[leesalminen]

Also, these buses stop in many towns along the way in Costa Rica.

There, migrants decide to get off and spend some time in these towns. Primarily to recuperate after crossing the Darien Gap, but also to panhandle, and sometimes commit various petty crimes.

These small towns do not have the resources nor infrastructure to handle ~5k people per day passing through. There aren’t enough public toilets, police officers, ambulances, nor shelters to handle this volume of people.

I happen to live in one of these small towns, size ~2k people. It’s been very difficult to deal with. The government does nothing, so the townspeople are left trying to add some order to this chaos.

The level of human suffering is high. These people went through some serious shit in the Darien. This isn’t a humane process for anyone involved.

[plonk]

I’m curious about why you keep living there despite what you describe. Does it affect your life a lot?

[leesalminen]

Like living anywhere there are pros and cons. The pros list is pretty freaking long, and the cons list has gotten smaller over the years.

This situation has certainly added a con to the list, though it hasn’t changed the balance of the equation so far.

For me, the whole thing is more emotionally taxing than anything. Though it’s not that different from living in Manhattan in terms of the sadness you see every day.