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What My Life Is Like Here

Many people have been asking me what exactly my day to day life is like here, living with the Ngobe, in the Comarca. So I´ve decided to write an entry about my daily life and actiivies to give people a better picture. Before I get into the day to day details, I should say a little about the experience of volunteering here.

Volunteering here is the most rewarding eperience I have had so far in my travels. The Ngobe people, although a large indigenous group, haven´t been able to pursue political or social power in Panama(like other indigenous groups here, for example, the Kuna.). They are very poor, and the problems that come along with poverty such as lack of education, lack of food, lack of resources of any kind are very apparent here.

My classes are very well attended-and every day, more students show up. Educational opportunities are few and far between here. For example, the average boy will attend school until 18 years old, but the average girl will not. Pregnancy is not uncommon for young girls, and it is not unusual for young girls of fifteen years old to be single parents, with two or more children. There is a new agricultural school here, but at $1000.00 usd for one year-with 5 years required-it´s not something most people can afford. If a family does have the money to pay for education, it will be only for one or two of the boys-average family size being 10 or more children. Girls do not pursue education here, as their role from early on is to train for motherhood and keep the house. There are a few exceptions, but traditional Ngobe culture does not encourage individualism in this regard. English is taught in the primary school, but they only learn the basics-speaking is not emphasized.

Adults here also participate in and enjoy Conversational English classes very much. My classes are mostly men, who either come to the class to learn for applying to college, or come to learn because they want to be able to work with NGO´s that visit here. Quite a few women also attend-these are all either in the women´s cooperative, or are professionals(such as nurses or teachers). A few of the women in the cooperative must occassionally travel to represent their indigenous group-for example to the US, or to Switzerland-and so need practice speaking English.

Although I am quite tired, here´s a glimpse of what my like is life here:

Well, first off, I should tell you about the weather. It´s hot, really hot. In the USA when it is this hot, we don´t even go outside-but here, life goes on an usual. People work, eat, walk around, go to school-all during the hottest part of the day. It never really cools off-it´s often just as hot at night.

Secondly, it´s kind of like camping. It´s dirty-there are only dusty dirt roads to get from one place to another. There are bugs-every kind you can imagine and more. There are scorpions, frogs, bats, lizards…lots of creeping crawling things, who sometimes crawl on you, too. The food is sort of like camping food-not particularly appetizing, but if you´re exhausted from walking all day in the heat-you´ll eat anything, including white rice with cassava root.

My usual day starts at 5 am, when the roosters start crowing. At about this time, people are riding horses to work in the dirt road next to my window(horses or walking are the preferred transport here). People get up very early here, and it´s not unusual for people to be up and eating breakfast by 5 am.

My family ususally has relatives visiting, and they gather on the back patio in the morning. Actually, most of the eating, socializing, and living is donw on the back patio, not in the house. The first thing they do in the morning is start a wood fire, where they boil a big pot of coffee with sugar. Everyone is drinking coffee, including all the kids, by the time I get up in the morning.

By 6am, the family pig that is tethered up outside my window is grunting loudly for his breakfast-and he gets very loud and insistent. It would be impossible to stay in bed past 6 am, as even though I have my own room, privacy is not understood here.(The ususal house is of open design, made of sticks bound together, and is the size of a bedroom in the USA-except up to 15 people sleep in it, as well as the animals. ) People are already walking in and out of my bedroom by 6 am.

Getting out of bed is no easy task-I always seem to be tangled in my moquito net. It takes me a while to get out of the tangled mess I´ve made of it-and I have to be careful, because it´s hanging from electrical cords from the ceiling.

I generally sleep in my clothes-almost everyone does here. When I get out of bed, I just change into the other set I brought. I actually brought 3 skirts and 4 shirts here, but I can´t wear some of my clothes here-even though they are very conservative by Western standards, they are not conservative enough by Ngobe standards. Women here-including volunteers and guests-are expected to dress extremely conservatively, with long full skirts and loose tops. Pants and shorts are out, as are tank tops. You probably could wear pants or short skirts-but people will talk about you and think you are not a respectable woman(!).

There is no mirror in my room, so make up and hairbrushing are kind of silly to attempt. I sort of run a brush thru my hair, put it back, and that´s about it. There is a bit of mirror in another bedroom in my house, and if no one is sleeping in it, I sometimes go in there and actually look at myself. But pretty much, I have no idea what I look like most of the time.

The next thing I do is use the bathroom-easier said than done here. My house actually has two bathrooms-one inside, and one latrine outside. Most people here do not even have a latrine, and just go outside somewhere. Latrines are preferred over the traditional Western toilet. Therefore, I pretty much have the indoor toilet to myself. However, even though it looks like an normal toilet, it doesn´t work like one-you have to go outside and fill a bucket of water up, then bring it in and dump it in the toilet to flush it. As water is at a premium during the day, it doesn´t get flushed alot.

