THE DAUGHTER OF FEAR
Our 4×4 wove its way through the valleys of San Jose, and eventually up the mountains on the south side, over the potholes and ravines in the roads that were no longer remarkable to us. We arrived in a small town with a group from our church to volunteer at a children’s Christmas party. Many miles from the resort life in Costa Rica, most of the residents were poor Nicaraguan immigrants. Poor like no electricity or running water in their homes. Poor like having to choose between money for school uniforms or money for food. The Christmas party was hosted by a Costa Rican family who lives in this town and owns the local mini mart. With the money earned in its small store, the family, lead by it’s matriarch, the jolly and gracious Cecilia, feeds up to 80 local children each day. For the party, this family cooked hot dogs and arroz con pollo for the 200 guests, all in a kitchen the size of 2 office cubicles. We volunteered to serve food and generally be helpful.
Our oldest, however, was furious. Furious like refusing to get out of the car. Furious like demanding that we move back to the United States immediately. Her anger crawled through her eyes and flew out of her mouth like fire looking to level everything around her. While her words snapped at us and had the tenor of an indignant teenager, she was clearly afraid. This trip was planned in the sunny living room of our church and was chosen for it’s child-friendliness (and indeed, there were nothing but blue skies and friendly smiles when we arrived), which lulled me into forgetting that for my children, this was the first time.
They have lived all their lives in a world of quiet streets and Santa Claus. In Costa Rica, they visit friends who live in gated mansions with indoor swimming pools and a staff to clean up their cookie crumbs. They live behind barbed wire fences, a symbol of what may be lurking on the other side, but never have to see what they are being separated from.
As I have written previously, what is most frightening about what is on the other side of the fence is simply that it is unknown. While my husband and I are by no means comfortable around it, we have seen enough poverty to know what it looks like, to have our fear moderated by our knowledge and experience.
While the relative safety of Costa Rica can be debated, as can that of any country in the world, what has been most striking to me about moving here is how it has revealed my own personal strain of fear, and allowed me to notice how it has manifested in the generations before me. Fear, of the texture and density that my oldest experienced, has a long history in her family. It has weaved its way through our family tree, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs and at times a ravine of gangrene in its wake. But in the moment that we arrived at that mini mart, it was not the past that hit me but the present reality of my little girl. That whether she learned it by observation or it just arrived with her in her genes, she had this family’s fear wedged into her like a splinter.
So, as I have come to learn, the only thing to do with fear is feel it. Or write blog posts about it to bore your friends with. Which is just what we let my daughter do.
To her great credit, she did get out of the car. She found a perch atop a pile of cement blocks and spent most of the party watching quietly. She didn’t bicker with her sisters, complain that the only seats were cement blocks, or even ask for the ice cream that was handed out to the guests at the party.
We were about to buckle ourselves in for the trip home, when my oldest remembered that she brought the spaghetti sauce jar of change. We keep it on the kitchen counter and regularly donate to it, but somehow she is the one who always remembers to give the change away. She scrambled out of the car and pulled on Cecilia’s shirt, and silently offered up her gift. What shifted in her that day she wouldn’t say, but I can’t help thinking that it was the gift that Cecilia gave to her.