Date: | December 19, 2018 | Location: | San José, Costa Rica |
Making a Difference
By Martha Rollins
Exactly 10 years ago, I made my first trip to a small isolated community at the end of the only road into the Simiriñak Indigenous Territory on the banks of the beautiful but wild Río Pacuare. That trip was documented in the ARCR magazine El Residente.
The Cabecar community had no electricity, no Internet, no running water, and very little food. The schools had very few school supplies and no textbooks. A few horses riddled with ticks fed in what now is a modern soccer field. Many governmental and corporate donors as well as individuals have helped us to focus a spotlight on this community.
ICE provided electricity and internet while MEP provided computers and training for teachers and children. The number of children in school has more than doubled. The kitchen has been modernized. ARCR and American Legion Post CR10 have consistently supported the project with donations and publicity.
On Saturday, December 15th, 2018, over 170 Cabecar people gathered to meet our team at <em>Escuela Paso Marcos</em>, the school I first visited ten years earlier to deliver books for the children. This community includes the Simiriñak and Paso Marcos indigenous groups, who live in the Talamanca mountain range beyond Turrialba. The fiesta was held to celebrate the formation of a new association and the construction of a new gathering place, built by members of the community, with our help by paying for cement for the center's floor.
Some Cabecar families walked for more than five hours through the uninhabited mountains to attend. We were welcomed by Richard Segura, a long-time friend and leader of the new association at Paso Marcos, <em>Proyecto Pacoci</em>, and Albin Anibal Mayorga, the director of Escuela Paso Marcos.
This visit was financed by donations from the Association of Residents of Costa Rica (ARCR) and American Legion Post CR10. Team members included: Terry Wise, ARCR Board member and member of Post CR10, my husband Roger Rollins, a board member of Post CR10, and Terry Renfer, the President of the Board of Directors of ARCR. Also in the group was Anita Salazar, a veteran of prior trips, and her two young nieces, 13-year-old Angelica Salazar Mora, and 21-year-old Diana Gonzalez Chicaiza, as well as Juan José Benavides (Trino) a singer and guitar player.
Two medical doctors, Dr. Andrés García and Dra. Mariam Soto met us in Turrialba. Also included in the team were two indigenous Cabecar leaders and friends, Gamaliel Molina Diaz (Gama) who is from a different Cabecar community in the Talamanca Mountains, closer to Limón and Betty Vargas Fernandez, niece of former indigenous advisor to MEP and for seven years the Directora of Escuela Sikua Ditso in Simiriñak.
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