true life planet

Ok, folks. There are no photos on this blog-and sorry to say, no new photos on the flickr site, either.

My memory in my camera isn´t compatible with the computers here.  So, please be patient and wait until I get home in a few weeks-when I promise to spend much time getting all the photos on to flickr, putting the best ones on the blog(including the past entries), and revamping the blog.

Thanks for waiting. The photos should be up by the start of May-all 3,000 of them.

gigi

This list is the ¨Top Ten Things I Have Grown To Love In The Comarca¨

In no particular order:

1.  Fried yucca. At first, I had an aversion to the stuff, but after you eat it day in and day out, you actually begin to find it has a lovely, delicate flavor.

2.  Fried bread. Something I never thought I would eat-and enjoy-is bread fried in oil. Now it´s part of my morning ritual.

3.  Hiracha. A stange, wild, green plant that has leaves that look like lime leaves and poisonous berries when ripe, I´ve become accustomed to walking up the mountain and harvesting the leaves of this plant every few days. Terrifically rich in iron they are a local curative for anemia(a traveler´s woe). Delicious cooked with wild lemons, I have fantasies about stealing  a plant and growing some in the USA. (But I won´t, of course.)

4. Killing scorpions. At first when I saw these creatures, I would scream and create a scene, but now I look forward to discovering them in the middle of the night with glee.  I actually like killing them, because then I know they will not end up in my bed or in the bathroom, lying in wait to sting me. And, I might add, I am not a violent person.

5.  Nahuas. The typical dress of the Ngobe women at first seemed very very bright and very voluminous-I think I described them as circus-like in  a past entry. Now, I appreciate them so much more, and there are many finely made ones that are quite beautiful. I even bought one off a woman who was wearing a very intricately designed one.

6. Cipro. A person who in her old life was anti-medicine, hating to even take a Tylenol for pain, I have made Cipro a permanent companion and friend. It had saved me twice on this trip, and I´m sure it will save me again.

7. Caladryl. Hating this pink, goopy stuff when I bought it-but now finding it´s antiítch properties worth more than I can say, it too now has a place of honor in my first aid kit. I couldn´t sleep without it, especially after hiking through the mountains and getting a few pesky bites on places I missed with my bug repellent..

8. Conch-playing. At first I found the sound of men playing conch shells somewhat eerie, but now I find it quite beautiful. I can´t seem to get the hang of it, though.

9. River bathing. I love, love love bathing in the river. I´ve stopped worrying myself about snakes and so on and am now enjoying it. i would, however, prefer to do it not fully clothed!

10. Sweat. Not being someone who particularly enjoyed getting sweaty, messy and dirty on long ardous hikes and so on in the past-and, who, frankly avoided exercise than required more than 15 minutes and made my eyeliner run, I´ve gone over to the other side. I´ve joined the ranks of those nutty people who actually enjoy exercise and getting sweaty in public.

gigi

This is final part of a series of four.

I woke up this morning having decided to do something which many people may consider impossible-I´ve decided to help to the communities of Cerro Limon, and the adjoining community, Cerro Iglesias, build a bridge.

All night long, I kept waking up, thinking about the people that had died trying to cross that makeshirt bridge I had heard about. I kept thinking about the kids trying to get to to school and falling off the bridge into the river.

I knew that the first thing on the agenda today was to take a hike to the current site of the makeshift bridge to see if what I had heard was true-if it really was as dangerous as they had told me the night before. I set out with some peanut butter(the cockroaches ate my crackers at night) and a few liters of bean-water with my ayudante, and a man from the community of Cerro Iglesias met us along the way.

The path itself was pretty easy, until we got close to the river, where it was so treacherous that I went very, very slowly. When I turned the corner, and saw the log that they were using to cross the river, I was really shocked.

It was just a thin piece of a tree trunk-a large tree trunk, and it was about 50 feet long. Someone had added some supports with sugar cane, but that was it. Below, were some of the fastest rapids I had seen, as well as alot of boulders and rocks. After the rapids was a huge pool, very deep, and this is where they often found people who had fallen and then drowned. If it were not a place of so much tragedy, I would have said it was one of the most beautiful natural wonders of the area.

We sat down to survey the scene, and watched silently as the people of Cerro Iglesias came down their side of the mountain to cross the bridge to the Cerro Limon side.

One woman walked across with a bay on her back and a small toddler. It was a frightening scene to watch. Once she crossed, she told us that she did not cross often, only when she had too. She said many people die in Cerro Iglesias because they cannot walk across to get to help when they are sick, to travel to the clinic or the hospital. Many mothers are afraid to let their children cross the river and so do not let them go to school. Small children must walk to school by themselves-as young as 5 years old-and often fall into the river, with no one around to help them.

I felt just terrible. Just hearing these stories-and seeing the makeshift bridge made me feel sick.

I asked to see the location of where they wanted a new bridge-and we walked over the hill to see it. It was perfect, with good level walking paths on either side. I could definitely picture a small suspension bridge here.

I decided in that moment, that this is a solvable problem, and that I can help come up with a reasonable solution-as well as the funding.

Medo, the organization I have been working with, is currently filing paperwork for official non profit status in Panama. This will make a tremendous difference in how-and how much-grant money Medo can recieve for projects. I´ve decided to make the bridge between Cerro Limon and Cerro Iglesias my pet project, and write grants, find the volunteers, and so on to make this project happen.

You might be asking, well, why don´t you just ask the government of Panama to built the bridge? It´s their country.

What you might not realize-and even if you think you realize it, you don´t really, until you actually experience it up close and personal-is that governments in other countries(and, in your own!) don´t always help all of their citizens in the best way possible. In fact, since the start of this trip, one thing I´ve noticed in myself is that I don´t really divide the world up into convienient catagories anymore-we call them countries, but it´s really just a way of categorizing people and places-so that I don´t have to be responsible for things not directly in my backyard.

I´ve come to see my responsibility as being so much more than helping my family of neighbors, working at a local food pantry, writing a letter to the editor of my local paper, or even voting for president. My responsibility is bigger.

I have the power, the resources, the capability, to help everyone that I come into contact with-and even people that I never will. I can do this in intangible, subtle ways in my daily life-and I can do it in enormous, change- a- community- in- a -day ways, like by raising the money to build a bridge in the middle of Panama so that kids can go to school and people have access to healthcare.

I went back to the finca with a spring in my step, and told the family that I thought the bridge project was something we could work on. It will take time-maybe even a year of two, but I thought it could be done. I met a church group here who had several engineers, and they were interested in a project in the mountains, so I thought they might be able to help with some of the project-possibly some fundraising as well. Everyone was excited and happy as well. They understand it may take time, but there´s some hopefulness in the air.

I realized that I´ve become a citizen of the world.

We ate some plantains, drank some cacao, and started the long walk home.

gigi

This is the third entry in a series.

I woke up this morning very early and went out to watch the sunrise. Sitting alone in a hammock, looking at the beautiful sky, the mountains green with banana trees, and the absolutely breathtaking view..was a peaceful and contempletive way to start the day.

