Fátima Reyes, Grade 11
UWC Costa Rica
As a Spanish-speaker mestiza (from both Spanish and indigenous ascendance) living in the capital city, my interactions with indigenous cultures were very rare and often limited to my family’s housekeeper or the lady selling tortillas. Similarly, most of the acquaintance and environments in which I grew up in dismissed indigenous people, occasionally reaching the point of active discrimination. I was tirelessly repeated that I lived in a “multicultural, multiethnic and multilingual” country, but was never taught to embrace nor respect that identity. Thus, I never expected a country with far less indigenous heritage to force me to rethink and relive all these things, yet Costa Rica did.
Half into my first semester at UWC, a fellow co-year announced that she would be launching the Indigenous People CAS. I joined almost immediately under the promise that, once every fortnight, we would get to visit and interact with a local indigenous family, experience a bit of their culture and help them with what we could, whether that was helping with the promotion of their natural medicines business or the repairs of their garden. It wasn’t until just a couple of days before December Break, however, that I finally got the chance to. Arriving at the place, I must admit I was a bit scared and skeptical. Although I had heard the testimony of some of my friends who had already gone, and most of them were favorable, something resembling guilt and an accusation of hypocrisy kept resounding on the back of my head. I realized I was about to confront the harsh reality that indigenous people experience every day on our subcontinent, one I had tried to camouflage as romantic for so many years.
I have visited the place now several times and done all the things I was promised. I shoveled land to clear a path; I prepared vegetables to cook a broth we’d all share, I accompanied them to the market, played with the stray dogs that get fed on the house and chat with Magdalena, the parrot. In between the heat and the sweat, the cooking and the cleaning, the laughs and the chit-chat, the singing and the dancing, something changed inside me. That household and the marvelous people I met there awoke in me something I didn’t even know I had until then. A sort of warmth similar to that of compassion, gratitude, and empathy, evoking sincere respect for and connection with nature and its varied people. In that isolated, dusty and humid porch, with all the mosquitoes trying to bite me and the flies attempting to get in my food, I strangely felt at home. Not the type of home in which you feel comfortable, because I certainly wasn’t, nor the one in which you feel loved, for I was amongst strangers, but the type of home in which I felt organically alive.
The simple and genuine lifestyle of this family who takes so much pride in their cultural heritage and works so hard to make sure their young people would too. They welcomed us, a bunch of curious foreign teenagers, into their lives softened my heart, and opened it to a new point of view of my reality. Sure, I can honestly say that this experience has taught me -or rather reminded me- of the importance of hard work, selflessness, humility, and care. But if I am to be completely transparent, I must acknowledge how experiencing first-hand the indigenous life, even if just for a short time and in a different country, has changed the way I think of, and feel for, the indigenous people of my own country. They are not different from us; we love the same way and dream of the same things and are willing to work equally hard to get them. And they don’t expect anyone (say, an ashamed mestizo, for example) to stand up for them. They do, however, expect us to stand with them. All they wish for, like anyone else, is the opportunity to freely choose the type of lives they want to lead and be given the chance to pursue them.
I have always been proud of my heritage. I know somewhere down the line of my ancestors there are Arabs, Spaniards, and, of course, Indigenous Guatemalans. Particularly to the latter, I have always felt responsible for learning their history and culture, the injustices my government has put them through, and standing up in their name to my often racist and classist family and friends. I enjoyed travelling to indigenous communities, witnessing their traditions, tasting their foods, and wearing their fashion. For many years, I believed these superficial and somewhat selfish actions to be sufficient excuse for my general ignorance and disinterest for their people. A humble Costa Rican household showed me that I need not feel responsible for them. They reminded me that we are all in these together.
Half into my first semester at UWC, a fellow co-year announced that she would be launching the Indigenous People CAS. I joined almost immediately under the promise that, once every fortnight, we would get to visit and interact with a local indigenous family, experience a bit of their culture and help them with what we could, whether that was helping with the promotion of their natural medicines business or the repairs of their garden. It wasn’t until just a couple of days before December Break, however, that I finally got the chance to. Arriving at the place, I must admit I was a bit scared and skeptical. Although I had heard the testimony of some of my friends who had already gone, and most of them were favorable, something resembling guilt and an accusation of hypocrisy kept resounding on the back of my head. I realized I was about to confront the harsh reality that indigenous people experience every day on our subcontinent, one I had tried to camouflage as romantic for so many years.
I have visited the place now several times and done all the things I was promised. I shoveled land to clear a path; I prepared vegetables to cook a broth we’d all share, I accompanied them to the market, played with the stray dogs that get fed on the house and chat with Magdalena, the parrot. In between the heat and the sweat, the cooking and the cleaning, the laughs and the chit-chat, the singing and the dancing, something changed inside me. That household and the marvelous people I met there awoke in me something I didn’t even know I had until then. A sort of warmth similar to that of compassion, gratitude, and empathy, evoking sincere respect for and connection with nature and its varied people. In that isolated, dusty and humid porch, with all the mosquitoes trying to bite me and the flies attempting to get in my food, I strangely felt at home. Not the type of home in which you feel comfortable, because I certainly wasn’t, nor the one in which you feel loved, for I was amongst strangers, but the type of home in which I felt organically alive.
The simple and genuine lifestyle of this family who takes so much pride in their cultural heritage and works so hard to make sure their young people would too. They welcomed us, a bunch of curious foreign teenagers, into their lives softened my heart, and opened it to a new point of view of my reality. Sure, I can honestly say that this experience has taught me -or rather reminded me- of the importance of hard work, selflessness, humility, and care. But if I am to be completely transparent, I must acknowledge how experiencing first-hand the indigenous life, even if just for a short time and in a different country, has changed the way I think of, and feel for, the indigenous people of my own country. They are not different from us; we love the same way and dream of the same things and are willing to work equally hard to get them. And they don’t expect anyone (say, an ashamed mestizo, for example) to stand up for them. They do, however, expect us to stand with them. All they wish for, like anyone else, is the opportunity to freely choose the type of lives they want to lead and be given the chance to pursue them.
I have always been proud of my heritage. I know somewhere down the line of my ancestors there are Arabs, Spaniards, and, of course, Indigenous Guatemalans. Particularly to the latter, I have always felt responsible for learning their history and culture, the injustices my government has put them through, and standing up in their name to my often racist and classist family and friends. I enjoyed travelling to indigenous communities, witnessing their traditions, tasting their foods, and wearing their fashion. For many years, I believed these superficial and somewhat selfish actions to be sufficient excuse for my general ignorance and disinterest for their people. A humble Costa Rican household showed me that I need not feel responsible for them. They reminded me that we are all in these together.
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