Cahuita, Limòn...Conversations with an Afro-descendant.

Cahuita National Park

Limòn is a province along the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica.  It is a province known for its beautiful natural areas and diverse cultures.  Limòn is the home of many Afro-descendants, indigenous and Chinese immigrants, this is because the largest port in Costa Rica, Puerto Viejo, is located in Limòn. The  Afro-descendants of Limòn primary language is "Limòn Creole"or English.  However, in school students are taught Spanish.  

On Friday May 20th, my Bennett Sisters and I had the opportunity to travel to Cahuita in Limòn.  In Cahuita we enjoyed fun in the sun at Cahuita National Park and a "delightful"game of soccer with a group of adolescent girls.  However, the most significant event was our dinner with three Afro-descendant families.  After a traditional home cooked meal, we were able to have a intimate conversation with our host families concerning the culture, social and economic problems facing their race etc.  My host mother, Laura Wilson-Robinson, was very excited to have us in her home and answered all of our questions without hesitation.  In chatting with Mrs. Laura many of my sisters and I concluded that black people around the world face the same, or similar, problems.  For the purpose of this blog I will focus on drugs in the black community and maybe in later post my sisters will write on the other issues that came up during our conversations.

"If you ask every family in this area, everyone of them has someone in their family that is on or has been on drugs," Mrs. Wilson-Robinson.  Does this informal statistic sound familiar?  It should because it is very similar to a statistic concerning the African American community.  If we really think about it, we all know someone in our family, community etc that is or has been on drugs.  While chatting with Mrs. Wilson-Robinson I found that, similar to the African American community, a foreigner (who exactly, we are unsure) was responsible for introducing drugs such as cocaine, weed, crack etc into the community.  As a result, families and communities are torn apart and the mentality of "It takes a village to raise a child," changes to one of "every man for himself."  Although, we can say it is the "foreigners" fault, at what point does the black community have to own up to the fact that we too have our own roll in this?  In other words, yes the "foreigner" brought the drugs into the black community but one black person took it upon him/herself to spread it throughout the community.

Consider this quote that resonated with myself and many of my Bennett Sisters: "You buy one black man, you buy them all."  When will the black community stop allowing outsiders to buy us, not just with drugs/narcotics but with technology, fashion, music anything?  Until we stop allowing this to occur we as a people will forever be in bondage.  It is is indeed something worth thinking about.

Street art in Puerto Viejo

~Kimberly Johnson