As I have mentioned previously in other entries, private time or silence are rarities in my experience of Ngobe culture. This may be in part because large groups of extended family live in close proximity; but, being here has me thinking that perhaps another reason for the noise-primarily the radios blasting all the time-is that, just like anyone in the world, they want to be informed. Fifty years ago, radios were a luxury few could afford, but now, the radio is the one way many of these more isolated Ngobe can be in touch with the world.

Additionally, few Ngobe read who live in the mountains-and some don´t even speak Spanish. One thing I have noticed in my travels about people living in cultures where reading is either not important or is a skill few have is that there is constant noise-usually in the form of a radio-going on all the time. It´s how people feel connected.

Today I started my day with a half gourd of avena mush and some boiled coffee. While I ate, one of Catalina´s sisters came out and sat opposite to me, staring at me the entire time I ate. She never smiles-she is only thiry but has lost all of her front teeth-but I could tell she was pleased I liked the breakfast she had made for me.

Today was going to be a big day-I had alot of walking to do, because I was going to invite as much of the community as possible to a community meeting tonight at the finca. This is alot easier said than done. Everyone who was to be invited had to be visited by me in person, pleasantries exchanged, hands shaken, opinions heard..and then I had to hike to the next hamlet.

Catalina´s brother, who I have since given the nickname ¨ayudante¨(helper) was going to by my guide and translator for the entire day. We hoped to visit at least 100 hamlets, and hike back to the finca in time for a meeting that same evening.

I had run out of bottled water-no worries, I thought. Since my bout with giardia in the past month, I had efficiently retrained Catalina and her two nieces on how to boil water. Ellie was given the awesome task of boiling all of my water for the next two days while I was at the finca.

In part, this was because I had the idea of eventually getting a volunteer program started in this community, and I wanted to see how the family dealt with a volunteers needs. Food, although bland, had been-so far, anyway, well cooked and safe to eat. Water was another story.

The water had to be cooked over what was basically a campfire, in an iron pot. As Ellie cooked the water, we all realized there were going to be some problems. One, the pot was out in the open, so whenever a breeze came-and it was quite windy-debris flew into the pot. Secondly, the family had only 4 cooking pots, and all were well-used. The cooking pot used to boil my water was the least burnt of the 4, and was usually used for cooking beans. Unfortunately, since it was impossible to use a truly ¨clean¨cooking pot, this meant my water had bits of burned things in it, as well as..tasted like beans.

It was the only water we had, so I packed up my bean-water, and off we went in search of neighbors to invite to the meeting. The walk was difficult, involving many small paths that were only used by a few people, so it was slow going.

Everytime we suddenly came upon a hamlet, people were a bit in shock at seeing a tall white woman in their midst. I was the first outsider to ever visit most of these people, and certainly I was the first woman. I got many compliments on my strength-there is an impression of women from the USA as being fat and poor walkers-and several proposals of marriage.

The conditions many people were living in were-there are exact words-but, terrible. The poverty was really, really shocking. I stopped noticing dogs that were so hungry and starving that they barely moved, stopped noticing the conditions of the horses that were so thin it seemed impossible they could go on-and started noticing the conditions of the people.

Many people had little or no food. Not everyone had a big family that they shared land with or were able to work cooperatively with. In fact, many people told me that they worked entirely alone, sometimes just with their wife and small toddler age children helping them. Food for many was limited to a diet of taro root and bananas, and sometimes just bananas. Most people had a few chickens, and a few people had pigs tied to a tree.

Water quality was terrible. Panama had promised pipes to every home from the aquaduct, but many homes did not have the promised pipes. People either walked back and forth to a neighbors pipe for water, or, more often, drank dirty, contaminated water. I stopped complaining about my bean-water, because at least it was boiled, even if it tasted of beans!

Children´s health and conditions for children were really terrible in some homes. Children were often malnourished, with bloated stomaches and obvious signs of parasites-including skin conditions, loss of hair and so on. Many children had no teeth or had badly rotting teeth-people did not clean their teeth here. Children seemed depressed, hungry, and anxious.

Adults also seemed tired, fearful, depressed, and hopeless. Panama has promised much to these people but delivered little. There are groups of people within the communities in the mountains trying to organize, trying to form cooperatives and so on, but not many.

We invited as many people as we could to a meeting that night. I was clear that I wanted as many women to come as possible-knowing from past experiences, that unless invited, they will often stay behind and only men will come to a meeting. I walked home silent, pondering the many problems this community is facing, and with a somewhat heavy heart.

We got back at about 4 pm-once again, having walked for more than 1o hours. I decided to rest in my room and take a look at my ankle. When I finally took a look at it, it seemed to have improved-it was a little swollen, but no pain.

I have been concerned for the past day about being able to do the Camino with the ankle problem-but today, I´m no longer worried. It seems to be getting stronger, and I am walking in what are much more difficult conditions. As a matter of fact, walking the trails here has me firmly convinced the Camino will be a walk that I can confidently finish.

The meeting was supposed to start at 5 pm, but Ngobe are notoriously late. Also, many people do not have watches or clocks, so they come when they think it´s time.

We started setting up some benches for the people at about 6 pm, and a few people filtered in. The meeting didn´t really start until 7:30! A very good turnout-and I think part of this was due to me going and inviting them personally-of about 60 people, of which about 1/4 were women with small children and babies in their arms.

The main reason I wanted to have a meeting is I wanted to hear about two different things:(1) what are the things they are concerend about and need help with?, and (2) what are they doing to help themselves in their community?

The meeting lasted about 3 hours-well into the night. Catalina´s brother helped me translate all of my questions into Ngobe, and occassionally helped when I butchered some Spanish word mercilessly. In general, I was understood and I understood what they said to me.

The main things that they were concerned with were:

1. The lack of a bridge across one of the larger rivers. people were walking across a tree trunk, and often falling off to their deaths. Children were not crossing the bridge to go to school until they were 7 or 8 years old-meaning that they were not going to school until that age. Six children had fallen off the tree trunk while crossing in the last year, and died. All were under 8 years old.

2. No clean drinking water. People wanted pipes to lead to their homes.

3. Latrines. People knew that they were getting sick by not using latrines, but did not have the resources to build any.

4. People wanted to learn to read. Most women were illiterate. This is in part, because the Ngobe language is solely oral and has not been written down. Spanish has only been taught in public schools for the last 10 years in mountain areas.

5. People, particularly men, wanted to learn English.

6. People had concerns over healthcare, particularly for women and children.

7. People wanted to start more cooperatives with chicken raising and fish raising as possible ways to create capital.

I decided to end the larger meeting and talk to the women and men separately.

The men´s group told me their greatest problem was getting food on the table and providing the clothes and shoes to go to school. Children need shoes to go to school-even if they are cheap flip flops. Many families have absolutely no income, so buying shoes or fabric for a dress is impossible. Many people only had one set of clothes.

The men often have to leave their families and work afuera-outside-just to get some cash. They have to pay for all their expenses while they are outside, and they get poor treatment, too. Sometimes they get depressed and drink too much. They worry about their wife, their children, alone in the mountains.

They feel isolated. They are often the only person in their small family who understands Spanish-even if they can´t read. Their wives are dependent on them for everything.

