true life planet

I arrived back in the USA about a week or so ago. Exhausted from a series of long layovers, nutty flights, and feeling overwhelmed by the bright lights of airports, I was relieved to arrive in California.

Then culture shock set in, and I have found myself trying to acclimate ever since…

So many things seemed so different to me here-especially after spending more than three months in the jungles of remote Panama, with no clean drinking water, no bathrooms, no showers, no electricity, no phones, not many food choices, and living among the poorest people of Panama.

Some of the things that affected me (and are still affecting me!) are…

1. Enormous Beds…and being able to actually sleep in a quiet environment!…

The first night back, I went to my parents house on the Northeren California coast. A beautiful home, with a small guest house next door. That is, it seemed small to me in the past. This time around, it seemed to be enormous. All this space for just me?

The large air mattress in particular seemed enormous. Eight Ngobe could have comfortably slept on it. It was so perfect, that air mattress, that I could just lie there without moving-there was no shifting around. It was so different than a bed of sticks or a flat board, or a mattress so delicately perched on a hastily made frame that every shift creaked and groaned.

 It was so quiet, I couldn’t sleep-their were no pigs tied up outside my window, grunting thru the night. There were no kids crying or coughing. There were no people listening to the radio thru the night. There were no pesky scorpions to be alert for-and actually, no creeepy crawlies at all. Sleep came slowly, and I ended up falling asleep at 2am and then sleeping thru mid afternoon.

2. Food…

After living on a very small selection of food choices for months on end, such as yucca, green bananas, white rice, salted dry meat, and the occassional granola bar/peanut butter combination, the food choices were overwhelming. My  first foray into a local food coop was alarmingly nerve wracking. So many choices, so many things to decide. All so beautifully displayed, like jewels. Everything perfectly clean and seemingly devoid of ever having been touched by human hands.

 I was used to buying my bananas right from the banana guy, after a hike uphill, and then carrying the enormous bunch back thru the village, giving some away to hungry kids as I walked home. Here, bananas were so expensive I could only buy one banana, covered in chemicals, for the same price of 20 organic bananas in the Comarca. 

I found it impossible to not buy loads of vegetables and fruits, something my body had been craving for months. The Ngobe do not eat many fruits of vegetables-the few that they occassionally still eat  are considered foods of the past, and the culture is moving away from the past into a white rice future, devoid of neccessary nutrients. I couldn’t resist oranges, grapefruits, argula, kale…

Walking past the meat counter was an assault to my senses-cases of perfectly laid out meat, endless meat. Where I lived just 2 days before, people butchered the cow at about 4 am right out in the yard, sold it to their neighbors, who let it hang from tree branches for a few days. (In fact, I watched this process several times, and even participated in killing a cow at one point.) After the meat hung around for a few days, inviting every friend and foe to feast on it from the parasite world,  it was was then salted and then fried in hot oil, and you got a tiny tough piece with a bowl of rice or yucca. When you could get meat, that is. Here, people were buying more meat in one shopping trip than the average Ngobe family could afford for months.

3. Stuff, and more stuff…

Um, how much stuff do we really need again? Answer: Not much. I mean, it’s great that we have everything we do, but we don’t appreciate it. We don’t get it. We just want more. More choices, more more more. Enough said. I don’t want to lecture about something that everyone knows already. Personally, I find my old ways a bit embarassing-what in the world did I need all that stuff for? Everytime I buy anything, I am affecting the entire world. What a shock to realize this, and then to return home where we fill our houses, cars, and so on with tons of unneccessary do- dads.

4. Reduce, reuse, recycle….

#3 leads me to this logical conclusion, and adopting it on a grand scale is one of the present principles of my life.

I have to say that before my trip, I wasn’t the most environmentally concious person-Oh, I tried, but I fell off the wagon alot. And you’d think after living in countries where the environmental degradation, the pollution, the trash, the deforestation, I’d be hopeless about the measly contribution of me recyling my spagetti sauce jar can actually make.

