BootsnAll Travel Network



Flight Information/ New, Updated Itinerary

April 11th, 2008

Flight information for upcoming flight to the USA:

Flying Continental Airlines, Panama City to Houston Texas on Monday, April 21st, departing Panama at 9:43 am. FLIGHT NO. CO873

Flying Continental Airlines, Houston, TX to San Francisco, on Monday April 21st, departing Houston at 5:55 pm, arriving at 8:07 pm. FLIGHT NO. CO307

Updated Itinerary:

In the USA until May 6th. departing for Madrid, Spain on May 6th.

Walking the Camino de Santiago for in 45 days. End target date:June 22nd or 23rd. A few days of R and R, and then meeting Jerry(boyfriend), in Santiago. About 16 days of traveling thru Spain and Portugal, followed by flight to London.

Flying out of Barcelona to London, on July 9th. A few days in London, then on to Derbyshire, to the Kadampa Buddhist monastery in Derby. Volunteering there for 6 weeks or a bit less.

Heading back to London to get my Visa for India, as well as hop on a plane to Paris, flying into Paris on Sept 3rd.

 Meeting Parisian friend Sonia in Paris and staying with her for a few days, as well as meeting up with Sande, a friend from Winters, California.

Sande and I travel thru France, making our way to my friend Leyla´s house in France.(near the Swiss border and Geneva). Hoping to relax here and travel around a bit and eat yummy food.

Taking a train to a small French city close to the border of Germany, where I´ll be meeting Carolin (who I´m currently working with in Panama). We´ll be spending the next 5 to 7 days together, hopefully looking at some of the beautiful natural sights of Germany, such as the Black Forest. Also I hope to go beer tasting and learn to make these German noodles shes always talking about.

October 1st, Carolin driving me into Zurich, Switzerland, where I catch a plane to Calcutta, India, which unfortunately has one stopover in Dubai.

Planning on spending at least 3 months straight in Calcutta, working with Mother Theresa´s Sisters of Charity. I also have plans to work for some other groups as well while there, as I will actually be in the area for 8 months. I may end up only working with the Sisters, however as they have alot of needs there.  I hope to visit the Bengal Tiger Preserve in West bengal(Calcutta is the capital), and hopefully do some volunteer work in Nepal. I also want to visit Bhutan and Bangladesh.

On April 1st, flying to Bangkok, Thailand.

That´s all that´s written in stone so far!

gigi

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What Am I Doing Here?

April 11th, 2008

This entry is basically an update on what I´m doing here for the next 10 days, what I´m doing when I get home, and some general thoughts about my future.

Right now I´m in David, hoping to rest peacefully tonight in the Purple House Hostal. I´m not a shared dorm sort of person, but my friend Carolin is with me, so I´m sure it will be a nice time. we are actually going to drink some beer tonight (she´s German, after all!) as well as fruits (gasp!) and vegetables(gasp!). I am feeling somewhat lethargic and puffy after a this weeks diet of yucca a million ways.

We´re heading back to Soloy on Sunday, where I plan on making an early birthday dinner for one of my favorite people I´ve met so far on this trip-Dennis, the peacecorp guy who took me to the hospital when I had giardia.

Monday morning, at the early hour of 3 am, we´re heading off to Cerro Lemon, where I visited in the past and learned about the challenges of the Ngobe living in the mountains. This time, however, we will be holding a large community meeting of several communities to talk about the possibility having some latrines be built up there-as well as the bridge project.

The bridge project has really started to take shape. Thanks to those of you who have offered help-from Buddhist monks living in Thailand to Girl scouts in Alabama, I appreciate all those offers of help. I´m sorry I haven´t had time to address them yet, but I will once I am back in the States. I plan on taking alot of photos of the current bridge(tree trunk), proposed site for the real bridge, and innterviewing the communities about how the current lack of a bridge is affecting their day to day lives.( How many accidents, deaths, and children not attending school, and so on). The goal would be to turn this into an information package and then send it to interested parties (and large organizations) who would like to help with the project in some way.

Dennis is also helping me with finding some folks to help build the bridge who have experience in small scale suspension bridge building. I´m also going to have him price the materials for the bridge, and the cost of getting them there..

