Honestly, I don’t remember his face.
On a path parallel to the Caribbean Cahuita beach, in Costa Rica, our paths crossed for a few seconds. I don’t remember his face. And yet, I could recall in full detail the exact moment we took this photo. The stifling humidity, the waves crashing hard against the sand, washing away any trace of the idyllic beach you expect to find, the clouds obstructing the sun, the howler monkeys playing hide and seek in the thick jungle.
I am unable to describe what his face looked like, whether he was smiling or looking annoyed. But we must have seen something in him, something caught our attention to turn around and take a fleeting photo, just one, without permission, as if we were afraid we were stealing something from him. The bare feet, the bare torso, the comb curiously tucked into his afro hair, and the sense of carefreeness, of freedom, indicated by his slow walking pace.
This snapshot reminds us of the people of the Costa Rican Caribbean, of its smiling Afro-Caribbean population, descendants of the Jamaican immigrants who arrived to work on the construction of the railroad and on the banana plantations in the region. This young man without a face or a name, in black and white, could perfectly be one of those Jamaicans who disembarked at the end of the 19th century in those lands and made them their own. That’s why today, if you walk through Cahuita, don’t be surprised if you hear Bob Marley playing from a distance on a transistor radio or if you share a beer with a Rastafarian lying in a hammock.
The reggae culture concentrated in a small corner of Costa Rica, in a photo taken surreptitiously.
