No electricity

No electricity
Last week an arrangement was made for the school that our girls attend to arrange for a meeting with members of one of the indigenous tribes that live in the south here.  The tribe, the guyami, are the original inhabitants of this area and have a distinct Indian look. The tribe members wanted to come to the school and visit so lthey met at the school and brought some handmade wares and dressed up for the occasion.  This sounds like a typical meeting of a few cultures and was, but what was most striking was that some members of this tribe had never before left the mountain, an altaplano area where they live, a few hour walk from the end of the dirt road that is the closest access to the area.  These group members had never seen electricity, they had never seen a cell phone and have huge culture shock... Funny since they were in culture shock coming to Uvita, I was in culture shock coming to Uvita as well only for the opposite reason.   
We are visiting Escazu, a suburb of San Jose basically, that has a striking range from the most affluent to the poorest slum-like areas we have seen here.  Poor squatters and farmers are one thing, usually happy and living in a home-made shanty drinking coconuts and eating of the land, these metro pockets of slum are tucked in a few hundred meters off of the main access to palatial homes and are were very reminiscent in several ways to me of Kibera, a massive slum I visited in Kenya.  There is something different about the faces of the adults in these areas that i hope to be able to capture some day on film.  I wish i had time and connections allowing me to interview the inhabitants as i did in Kenya, as it was a fascinating window into the lives of the poorest of the poor and only fills me with more vigor to spend the bulk of the rest of my life in a venture such as micro finance.  Amy and I share a passion therein.
A few quick stats that I must share about all of this since we are on the topic... About 1/3 of the world population lies on $2 per day or less, something that those whom have never been able to leave US soil have no point of reference for. The Kibiera slum houses about 1.1 to 1.2million people in an area roughly 2-3 square miles, no typo there. There is on toilet for every 40,000 residents, extremely few have electricity and there is no indoor plumbing and no water provided.  The average dwelling is 10x10 and houses 6 to 15 persons and rent is $32 per month.