, shy, cocky, chatty, quiet, silly... all the things that people are wherever you go. It's really refreshing to see that you don't need all the things that we complicate our lives with to be like that, to the point that people in the UK perhaps are less real because they have all this other stuff to distract them from their humanity; for example the kids here don't have many toys, so they play with what is around them and as a consequence they grow up with an intrinsic understanding of the realities of the world they live in...
Yesterday it finally stopped raining and we saw the sun for the first time, suddenly it got really hot, and we were able to start working. So far we have been creating gardens of medicinal plants, from aloe vera to salvia, and sowing seeds for plants used in the local crafts. All the people are so lovely and ready to help with anything... the children dissappearing off to return with fresh fruit for us, or telling us about the grubs we were digging up!! One young lad turned up with an army ant doing it's utmost to dig its vicious mandibles into his machette, he dismembered it and two hours later both halves were still moving!!
The village itself has about 1800 people, and is a reserve of the Boruka indigenous people... we are discovering that most are related somehow, as you might imagine. Everyone is happy and healthy, the dogs have fleas but nothing more sinister!! As I mentioned it rained for the first three days we were here... not your feeble English rain that kind of dampens things, but the sort of rain that results in the dirt roads becoming torrents of red muddied water, exciting at first, but soon frustrating as all we wanted to do was get stuck in to... well anything. I have a feeling there is plenty for us to do, which we will no doubt soon discover. The pace of life is however very different to the UK, things are done because they have to be done, but it's all acieved sociably, and without pressure, Pura Vida they say here... a way of life not a slogan.
The plants and animals are amazing, and often tasty! There are chickens everywhere, a pig in the garden being fattened up for christmas dinner, laden orange trees, and papaya, star fruit, yam, and even the rice we eat is grown in the village. It's so nice seeing plants I recognise from Cayman too... I had forgotten how much colour there was everywhere in this sort of place, I suppose you have to have lots of flowers to keep the hummingbirds happy!
When I say we, I refer to myself of course and the other volunteers, 5 girls ranging from 20 to 47, all of us briniging our own things as with any group I guess. We seem to have enough variety among us to continue to find new and interesting things out about each other... I think. There is also a French girl called Sara here who has been in the village for some months now, so has been a valuable source of information about how things work, as well as showing us round a bit and introducing us to people and places. We are starting to hang out with a few of the locals (indigenous poeple they say; indians have bows and arrows!) My Spanish is holding up better than I expected, I have been chatting fairly easily with my family... you know, football, the British weather, what I think of the tamoles made from the pig (not the christmas one) that was slaughterd yesterday morning, and playing alot of cards with the oldest son Andres who is 8... the little one is 18 months... is good practice too, as he is pretty unforgiving in that he doesn't slow down for me, or put on that "talking to foreigners" (come on we all do it) accent like the adults do! So yeah the Spanish is coming on well fortunately as no-one really speaks any English here.
So that's my life for the mext two months, up when the cockrells crow... which is really early, rice and beans for breakfast, digging and building and planting and teaching, and mincing generally during the days, then maybe cards in the bar or book in the hammok, and sleeping.. you all know how I love to sleep... and here 10 is a late night!! I say that tomorrow there is a dance to raise money for the school, which promises to be interesting ...everyone keeps saying 'but one man with the 6 girls?' obvoiously not a shut your eyes and wave your arms about kind of dance.... no phones, no internet, the post does get through intermittently, I believe- so you can address letters to me at Casa de Louisa y Norman, Boruca, Buenos Aires, Costa Rica, and they might get through...! Ohterwise it's just people and jungle... mostly jungle, birds and butterflies, awww pretty!
well I'm tired of typing now, as I'm sure you are tired of reading, so thanks for your time!
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