Yamileth tends the fire, skillfully adding logs and blowing life into the flames while her daughter prepares the batter for arepas—pancake-like or perhaps more cake-like pastries often served when visiting a family in the Costa Rican countryside. Alongside these, she serves freshly brewed, hot, and steaming coffee. Today, Yamileth has added banana pieces to her arepas, filling the kitchen with an extra sweet and pleasant aroma.
The visitors, who have come to buy her baked goods, are eagerly waiting in the other room where her son entertains them with football stories. He is a passionate football fan and is part of both the school and community teams.
He lives practically next door to his school, "Escuela Las Brisas". Just as this photo is taken, he has distributed the school notebooks to show what he is studying in second grade.
Yamileth, along with around twenty other women from the area, is working diligently to build small entrepreneurial ventures. She has realized that visitors coming to experience the nearby Barbilla National Park, though few in number, represent an interesting customer base.
Even more numerous are the hikers on the relatively new El Camino de Costa Rica—a 280-kilometer trail that passes through nearly 30 villages and towns, including their own. Yamileth hopes to eventually build a small business around this to, as she puts it, "support herself and her family." Today, she is testing her business idea with a group of visitors. She has previously worked in tourism with her husband, who was a rafting guide on the Pacuare River, but now she is trying out a more minimalist concept on her own.
The visitors are delighted and could not be more pleased. Her arepas and coffee taste wonderful, and the warm hospitality leaves a lasting impression.
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