A Broad In Costa Rica

Moving About The Countryside

It has been a brilliant two weeks with the Badgetts; I can't think of a better way to have started 2010. When the Bs are here, we don't stop roaming. It is a beautiful reminder of just how wildly diverse is nuestro pais pequeño [new-ACE-troe pa-EES pay-CANE-yo, our little country] Costa Rica. We kissed 2009 tata (and what a year it was.) For something completely different, we welcomed in 2010 with big plans and dreams of grandeur. My old dreams of grandeur included being a famous movie star married to Sean Penn with homes in Malibu and Southend on Sea. Now they include a bigger chicken coop, goats and some honey bees. Moving to Costa Rica did this to me.

As soon as the Bs landed, we took off for Ginnee and Phil's. Just for one night this trip because Mr. "Type A" B planned every second with no time off for sitting still. The Mrs. and I like sitting still occasionally... usually in a mall, but not this trip. Busy, busy!

Slideshow tips: press the play button, then press the little 4-arrow box at the lower right corner to watch full screen. (If you can't see the 4-arrow box, hold your cursor over the slideshow window. You'll see it.) Once full screen, click the "show info" at the top right so you know what you are seeing! After viewing, press the Esc button once to return to the blog post.

La Finca Esperanza is coming along beautifully. The volunteer house is done, nice new bathrooms and showers. Next comes the outdoor bbq/rancho for volunteer meals and gathering spot. The farm's garden is hugely productive. Heck, at Ginnee's, you can eat the houseplants (great book, notice there is only one used for sale? No one wants to give theirs up!) I don't remember everything we ate but it was all fresh and delicious, even with no refrigerator in the house. Happily, that fridge is coming home any day now from the container where it lives.

How Ginnee has managed for a year with no refrigerator is beyond me. Her pumpkin soup is to die for - I could eat that every meal. She gave me a couple of pumpkin plants to bring home for my pitiful start-up garden. My plants are still alive. Thriving, in fact. Yay, I'm a farmer!

While we were at Ginnee's, about 50 Cabecar [kuh-BECK-er] indigenous came down for a meeting with the alcalde [all-CALL-day, mayor, in this case of Esperanza] who had promised gifts if they came. The alcalde is running for re-election so he is basically buying votes, just like in the states! What the indigenous got for their 8 hour walk thru the wet jungle down a mountainside was a small bag with a few apples and some grapes. Ginnee brought a huge box of clothes and gave them all away. Upstaged the mayor a little but he really seemed ok with it.

I have a video but it's from my ipod and I can't figure out how to edit it... like all Mac stuff, it's propietary and my Windows Movie Maker won't read it. Argh. I'll figure it out. Persistence is my middle name. Obviously. I'm still here, right?

The minute we got home from G&P's house, the Bs left for exciting Liberia for three days with all the progeny. When they got home three days later, Mr. B opined, "Why would anyone go to Liberia for a vacation?" Ahem, wasn't that my question to him way back in September when he told me they were going there? Yes. Maybe he'll listen to me next time. [Pondering.] Nah.

The Bs got home from Liberia on Christmas Day whereupon us rents drove to Puriscal to see some houses for sale for CostaRicaScout.com. Like all the scenery on every drive, the 45 minute country road drive to Puriscal is smashing. I say "country road" because they are working on the new highway which will make it a still-beautiful 10 minute drive.

This highway has been promised for something like 30 years but always gets stopped after a few months' work. No one thinks it will ever be finished... except that it's happening even as we speak. Amazingly, Don Oscar has absolutely improved cross-country travel in Costa Rica. City roads are still a pain: the same potholes that were fixed last dry season show up next rainy season. But going cross country is becoming less of an ordeal.

Saturday, Randi and Robert and I had lunch at La Casona de Laly - one of the best comida tipica restaurants we've found and right here in Escazú. Delicious food at a good price: my kinda place!

Then the three of us took off for an afternoon drive to buy some organic turmeric and see the New Chapter Farm where all the stuff is grown. I only read the first part of the directions, which say: "Drive to San Ramon." When we got to San Ramon, an hour from my house, I continued reading the directions, which say: "Turn left behind the church and follow this road for an hour."

