My elective Alternative Health Approaches class is full of field trips. Yesterday we went to an indigenous village of the Quitirrisí people that live up on a hillside about an hour west of San José. It was full of history and very interesting! We met don Juan who was a cacique (like a chief) of that village and he gave us the history of how the Quitirrisí have been in Costa Rica since the 1500's. And later in the 1800's the Spanish came over and tried to take their land and so they fought in war and were able to keep it.
He also explained how their elders learned how to live by watching how animals live. They decided to live day by day and not worry about tomorrow. He explained to us that everything they do is a celebration, even work. When they build in their village, they do it with pleasure and make a festival out of it. It was a very neat outlook on life. They believe in a god, but my teacher explained later that it is not the real God.
After don Juan gave the introduction about history, we walked to some of the places that they have ceremonies and looked at different plants that are used for natural healing. I am so grateful to have met these people!
The altitude was so high we were literally inside a cloud.
In front of the place they would have village meetings.
Me, don Juan, my professor Ricardo, and Meredith
A circle of sticks with animal skulls on top. He performed a welcome ritual here.
Don Juan showing a welcome ceremony with some of the students, I sat back and watched.
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The burial ground, right then Don Juan's mother (101 years old) and brother (80 years old) were burried. They put the bodies here for a period of time before they dig it up and then bury the bones into a different tomb. The sparrow on the wall is the sparrow that goes to their heaven and helps people be judged to not go to their hell.
Today, Meredith and I went Ziplining because we are going to miss one of the CEA excursions due to a class field trip this weekend to the Carribean. Costa Rica has many Zipline places, but today we went to San Ramone, which is about an hour and a half north of San José. It was awesome! There was one Tarzan swing and the last line was a Super Man style about 250 feet high. We flew over the tree tops and got to look down onto the rain forest, it was beautiful!
Meredith, Maggie from CEA, and I before our adventure
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