Then it´s time to prepare my water for the day. This is a somewhat ardous task, but I´m sure it´s saving me from gettin many health problems while here. The water here is contaminated, as people go to the bathroom in the river…so it has giardia and many parasites, as well as other things… So, I have to fill up a pot and boil my water. I usually boil two gallons of water a day. It takes about 1  hour.

I then make breakfast for myself-and usually, Mieko, the cat begs for some(people here do not feed their animals anything-not dog food, not kitchen scraps-nothing. Animals fend for themselves, eating trash, bugs, and…?). I usually make oatmeal. Mieko likes his oatmeal first!

Catalina works, so her grandmother comes and runs the house while she is away during the day. She usually makes me a plastic cup of boiled coffee with sugar. No matter how many times I ask for the coffee to be made a bit stronger, it always is very weak, like sugar-water. Usually the grandmother has a little girl helping her. whose name is Irina(pronounced Irein nah), who brings me my coffee and sits with the cat and I in the morning. Ireina is mentally retarded, and her mother did not want her anymore-so she lives with her grandmother, and learns how to keep the house. (this is quite common-children living with their grandmothers-particularly children with disabilities. The life in the mountains is quite harsh, and with few resources, it is doubtful children with disabilities would live into adulthood. So they often become the children of their grandmothers, or other female relative, who lives off the mountain, in the village.)

After breakfast, I pack a bag with everything I need for the day-you never know what you may need here, or how far you may have to walk. Ususally it´s alot of water, a flashlight, a pen, supplies for my classes that day, some food, a hat, sunscreen, and bug repellent. My sarong is also useful to dry off with if I have to walk thru the river that day.

My first class starts at 10 am, but it´s over 1/2 an hour away, on a steep, dusty, rocky dirt road. I have to cross  a creek to get there-and ususally I´ve got 8 or so kids in tow, from age 4 to 12. Sometimes I carry the tiniest kids for part of the way. I have to leave pretty early, because it takes the tiny kids along time to walk so far.

My first class is just for kids, and it´s taught on a grsssy hill under a tree. I have no desks, no tables, no chairs-pretty much nothing, but an old beat up chalkboard and alot of kids.

The kids range in age from 4 years old to 17 years old, and it can get quite chaotic-some know English, and some don´t even know Spanish. Some have behavior problems, some are hungry, some are mentally retarded…there is alot going on at one time.

I have to be really creative with my approach to teaching Conversational English here. I try to sing alot of songs(although I can´t sing); play games; and be inventive within the cultural constraints, of which there are many. For example, boys and girls do not play together here, and will refuse to be partners with one another in an activity.

The class ends after an hour, and then I ususually walk to wherever I am supposed to go next-or perhaps I should say, hike to whereever I need to go next. Sometimes I go to the women´s cooperative; sometimes I go to the coffee cooperative;sometimes I go to the town of Soloy for supplies or for a meeting; sometimes I go to the computer lab and check email or work on projects for Medo with Adan. When I have to walk to Soloy, it´s a very long walk, over a difficult road, and includes walking over a very scary( to me, anyway) suspension bridge!

By mid afternoon, whatever I´ve been doing, I´m a sweaty mess. It´s over 100 degrees here, unless you are near the river. I´m here in the dry season, which is HOT! The wet season is about 6 months of year, and it just pours and pours. Even if I have water with me, I always want more. People usually take a swim in the river every afternoon to cool off.

Anyway, it is so hot, I don´t eat much. Strangely, lunch, or cena, is the biggest meal of the day here, and it is served during the hottest part of the day. The lunch is large by anyone´s standards, but what they eat for lunch makes it even heavier-typically, lunch is white rice with a handful of beans mixed in; boiled taro root or plantains; and hot, boiled coffee with sugar. All I want is fruit when it is so hot-and fruit here is extremely scarce.

My next class starts at 5 pm, back at the same grassy hill as the first class. This class is for adults-some who have an understanding of English, and some who know little. My class is very big, and it is surprisingly well attended by both men and women. Once again, class activities using a partner prove impossible, as women and men do not interact here.

After the class ends at 6 pm, I start the long walk back home. But on Wednesday nights, I walk straight to the local hospital, where I have another Conversational English class for everyone who works at the hospital one night a week.

By the time I get home, I´m really tired. It ususally has cooled off a tiny bit, so I´ve got an appetite again-but it´s still too hot to eat much.