Oh, man! Another hour away? What the heck? That's a second hour's drive just to get there, then turn around and drive back... hmmm. How bad do I want organic turmeric? It only took us about 30 seconds to decide because we're adventurers, remember? And, since we'd just go home and sit in front of the TV or computers, why not finish the journey? Wow, are we glad we did!!! Steve Farrell's Luna Nueva is pretty swell. A real find. Definitely going back to spend the night. They are learning to make pizza in their wood stove, so Hal's going to teach them a few pizza tricks. Then we can see the entire farm, their free-ranging pigs and chickens and cows. Cool.

So, five hours to get an $8 bottle of organic turmeric. That's a record. But, since this stuff cures cancer and a host of other ills, it's worth it. Plus we got to meet Steve, who is also a friend to Ginnee and Phil. He taught them a lot about organic farming, when to plant, all about the waxing and waning. Steve's been doing this awhile...

On Sunday, the Bs and boys took off for Uvita, my favorite beach in Costa Rica. If I could stand the heat, I'd be living there, no question. Once my housesitter got back to town (no, you can't have her name... I need her), Hal and I drove down to join them.

It's a flat-out miracle, but the 44km goat-track between Quepos and Dominical is PAVED. It is now a miracle of a road: wide, flat, smooth, even, with - are you sitting down? - shoulders. Hal and I drove this road our first trip in 2006, in the dark, in the rain. I drove it again when I went to Hacienda Baru with a couple of girlfriends a year ago. It was hell. By the time you got to the end, after being rudely jostled for at least an hour, close to two if the road had not been graded for awhile, you were ready to choke something. But now, it's the road to Paradise. Unfortunately, now everyone will want to go. It would be a tragedy if Uvita started looking like Jacó [ha-KOE, not JACK-oh which is how all the newbie gringos pronounce it.]

Another miracle is that the Oh Shit and Oh My God bridges have finally been replaced with wide brand spanking new overpasses. It's kinda sad actually, to drive over the new bridges looking at the old ones sitting forlornly by, dwarfed by the new structures. I got to drive over the Oh Shit bridge one last time in October when I went to the Mono Azul for a weekend. Nostalgic, actually. Having crossed those bridges and lived to tell the tale is a badge of honor. Really. You know that if you've crossed them. And lived.

Oh - we found a great place to stay in Uvita at the last minute, really cheap: $100/night for eight of us, although two beds shy. Good thing teen boys can sleep anywhere. The location was to die for and right off the Costanero. I would include the website here, but Criticia has a couple of things to warn you about first. Like: bring your own toilet paper, towels (including handtowels and washrags), pillows, shampoo & soap (of course), a fan for the guest cottage (because the ac didn't work the first night, no compressor which somehow showed up by the second night), rubber gloves to clean the hank of someone else's hair on the shower drain, clean sheets (because one of the beds was full of little dead bugs), lightbulbs (and a ladder if you want to change the bulb in my room which we couldn't), batteries for the flashlights sitting around, a screwdriver to remove the doors and a sander so you can get them to open all the way, coffee cups if there are more than four of you, some folding chairs if more than two of you want to sit down at one time (which you'll need for the beach anyway). You have to stick your hand in the tank to flush the toilet in the little bungalow, and the shower knobs in that bathroom don't have a "stop"... you just kinda keep turning till the water slows to a trickle. Don't worry, it eventually turns off. This is made all the trickier seeing as how the on-demand hot water heaters are conveniently set to "scald." The shower head in the big house was off so it was like showering under a hose. The bathroom sink leaked but they thoughtfully placed a white plastic bucket under to catch the drips.

Other than that, it was perfect. Really. And truthfully, we didn't care. It got to be funny. We'd roll our eyes, point and laugh, then go back to the beach.

Uvita is fantastic, I love it there. Too hot for a menopausal fat girl for everyday living, but otherwise, perfect! We found a good pizza place, a great beach, I even played soccer with a local family (I swear they asked me to play), drove all over the place, visited some friends. New Year's Eve we had a most unremarkable "tex-mex" dinner in Domincal, then in bed by 9. Heaven.

