Day 3

Day three in Chilamate, Costa Rica: We slept in today until eight o’clock in the morning and woke up to the teachers saying “Breakfast time, it is eight o’clock”. We quickly woke up and hurried to eat breakfast. At nine o’clock we walked over to the Chilamate School, a small school in the community that has kids preschool aged through sixth grade. When we arrived at the school the students were having a school assembly about indigenous people in Costa Rica, because today is Indigenous People’s Day in Costa Rica. We were invited to join the assembly and when it was over we had recess where we played soccer and basketball with the students. Once the students went back to class we started our work again on the bleachers for the outdoor auditorium. We shoveled dirt and rocks between set bricks, then we made concrete and poured it on top of the rocks and dirt to make the seats sturdy.

Next, our friend, Rodrigo, picked us up in his bus drove us to a farm. On the bus ride we were passing by a ranch with cows and someone shouted from the back “Hey look, there are horses.” That was one of the highlights of the ride.

La machina de chemicales

Later we noticed one kind of plant for as far as the eye could see. This was a huge mono-crop of pineapples. The bus pulled over and Randall taught us about how in some parts of Costa Rica the jungle has been replaced by pineapple plants and banana plants. He explained how the plants are treated with chemicals and pesticides and we saw the machines that are used for this purpose. When we arrived at the farm a man named Daniel, who owned the farm, met us there and we at a lunch that his family made for us. He used to work for Dole and Chiquita, which are huge companies that grow and sell pineapples and bananas. Dole and Chiquita use so many pesticides and chemicals that it is harming the river, the forest, Daniel, all his co-worker buddies, and the children that are born. To this day Daniel has major health issues because of his exposure to the chemicals and some of his friends have died from diseases caused by the chemicals.

Fields of piña (pineapple).

Due to these experiences Daniel now he runs an organic and sustainable farm. He gave us a tour of his farm and all of the crops that he grows. His main crop is pepper, said to be the best pepper in the world due to the spiciness of the pepper. As another side business he also raises pigs and uses their poop (“caca” in Español) to make a fertilizer that he sells to other members of his community to promote organic farming rather than using chemicals. He even uses the poop from the pigs (“caca de cerdo”) to produce methane gas (biofuel) for cooking with and to run his lamps. His farm is fully sustainable. It was slim.