I´ll keep you updated, and when you read the entry about the project (once I am in the States) contact me again if you are interested in helping in any way, however small.

Carolin, the new volunteer who is here will be accompanying me to Cerro Lemon. This time however, we will be visiting many other communities-some as far as 10 hours away from Cerro Lemon. It promises to be an adventure filled 4 or 5 days. And, luckily my water purifier part arrived in the mail in David- so we won´t be drinking bean water this time around!

Carolin is absolutely wonderful, and we have decided to meet up after my visit to France and see a bit of Germany-maybe climb a mountain and see some of the Black Forest-and of course, beeer tasting. I feel so lucky to have met someone here who is such a lovely travel companion and who is very courageous and brave.

Another big project while in the mountains is to interview and photograph the Ngobe medicine women. There is ahuge wealth of information about natural plants and healing, and unfortunately this practice is dying out with the availibility of Western medicine. I also hope to create some packets of information for them, using drawings, about how to prepare for birth and what to do after the baby is born.

After I get back from Cerro Lemon, I´ll be heading over to the local nun´s house for some R and R-like an actual shower! We spent a night at their nunnery in Volcan(although it only had two nuns, so that´s not really a nunnery!) and they were very kind, peaceful women who took wonderful care of us. We´re going to spend the night there, and then..

Just trying to finish up lose ends, of which there are many. I need to interview some young women  for a paying short term job that is coming up in May, and make sure all the coming volunteers are coordinated and know what their jobs will be on arrival. I´m also working with Carolin alot to make sure she is prepared to take over the classes I´ve been teaching, and prepared to be on her own for awhile here until the next bunch of volunteers arrive.

The biggest project I have worked on here is the homestay project-something I feel very positive about, both for the coming volunteers and the positive impact on the community. My last night here, we have organized abig dinner for the host families where we will go over all of the rules for families and volunteers one last time, and answer any questions. Everyone is very excited.

Then I will hop on a bus for Panama City, and hopefully within 24 hours, have the blessing of having my father pick me up at the airport.  I plan on spending a day with my parents and then heading..home.

Strangely, when I left my small town of Winters, I didn´t really consider it home. It was more like just a place I lived at the time. But now, after this time of traveling and challenges, I´ve come to look at Winters as home-as a place of peacefulness, a place where one says hello to everyone on the street, a place where I can have a nice cup of coffee in the morning and linger over the paper. I miss the landscape, the people, and even the tiny supermarket-which is funny, because before I was always disatisfied with what happened to be available there when I shopped, but after a diet of yucca and ..yucca…it seems like I will be overwhelmed by the selection of choices!

So I´m looking forward to visiting home, relaxing, and taking it easy for awhile-just about 10 days, actually. Then I set off to walk just under 500 miles of the Camino de Santiago, leaving for Spain on May 6th.

When I´m home I will be updating and changing the blog format, including putting photos in the blog that match the stories and also adding many journal entries, as well as entries from the mountain trip I am about to take.

Right now, I´m a little overwhelmed at the thought of Western culture, having lived in Central America for so long..I am very interested in how I will percieve my country and it´s culture. I´m feeling somewhat reflective and preparing for what I consider to be a very spiritual part of my trip-the camino-and I think this will affect how I see things as well.

I am however, looking forward to flushing, white toilets; hot showers; grocery stores; animals that are well fed(and people that are as well); music; movies; and non watery coffee. Oh, and salad….

Be back in about a week and a half!

gigi

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Lice..Ugh.

April 11th, 2008

Okay, so it seems as though my battle with creepy crawlies is never ending here.

Just as I think I´ve gotten rid of one parasite living off me, I discover I have another one!

This last week I was itching my head alot. it was bugging me all the time. I finally sat down with a mirror and a comb to see what was going on on my poor head..and lo and behold..lice.

Unfortunately, there is no lice shampoo available in the Comarca. In fact the solution seems to be simply getting one´s hair wet everyday(most people don´t have shampoo) and most people think this kills whatever is living on your head-and body.

Not true, not true. I can attest to this, having religiously made my pilgrimage to the river for a daily fully clothed bath for many months now.

So, after a week of going insane with them pestering me, I have made the trek to David to buy many bottles of shamppo to kill them off. I am  accompanied by the other volunteer, Carolin, a bright young woman from Germany, who sadly also has many friends on her head.

