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Jan
9
The Hidden Majority
Posted by Barry | January 9, 2010 | Categories: Community News | 8 Comments
 Willi helps with jungle laundry. Photo © Maisie Crow. |
Puerto Viejo is a global melting pot. Getting to know people from all over the world is a really enjoyable part of the Puerto Viejo experience.
Estimates of the permanent population that I’ve heard have been around 2,500. It’s hard to pin down by just looking around the streets, where a mixture of blacks, whites, and ticos are easily seen, along with a relatively small number of indigenous Bribri. The number of Bribri is usually so small it’s easy to assume there are only a small number of them in the area.
 Daniel & Alejandro. Photo © Maisie Crow. |
We were given a copy of a study done in 2003 by the Ministerio de Salud (Health Ministry). They wanted to understand the health conditions of the indigenous, and the delivery of services to that segment of the population. They counted heads by province. The two provinces that affect us here in Puerto are Talamanca and Limon, and the total population of indigenous they counted in those two provinces was 20,121. The indigenous in these provinces are largely Bribri, who have a total tribal population in Costa Rica of about 35,000. Piecing together data in the report, there were about 11,500 Bribri within service range of the Hone Creek Clinic, which serves Puerto Viejo, and draws from both Talamanca and Limon provinces.
In the Puerto Viejo area, the indigenous living areas aren’t easily visible. Look toward the hills behind Puerto, where it is difficult or impossible to reach with a motor vehicle. Some of the indigenous “Bridge Kids” we put in school are on top of that hill, and even though they are relatively close to Puerto, they walk nearly two hours each way to go to and from school. There are other walking trails out of the Reserve, one of which goes right past my house.
 Timoteo and his daughter show Daniel Leonhard, of the California firm Earth Source Organics, Cacao seeds in the process of being made into Chocolate. |
What does this mean as a practical matter? The Bribri are a voting majority in Puerto Viejo. This most recently came to light during the angry debates over the marina that was being touted for Puerto Viejo. I witnessed one exchange between Timoteo Jackson, a tribal elder, and the Alcalde of Talamanca, a Bribri, in which Timo went nose to nose with the Alcalde and said something like “if you let that marina in, you’re out!” He said a lot more, but my Spanish isn’t that good. The Bribri have voting control, and they are beginning to think of how and when that control can and should be applied. One of the Bribri beliefs is that they are here to protect the environment. I have a feeling they will be less and less of a Hidden Majority.
 Article by Barry Stevens. Barry, along with his wife Nanci Wright, are the team behind El Puente-The Bridge. El Puente provides educational assistance, food support, and microloans to mainly indigenous people in Costa Rica to help them help themselves to self-sufficiency. More information is available at www.elpuente-thebridge.org. |
Comments
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A great and informative post Barry, thanks.
Also, I just read about a program gearing up at UCR that is designed to preserve indigenous languages in CR.
Can’t remember where I read it, but UCR’s website has info on it.
In the canton of Talamanca 89% of the land is designated as protected area making it the most protected canton in all of Costa Rica. The irony is that it is also the poorest with the indigenous communities facing the harshest conditions. Before knocking development in the future one can only hope that education on sustainable development reaches this important voting block
Hi, Mike – as you probably know, the language issue is critical to maintaining legal identity as a tribe as well as preserving their culture. We ran into a Bribri graduate student, Ali Garcia, who attended UCR and worked extensively on teaching materials for the Bribri language. Through him, we obtained files containing both text and audio materials on the language, and have been copying and distributing them to any Bribri interested in learning or teaching the language. There’s an MP3 audio sample available on our website for download at http://www.elpuente-thebridge.org/cvjara-bribri1-01.mp3
Hi, “IB” – The Bribri community is made up of a demographic which ranges from what the UN calls Extreme poverty – less than $2 a day family income – and living reasonably well by their standards. The mean and median of this distribution is skewed toward the lower income end of the scale. I don’t have actual numbers, just obserfvations obtained from the people we serve at The Bridge, and the tribal elders and leaders we’ve been talking to.
The leaders of the tribe seem to be well aware of sustainable development. The photo of Daniel Leonhardt and Timoteo Jackson talking about cacao production in the article above is only one example of such a project underway. A group of Bribri cacao growers is working with a chocolate candy manufacturer in the US to expand cacao production with healthy cacao plants and export the raw chocolate to that company in the US. The Bridge is acting as broker in getting the chocolate growing and flowing in this deal.
The Bridge is priviledged to have on our Advisory Board two people with some real experience in this area. Michael and Joanna Bresnan are owners of the Vista del Valle Hotel in Naranjo, Costa Rica. Twenty years ago, they initiated a foundation in Nicaragua which has so far resulted in 1,600 small and micro-businesses, 5 trade schools and an orphanage. They have recently opened an analogous foundation in Costa Rica, and are looking to apply their approach successfully used in the area surrounding their hotel on a broader scale within the country. They are working with every family in the area their development affects. They ask – in my words, not theirs – “How can we help you become profitable – make money – live better?” They’ve helped people set up businesses with crafts, food, fresh vegetables and fruits, and more. Then, they send people from the hotel to visit those microbusinesses on horseback – and they also rent the horses. They’re using a development model which ensures that the people around their development prosper.
My personal view is that their model, applied within the Bribri indigenous area, has the greatest potential for economic development I’ve been able to find so far. In that model both the developer and the area around the development prosper.
The URL I posted above for the language materials was wrong.
The correct URL is http://www.elpuente-thebridge.org/language/cvjara-bribri1-01.mp3
This is very good news! Very good news indeed!
Well, jeeez, thanks alot “silent majority” for voting this quality Mayor and his ilk into office. I for one would like to see Timateo Jackson step up to the plate and hear what he has to say for himself in light of the recent arrest of the indigineous mayor of Talamanca on corruption charges.
If this is any indication of the leadership we can expect from the indiginous community leaders that are all to ready to knock any development (such as the marina) on the auspices of environment protection we are in bad shape.
Talamancas need for sustainable development is not isolated only to the native peoples but to the area as a whole. Without a thriving business community there are no jobs and no tax revenue and the consequences are obvious.
On your comment, Curious – I have had the opportunity to meet and work with many Bribri. I’ve found them to be no different than any other group of people anywhere. Every once in a while, you run into a person in a position of power who misuses it. Did you notice that the other two Alcaldes who were nailed at the same time were not Bribri?
As for increasing the volume of business through Puerto, there are stellar examples available in another part of Costa Rica of how to do that – without destroying the environment. There are even things that hotel owners have done to increase occupancy in the low season. That’s another entire discussion – in another forum.