In Costa Rica's rural north, several hundred Nicaraguan refugees are carving out an existence with machetes and a firm belief that they could be jailed or killed if they return too soon to their country.
Last October, a small vanguard of displaced Nicaraguan farmers moved onto about 289 acres (117 hectares) of rented land that hadn't been farmed in 40 years. Their goal was to feed themselves the only way they knew how and establish a safe place to wait out the repression of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.
They slept on the ground under tarps, awoke beside snakes and worked from dawn to dusk clearing sections of the rolling land and planting banana, beans, yucca and corn.