New Year's Day we drove home on fabulous paved roads, stopping for another truly forgettable meal at a taco place in ha-KOE. Then home to hang out with our buds one mo' night. We heart the Bs. I can't think of a better way to bring in a new year than to be in Costa Rica with good friends and family. Here's to a swell 2010. May it bring each of us continued prosperity in everything that matters. Love, Saratica

Forget The Sewing Machines... For Now:

A Cabecar Indigenous reality

Posted by Ginnee Hancock
on the Costa Rica Living Group
Thu Jul 3, 2008 12:19 pm (PDT)

Yesterday a Cabecar Indigenous woman came down from the reservation with her mother and her child, a deformed two year old. The child has never seen a doctor and was born on the reservation. The birth was very difficult and one side of the child’s body is mangled. They walked for perhaps as long as 8-10 hours to seek help at the Mission. The child was carried and the Grandmother is not well herself. The Grandmother has either dementia, is in shock, is starving, or all of the above. Starvation contributes to the problems of the Cabecar Indigenous, mental illness and disease.

This Mother loves her child very much, she is not educated, speaks the Cabecar language, not Spanish, and is afraid of the Tico (Costa Rican) world because of years of discrimination and repression that she has endured as an Indigenous person.

A 5 year old child with a deformity was recently hung and murdered on the reservation. It’s a cultural thing. The Mother who arrived yesterday was fleeing with her Mother and child because she believes her child was next to be killed. I believe her.

The Voz Que Clama Mission near Turrialba took them in and they are safely hid for the moment. We are doing our best to get medical attention for the child. PANI (think children and family services) is out of the question as they will take the child and the Mother will never see her baby again. Rural local hospitals and clinics leave a bit to be desired and have few or no specialists.

This family can never go back to the reservation again, or they will be taken care of (the cultural thing I mentioned). The Mission has other residents who survived their own personal attempted executions on the reservation. One young man with a spinal cord injury that happened when he fell out of a tree, was beaten and stoned by his own family, he has scars from head to toe.

My daughter a volunteer at the Mission is renting a house by the Mission and I mentioned to her that perhaps the Indigenous woman and child could move into the casita at the house, so we are looking into that.

The Mission is in desperate need of powered milk, rice and beans. You can go to the Mission website http://vqcmission.com/ hit the Paypal button and donate now. We will then buy rice and beans to help these very poor Indigenous people, the first people of Costa Rica. Or perhaps you would be kind enough to collect bags of rice and beans from among your friends. We can arrange to pick them up from one central location. Perhaps Vicki Skinner would collect them for us. Bernie at the Pura Vida Hotel is always very kind to the Mission, I am sure he would also be a collection point if that works for you.

I would not ask you for help at this time if the need were not so overwhelming for us. Their reality is difficult to take in. How can these atrocities be happening in 2008 in our back yard?

Thank you for helping.

Blessings,
Ginnee
2531-1047

Ginnee y Felipe Hancock
Finca Quijote de Esperanza, SA
Costa Rica
http://www.costaricamountain.blogspot.com
ginnee@racsa.co.cr

--

I just went to the site and gave $50. Yes, the last of the Big Spenders. The PayPal button is at the bottom of the page, you don't need a PayPal account, just a credit card. Please give whatever you can: $5 in Costa Rica is a fortune, especially when you are talking rice and beans. I know all these people, have touched them with my own hands. Every penny will go to help the indigenous people. Peace.

Where Do I Begin?

Last Thursday, the Badgetts and Mo and Ryan and I all took off for Ginnee and Phil Hancock's home out in the boonies. I mean OUT in the BOONIES. The Badgetts brought an extra suitcase with clothes and Christmas presents for the Cabecar [kah-BECK-are] indigenous tribe. We'd all been invited to spend a couple of days with Ginnee and Phil, then attend the annual Christmas party for the Indians. Who could pass up such an interesting invitation!??

Interesting doesn't begin to cover it. While I'd spoken and emailed Ginnee, we'd never met. Ginnee and Phil, they's what we call back in KY "good people." They are among the incredibly generous dedicated people who've made Costa Rica home. There are, thankfully, so many worker bees volunteering time and energy, donating food and clothing, fund-raising. But Ginnee and Phil, like Barry, Nanci, Evangeline and Gail, are leaders. The glue. The force. Without them digging in, the rest of us wouldn't know where to start.

The Hancocks spent two years looking for their perfect retirement haven in Costa Rica. They found it outside a small - like 10 houses and a pulperia [pool-pah-REE-ah, tiny store, usually in a home] - town of Esperanza. The most hopeful thing about Esperanza is its name. The Hancocks hope to change that over time, to bring a little prosperity back to Esperanza. But that's down the road.