The women had other issues. The main topic was around the woman that had died the day before of birth related problems. The resident medicine woman, a woman of much importance, spoke for the entire group of women. She said that many women did not want to go to the hospital-it was very far away, the women had no one to watch their children, and they did not understand Spanish. Many women chose to give birth alone in the mountains, with ono one to help them because they lived in a small house with many other people and birth is considered a very private thing, something no one must watch. Sometimes women are lucky enough to have the help of their mothers or other women in their family.

Many women die about 24 to 36 hours after childbirth, even though they seem healthy right after the birth.

I told her that I had a book with pictures in it-not just words-about childbirth, and it talks how to prevent this problem.(It´s called Where There Is No Doctor, and it´s a medical book for people who live in remote areas without access to medical care.) I asked her if she would be interested in a photocopy of the part of the book on maternity, and she said yes. I also asked her if she would be willing to teach ten women the information, and immediately all the women present asked to be in a class.

This was positive-it´s not a doctor, it´s not a hospital, but by returning here with alot of photocopied booklets of this chapter of the book, I can help educate a handful of women on how to prepare for and prevent problems concerning maternity, I will be doing a good thing. Perhaps even prevent a woman from dying needlessly.

The men and women came back together again, and as a group we decided I would return with Adan, the director of Medo, in three weeks to have another meeting and talk in earnest about how to begin solving some of their other problems.

I went to bed without eating, I was so tired. Everyone in the community stayed on for hours and hours, talking into the night about possibilities, and eating bowls of rice and beans accompanied by hot coffee. I fell asleep to women singing.

gigi

This entry is the second entry in a series of four.

Breakfast this morning consisted of a bowl of taro chunks boiled in water, and some weak, slightly sweetened coffee. I ate my breakfast under one of the ¨dormitorios¨-dormitories-sort of these large, grass roofed huts which serve as sheltered areas from the sun and have hammocks for sleeping for guests. As I ate, I was surounded by numerous children-all eating their chunks of taro with their hands.

After breakfast, I took a look around the hamlet.

Although it was only 5:00 am, people were already busy working. Rice was being pounded in a hollowed out tree trunk; coffee beans were being roasted over a fire in an iron pot; a chicken was being killed and scalded for lunch; beans were being shelled; and animals fed.

One of the most interesting things going on was the making of chicha de maiz. Although this is one of the central customs of the culture-the making and drinking of this slightly fermented drink-I had never seen it actually made.

This is how it is made:

A large plastic sack is filled with maiz kernels, and this bag has small perforations in it. The bag is then immersed in water-usually in a five gallon plastic container. It stays immersed in the water for about 1 day, but you can immerse it for longer depending on conditions. After 1 day, you take the plastic bag out of the water and drain it. The kernels will have all sprouted. The kernels are then processed using a meat grinder (if you do it the modern way), or pounded by hand, with an enormous mortar and pestle( if you don´t have money for the hand-cranked meat grinder). To grind all the maiz kernels takes many hours, and usually everyone takes turns feeding the kernels into the grinder and turning the crank.

After all the kernels are ground, it gets put back into the plastic tub with water and cakes of sugar, and ferments for one to three days. For a lightly fermented, sweeter drink-the type of chicha Ngobe drink everyday, the chicha may only ferment for one day. For a drink that will get you very drunk quickly, the chicha needs to be fermented 3 to 5 days.

Chicha can also be made with fruits-anything with a high sugar content can be made into chicha. People also use pineapples and fruits of palm to make chicha.

After my chicha class(!), Catalina´s brothers and her father invited me to see another part of their finca. What I didn´t quite understand is that this other part of their finca was a four hour walk away-one way. They said it was close by, so I grabbed a liter off water and off we went. This time, I asked for a walking stick, as the trails are either insanely steep or so uphill I feel like I´m going to fall over. A walking stick was fashioned for me along the way-a stalk of sugar cane was plucked up fromt the sugar cane patch, cracked open for the sugar inside, and then bound with a vine to keep the two halves together. A walking stick and a snack in one.

We walked for over 4 hours-crossing makeshift bridges across rivers and streams, passing thru neighbors hamlets, and occassionally, navigating our way thru barbed wire fences.

Barbed wire fencing in the mountains of Panama? Why? I was wondering this as well.

Barbed wire fencing has only existed here for about 60 years. It came along with the cattle people began to raise for food and profit. People began using the fencing to make clear property lines between members of family and neighbors. Unfortunately, what this means is that to get anywhere, you have to crawl under and thru alot of fences. Not easy in a skirt, with four men watching you. Especially when you are a tall woman, and you practically have to crawl on the ground at times to get under a fence! I finally just started telling them to turn around whenever we had to crawl thru a fence.

This is not because I am a particularly modest person-it´s because it is a very modest culture for women, and a flash of my calf causes comment-and at times, almost embarrassment to the viewer.

Thank God I was not wearing pants, they told me. I was the very first white woman some of these neighbors of theirs had ever seen in person-and a woman wearing pants would have been really shocking to them. In Soloy, you do occassionally see a woman wearing pants-but she is usually riding a horse, or doing what would be considered ¨men´s work¨. In the mountains, people are alot more conservative-polygamy is still flourishing, women do not go to school, and so forth.

Anyway, we finally got to their other finca, where they have more of the same crops, as well as grow a considerable amount of coffee. Coffee needs cooler temperatures, so it´s grown in areas deeper in the mountains. They also had livestock-mostly cattle, who all were calving. I also watched a mare give birth. This was an amazing experience-I´ve never seen anything like that before and it was certainly in one of the most pristine settings you can imagine, on a grassy hill, under a large mango tree. The colt was born healthy and was a beautiful greyish white. What was amazing is how it just got up and started walking around!

I was really fatigued, but we had to head back towards the hamlet, because I had been invited to attend a funeral at the cemetery. The cemetery was about half way home.

We started out walking and I realized I did not have enough water( Bad Gigi! Bad!). In my defense all I can say is that they told me the second finca was close by.

By the time we reached the cemetery, I was really feeling like I needed to drink something-anything. Normally I don´t drink anything that hasn´t been boiled, but there was no choice this time. I had two choices-chicha de maiz or koolaid. I chose the koolaid, figuring the sight of a gringa drunk at funeral might cause comment(and besides, I don´t like the idea of drinking something that sits around for days on end). The koolaid did the job-I felt better, and actually drank two big gourds full. I tried not to think about what was in the water it was made with and prayed I would not get giardia.

Being at a Ngobe funeral has been my most ineresting experience here so far.

However, it was also one of my saddest experiences.

The woman who had died was only 21 years old. She had died during childbirth-actually, her baby died first, without having been born, and she hemmorged soon after. It was her second child. her first child had been born by c-section in the hospital in David. She had walked down the mountain(alone) a week ago to go the clinic in Soloy, and they had sent her to david, telling her she needed to have her baby in the hospital. She stayed for two days in David, but they would not let her sleep in the hospital-she wasn´t close enough to giving birth.

She had no money for a place to stay, or for any food, and worst of all-she did not understand much of what was being said as she did not speak much Spanish and could not read. She was all alone and knew no one. I´m sure she was terrified of having another c-section(c-sections are not common for the Ngobe).

So she went back home, and several days later, died trying to birth to a stillborn child.

