true life planet

The other evening I was teaching my English adult class, and we were suddenly interrupted by a young Ngobe woman, running towards the class, holding two small children.

She was screaming in Ngobe-I could not undertand her. By the time she reached the ¨classroom¨(a plank bench with a taller bench as a table, under an aluminum overhang), she had our full attention. It turned out she was running from some men in the street, who she was very afraid of-and the men were very, very drunk.

I should preface this with some background information. The Ngobe community I live in has been having a chicharia-a big fiesta, involving much alcohol-for three days. I have had to walk by this fiesta everyday to get to work, and it has become increasingly dangerous.

Let me explain first that the Ngobe have a tradition of drinking alot of alcohol. However, in the past, this was usually limited to the classic brew, chicha, which is not very strong as it only ferments for about 3 days(or even less). Now, however, it is mixed with alcohol from the outside, called seca. Ngobe are not accustomed to drinking seca, and so, when they mix this with chicha, or drink it exclusively, they get dead drunk. I mean, so drunk that they pass out in the road. They also fight alot, and there is alot of violence.(Although I should say-not everyone in the community participates-my family, for example, doesn´t participate.)

The custom of drinking alot on occassion-and the fighting that insues-comes from the longstanding ¨balseria¨tradition. I mentioned this custom in an earlier entry, but basically, it´s a huge test of strength and involves hitting one another with sticks on the legs, while drinking vast quantities of chicha. The man who can tolerate the most hits-and alcohol-wins, and is considered the winner.

Anyway, this woman was obviously afraid-she had blood on her face and on her dress. She was crying, and she was very upset. We could hear a man calling for her, down in the street below.

The class had a strange response. They did not seem to know what to do, and no one immediately took action. Perhaps this is because people here tend to not get involved in other people´s business. This is in part because most people barely have enough resources for themselves, let alone strangers. But also, in may have been in part because the class had already been overwhelmed by requests for help that afternoon-our ¨classroom¨is located on a hill, and has a shelter. Due to the fact it is protected a bit from the elements, over the past week we had had three entire families camping out in our classroom-complete with children and livestock. They were all families with very pregnant women, who had walked down the mountains for over two days, to wait to go to the hospital to have their babies. They were almost out of food, so the class had already been inundated with requests for help.

Finally, one of the men in the class took charge and began to ask the woman questions.

It turned out that she had walked down the mountains with her sister, who was very ill. They had to clinic where they lived-so they had walked here, with her sisters newborn baby and her sister´s toodler daughter. Her sister had become ill directly after giving birth in the mountains. Once they got here, they walked to the clinic-where it was decided to put her sister in a 4×4 to the hospital in David. The only money she and her sister had went to pay for the 4×4 to get to David. The woman was left with the newborn, a toddler, no money and no food.

Additionally, she had the problem of nursing the toddler. She was able to nurse a little bit, because she too had had a baby 15 days ago, but it had died.

After she got her sister into the 4×4, she walked back thru the town, trying to get to her grandmother´s house, who lived in the area. To do this, she had to walk thru the fiesta. When she was walking thru the fiesta, carrying the two children, two men accosted her. They were very drunk, and both had bloody faces. They began to fight over her, and one of them claimed that he knew her-or wanted to know her. He wanted her to sleep with him. This man hit her repeatedly when she tried to run away. All this time she was holding the two children.

She finally managed to get away, and walked down the road, and then up the hill to the ¨school¨-the whole time the two men were following her.

She said she was very afraid. Frankly, so was I. Actually, I had been depressed for days, walking by this drunken scene. It seemed so sad to me that these people who had very little were spending what they had on so much alcohol-men, and women, too. What was particularly sad, was that that particular day was the first day of school for many children, and these kids-in their school uniforms, looking bright and happy and hopeful-had to walk thru this fiesta, thru these drunken fights to get to school. This does not make for a particularly bright future for these kids. It´s hard to tell them they can be something when they grow up when they see people in their community spending all of their money on alcohol.(I have debated about writing about this aspect of Ngobe culture-but I have decided I am writing about this experience not with the intent to malign the culture of the Ngobe, but to point out what is an enormous social problem here.)

