Women use chocolate and tourism to save Yorkin
By Annette Carter - Special to A.M. Costa Rica
Development experts have a lot to learn from a small group of Indian women deep in the jungles of Talamanca near Costa Rica’s border with Panama. It is a story of an isolated BriBri village struggling against the modern world, unable to preserve its culture, its language, the health of its children, and losing its men and children to the influences of the outside world.
Just 16 years ago four women realized that they were losing everything they had ever known. Their village of Yorkin in the Caribbean lowlands of Talamanca was dying. The spot is separated from the rest of the world by the rios Sixaola and Yorkin.
For years the BriBri have led a very self-sufficient although isolated life. Banana and cacao (the plant used for making chocolate) provided what they needed, but then a virus began to kill much of the cacao. Their banana crops were selling for only 20 colons per kilo.
Many BriBri men opted to take jobs in the banana fields two or more hours away from their village. Their exposure to the outside world and its temptations resulted in alcohol and drug problems for some, and others died blaming the pesticides and chemicals used by the banana companies.
“There was no employment,” said Bernarda Morales Marín, the leader of the group, “We were losing our culture, and we were buying food we didn’t grow.”
In the schools, BriBri children were discouraged from speaking their own language, and their exposure to new foods was eroding their nutrition.
What is going to happen to these men, and what are we going to do about all this? Those were the two questions that came up time and again in the minds of the women as the situation only continued to worsen.
The answer was to gather the community together, and from that the Asociación de STIBRAWPA, a BriBri word meaning artisan women, was born. The initial group consisted of only five or six women, and their goals were to preserve their culture, the biodiversity of their land and their economy. The men did not want to participate.
Ms. Morales said the early days were not easy because some in the community thought the children could never adapt to eating natural foods again, and the men in the community were not accustomed to women taking matters into their own hands. The organization was threatening to the men because “they thought women could not have this kind of power.” There was a lot of opposition, she said.
Over time as the women forged ahead things began to change. Today, men and women in Yorkin work together for the betterment of their community. Thanks to the women’s organization, the community has built a business that welcomes visitors and volunteers from around the world to the village to learn the Yorkin way of life. The income from these visitors, in turn, supports community projects such as building a new school, purchasing a canoe, repairing a boat motor or helping a needy neighbor.
Today, the community feeds itself with the bounty of its own harvest — locally-raised chickens, rabo de mono or “tail of the monkey,” a plant found in the local jungle and cooked like a vegetable, palmito or hearts of palm, bread made from locally grown bananas, juice made from oranges, lemons that grow on the land, and much more. All cooking is done over a wood fire. Volunteers come for a few days, weeks or months and help by teaching English or assisting with chores.
Recently three students from Central School of Speech and Drama in London, England visited for a month to teach the children theater as a way of passing on their oral history. Volunteers pay $8 per day for room and board.
The community now has both an elementary and a high school with one teacher for each. Solar panels provide energy for lights in the school buildings and one in the communal kitchen. Other than that, there is no electricity in Yorkin.
Nonprofit organizations and other interested people have provided assistance over the years. A group of Cahuita residents is planning a fund raiser to be held this fall to buy a propane-powered generator that would provide more electricity for the community.
But most dramatic has been the change in gender roles and the community’s lessons in working together for the betterment of all.
Ms. Morales, who has been outside the community to take training courses in gender equality, said “the men now understand that women have ideas and because of that they can achieve things they haven’t thought of.” In the past, she said, men understood equality meant force. They had to learn it is not a competition between sexes.
“There are things as women we can’t do but the men can and the opposite and we can support each other,” said Ms. Morales. “For example, the men build houses because the wood is very heavy, and they move the tourists in the boats because it is hard to steer the boats on the rivers.” The women, in turn, work with the tourists, cooking, demonstrating how to make chocolate from cacao seeds, making and selling their crafts, and, of course, telling their story.
The women have also set up an export business sending the cacao paste they make to Switzerland for use in chocolate and wine. They have shipped cacao seeds to Italy as well. In addition, the women handle all the business of the organization itself, including the treasury.
When asked what the community needs the most, Ms. Morales reply: “More friends.”
“For us, it is important to have friends,” she says. “Without the help of visitors we wouldn’t be able to support our projects.”
How to get to Yorkin:
Tours to Yorkin can be booked from most hotels in Cahuita or Puerto Viejo. Tourists should be sure to specify Yorkin because there are other BriBri villages that host visitors.
Visitors should plan to ride about 45 minutes to one hour by car to a crude landing where they will board a wooden dugout canoe. Life jackets are provided and the drivers are BriBri men from the village of Yorkin. The boat trip — sometimes they use the motor and sometimes, if the water is too low they paddle — will take about an hour. The first leg of the trip is down the Río Sixaola where eventually the route bears to the right and the remainder of the journey will be on the Río Yorkin River. It is a beautiful and scenic trip.
Once at the shore close to Yorkin visitors still have a 15- to 20-minute hike into the jungle. A guide from Yorkin will greet visitors there and escort them in. It’s a nice hike but could get a little slippery if it’s been raining a lot. Visitors will see the Yorkin schools, the Catholic church, some other community buildings and an abundance of beautiful trees and flowers.
The next stop is the Communal Center where visitors will meet the women of the association, eat some tasty snacks, watch the process of taking the cacao plant from the tree to chocolate and hear the story of Yorkin. It is all very informal. The ladies will fix a delicious lunch of rice, beans, palmito, rabo de mono, potatoes or yucca or other local vegetables.
Next, visitors can explore the area. A river for swimming is about a 15-minute walk away, and a beautiful waterfall is about an hour away by foot.
At the end of the day visitors board the canoe for a trip back to civilization — about a 45 minute ride down river.