Since they moved here a year ago, while they plan their earth bag home, they rent a huge house outside Tuis, outside Turrialba, outside Cartago. Two hours from us, the drive is almost all highway until about a mile away. Then it's dusty goat track.

When we arrived, we met the five other very interesting people with whom we would spend the next two days. There was Visma from Brazil and Sharon from Uganda, both attending Earth University, learning agriculture so they can go back and teach their people to feed themselves.

The young and lovely Helen Thompson from London (sitting with Ginnee above) was there. She's an intern at A.M. Costa Rica and just wrote this lovely article about the trip. Plus Lucy, Ginnee's good friend, and Lucy's niece Joann. That's in addition to the four Badgett's and the three of us and Ginnee and Phil. And Jack, their gentle giant Rottweiler. I mean that house is BIG. We ate great food (pix here), talked until way after dark, then climbed into wonderfully comfortable beds.

Six am Friday, we took off to meet up with Daniel (in the middle) and Hector (smiling, always smiling) who run Voz que Clama Misión and organize this shindig. There, we'll load up the flat bed truck with donations and food, then continue on to Quetzal [KETZ-all] where we would meet and party with the Cabecar.

Hector and Daniel are tico. Young, handsome, smart, energetic, love their country, obviously love their fellow human being. Whatever power possesses them to continue their mission in the face of insurmountable odds, I have yet to touch even the outer edges of this faith. It is a Christian mission, they are called by God. They would have to be.

Hector and Daniel take in the mentally ill and challenged among us no one else will. They've rescued two young men from their families. One fell out of a tree as a boy and broke his spine. So his family put him out to die. When he didn't die, they beat him hoping he'd die. Nice. Hector and Daniel give him a home.

Another young man was born with cerebral palsy. His family put him on their hot tin roof to die, refused to feed him. His mom snuck him food, so they were both banished. Voz que Clama gives them a home. A young schizophrenic woman has a home at the Misión. A life most of us can't imagine facing, these guys dive into with love and courage and live it. Words can't touch this.

It's about a 40 minute drive to the mission (photos here) and we find at least 25 people there, all of them volunteers, many students at Hector and Daniel's Spanish language immersion school. I discover that almost all of the students are repeat visitors who come every year just to attend this party. I'm impressed.

We load 'em up and head 'em out. Ginnee has a torn rotator cuff and can't shift so I'm driving her Rodeo. Besides, it's bigger than our Rav4 so fits more people and stuff.

Our caravan of 7 autos, including the lead truck with the volunteers standing in it and a flat bed loaded down with donations, food, and people, leaves the Misión. In about 20 minutes, we turn onto a dirt road. For the next three hours, I'm in first gear. That's how bad the road is. We ford a shallow part of a river. We drive over bridges that make the Oh Shit and the Oh My God bridges look sane. Almost. We drive up, up, sometimes straight up. Sometimes straight down. I am concentrating hard. My boys are in different trucks up ahead. I figure God won't let them both go over the edge so at least I'll be left with one...

Finally we arrive at the town of Quetzal. I have no idea where this is. I was in a bookstore yesterday, looked at all the maps, asked the clerk who googled it and nobody could find it. I don't even know which direction we were driving when we left Tuis... unless up is a direction. On the map above, you see that big empty space to the southeast of Esperanza? I'm pretty sure we are in there somewhere.

When we arrive, at least a hundred Cabecar Indians are waiting for us. Some of them live right there around Quetzal. You can tell these locals from the Indians who live on the reservation because the locals' faces tended to be livelier and, for the most part, they weren't wearing muddy boots.

Here's the unbelievable thing. The rest of the Indians walked down from the reservation in the mountains. This is an 8-hour walk. If you are a fit strong adult with no children, you can do it in five, weather permitting. But there are plenty of kids here... They left home around 3am and walked down the mountain for eight hours to come to this party. Which will only last a couple of hours because they have to leave before dark to walk the eight hours home. Today.

This is the hike Ginnee blogged about a couple of months ago. The hike that includes sitting in a basket and pulling yourself over a wide raging river. This is no walk in the park.

Regardless, everyone enjoyed the party, the piñata, the candy and the food. You can see all the photos here. The majority of the time was spent handing out clothes and presents for the kids.

Which is something else: these guys are all going to walk 8 hours home carrying huge bags of clothes. Plus we brought ten or so sheets of tin roofing material - each at least 12' long, 4' wide. How they are going to manage this, I can't imagine. But they were eager to have it. Where there's a will...