Strangely, in spite of the tragedy, people at the cemetary were quite social-talking in small groups, some making jokes, others saying hello to old friends. Only the girls mother and sister were crying, and they stayed to themselves under a tree close by the body. Perhaps this more casual attitude toward death is because the period of officail mourning had begun several days ago, and this is traditionally when people express deep sadness. However, I think it was more because death-particularly death resulting from problems with childbirth-are extremely common. Another woman, aged 15, was going to be buried tomarrow. She had died one day after giving birth to her 3rd child.

Due to the fact that I was an outsider-albiet, with an invitation-I did not get very close to the rituals or the body, deciding instead that it was more respectful to view the goings-on from a distance and ask questions.

First of all, after the person dies, there is a three day mourning period, where the body stays with the family. Candles are lit, family and friends visit, and the body is washed if possible and dressed in whatever clothes the person has that are the nicest. If there is money for one, a person will be paid to fashion a rough hewn casket, which will be wrapped in black cloth. If there is no money, the person will be wrapped in whatever materials are available, kind of like a big bag.

The body is carried to the cemetery on a sugar cane pallet-usually two men can do the job. If there is no cemetery close by, they still try to get to a cemetery-even if they have to walk for 10 hours.

Once at the cemetery, the grave is dug-surprisingly deep-by all the neighbors and family memebers. This is only a job for men.

Meanwhile, women have the job of mourning, as well as the more important job of bringing all of the person´s things with them to the cemetery. Ngobe are buried with their valuable possessions-all of them. Women are buried with all of their ¨naguas¨(dresses), ¨chakras¨(bags made of jute, bromeliad plant fibers, or plastic), jewelry, 2 to 4 spoons, and a plastic gallon of water. men are buried with all of their clothes, ¨chakras¨, jewelry, a clock or watch if they own one, tools, machete, and a gallon of water. Children are generally buried with little but a set of clothes and a small container of water.

Just before the burial, the women in the family of the dead women gathered around the body, and called for all the women in the cemetery to gather around them. They formed a lage close knit circle. The mother of the woman opened up the dead woman´s chakra´s and pulled out each item, telling the other women what it was and that it would now be placed with her dead daughter. With each item she lifted up, the crowd of women murmured and nodded their heads.

The women dispersed and the body was placed into the grave. Women are placed in the grave facing the moon, and men are placed facing the sun.

People then gathered for the service, which was Evangelical, and performed by a man who was not a minister, but a person of some importance in the community. He had a Bible, and the service was performed in Spanish and Ngobe. As the service was performed, the casket was covered with earth by 4 men with shovels. The possessions of the woman were not completely buried-they were added last, and only a shovel or two of earthwas on top of them.

I asked if there was a problem with robberies-the possessions of the person weren´t even really buried, and anyone could come along and take their things. It was pointed out to me that all of the graves surrounding us-both recent and old-had old chakras on top of them, and the contents were undisturbed. Occassionly, spoons and bits of fabric littered the ground close to a grave, but no one touched them or moved them. The Ngobe believe in ghosts.

The funeral ended, and a man came over to me to tell me about the grave marker he was making for the woman. He was using a nail and two pieces of wood. The wood was nailed together in a cross, and the nail using to ¨write out¨her name and date of death. He told me that they had three kinds of markers they used as headstones-one, a Christian cross(this being the most popular, as most people said they were Evangelical); a piece of wood cut into a star, for those people who were of the Bahai faith(the only radio station is owned by the Bahai); and for people who either believed in nothing or nothing was known about them, a tree was planted.

I also learned that after the funeral, they prepared alot of food for the guests-if they had no money, they prepared what they had. Usually it was a meal of rice, yucca, and so on, and of course chicha de maiz. In the past-30 years ago-chicha was drunk in vast quantities during and after the funeral, and people became quite drunk, but now, people didn´t drink until after the funeral. (Koolaid was often drunk instead. )

Additionally, all food prepared was made without using salt or sugar. In fact, family and close friends of the deceased did not eat sugar of salt for 4 days after the burial. This comes from a belief that if you eat sugar of salt after a person close to you is buried you will have problems with your teeth, and some of them will rot and fall out.

I decided not to stay for the meal, and thanked my hosts. The men of my family accompanied me on the long walk home(about 3 more hours). By the time we got home, I was very hungry, and eagerly ate an entire bowl of boiled plantains accompanied by some sort of reddish, sticky beans. I also drank alot of water-almost two liters.

At this point, my ankle that had really been bothering me the day before was somewhat improved, but it still was a bit swollen. (This is normal for me because of lymphatic system problems). Catalina´s mother asked to look at my ankle and poked it with her fingers…and then hurried away, calling for Catalina.

Catalina came over and asked me if I would like them to use the ¨clavo¨on my ankle. The clavo is basically a metal rod that is heated up, until it is red hot. They use this red hot rod to heal people of miscellaneous maladies-by touching the affected part with the rod four times on each side. It leaves small patterns of burn marks.

The clavo can only be used by either a man who has gotten bitten by a snake, and survived; or a pregnant woman. One of Catalina ´s sisters was very preganant-so she was going to be the one to give me the treatment. She stuck a metal rod into a corn cob, and using the corn cob as a handle, heated up the rod until it was hot.

I was told to sit on a rock near the fire, and place my ankle near the fire. When the rod was hot enough, she used it eight times total-four times on one side of my ankle, and four times on the opposite side. Um, yeah, it hurt alot. It basically burns you.

While getting my treatment, I was watched by all of the family that were present. It was a a big deal that I opted for their treatment method-it kind of bridged a gap that had existed before that moment. Ngobe are used to outsiders thinking that they are backward and they are very private with outsiders about some of their customs because of this. I found the treatment to work at least temporarily-the burn pain certainly dulled the other pain!

The clavo is used for pain(except for in the mouth, where they use a hot nail on the painful tooth!), and it is also used for parasites. People here know when they have parasites-they recognize the signs. When a person has parasites, the clavo is used on the arm, opposite the elbow, and in the small of the back.

After the clavo experience, I got a lesson in how to make a Panama hat. Catalina´s brother makes these hats as a hobby and was in the process of making one. It´s a very time consuming process, and sadly, for much work, he will be lucky to get even 5 dollars. makes me think about all those Panamian hats being sold in the USA for so little-who is making those hats, anyway? Probably some poor person in some impoverished community.

The way the hat is made is very interesting. First, the sisal fiber is collected and cleaned. Then, some of the fiber is sometimes dyed with natural dyes to create a pattern on part of the hat. The material is woven using a sugar cane frame. Two large sticks of sugar cane are cut, stuck in the ground, and tied together to form a triangle shape. The sisal is wrapped around the part where the sugar cane overlaps, and the weaving begins. Men usually weave standing up, and women weave either sitting down or in a crouching position. The fibers are woven into one long braid, adding fibers as the weaver goes along. After all the fibers are woven, they are sewn together. It takes two weeks of work to make one hat.

Everyone was watching how interested I was in the hat making process, and afterwards, all the men brought out different things that they had made. One man brought out a beautiful bow and arrow; another man brought out a hoilowed out enormous gourd, used a storage container; another man showed me how to make rope; and my favorite thing was a large wooden cooking dish made by Catalina´s brother in law. I liked it so much, I asked him to make me one-paying him a fair trade price of course.

