Juan Sanchez of the Quitirrisi

Some three thousand horses and a human multitude converged downtown San Jose yesterday for the famous National Tope. I, however, kept my horses peacefully out to pasture and joined a small group of Ciudad Colon neighbors to take presents and clothing out to the nearby Quitirrisi Indigenous Reserve. Our group was organized by the local English/Spanish teacher, Roxana Vega, who is known for her joyful high spirits and compassion for others. There are many needs in this country and she is kept busy year round, always finding a new batch of volunteers whenever students from the University of Peace contact her for Spanish lessons. What better way to learn Spanish than to immerse yourself into the culture and volunteer?

So yesterday, a caravan of cars followed Roxana’s white pickup, all piled high with boxes of new clothing, out to the Reserve, located about 10 minutes west of Ciudad Colon. We were met by the village elder, Juan Sanchez, who calls himself Chotto in the Huetar language. He led us down a beautiful wooded trail to the village square, anchored by a lovely round bamboo structure, which felt fresh and cool inside. We soon discovered that Juan – Chotto is also the village shaman and uses the structure for curing ailments. In reality, the large, interior area is both called “Centro de Curacion el Coicote” and also, “Templo de Las Creencias Indígenas Huetar, Tatamama”. He took us around and showed us some of his remedies – mixtures of bones – ancient stones – dried seeds - all of which he uses along with herbs and invocations to the spirit world to effect the cure.

While Chotto was showing us some of his implements of the healing arts, the square outside filled with indigenous people, who walked in from all over. Most of the volunteers moved outside to help distribute the gifts. It was a big, noisy, joyous occasion.

We stayed out of the sun and sat down on a bench with Chotto to talk with him about his people. Choto learned the Huetar traditions from his father and passes them down to his children. The Huetar were once the most organized and powerful indigenous group in Costa Rica, as they inhabited the fertile, central valley plateau, known as the land of eternal spring. Unfortunately for the Huetar, the Spaniards agreed with them that this was the most pleasant location for settling in the country and pushed the Huetar out. They are now confined to a small reserve to the west of the valley, which they named Quitirrisi (this means the names of two trees: Quitiri and Risi).

The Spaniards effectively stamped out Huetar traditions and, except for some words, which one recognizes from many of the town names in the Central Valley, the spoken Huetar language is lost. Chotto explained that other indigenous groups in Costa Rica, such as the Bribri have had more luck retaining their language because they are located in more remote areas. The Costa Ricans, through influence from the church, even tried to rename Quitirrisi to “San Martin” but the indigenous would have none of it.

Today, the people are healthy and live simple lives. They have smiling, laughing children and well-fed, contented dogs. They make well-crafted baskets and hammocks, which they offer for sale on the main road to Puriscal. Some of the adults work at jobs in the Central Valley and the kids go to school in Ciudad Colon. Choto worries about retaining the indigenous traditions when the modern world interfaces in so many ways. Some of his people now go to the medical clinic rather than requesting traditional cures, although he admits that all come to him in the end if the western medicine doesn’t work.

From what I understood of what Chotto described, the Huetar style of medicine isn’t so much as one remedy but the combination of earth/sun/moon energies that he tries to align, using representations (like plant cut at 1st day new moon) in order to bring the cure. You need to feel the energy and believe in its power. Sounds more powerful than the placebo effect and the placebo effect is very powerful!

I was very interested in his vast knowledge of trees and plants but there was no time left for talk – it was time to go join the festivities outside. But Chotto did promise he would come visit us at Finca El Tigre. He knows the forest and said that we have some rare plants that he could use at the reserve. We agreed to do some trading of seeds, etc and discussing more of the traditions.

I hope to share more about the Huetar traditions with you very soon!

Saludos a todos y pura vida!

The Show Begins!

Happy Holidays from Costa Rica! Holiday traditions here are very different from where we came from in Pennsylvania. When we first arrived here back in December, 1997, I pined for the traditional winter wonderland scene with freshly cut evergreens, winterberry and holly. What we got at the hotel here was Santa and his scruffy plastic sleigh perched atop the roof of the hotel, while guests lounged under the blazing sun at the pool. Inside, the lobby featured artificial trimming and a dried out, brown cedar tree that looked more like a fire hazard than anything else. It was truly a surreal introduction to Christmas in the tropics.

We decided to go native and celebrate the holiday season like the locals, using the incredible flowering plants and trees, which begin blooming in December and continue all the way through the dry season until May, when the rainy season brings the green foliage back into center stage.

So, if we just look around the gardens at Finca El Tigre, we can find an absolute spectacle of color - pink and purple bougainvillea, red gingers, yellow trumpet vines, white orchid trees, multicolored frangipani and it goes on. It stopped raining about a week ago and the deciduous trees have begun dropping leaves. But the trees don’t go dormant like they do in the north. During the dry season, many of them burst into mouth-dropping blooms that cover the entire tree. The first time I saw the blazing, yellow Cortez Amarilla (Tabebuia ochracea), it nearly knocked me off my feet. Nothing prepares northerners for our first glimpse of a Tabebuia in full, big-bang bloom. But I digress and get ahead of myself. The Tabebuias won’t start for another few months yet.

Right now, this December 22nd, the Guachipelin trees (Diphysa Americana) are raining delightful yellow blossoms that look like sweet pea flowers. If you turn the blossom a certain way, it looks like a little bird (how easily we amuse ourselves). Along the fencerow, we have an avenue of Madero Negro trees (Gliricidia sepium) shaking off similar looking bird-like pinkish-blue flowers. Across the garden there are three dwarf Malinches (Caesalpiniacs.) with their elegant, floating red and yellow flowers. The yellow trumpets of the Vainillo trees (Tecoma stans) are brightening up the steep slopes and at the top, the huge Flame of the Forest trees (Spathodea campanulata) are ablaze with big orange clusters. The local kids use the waterlogged flower-buds as squirt guns. In the garden, there is an extravagance of color with mucho pickings for decorating the house- assorted Ixoras, hibiscus, heliconias, flowering vines and of course, the red bracts of the huge poinsettia shrubs. You know those potted poinsettia plants for sale during the Christmas season? In Costa Rica, they plant them out in the garden and they soon turn into big, gangly shrubs – always faithfully turning red again just in time for the holidays.

Some flowers have delightful fragrances and a few can be intoxicating, like the Ylang Ylang (Cananga odorata) and Jasmine trees at dusk. Everyone is out at dusk around the holidays, not just for the fresh, fragrant air, but because the sunsets are spectacular this time of year, producing incredible displays of color across the sky.

But December is just the beginning! During the dry season, flowering trees bloom successively week after week, giving everyone a different show as they drive down the same road.

At Finca El Tigre, the best show of all today is the massive expanse of Gallinazo (Schizolobium parahyba) and Guachipelin brightening up the forest canopy with greenish to yellow blossoms. Now that these trees have distinguished themselves amongst the rest of the canopy, we can see the huge Gallinazos down by the waterfalls and also how they have marched up the mountain over the years, trees not as massive, but just as bright when in bloom. During the rainy season the forest canopy features shades and textures of green. Now that the dry season has started, flowering trees will punctuate and brighten up the entire canopy.

Some good friends and Forestry Engineers, Manuel Viquez and Yamileth, designed an excellent website, which includes a section describing a flowering tree each week as Costa Rica goes through the flowering season. Check them out at http://www.elmundoforestal.com/ and look for the section called: “Los Arboles del Paraiso”. It’s done in Spanish but non-speakers can still enjoy the incredible pictures.