As we all headed home in our different directions, it started to rain a bit. It rains about 300" a year there, waaaaaay more than in Escazú. I wonder about them walking in the rain going home, but if there's any concern about it, you don't see it on their faces.

There is so much more to say, I learned so much in my three days there. Ginnee is a walking encyclopedia on the Cabecar Indians, on the Voz que Clama (which loosely means voice that claims - what a perfect name) Misión, on organic farming, on sustainable living... Phil is a nurseryman so their farm is already producing organic foods, and is GORGEOUS. They are dreaming of an intentional community in the neighborhood of ten families.

That's the way to live in Costa Rica - I know so many people here who either live this dream or dream it, too. I don't know if I could live in the rain forest, but I would love to live with them for a year and document their progress. It is a fascinating project. They are fascinating people... good people.

But right now, I have to stop writing and start watching. The roars, whistles, pop pop pops, pounding and boom boom booms of Christmas Eve fireworks have started... Just like last year: 9pm start on the dot... I expect it will end around one. Unlike last year, it seems they are all coming from the neighbor directly behind me. Nice and loud. Hopefully he'll run out before, oh, say, eleven. I'll keep you posted.

Journey to the Cabecar Indigenous Reservation

Ginnee Hancock lives with her husband Felipe in Esperanza and Atirro de Turrialba. She is also a blogger and talks about life on their 1,270 acre rainforest farm. She agrees that a young, strong mind is a terrible thing to waste and challenged her neighbor and friend... well, here's the whole story. Ginnee says:

It was a few weeks ago that my neighbor and friend Sara Gomez, a dental student at the University of Costa Rica, said that she had been home on vacation for only 5 days and she was bored already. I challenged her to journey to the Cabecar Indigenous Reservation with the Mission Voz Que Clama and photograph the trip.

This was an important journey, important to me because I can not make this trip, important to her because it expanded her world, her mind, and I knew she could do it. It is also important that you learn about our rural Indigenous. This was probably her most challenging adventure yet, I knew it would be pushing her envelope but I left that part out when sharing the opportunity with her. 

The hike to the Cabecar Indigenous Reservation is difficult and only the most athletic and physically fit are able to make the journey. There are no bridges, roads, or comfort, and it is mostly an up mountain climb. The roaring rivers must be crossed by sliding on a cable or fording the deep, cold, torrential river on foot. When you take a canopy tour you are secured in a harness with every safety precaution. Our Indigenous and volunteers sit in a sling, grasp on to their children and possessions while holding on for dear life and then advance hand over hand. At this moment, Sara wanted to go back the same way she came, but that was not possible. 

To this village the trip is 5 hours long on a good day. From my side of the reservation the trip is 8 hours long to the first village and often can not be made in one day due to weather and river conditions. The Indigenous walk those 8 hours to our farm for emergency help as our farm manager has a cell phone and there is no phone on the reservation. Recently he called 911 and a helicopter came and airlifted a very ill man from the reservation. 

I read an article in We Love Costa Rica about Americans like me who move to a developing nation. It correctly said:

"The influx of illegal immigrants from south of the border will continue until the economies of their homelands begin providing sufficient job opportunities. US emigrants help to create those jobs. They are America's most effective foreign aid program, but without the bureaucracy and waste. They share more than money. They share themselves. Taken together, they are helping to alleviate the root causes of illegal immigration. Americans bring their sorely needed money and wealth of professional expertise to the homelands of America's immigrants. That steady emigration from the US is thoroughly ignored, however, because relevant statistics are nearly impossible to find."

My husband, a nurseryman, and I retired to Costa Rica to protect our rainforest that spawns and grows water. We grow bamboo, vetevier, and nitrogen fixing legumes as well as practice permaculture and biodynamics. We supply school materials to the rural poor and Indigenous children in our area. Currently we are looking for a volunteer teacher who will spend a year with us teaching English and how to read to the poor and Indigenous. We provide jobs to both Costa Ricans and Indigenous, sharing with them the skills that we know as they share with us their knowledge. 

I know some of you know folks who have vacationed in Costa Rica and may have even stayed at our Marriott or other fine resorts or hotels and totally missed my part of our country. I have had Gringo's say to me, "I went to Costa Rica and I did not see any poor people."