What a day. I went to Ngobe funeral-something I never thought I would do.  I learned all about the food of the Ngobe and the work that it takes to make it. I got some traditional healing. I learned how many useful items are made…and I walked over thiry miles, according to my pedometer.

I wonder what will happen tomarrow?

gigi

My homestay family in Soloy has extended family in the local mountain pueblo of Cerro Limon, and they invited me to accompany them on the long trip there for the weekend of Semana Santa. In part, I was going because it was going to be an opportunity to see what life was like in the mountains for the Ngobe; but also, I was going to see if the community would be open to future volunteer projects with Medo, the organization I am volunteering with here.

We left on Thursday morning-I should say night, because it was pitch black-and returned four days later. What follows is a day by day account of what happened to me along the way. This journey will be in four parts on the blog.

I woke up this morning exhausted. Catalina came into my room, telling me it was time to leave-it was 3 am. I hadn´t slept well at all from the noise of the neighbors, and dragged my self out of bed, and out into the kitchen.

The whole family was already up and quite energetic, ready to go on a journey of several hours into the mountains to visit the family compound in the small town of Cerro Limon.

There was no breakfast-the Ngobe like to just get up and go-no thoughts for provisions or water for the long walk ahead. Everyone just grabbed a small chakra-net bag-with one change of clothes and we were off.

I had packed the night before. I am not sure I packed well at all for this trip-I brought a small backpack with a change of skirt, shirt,hat,a pair of socks, fleece, sunscreen,my flashlight, and bug repellent. I also brought a small medical kit and a journal. other than that-just a small bag of almonds and 6 liters of water. The family provided me with a somewhat skinny horse to carry my items (I brought two apples for the horse as well.)

I had been nervous about this trip all week. I was worried that I would walk too slow, that my family would be irritated with how long the journey would take with me panting and lagging behind..but mostly, I was worried about walking in the dark.

The Ngobe walk at all times of the day-even when it is extremely hot-great distances. it is not uncommon for me to see women and small children, entire families in fact, who have walked down out of the mountains into Soloy, having walked more than 10 to 15 hours. I did not want to walk in the heat of the day, so, we were going to walk when it was cool-when it was pretty much completely dark.

It was so dark, I could see nothing. Additionally, for some reason my trusty flashlight suddenly died, and I could see nothing. The road itself was difficult, a steep uphill climb, followed by suddenly riverting to being steep and downhill. It was alternatively rocky and powdery. Some parts were so powdery, that I had to walk almost sideways to get a good footing. I thought I was doing pretty good, until we came to the river.

There was a river running thru the trail. Actually, the river was the trail! For the next part of the walk, we all walked thru the river-with no light whatsoever, except the light of the moon. I almost fell several times, as I was not wearing shoes that were good for river-walking. I was wearing my hiking boots, which proceeded to fill up entirely with water.

But I did not complain, as everyone else was wearing cheap slippery flip flops or broken rubber galoshes. When we finally made it to the other side, I breathed a sigh of relief, and sat on a rock-well, I think it was a rock-to drain my boots and wring my socks out. Then it was back to the trail.

The Ngobe in the deeper parts of the Comarca don´t have roads. They have what are basically horse trails-but by looking at them, they are the worst ¨horse trails¨I have ever seen. There of course is no trail upkeep, so in certain parts it´s very rocky, or completely pulverized.

People generally don´t ride the horses too much either up or down these trails. The horses are not strong enough to carry adults-usually, they are used as pack animals, or for children. Occassionally I saw a man on a plumper, more fit horse, but it was rare.

I thought the river and the uphill/downhill hiking was the worst of it, but then we got to the ¨bridge¨. I use this word loosely, as it doesn´t exactly describe what I was supposed to cross. At some point, yes, it had been a bridge-no doubt built by the Panamian government and then never maintained-but what I saw was a collection of rusty metal, sort of loosely tied together.

It was an old suspension bridge, and huge parts of it had rusted out. There were no handrails, there were no sides. The part I had to walk on had enormous parts missing, and actually, to get across, you literally had to balance yourself on one weak piece of metal piping that someone had tried to repair the bridge with. The bridge was crossing quite a large river, and if you fell off of it, you would surely break your neck.

Problem: I have no sense of balance. I, in fact, may be famous for falling down when saying hello to someone passing me by in the street. I can rarely move-walk-run-and do something else well at the same time. I did not think I could cross that bridge.

However, once again, when confronted with no other choice it is amazing how the mind can adapt and lie to you and tell you that yes, you can do it. You have an amazing sense of balance, remember?

So I started walking across the bridge, very slowly. I was freaking out, trying not to look down at the river below, trying to feel my way thru walking one foot after the other, when..

I fell.

I fell particially thru the metal grating of the old bridge..it was so rotten that it had suddenly given way.

I was left particially hanging in the middle of the bridge, my legs dangling, and my torso stuck in the hole I had fallen thru. It was dark, and the river was below me.

No one could help me, it was too dangerous. I had to slowly pull myself out, and then stand up. It was not easy, and yet it was easy..I mean, that I have become much more physically stronger since living here. I had the upper body strength to do it, which surprised me.

I gingerly took another step onto a different metal slat. This one seemed more secure. I kept my balance until I made it almost to the other side, and then I asked one of Catalina´s brothers to help me to the other side.

When I got off that bridge, I experienced a strange combination of anxiety and elation. I was shaking, but I was so happy that I had gotten across. I sat for a few minutes to rest, ate a handful of almonds, and was ready to keep going.

The whole experience of crossing the bridge made me realize even more what the Ngobe have to deal with every day. Their living conditions are so substandard, and their suffering and difficulties are so everyday.

We kept walking..and walking..and walking and walking. My fears of being too slow were not realized-I was actually faster, and in better shape than most of the people I was traveling with. I was in awe of my body and how strong it has become. Whose body is this, anyway? Certainly not the mine!

After a few more hours, I began to feel my limits. Or rather, my body began to experience alot of pain. My legs, in particular, were alternating between pain and a sort of numbness.

Additionally, this was my first major difficult walk in-well, maybe in my whole life! I was worried about my right ankle, which felt tight and a bit swollen.( I have had many ankle problems since having part of my lymphatic system removed during a hysterectomy and ovarian cancer operation a few years ago-and I also broke my ankles in the past). As we walked along-or rather, panted along, I worried alot about being able to do the Camino de Santiago in May. Maybe I would not be able to do it.

We finally got close enough to the family compound to be able to see it in the distance. The view was spectacular-well worth the hike. It was-there are no words for it really-but it was so green, so blue, such a richly and intensely colored landscape. It was inspiring. We sat at a neighbor´s house on a plank bench, surrounded by loads of chickens and ducks, as scruffy children came and stared at the first person with blue eyes they had ever seen. Catalina bought some chicha de maiz, and drank two big cupfuls, and we all stared off into space at the breathtaking landscape.

Ngobe consider mildly fermented-and, well, sometimes-extremely fermented-chicha de maiz an energy giving substance. People drink it to revive themselves on long journeys. Catalina filled up a large plastic bolttle of chicha to drink as she walked, and she was quite cheerful and rosy cheeked on the rest of the hike.

We kept going for another hour and a half, and finally arrived at the family compound.