Surprisingly, instead it’s made me grasp how important and vital it is that I contribute whatever I can to cleaning up the world and making it a healthy and sustainable place. I really have grown in this area alot and I understand that it is up to me to make the difference-whether its driving less, living in a smaller, simpler space, growing a small garden, or using solar power.  This means buying less-much less, and leading by example, hoping it will affect some positive change.

5. The absolute, sheer joy, of being a woman living in a Western culture….

After months of living with people who are so conservative that women must bathe fully clothed,  the thought of an Ngobe woman being examined by a doctor is enough to have her be totally mortified, women wear full length to the ground dresses everyday, and begin having babies a age 12, it’s a real pleasure to do the following….

wear pants;

 walk around late at night;

talk to men without hearing comments that insinuate I am having more than a friendship with them;

talk to other women openly about their lives;

encourage young women to have big goals and be in a position to lead by example;

and , most importantly , know that I have the possibility to be or do anything I want to do.

These things are simply not possible for the Ngobe women I lived with-and nor is it possible for the majority of women in the world. It’s joy, complete bliss, to be an American woman. Something I never fully appreciated until now.

6. Going into temporary hibernation….

Feeling a little overwhelmed by the cultural differences, and a little underwhelmed by what is important sometimes to people back at home, I’ve found myself in somewhat of a limbo state, temporarily hiding out and not seeking out alot of social interaction.

 Oh, everyone is really nice, very sweet and all that, but after you’ve been where I’ve been, it’s hard for me to talk small talk. Talk to me about a 12 year old dying in childbirth, talk to me about your worries that your whole family has parasites and are sickly, talk to me about your dreams for your children to go to secondary school if you scrape together the money….those are the kinds of conversations I was having daily just a few days ago. From that to everyday pleasantries-it’s kind of hard sometimes.

5. Joining the around the world traveler’s club…

You know, I’m different now, and I’m not even done traveling yet. I’m so different that I can talk about things that most people know nothing about.

Stories about boa constrictors and scorpions interest me, someone mentioning that they have lice seems perfectly natural(doesn’t most of theworld have lice some of the time?) , hearing of difficult journeys and failures, as well as sucesses, seem like normal everyday conversations to me.

Unfortunately, this does not hold true for most people, who are overwhelmed if you talk about killing scorpions or doing battle with dengue fever. I’ve realized that unless the person is truly interested, it’s better to just not say much about my experiences. Better just to smile and nod and say, ” Yes well, I am having some culture shock, but it was a good trip. So how have you been?”  It’s better to just find that point of commonality.

I’ve now joined a club I never realized existed…the club of people who when they meet, recognize each other as world travelers and gratefully, blissfully, lapse into telling stories of their adventures and calmly listen to travel trials without any shock whatsoever.

6. What’s really important, anyway?…

Wow, people spend alot of time getting frustrated or angry about things that are…kind of not things that seem particularly important anymore….

 Like stoplights and slow drivers and waiting and people being different than you and not sharing your opinions totally and things not being perfect 100% of the time.

I’ve just come from a place where nothing was perfect, ever. Not once.

Whatever I wanted, I usually couldn’t get because for whatever reason it was impossible.

Whenever I had to wait, I just waited, because that is how it was.

Hardly anyone ever agreed with me, and in fact, it was impolite, and completely taboo, to point this out. Disagreement(or arguing) amongst the Ngobe people is not a cultural pastime, like it seems to be here. Here its I’m a this, and you are a that, so we aren’t ever going to get along. This would be so impossible for the ngobe, who must get along to survive. Perhaps we could take a cue from this for our own survival as well?

Just appreciating life, and all I have, is what is about for me at this point. My God, I am so lucky, so completely blessed, that I don’t feel as though I can complain about all that much.

 Discomfort, hunger, and so on have been such a part of my everyday reality that the shower running out of hot water, or someone running late doesn’t seem to bother me all that much.

 It just seems so small in the world of things, and perhaps that is because my world is so much larger at this moment than it ever has been.

Gigi

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