What a shame, those folks took a vacation and missed the best part of my country because they stayed at Disney World, but perhaps they did not know there was more to see. South of Turrialba, the Cordillera de Talamanca is one of Costa Rica’s best kept secrets. The only thing south of us, more or less, is the Indigenous Reservation, La Amistad International Parque and then Panama.

What I am sharing with you is one part of the many parts of the real Costa Rica. This is the land the Indigenous protect, it is a water shed, consisting of cloud and rainforest. So beautiful and yet difficult, these areas produce the purist water on Earth. Not a lot of pure water left on planet Earth unfortunately.

Our Indigenous leave the lightest footprint possible on this land. They live with no electricity and wash their clothing in a stream. The children see occasional visiting teachers, and most Indigenous speak little or no Spanish, they speak their Indigenous language. They look forward to visiting missionaries such as Hector and Daniel, both Costa Ricans, who led this adventure and who are the directors at the Mission Voz Que Clama.

I continue to feel an obligation to help the poor rural children, the Indigenous and the mission, although they ask for nothing. Our Indigenous have been ignored, they are the invisible people. I observe people walking around them when they come to town as if they were lepers. I can’t help looking at their beautiful brown faces and wonder their need and their story. They are mostly uneducated as we understand education and do not attend school because they do not speak Spanish and there is no school in their village. They are wise to the ways of the forest, its animals, medicinal plants, and how to survive.

It is only in recent years have they been issued a Cedula, the national identity card (similar to a social security number). They now have free medical care, but little access to it. They often do not have bus fare after having walked down the mountain, as they do not trade in currency, for this is our way, not theirs. As our world continues to move forward encroaching on their lives, our Indigenous are left behind. We have two worlds going on, theirs and ours, they call us the others.

Their world is a perfect one in the eyes of nature, not an easy life, but near perfect in many ways, and deficient in others. We are on this planet complicating their life with our greed, our need, and our affluence that sometimes allows us to run over everything in our way. As a global community we must all coexist and care for each other because if we do not, we will all suffer the consequences.

So I will share my Wish List with you at the end of my story and ask that when you come to Costa Rica, please bring a suitcase of supplies for these people and their children. You can contact me and we will arrange for pickup at the airport in San Jose, or direct you to a nearby drop off.

You are always welcome to come to us (you can drive to the mission) and see the other, real Costa Rica in the South Central Mountains. Mission Voz Que Clama, distributes the donations, helps to educate the children, delivers supplies, builds shelters, saves lives and makes regular journeys to the reservation with volunteers. It has taken years to build a trusting relationship and to be able to communicate with the village. The mission has a 501c3 tax deductible US charitable designation.

Mission Voz Que Clama is located in Tuis de Turrialba. They allow the Indigenous who are traversing to stay at their facility when they come down from the mountain. They also take in the handicap Indigenous who were put out to die because it is believed they have a bad spirit.

The Mission provides for all of their living and medical needs in this well run clean, loving, facility with 24/7 staffed care.  This is partially funded through the proceeds earned from their Spanish Language School in Tuis. If you would like to learn Spanish while on your vacation and have a cultural experience in the heart of rural Costa Rica's mountains and rivers, as well as providing the best kind of foreign aid, this is where your life changing journey begins.

Thank you for caring and understanding, thank you for your support.

Ginnee
Finca Quijote de Esperanza, SA

Ginnee's Wish list

Used lap top computers in working order
toothbrushes
tooth paste
Backpacks or small and medium duffle tote bags
chalk
twin or full blankets
battery-less flashlights (shakable)
pencils
notebooks
notebook paper
pencil sharpeners
colored pencils
scissors
pens
crayons
art paper
art supplies
craft paper
book bags
finger paints
powder craft paint
face paint
soccer balls
*sweat shirts (sizes S, M, children sizes)
*good practical clothing, jeans, t-shirts (sizes S, M, children sizes)
rain gear, umbrellas, rain coats, rain jackets
Baby clothes
Cloth diapers
gathered skirts for girls (they like skirts)
sneakers, children's sneakers, all sizes for children
good quality new socks
drum sticks ($2.00 a pair on the internet)
anything educational
flash cards
simple Spanish / English dictionaries
blow up beach ball globes of the world (they have never seen the world round, only flat)

*Re clothing: These are small frame people. It is cold in the mountains.