There was no big greeting for me, as everyone already had met me in the past months when they had stopped in at Catalina´s house. Everyone was very excited and smiling, though-I was the first visitor they had ever had from the outside.

I was shown to my room-a plank and board affair with a Ngobe style bed(a few tree branches with a few planks resting on the top), and two shuttered windows. I fell on to the bed and fell fast asleep.

I awoke to the sound of laughter, and opened my eyes to at least nine or ten little children standing my the bed and staring at me. One of their many hens had had baby chicks that morning and they had placed them all on my bed. One got caught in my hair, and their was much hilarity in me trying to get it out.

I walked out into the hot sun and found a bench to sit on under a mango tree. Catalina´s mother brought over a half of a dried gourd (they use they as bowls and cups), full of hot coffee. Soon another one was brought over, this one filled with sort of reddish beans mixed with white rice, and topped with a tiny bit of fish. It seemed to be the head of a fish, or part of the head of a fish. I slyly gave it to a skinny dog when no one was looking.

I ate my meal, and looked aroung the compound. Catalina´s brothers and father joined me, and as I ate, I asked them alot of questions about their finca.

They did not know how large their finca was-Ngobe do not use a measuring system-but I thought it was at least 40 hectares, which is quite large by Ngobe standards. They were able to grow all of their food-well, almost all-using swidden agriculture on this land. They grew the usual crops, such as yucca,maiz, taro, rice, pineapples, and so on. They also grew a large variety of beans-many of which are unknown outside of the Comarca-which they sometimes sell. They had two types of coffee and cacao beans as well.

They also had two larger projects going, which they hoped would provide them with income. One was a huge part of land, that they had entirely devoted to the growing of sugarcane, which they hoped to turn into cash profit by buying a handpress to make cakes of cane sugar to sell(these cakes are one the main ingredients for chicha de maiz, a mainstay of the culture.) The other project was a large dugout fish hatchery, which they hoped to fill with fish the coming year.

In order to make their finca work, they worked in a group-a large, extended family group. The hamlet of houses housed the entire family except for Catalina, who worked and lived in town.

The head of the finca was Catalina´s father, who looked like he was 80 years old, but was much younger. He was married to Catalina´s mother-who at 50, l9ooked to be at least 75-who was the woman in charge of the hamlet. There were numerous children from two marriages-he had had two wives in the past: one, Catalina´s mother; and the other, Catalina´s mother´s sister. This polygamous union had been formed as part of an intercambio-an exchange of two women for two other women in another family. This type of polygamy was very common in the past-and is still practiced in by some of the Ngobe today.

The marriage with the sister did not work out(apparently, this is quite common as well), and the sister moved to another collection of houses in the compound nearby. Her children, however, all lived with their father and his other wife, their aunt.

The father and his second wife had 3 children. The children of the second wife had a total of 8 children, and 17 grandchildren.

The father and his first wife had 9 children, and 26 grandchildren.

All of these people lived at the finca, in addition to second cousins, and so on.

Keeping track of who was who was tiring..I was exhausted from the heat and the long walk in the morning, so I decided to go to bed. I wanted to rest my ankle and aching legs as well.

Going to bed proved easier said than done.

The room itself was adequate, but the moment I shut the wooden shuttered windows, I heard noises. I had borrowed a flashlight, and turning it on, realized I was hearing the sound of..cockroaches. Enormous, reddish colored, flying cockroaches. I tried to configure myself in the place on the bed least suited to them getting into my hair at night.

Secondly, the bed was simply a couple of wooden planks propped up off the ground-not that comfortable. Kind of like climbing onto your kitchen table and deciding to take a nap on it. If you want to imagine what it´s like here, try using your kitchen table as a bed for a night. That will give you a sense of it.

Third, the Ngobe have a very interesting tradtion. They stay up late, and they love to talk at night. Late, late into the night. Sometimes the talking gets quite heated-almost, one could say, argumentative. Ngobe are not afraid to express themselves strongly with one another, particularly when the drinking of some chicha is involved.

I finally fell asleep at about 2 am-it was finally quiet. The cockroaches had stopped scurrying, the babies weren´t crying, the men had all gone to bed, the dogs weren´t barking..when I was awakened at the the very bright and early hour of 4 am.

What woke me was the blasting radio of Catalina´s brother, who was evangelical, and apparently(I learned this later) like to begin every single day with blasting evangelical music and fervent loud prayers to God. Unfortunately, his humble plank wooden house was only 10 feet from my room-so I gave up trying to sleep, and instead decided to listen to his sermon.

I peered out thru an open slat in my room out into the darkness at his little house, where the door was open. I could see him, sitting by candlelight, surounded by his wife and numerous children, two ducks, 3 chickens, a puppy, and four doves (new additions to his menagerie, tied to a post so they would not fly away). He was not reading from anything but instead, sort of staring at the wall and grandly gesturing as he practically shouted out praises for about two hours.

Exhausted, I got up, got dressed, and went out to meet the day.

gigi

 Preface: I spent the past weekend living with my friend Orsinia´s family, as part of a new program to train local families to live with volunteers. While staying at her home in Soloy, I discovered she had another home nearby in her finca(farm), where we spent the next two days…

Spending a few days with my friend Orsonia was such a positive learning experience in learning to eat ¨comida naturaleza¨. This is another way of saying, to eat from the land.

Eating from the land means not relying on foodstuffs from the outside as your mainstay food. There is a tremendous problem here-and in other places I have visited as well-that the people have come to see certain foods as having status. This is kind of hard to explain, so I will illustrate with an example.

Here in the Comarca, rice is the mainstay food for the people. Everyone eats rice, several times a day-and lots of it. The rice they eat is highly processed white rice that they buy in David. They do grow rice-but, because of their methods of agriculture, they can´t grow much-usually, a person that has land can only grow enough for a few months of the year. It is not a year-around crop, it is a seasonal crop. Instead of just eating rice when they have it, they have come to rely on rice grown and processed mechanically from the outside.

Rice, however, is not a native crop here in Panama. Native crops are things like yucca, maiz, and beans. Rice was brought here by the Spaniards a long time ago-and what has happened since is that the latino culture of Panama has fully embraced this food source.

Unfortunately, many Ngobe believe that the natural foods here are not as good as the introduced foods-so rice has replaced other crops which were previously a staple. My friend Orsonia pointed out to me many times during my visit to her finca, that her neighbors look down on her for ¨living off the land¨, for not eating much rice. and relying of yucca instead.

However, my time with Orsonia was well spent, as I have struggled in the past months here with attempting to sustain myself on a diet of mostly white rice. Eating bleached, processed, white rice everyday made me feel sluggish and ill. But when I visited Orsonia for a few days, I ate a completely different diet-I ate comida naturaleza.

I felt so much better and energetic after a single weekend with her, that I asked her to give me a course in eating off the land. We spent an afternoon together, walking from finca to finca, where she introduced me to the Ngobe framers who will be supplying me with all my food for the coming weeks.

Additionally, living off the land requires gathering. In the past, the Ngobe were hunters and gatherers-and although these traditions have somewhat died out, many people are still gatherers.