We visited a few pharmacies looking for something effective for lice, and surprisingly were offered many curatives that contained pretty much nothing to kill lice-like lemon juice…or another one that seemed to have the exact ingredients of milk of magnesium. We finally found something strong, with the important ingredient of piperonil, and bought all the bottles they had. The plan is to wash our hair and everything we own at one time. And then do it again. And again.

It´s not surprising we have lice. People have no showers, they bathe with a bucket, or perhaps in the river. Many times people don´t bathe for some time-and we work closely with those people. People also live in very close quarters with their animals, such as chickens, dogs, and pigs, all who have lice.

So, don´t worry, folks at home. I will be vigilant about shampooing my hair often with the stuff-and, have invited myself to a local nun´s house the night before I leave to go home with the express purpose of washing everything I own and bathing in hot water. I promise to not have lice. Although what else I may have I cannot say…(joke!)

Meanwhile, the packing list grows for the next leg of the journey: lice shampoo and a lice comb are definitely coming with me for the rest of this trip!

gigi

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A Weekend In One Woman´s Finca

April 11th, 2008

I spent the entire past weekend with my Ngobe friend, Orsonia, and her very large family.

I wasn´t spending time with her and her family just for fun-I was living with them for the weekend to see if they would be good candidates for the new homestay program I am developing for the volunteer organization I am working with.

In the past, the volunteers have stayed at the health center when they needed accomodation for an extended period of time, as there are no hotels, hostels, or rooms for rent. In fact, a house that has a spare room doesn´t exist here.

The problem with volunteers staying in the health center is that the health center is run by the Panamian government, and is therefore staffed by mostly live-in doctors and nurses who care for the Ngobe. The manner in which Ngobe are treated at the health center is not always good-in fact, a volunteer staying at the health center would get a very inaccurate view of Ngobe customs and practices. I should know, because I stayed there myself when I first arrived, and my impressions of the culture and people were entirely derived from the doctors and nurses who I was living with. I did not have a positive impression of the Ngobe or their culture while staying there. (I should say, though, that there ARE many very nice, caring and compassionate staff who work there, and love the Ngobe people. Unfortunately-not everyone shares this outlook.)

It was in part due to this first initial experience, that I began exploring the idea of creating a homestay program for the future volunteers-and tourists-who sometimes come here. The idea is that the visitors get to experience Ngobe culture first-hand, and also that the Ngobe recieve the financial benefit of the guests living with them.

It´s also a practical solution to what has become a pressing problem…a lack of rooms to rent, and a lack of food sources available to guests. With two or three comedors available in the community that close when they run out of food-and a scattering of tiendas, with only the most basic of foodstuffs, volunteers have had to brave the ride to David to get supplies. In a homestay situation, the goal is that the volunteers eat what the Ngobe eat-for the most part-which is a pretty plain diet, and consists of many foods visitors are not accustomed to preparing, such as yucca and so on.

The other goal I have by creating a homestay program is that volunteers learn about Ngobe customs, and hopefully by living with Ngobe respect the customs while they are here(no bikinis here!).

So during my last month or so here, one of my main jobs is to visit/-and occassionally live with-every family that has shown interest in the program. We have 6 families that are interested in participating, and each family is very different. Some, like the family I currently live with, would be considered middle class by Ngobe standards-they have a cement cinderblock house, have a kitchen indoors and out, and have multiple incomes coming in. Other families are living a more typical Ngobe existence, based around swidden agriculture, working long days and living off the land-often with a house in ¨town¨, made of wood slats or sticks; and, another similiar house in a nearby finca.

My friend Orsonia falls into this latter group. Her life revolves around her land, and the farming of that land-which, by the way supports her very large family of 15 people.

I had visited Orsonia the day before, and we decided that not only would I spend time with her at her house in Soloy, but that I would also walk up to her finca in the nearby mountains. We agreed that this would give me an accurate picture of her life, and I would be able to decide if she was a good canidate for the homestay program.

I arrived at her small house made of wooden slats and a tin roof on Saturday morning. I had noticed the day before that she did not have much in the way of food, and knowing that for here to feed me was expensive, I brought along a bag of rice, some cookies for the kids, and-an expensive favorite for her family-several cans of tuna fish.

