After hiking and hitching rides to various parts of the reservation for the past few days, we decided we could rest confident that there is significant need there and that local residents would definitely welcome it.

But in order to do things right, we had to make one more stop: The association of indigenous leaders, which is the first line of government on the reservation.

We had received their permission last year to work on the reservation, but keeping in mind that we’re looking to take on larger projects and most of the association was replaced after a recent election, we decided to start from scratch. I wrote a letter thanking the group for allowing us the opportunity to work there thus far and asking their permission to be able to continue our projects there.

We got up at 5 a.m., packed up (we were headed to San Jose right after the meeting) and hopped on a bus to Suretka, the Bribri village where the association meets. We had heard through the grapevine that they were going to say yes, but nonetheless I decided to hold on to a healthy apprehension about it rather than consider it a done deal.

Turns out that was unneccesary. The new association president has an English-speaking father–we didn’t ask where from–so English was his first language and he was eager to talk with us. Turns out he’s also a Christian. He listened to us for a few minutes and gave us an informal approval before the meeting even started.

We went into the one-room, wood building with empty wood benches and sat in the second row for a while before moving to the front. The members of the association trickled in one at a time.

They made us the first item on the agenda. Our comrade Timoteo Jacson spoke first in Bribri, explaining to them who we are and what we hope to be able to contribute. I then stood and addressed them in Spanish, and they read our letter out loud. They were quiet for a few moments.

Then they told us one at a time that they loved the idea and they would like to work alongside Experience Mission to see how we could collaborate resources to work on larger projects than either of us could afford independently.

When we began to discuss the possibility of the bridge in Soke, the association president said, “God has his time for everything, and I think that for this project, it’s now. We’ve been working for months on getting all the materials we need for that bridge, but until now we haven’t had anybody to build it. And now you show up. We have half the materials in Limon and the other half here, and we’d be happy to deliver whatever you need.”

Couldn’t have gone much better than that. Also, when we return in February, he wants to take us on a two-day hike to a remote, remote village to show us the depth of problems facing families there and the relatively simple projects that could help them.

The bus on the way back down was late. Extremely late. Timoteo flagged down a 4×4 taxi–not a very common site in the area we were sitting–and we walked over to hop in.

It turned out to be this guy Gato (that’s a nickname, of course) who had overcharged us twice, and who we had turned down for a ride a third time because of it. It was a 12-kilometer trip back down to the bus that would take us to San Jose, and we were getting ready to take a hit in the pocketbook.

We dropped Timoteo off at his place, said goodbye and continued down the rocky, unsurfaced road until we got to downtown Bribri.

“How much, Gato?” I asked.

“Two thousand colones,” he said. That’s four dollars. He undercharged us by $12.

“Really? That’s all?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I was headed down anyway.”

God is good.

-Steve