Welcome to San Luis
A Collection of Stories from the People and Places that Inhabit the Tilarán Mountain Range
“Uno, Dos, Tres, Cuatro…
Uno, Dos, Tres, Cuatro,” Ashley, a 3 year old Costa Rican and granddaughter of Don Tomás, counts out to me. Her eyes implore me to respond to her, almost seeking affirmation. “Uno, Dos, Tres, Cuatro! Verdad!” I say in response, attempting to let her know that I agree, there are indeed four folded shirts laying on the couch. Ashley hops on each shirt, ruining the fold she had previously thrown together, as she counts. I find it odd that she receives such enjoyment from counting, a task that her age and vocabulary suggest she is far beyond.
I find myself in the house with Ashley and the rest of her family: her sister Tamara, her mother, and her grandparents Don Tomás and Doña Maria who own the house. My week in San Luis is coming to a close as I finally begin to understand why I am here, in Costa Rica, on an old burgundy couch with the stuffing bursting through outstretched seams, watching Ashley watch me.
Thirteen years prior, this land and town were at the center of a turning point for a University they did not know existed. Drs. Milton and Diana Lieberman, both biologists focusing on tropical ecology, had designed and started an ecolodge in the small town to increase awareness for the biodiversity in the region. Around 2002, this Ecolodge was purchased by the University of Georgia for research and learning purposes, which is what now brings myself and twenty-one other students to the quiet town of San Luis.
While the Liebermans were hard at work in the slopes of the Tilarán Mountain Range, another group of men and women from around the globe were fighting to protect San Luis and the rest of the Earth through a soft law document: The Earth Charter. This mosaic of sixteen principles represents an effort to “declare our responsibility to one another, to the greater community of life, and to future generations.” (Preamble, The Earth Charter). With this in mind, our group of students embarked on a journey to learn more about the peoples and plants that inhabit this great earth.
Ashley’s lesson in counting, one that I thought I was helping her with, did not sink in until Joe Yourski, a sophomore English and Mass Media Arts student, and I walked back down the mountain side that Don Tomás’s house shared. We trekked silently down and back up the dusty roads, back towards our more normal lives on the UGA Costa Rica Campus. Words would form in my mind before getting stuck in translation inside my throat. I wanted to tell Don Tomás things, not specific things, just anything. I felt the need for words to come from my life, my experiences, and be heard by him. The language barrier provided the Earth’s response to my desires. In the silence that followed, the lump in my throat was why I participated in UGA’s FRC Spring Break Study Abroad. I didn’t come to speak. I came to listen.
Ashley was not looking for my affirmation or validation to her ability to count to four. She was three years old and fluent in a language which I, a twenty-one year old, merely groveled in after 11 years of studying it. Ashley, through a series of smiles and skips, was attempting to teach me Spanish, her culture, her story. I had just forgot to listen.
These are the stories we heard. Come to listen.