Gathering requires alot of walking in the bosque and observing the surroundings-and carrying a bag to collect whatever you find that day. Orsonia showed me many plants, nuts, and fruits that she and her family eats-and the Comarca is extremely well stocked with these foods. I learned alot about how to delicately pull up a single plant without disturbing the others; how to peel back the bark of a tree to find the tree´s sweet sap; how to crack open a seed pod and add it´s powdery sweet contents to water as a refreshing drink; what parts of wild fruits have medicinal value; and so much more.

Many Ngobe look down on these kinds of foods-they think they are something people eat only when they have to eat them. This may be true, but it is also true that in a community where there is much poverty, it is truly a shame that the Ngobe people have come to idealize the foods of the latino culture(rice , pork, and beef), over the incredible wealth of foodstuffs that are growing rampantly in their environment.

After spending the day hiking around from finca to finca and getting to know the wild plants that can be eaten, I decided to make a drastic change in my diet while here. I decided to change over to living off the land.

Part of my reasoning for doing this is that I have felt absolutely awful eating rice day in and day out-as I said before, very sluggish and low energy. My second reason is that I want to prove that a person can comfortably eat very well here without relying on food from the outside(except every once in awhile!). My third reason is that the glaring poverty here makes me want to spend my money inside the Comarca-not outside. By buying all my bananas, fruits, yucca, and greens from nearby fincas, I can support people who otherwise have very little cash income.

However, living off the land takes time-and alot of it. I have adjusted my schedule so that every other day I walk thru the bosque, up a mountain, to visit miscellaneous fincas and spend a dollar on my food for the next two days. As there is no refrigeration, what I buy only lasts two days, and then I´ve got to walk up the mountain again to replenish my food supply.

I also walk thru the bosque on my way up to the fincas and collect-gather-miscellaneuos seed pods, fruits, and leaves. I only collect just a few-just what I need for a day or two.

Walking up a mountain every few days is exhausting, I must say-as well as taking the time to cook and prepare each kind of food. It´s not fast or easy-in fact, it takes considerable time every day.

It´s an interesting way to live-kind of a day to day way to eat. It makes me think about the gluttony and greed of people in my own country. We have to buy simply enormous quantities of food in one shopping trip-and we have to have so many choices of what to eat. Myself included, of course.

It is perhaps true that we validate these enormous quantities of food by saying we don´t have the time to shop often, that things are cheaper in large quantities, that gasoline prices are high, and so on…

But we could still practice living alot more simply, I think. Certainly, we don´t have the time to walk around gathering nuts and berries, or farming a acre of produce to live off for the coming year…but we could really examine what we think we actually really need-and downsize accordingly. We do not make choices so that we can live simple lives-as a matter of fact, it seems to me from where I stand at the moment that we actually make choices so that our lives are as far from living simply as we can get!

One thing I did not realize, before I started this journey, is how much of the world idealizes America, and that what we do has a domino effect for the rest of the world. Every time we insist on more choices, on more stuff, and so on-we actually are affecting alot of people. It´s hard to understand this, until you are in another country-and you see the culture of a people being slowly replaced with American culture. It´s very sad.

I´m really enjoying this simpler, healthier life-and I´m hoping that when I finally return I can somehow translate this into my lifestyle at home.

gigi

I was walking home last night, when a skinny dog came up to me and bit me on my left leg.

This is the second time I´ve been bitten by a dog since the start of this trip-the first occassion was in Guatemala. That time, I was standing in my kitchen, when a dog ran into the house, saw me, and immediately panicked and bit me on my right leg. If you recall, Simon, the wonder-dog, came to my rescue-somehow sensing a strange dog was in my house, he ran down the hill from his sentry post and chased the dog away.

This time, however, there was no Simon to come to my rescue.

I had been walking down a dirt road alone when the dog came out of nowhere. I did not have time to defend myself-or get away-before he bit me.

After the first bite-he bit me twice-I tried to run away. The road was bordered by two fences of barbed wire, and I tried to squirm between the barbed wire of one of the fences. As I was squirming, I picked up a rock, and as soon as the dog saw me pick up the rock, it ran away . Unfortunately, I was tangled up in the barbed wire.

I don´t know what looks worse-the dog bites or the cuts from the barbed wire. One cut from the barbed wire was bleeding profusely, and so I decided to walk to the clinic. I had nothing to stop the bleeding but a dirty bandana, so I used that.

By the time I got to the hospital, it was bleeding quite alot. One of the dog bites looked gruesome-I will spare you the details-and I was worried about having to get stitches.

One thing I wasn´t worried about was getting vaccines for Tetanus or Rabies. Rabies doesn´t exist here in the Comarca, thank God. I had gotten Tetanus shots when I was preparing for my trip 8 months ago in the States. This was one of those moments when I was glad that I had gotten the Tetanus shot-getting bitten by dogs and tangled up in rusty barbed wire is not the right time to realize you forgot to get your Tetanus shot!

At the clinic, they were very nice to me, giving me some antibiotics-which were free, by the way, as all healthcare in Panama at the Government run health centers is free to all people. However, they had no antibiotic cream of any kind-and gave me pennecillin tablets instead. (Unfortunately, I am allergic to pennecillin. Fortunately, I did not take them until I got home-and read my handy travel health booklet I brought along for such emergencies. They had only told me they were antibiotics-I had to read what was printed on the capsules with my flashlight and then look it up in my booklet.)

While at the clinic, I considered getting stitches there. But-I don´t know-I didn´t have a good feeling about it. They were nice enough, but I have heard stories. I had had positive experiences thee in the past, like when I got my Hepetitis booster shots there(but I had brought my own needles). It seemed like I might not need  stitches and that maybe the wounds weren´t as bad as they looked. So I walked home from the clinic, and hoped for the best.

By the time I got home, I knew I had to clean the wound and apply a topical antibiotic as well. Luckily, I had loaned my antibiotic ointment to someone in my family, and she still had some left, so I used that. I also had bought some hydrogen pyroxide, the last time I was in David, and cleaned the wounds with that.

Two of the   wounds needed stitches-not many, but a few. I took some cat gut out of the tiny surgical kit I had bought in David, sterilized a needle,  and stitched myself up. I had no ice to dull the pain or anything. But it went pretty quickly, and I was surprised how much better I felt when it was done. I dressed the wound and actually admired my handiwork-pretty good for someone just following instructions from a little booklet!

If you had told me that I was going to give myself stitches six months ago, I would have thought you were joking. I am surprised myself that I was able to do it-but it only needed a few, and then it was over with.

Why do dogs bite here? Well, they are starving, most of them. Those that aren´t starving are generally eating because they are more agressive. Due the fact that the dogs aren´t usually fed-they are scavengers-they compete for food with people. Since people don´t have much food(or, alternatively, when they do have food, they do not want to feed animals), dogs are often aggressive with people. And in turn, people are aggressive with dogs. People here throw rocks and sticks at dogs. I have seen starving dogs be kicked by children.

So when aggressive dogs , or fearful dogs, see a person who isn´t chasing them away-or throwing objects at them-they react. Sometimes when I see a fearful or aggressive dog coming towards me, I quickly act like I´m going to pick up something in the street. Just this action alone scares the dog away.