Food here, and the process of eating it, is not a pleasure for me. It´s just something I do because I have to do it. This is because of many reasons: There is a lack of refrigeration, so most foods go bad quickly due to the heat; the typical diet here is bland and heavy on starchy foods; and frankly, there is not much available here. In spite of buying some provisions in David 2 weeks ago, I still pretty much rely on what is availible in the tiendas here. My diet is pretty much oatmeal with powered milk; some brown rice I got in David; instant chicken broth; the Panamian equivelent to choclate ovaltine; canned tuna and spam(vegetarianism here is quite difficult-sometimes you just have to eat Spam or whatever, because it´s all there is);dried fruit;mint tea; emergen-c vitamin c; and once a week I buy a few tomatoes and after disinfecting them with boiled water and a tiny bit of bleach, I make a ¨salad¨of sorts. Occassionally I eat with my family, and thats usually white rice and plantains, or a sort of bread they have here that looks and tastes like a hotdog bun with hot boiled coffee. Very rarely, we have some sort of meat-usually grilled for hours in the hot sun, then deep fried. Sometimes they boil a type of banana here that is not sweet, and you drink the boiled water with the banana mushed up in it. I usually try to eat my own food, both out of concern for my health and also it costs my family alot to feed an extra person.

So dinner is usually Not to something to get excited about, even if I am hungry. The only time I love eating here is when the rare tomato or papaya shows up-and that´s only happened a couple of times!

Once I get eating over with, I walk over and visit the neighbor kids. There about 20 kids living right next door to my house, in a collection of shacks made with sticks by the river. They range in age from 1 month to 17 years old, and they love to have me come over.They are very sweet and endearing-they clutch at my skirt as I walk around. Some of them are mentally retarded, some are very sickly, some have skin diseases associated with parasites, some have the very bloated stomachs of malnutrition. When I´m with the kids, it helps me practice humility, because they don´t even have enough food, so why should I complain about lack of choice here? At least I have food to eat.

When I come back home, I usually have to wash my hands really well, and depending on where I have been and the cleanliness of the home I visited, I sometimes immediately take off all my clothes and wash them, as chiggers-a sort of tiny tick-like looking bug-are everywhere here. The chiggers are impossible to take out of your skin once they have burrowed in.

Sometimes I just hang out at night with some of Catalina´s family, or we play one of the games I brought with me. Children here generally do not have possessions or toys(Arturo, Catalina´s son, being the only exception that I know).  Actually, children are kind of seen and not heard here-and young girls, from age 7 and up, take care of the house and the other children, including cooking the meals for the family. Boys do not seem to have much responsibility here, compared to the girls.

On Thursday and FRiday nights, I tutor a local man named Franciso at the house for an hour and  a half in English. He an exceptional Ngobe, as his family is sending him to the University of Panama in the city, where he is studying to be a laywer. We study at the kitchen table-somewhat difficult, due to the not particularly bright flourescent bulb overhead. But at least my house has some solar power for electricy, or we´d be studying by flashlight!

Just before bed, I take a bucket shower-meaning, I attempt to wash my clothes, my hair, and myself with one bucket of water. We only have water after 10 pm here for 2 hours, so i fill up my bucket of water outside at 10 pm, then head to the shower stall to try to clean as much of me as possible. Needless to say, I am never quite clean. When I finally visit the USA,I look forward to a lukewarm 3 minute long shower very much! To be totally clean all at one time seems like such a luxury….

Ususally, when I finally get to bed, the family is still up, all outside, talking on the patio. I am a big topic of conversation-and they talk in detail about me, my day, what I did that is of interest to them.

It´s pretty hard to read at night-we don´t have much electricoty, and when I use my flashlight at night, every bug in my neighborhood flies into my room. My windows (cinderblock cutouts)and ¨open¨all night, so everything flies in-from bats to moths to birds to no see-ums. Geckos run around on the walls, the ceiling, the floor-and sometimes my bed, too. They make a loud, peculiar sound that sounds like a bird or large rodent.

On weekends, I have another class-this one, on Saturday, for people who work in the mountains. They all walk the four hour walk to come down to the class, which starts at 10 am. Ususally people are very late. Most people in this class have little or no education, and little opportunity to improve their lives. This class is mostly made up of men.

I also have other tasks on weekends-meeting with other groups, training families for the homestay program, or meeting representatives from outside charities that are trying to help the Ngobe here.

Sunday is the traditional day to relax, spend the day napping or hanging out on the back patio, and of course-church.

Church here is really big-generally the first question many people asked me here is if I believed in God. Atheism is not a concept understood here-so even people who visit who don´t believe in anything in particular, tell people they are Christian. There are many different churches: The Manatata, which is the traditional church of the Ngobe, and has a woman phophet; The Catholic church; The Bahai church; the Jehovahs Witnesses; and countless Born Again sects. The Manatata church is anti-western, and only Ngobe people can attend-but the others are all open to visitors. My family goes to a Born Again church, but I have yet to attend with them. I would be interested in going(as those church experiences inGuatemala were some of my most interesting experiences so far) but they haven´t invited me yet.

So I hope this answers your queries about what life is like here for a volunteer/someone living here. For those of you who emailed me, let me know if there is something else that you would like to know.

gg



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