Healing Gaza Trauma in Costa Rica

I couldn’t help but notice Santa Teresa hosted predominantly Israeli tourists and residents in addition to its large Argentinian cohort. The town has a number of Israeli-owned businesses and Israel-inspired cuisine. I made a few Israeli friends there. I liked them. They were the metropolitan variety. The kind that works out their upper bodies and dares to surf, travel, and bring some value to the destination.

I arrived in Santa Teresa in May 2021, in the middle of hostilities between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, which spiraled into a nationwide conflict that included street battles between Jews, Arab-Israelis, and Palestinians. This one, like all the others, saw hundreds of civilians killed.

I read a heart-wrenching article from the New York Times that described the personalities of sixty-six Palestinian and two Israeli children who were killed in the exchange. It wasn’t pleasant reading. it was information that feeds the obese cheeks of pessimism. Either that or it was to beg the people of the world to seek a higher form of decency in global politics; which is to say it was the kind of article journalists constantly pump out of war zones hoping they’re making a difference but knowing in their hearts they’re doing no such thing and instead leaving their readers more jaded. I digress.

Santa Teresa and the surrounding towns feature a number of wellness retreats -heal the trauma - heal the body - heal the soul - heal your relationship - heal the Earth and all that jazz. While we’re on the subject of healing, how about we take a pair of those kids from Gaza who recently lost brothers, sisters or parents and bring them in for a long stint at healing their super traumatized, hopeless, catatonic hearts. Is it possible? It’s certainly newsworthy. And I’d bet you that, despite having grown up without clean or running water and constantly living under Israeli warplanes, they would be more afraid to trust those hosts and take that journey than they would be to remain in Gaza and risk violent death at any moment.

What would the Israelis who live in or frequent Santa Teresa think? I think, imagining that these people are the type looking for intelligent answers to the world’s wicked problems, would be supportive of and intrigued by the idea.