There is a dog who lives near me, and her name is Violet. Violet is going to have puppies very soon, so I make a point of feeding her when I can. But my family doesn´t like it when I feed her. They say she is ¨brava¨-another word for aggressive, biting behavior. It is true that Violet has bitten the children in my family more than once-but I have also seen them mistreat her terribly. But slowly, I think they are realizing Violet is actually a very sweet dog. I have explained to them that if they are nice to Violet, Violet will be nice to them-and also to stay away from Violet when she is eating, as she will bite them to guard her food. They don´t always chase her away now, or throw things at her, or yell at her when she comes around. Sometimes when I go out to the patio with my half finished plate of rice and beans and start calling for Violet, they actually help me find her so she can be fed. Not a big accomplishment-but still, a change for the better.

At this point, I think getting the dreaded Rabies vaccine is probably for the best. Who knows if I will get bitten again-and next time, perhaps the circumstances will be worse.

And..I think I´m going to have alot of battle scars by the time I´m done with this trip!

gigi

Last Friday, I was suddenly caught in a torrential downpour. I was walking along the road to get to class-when the rain began to come down, turning the road into a reddish, muddy river.

When it rains here, it doesn´t rain-it pours. You stop whatever you are doing and take shelter in whatever is closest(or you slog your way thru it to get to your destination). I had no umbrella, and was wearing flip flops…so I thought heading for  shelter would be the wisest choice.

There were a few hamlets of houses near me-and I ran to the one that had the best overhang, thinking I could just sit under that for awhile. As soon as I showed up on this particular family´s ¨porch¨, they all came over to get a closer look at the gringo.

There were about 20 people living in this particular hamlet, aged 1 to 50 or so years old. There were no men to be seen-only women and children. It turned out that a few of the kids had been in my English class for kids a few weeks ago, so I was luckly welcomed not as a visitor, but as a friend. I had a packet of coffee in my backpack, so I offered them the coffee, and we all sat around drinking it and watching the rain.

I happened to have my camera, so I asked if I could take some photos of the kids. As I snapped away, suddenly it seemed that 40 or more kids were there-it turned out the whole neighborhood heard I was there, and all the kids came racing over. Most people have rarely seen themselves in a photograph(except for the standard Panamina ID photo), so everyone loves seeing themselves in a picture.

I had been there about 2 hours, when they offered me lunch. I am very nervous about eating stranger´s food still(since getting so ill in the very recent past), but I could see that they were boiling the water and so on, and besides, the meal seemed to consist of solely white rice. Sure, I said.

About half and hour later, one of the women brought me a tin plate with a heap of rice on it..and..an equally large heap of wasp larvae.

Let me first say that I had heard that the Ngobe ate wasp larvae, although I had never seen them do so. Many Ngobe think this is a ¨backwards¨custom, something from the past. However, in a place where money is little and protien sources are expensive, it´s a viable food source for many people here.

That said, um, wasp larvae is not easy to eat. For one thing, it sort of looks like it´s moving around, even when it´s quite dead. Secondly, it looks like what it is-whitish, maggot-like creatures. Third, it´s very, very chewy.

Here is my advice for those of you who try to eat this particular food in the future:

1. Don´t let your mind start playing tricks on you-it is dead, it´s not moving. And if it is, well, you´re going to have to be polite and eat it anyway. If it is moving, sort of look away while you mush it on to your fork. This will avoid you noticing if it is squirming or not.

2. It´s very chewy. Very. The best way to deal with this is not to chew too much, or you will be chewing away for ages. Just get it into your mouth and swallow quickly. Try to follow each swallow with some drinking water-if you have any. This helps it from getting lodged in your throat.

3. Smile alot. It´s a big deal for your hosts to give you so much of what is a very precious, protien rich food. They are giving you the best of what they have, and you should try to demonstrate that you are very pleased. Avoid grimacing or turning green.

One of my Ngobe friends here has offered to prepare wasp larvae for me in banana leaves, and I think I´m going to take her up on this offer-just to try it. Practice makes perfect, after all.

gg

Trying to find a quiet place in the middle of the wilds of Panama is more difficult than you might think. Sometimes, I spend many days in a row, aching to be alone, even if just for an hour or two.

The Ngobe do not like to be alone. In fact, when a person is alone, they think that there is something the matter with them. Being alone-without loads of children, babies, and family members in close proximity-would be the worst thing a Ngobe person could imagine.

As my friend, Orsonia, told me, ¨If I was alone-without my children and their children-I would feel so sad, that I would not want to live.¨

Wow. Pretty drastic difference from my culture, where we are absolutely consumed with having ¨alone time¨, privacy, and ¨personal space¨. I find myself looking at these concepts completely differently since being here. I find myself wondering why all these things are so important to me and to my culture. And, although I miss privacy and being alone upon occassion, what I really miss the most is silence.

In a community where everyone lives 10 to 20 feet from one another, and much of life takes place outside(since the homes are so tiny), it is rare not to hear all the goings on of your neighbors-and, at all times of the day and the night. You hear everything from the radio blasting the local Bahai´evangelical music (the Bahai´own the only radio station here), to domestic violence to a pig getting butchered.

 Additionally, here it is the custom for people to live all together in one family compound-or even-in one house. When you have 10 to 15 people all sleeping in a house that 12×12 feet at most, it´s never quiet.

In my house, I do have my own room. But that is where the concept of privacy and silence end. Often, people come in and out of the room, sometimes without warning. The radio blasts much of the day-and into the night. People stay up talking just outside my curtained partition untilo late into the night-and then awake very early, talking loudly and playing the radio-sometimes as early as 4 am!

Also, being one of a small handful of gringos here, I am always being watched with great interest. When I go for a swim, people watch me from the rocks, as they wash their clothes. When I make dinner, people peer into the pot, and watch me handle the knife. When I walk down the road, people stare, point, and talk about me as I walk past. Everything I do is of interest-and when I make a point of trying to be alone while doing them-well, this is seen as me being unhappy. In Ngobe culture, if I am unhappy, the solution is that I need to spend time with people! It´s kind of a vicious cycle-If I want solitude, I must really struggle for it. Then when I get it, and am enjoying it, it comes to a quick end, when I find out my family thinks I am unhappy with them. Then I have to go be with the group, or it will be interpreted as a slight.

Still, whether it´s because of my culture or my personality, I yearn for time alone-silent time alone, without the constant drone of radios and children crying, people talking, dogs barking, and so on.

I finally found the perfect place to accomplish this-the local Catholic chapel. I visited the catholic priest and nun who live near it several weeks ago, and discovered a pretty liitle chapel on the property. It´s usually locked, but for me, they leave it unlocked. I have taken to visiting it every morning. It´s painted bright turquoise and has little decor. It´s a calming, peaceful place, and being there in the mornings restores my soul, as well as starts the day with some peace and quiet.

Of course, I am a spiritual person, so I find it restorative spiritually as well. But often, I just sit in the stillness and the absolute quiet of the early morning, staring off into space, and thinking about nothing at all. Sometimes I read a book on Kadampa Buddhism I brought with me-I´m volunteering at a Kandampa Buddhist monastery in England for 6 weeks starting in July-and I find I can read several pages peacefully without disruption.

Ah, the sound of silence. Beautiful. Pure bliss.

And then, I walk the hour walk back to my house to start boiling water for drinking that day…back to the radio, the people all living close together, the dogs, pigs, cats, chickens, babies crying, children playing, people arguing…life.

gigi