The first thing to do was look at the house, and see if it met the requirements for a homestay. I did this while she prepared breakfast for me, her several small children, and her grandchild.

The house was small, but adequate, with one large room for sleeping and working, and a simple kitchen with a table and a few stools. Adjoining the kitchen was a small separate bedroom-this was to be the bedroom of the guest. It was decorated with the few decorative possessions the family owned-a few trophies, a tea set, some drawings on the wall..it also had a desk, a bed(Ngobe style bed-basically, a wooden, low table), a wooden shuttered window, and most importantly, a door.

The kids were all very excited I was there-I was their first visitor ever to spend the weekend, who was not family. My being there was a big event. All the kids were clamoring all over me, clutching my skirts, yelling for attention, and so on.

We ate breakfast outside, under a large mango tree, on a large flat bench, very low to the ground. Breakfast consisted of wheat flour dough, formed into rounds, and deep fried in oil, and it was delicious.

We spent the morning discussing what changes would need to happen for her to host a volunteer, and I gave her some lessons in santitation and how to boil the water for drinking.

After breakfast, we all headed to the finca-Orsonia, all of the small children(the youngest of whom is five), myself, and a plastic pail of baby chicks, whose mother had been eaten that week by a coyote(and who were now being nursed into good health by Orsinia herself-she ground meal for them by hand everyday and handfed them).

The walk up to the finca was insane. She had told me it was only a fifteen minute walk-but it was over a hour(because we stopped at every neighbors finca along the way!), at least-and it was uphill. I had only brought a small bottle of water, thinking the finca was nearby, and I was very, very hot. Ngobe do not do their farmwork in the cool of the day-they do it when they whenever they get there, which is usually in the heat of the day.

We stopped at one of her neighbors along the way and I asked to buy a pineapple. A small child, about 4 years old, was sent off with a large knife to cut a me a pineapple, and returned with the most lovely, perfect pineapple, which one of Orsonias children promptly put in his chakra-a net bag, made of the fibers of a plant here.

We kept walking, and it was all uphill. I had on my tevas, and I was surprised how well they did on the narrow, slick trail. Orsonia had on plastic flip flops, as did her children.

The bosque in the hills and mountains surrounding Soloy are extremely beautiful, full of such a wide variety of trees, plants, insects, birds..it´s nature in a dizzying array of sounds and colors. The bosque is also unfortunately full of barbed wire fences, to keep people out of other people´s land.

As Orsonia explained, not everyone here has land-some have none. Many people do not have a finca to farm and to live off of, and so there is a big problem with people stealing other people´s food. Therefore, the barbed wire fences are everywhere! Strangely, you have to crawl thru many of them, and cross your neighbors property, just to get to your own.

We finally got to the finca, which was about four hectares, and the finca was edged with a beautiful hibiscus hedge of red flowers. We were greeted by their parrot-I´m not quite sure what kind of parrot he is-but oldest son was already hard at work in the finca, and had brought the parrot along with him. The parrot was tame and was obviously very much loved by the children. Also, I am happy to say that the diet of the parrot was his natural diet of fruits and nuts, and so he was healthy and brilliantly colored. (It is illegal to sell or own one of these types of birds in Panama-however, Orsonia´s bird did seem happy and healthy. Additionally, he was allowed to roam and fly freely all day, and only slept in his cage at night.)

I was really thirsty and had no more water(Bad Gigi! Bad!). I asked Orsonia if we could all eat the pineapple I bought, and one of the children brought out a knife and we cut the pineapple up, using banana leaves as plates.

After eating the pineapple(which was shared with the children, the chickens, and the resident pig), we walked around the finca.

The living compound consisted of a single one room house, built on stilts, and made of wooden slats, with a thatch palm frond roof. Adjoining this was a lean to kitchen of sorts, with some iron cooking pots, wooden trays, and a cooking fire on rocks. There was no furniture, except what was provided in the natural environment-a fallen tree served as a bench, a few rocks and boards served as additional seating and a table.

The finca itself totaled  four hectares, and much of this was planted with yucca-at least two hectares were solely set aside for yucca. There were also plantings of beans, sugar cane, fruits, and so on.