The class decided to end early and help the woman. A group of us, myself included, walked down the hill and thru the street. We suddenly saw two very drunk and bloody men, and when they saw the woman they began to come towards us. The woman cowered, holding the baby. One of the male students grabbed the toddler. One of the men came very close to the woman, and began arguing with her. He became increasingly impatient and angry that she would not go with him. The woman would not look at him. He got really close to the woman-almost a foot away, and I thought he would hit her again. None of us moved.

I don´t know what came over me-I just reached over and took the baby. It was an impulse action. I took the baby and I moved about 10 feet away from the scene.

Then, two women friends of Catalina´s(my homestay hostess) came running down the road. They saw what was happening, and they asked the woman if she knew the men. The woman said she did not know them. The women then moved between the drunken men and the woman, and the woman slowly moved away. The two women asked us to start walking, and walk fast-which is what we did. We all walked as fast a we could-and when we turned around, the men were still arguing with the women, but a crowd of people had gathered( people who were working were just getting off work at this time), so we felt ok about leaving them.

The class left, leaving me and the woman to walk down the road together with the children. I assumed the worst was over-but it was not.

We reached the fiesta, and there were so many drunk, bloodied men wodbbling about in the road that I was really worried. It seemed very dangerous to walk thru the fiesta. I was still holding the baby, and I pressed that little baby tightly to my chest.

I saw a 4×4 and flagged it down-great, we´ve got a ride! We ran up to the vehicle, and tried to get in the back of the pickup-but it was full of drunk men, several of whom were vomiting in unison on the seats, the floor, and the other pasengers. We went to the front cab, where two seats were made for us-I got one in the front, still holding the baby. The woman got a seat directly behind me, holding the toddler.

I decided we would go to my house first. When we arrived at my house, I called out ¨Mi casa es aqui¨(My house is here). But when I got out of the cab, the woman and toddler had disapppeared-apparently they had gotten out some time ago. I did not know what to do, so I told the driver if he saw the woman, to tell her where I lived, and that I would wait for her. It was about 5:30 pm at this time.

I entered the front door of my house with the newborn baby. Although my family was somewhat surprised, no one was worried. I tried to explain in my mediocre Spanish what had happened, and I was somewhat understood. (However, later I found out that they thought maybe I wanted a baby, and so had bought one. This line of reasoning comes from the fact that I have no children, and the average Ngobe woman has at least 7 by the time she is my age.)

So, now I had a baby-a newborn baby. I had no idea how long I would have the baby, but I knew it would be for a few hours, at least. Luckily, I had seen the woman feed the baby while she was explaining her story back in my classroom, so feeding was not a problem-at the moment.

I put the baby on my bed. It had only one diaper on, and it was very dirty. I washed it´s face, and it went to sleep. Everyone came into my room and played, touched, and commented on the baby, wanting to hold the baby.(It is rare for a baby to cry here, as they are always being held by someone-the mother, the 4 year old sister, and so on..)

My family decided tonight was a movie night-we have a solar panel, and so, on a day with lot of sun, we can watch an entire movie, running the VCR off a car battery. We all sat down to watch Clint Eastwood in ¨The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly¨, dubbed in Spanish. Once again, a very badly pirated copy-and I kept the newborn on my lap.

At 11 pm, there was no sign of the mother. I was getting worried, imagining myself explaining to Panamian customs why I had a newborn in my carry-on.

I should add that I am not a baby person-I am a kid person. There are those people who are delightful with babies, but I have never been one of them. The two exceptions to this are my two nephews, who when they were babies, I enjoyed very much. However, in general, when someone hands me a baby, I have no idea what to do with it. So, this certainly was anew and rather unexpected challenge.

After the movie, everyone went to bed. I went to bed with my newborn baby. I have never slept with a baby before, especially under a mosquito net. The baby however, seemed extremely complacent with where ever I placed it, and peacefully slept, while I stayed awake worrying.

At 2 am, the woman showed up. Apparently she had gone to her grandmother´s house with the toddler, and was now returning for the baby. What I did not know before, was that she had to walk across the river to get to her grandmother´s house-and she could not do this holding two children. So, she had left the baby with me, knowing it was safe until she returned.

She had returned with a friend with a 4×4, and he would take her and the baby to her grandmother´s house on an alternate route.

I said goodbye to my newborn baby. I spent the rest of the night in a somewhat fitful sleep-I was sad and depressed and in wonderment at everything I had seen that night.

gg

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