Orsonia and her family actually live entirely off of this finca-it provides for all their food needs.

We spent the afternoon harvesting yucca, taro root, and eating bananas. It sounds idyllic but it was hot, sweaty work and it was seemingly endless. Just collecting the food took alot of work-let alone preparing it and cooking it.

Orsonia´s children are a somewhat wild bunch, happy, running around eating bananas, hugging the family pig, and creating games from things in their natural environment. They were rarely quiet, and Orsonia did not strike me as a particularly strict parent. The children sort of ran around and had fun, ate, and played, while we worked. Occassionally Orsonia would look up from whatever task she was working on and smile at the children. “They make me so happy, I can´t imagine being here without them“, she said. It is true that they all seemed at home in the finca, running around after the new little pig, playing games and singing songs.

When it was time to rest, we all sat on a large tree that had fallen over, and, although covered in biting ants, it did make a good bench.(You get used to bugs and creepy crawlies biting you eventually here. It´s just a part of the experience!)

When it was time to make the meal, a fire was lit on what sort of looks like a wooden table that is about 3 0r 4 feet off the ground. The table is held up by parts of tree trunks or branches that have been stuck into the ground, and the table is covered with small rocks that heat up and serve as the stove. The wood for the fire was collected by Orsonia´s oldest son, who had been working all day building a chicken coop.

The yucca skin was peeled by one quick mtion with the hand and then chopped into chunks with a dull knife and put into the pot of boiling water. We also prepared what seemed to be the inner part of grass shoots, which had a somewhat peppery taste, and best of all..eggs from the chickens and the ducks.

I was so hungry that I ate two platefuls!

After dinner, we all sat around and looked at the view and the stars. it was so beautiful-no city lights to get in the way of the view, and such crisp clean air to breathe. It felt like another world.

The children ran around while Oronia told me about her life and her dreams for herself and her children. She is a very industrious woman, and has many different projects she is working on-from working on the Artesian Ngobe cooperative for women here to farming all day long. She owns the finca we were currently visiting, and also recently obtained another one as a gift from her father. She considers herself a farmer, and started this finca as a way to both feed her children and hopefully sell some of her produce to her neighbors in town.

She also is an artist. She is one of the few women who make the chakra-a bag traditionally made by Ngobe women, and worn by men and women alike-from natural fibres and dyes. (Many women now use plastic fibres-equally beautiful, but not made from natural materials.) The plant they use to make the fibre is actually a bromeliad that grows in the surrounding forest, and if carefully tended they can grow quite large. This plant´s leaves are peeled very carefully and then the inner part is basically beaten for days until it is soft and pliable. Orsonia also makes all of her own dyes, and showed me one of her current projects, a beautiful wall hanging made of bromeliad fibres and colored with saffron and delicate rose colored dyes. When I told her it was a work of art, she just laughed. She has been working on it for many months in the hopes of taking it to a artesian fair in another city-but unfortunately, she does not have the money to pay the fee to sell her work.

The more I spoke with her, the more I had the sense that I was talking with a women of great intelligence and humility. We are close in age, and yet she has had such a different life than I have had. And yet our lives, and the direction they have taken, seems so random-solely based on where we were born and the color of our skin.  Yet our dreams are very similiar-just translated in different ways. 

When I asked her, “Aren´t you tired, with all of your children, and working in your fincas everyday?“  She just laughed and said, “This is my life. This is all I know. I don´t know any other way, other than to work every day, and hope I have enough for what I need.“

This is exactly the sort of family who could benefit from the income of a volunteer with the new homestay program. Someone who is working hard, doing their best, and whose gentle ways with the land will no doubt startle any visiting Westerner with a newfound appreciation of the simple things in life.

Gigi

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Photos? Where Are They?

March 31st, 2008

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

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All New Top Ten List

March 27th, 2008

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

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Mountain Journey: Part Four: I Become A World Citizen

March 27th, 2008

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

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Mountain Journey: Part Three: I Meet The Community

March 27th, 2008

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

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Mountain Journey:Part Two: An Intimate View of Ngobe Life

March 27th, 2008

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

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Mountain Journey: Part One, Walking In the Dark

March 26th, 2008

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

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