true life planet

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

gigi

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

gigi

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

gg

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

gigi

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

 So, the other night I was up most of the night thinking about how to prepare for the Camino de Santiago, my next leg of my journey around the world.

I figured I might as well work on my trip-as there was no way I was going to get any sleep-for, about ten feet from my cinderblock ¨window¨, there was a wake going on. All night long.

At first I just sat on the edge of my bed and watched the wake outside my window-there was much singing, praying, and so forth. But after about 3 hours of watching the proceedings-I realized it was not going to end until morning.

So, I made myself a cup of black tea with the water I had boiled before bed, and munched on some crackers and peanut butter..wondering what to do for the rest of the night.

One thing about  traveling is-you constantly have to adapt. There is no grace period. Stuff happens, and you immediately have to adjust yourself, your day, your expectations…so, having a wake outside my window, although somewhat interesting from a cultural perspective, could have easily turned into a frustrating evening, had I not been thinking of my mantra…adapt, adapt, adapt.

This said, I began really thinking about  the Camino de Santiago. The Camino, in case you do not know, is a huge walk across Spain-and the part of it I plan on walking is around 400 miles. I have no past experience walking 400 miles-in fact, the farthest I walked in my old life in the USA was when I had to walk the dogs-about a 15 minute walk from my front door.

This past experience no longer defines me,  my physical strength, or endurance.  Since living here, I have walked everywhere-many miles a day, thru dust and dirt and mud and rivers and so on-and actually have become much more accustomed to walking long distances. I am sure that I can walk the entire route of the Camino I have planned.

But this night, I was more concerned about becoming stronger. I don´t know why this never occured to me before-the idea of being a strong woman-but for some reason, I became very focused on this idea.

In the USA, fitness was never fun. It was a drag, a pain, something you did to look good for others-when you actually had the time, which was rare indeed. When you did exercise, it was always in some annoying group setting.

Now, fitness isn´t about being fit or looking good anymore-it´s become some thing totally different for me. It´s become another aspect of development in being a strong, capable woman who can do what she sets out to do.

So the night of the wake, I came up with the idea of writing out a plan, a plan to train for the Camino de Santiago. I´ve got about 40 days left here in the Comarca, and I figure if I need endurance and strength training, this is the perfect environment for it.

My plan consisted of:

 walking 4 miles a day, 6 days a week.

doing stretches every morning7and 40 situps!, at 5 am, before my house gets busy-and people start walking in my room unannounced!

swimming 6 days a week in the largest river here-the river Fonseca-for 2 hours a day

and, one hike every weekend, of at least 3 hours each direction.

It is now two weeks since I came up with my plan. I am happy to report that I am doing all of the above-and seemingly, without as much effort as I expected. I actually look forward to it.

I especially love swimming in the river. There are two rivers near my house: one is small, dirty-pigs swim in it, chickens are beheaded and plucked in it, it is a bathroom for the people who live nearby-and the river Fonseca. The river Fonseca is huge, fast, and reasonably clean. It´s waters are a beautiful green, and it is bordered by amazing trees, full of bromeliads and orchids. And, unlike other rivers in Central America-there are no snakes!(Actually, there are only a few tiny fish..the people here have eaten all the larger species of fish until they are extinct.)

Everyday I go swimming in a peaceful, quiet spot I found in the Fonseca. It´s bordered by a few flat rocks, used occassionally for beating wet clothes on by Ngobe women. Sometimes children accompany me, amazed by an adult that likes to swim-here. the river is used solely as a place to take a quick dip, or a quick bath. People do not exercise for the sake of exercise.

Of course, it´s a bit of a challenge, swimming fully clothed. Occassionally I find myself unable to move-or suddenly extremely buoyant-my skirt filled up with air as I swim. I still am incredulous that the Ngobe women manage to swim outfitted in a dress down to the ankles.

But sometimes when I´m swimming there all alone, I am just suddenly struck by the fact that I am swimming in the middle of a huge river in Panama. Me, who hated swimming as an adult. Me, who was afraid of large rivers and lakes. Me, who loathed exercise.

It´s just amazing how much things have changed-my perspective, my desires, my confidence-by being here. I´m really confident now that I can do the Camino de santiago, and that I will be prepared for it. I´m a strong woman.

gg

 Occassionally, I meet a person in my travels, who I feel is truly helping the community where they live. I always interview them for this blog-in hopes that their perspective will be enlightening for myself and those who read about them. I also hope others find them as inspiring as I do…

This interview was conducted on March 7th, 2008, at the home of a Catholic nun, in the town of Soloy, the Comarca of Chiriqui.

Father Charles has been living with the Ngobe in Soloy for 25 years. Originally from the States, he came to Panama 54 years ago after joining the Vincentian Order, Congregation of Missions. At eighty years old, he´s still going strong-and has a reputation for getting things done in the Ngobe community at large. He´s established a school, a health clinic, and countless other community works projects for the betterment of the people here.

I sat down to talk with him about his view of the changes within the Ngobe culture within the last twenty five years….

Gigi: Why did you come here 25 years ago, and what was that first initial expereince like for you?

F.C.: Well, I came here..from another part of Panama. I was working within another community, and I was not feeling challenged there. I was not working with the very poor and needy, and that is what I wanted to be doing. My order, the Vincentian Order, was established to work with the poor and needy of the world. So I asked to be sent here.

There was nothing when I first came here-it was difficult to even find a house for me to live in. I rented that house over there (points to a little shack in the distance). I didn´t really rent it-I stayed there for free. but the man who owned it had several small boys, and the deal was that they had to live there with me. I cooked all of their meals and helped with their care, as well. They went to the school, also.

Gigi: There was a school?

F.C.: Yes-there was no school when I came here, so I built a school, a small school for the children, because they had no school at all.

Gigi: What was it like when you came here twenty five years ago?

F.C.: It was much, much, different…the community was stronger, the family was stronger, and the outside influences were less.

Gigi: What kind of outside influences are you referring to?

F.C.: Modern culture. Western culture. Latino culture of Panama.

Gigi: Let´s talk about that. What do you consider to be the positive and negative aspects of this acculturation?

F.C.: It´s a mixed blessing..that they have established…the worst things have become more present than the best things. What is positive is that they have a completely different community in terms of medical attention and access to that attention(a clinic here; access to the hospital in David); and, that they have educational opportunities available to them that in the past were nonexistent.

But, many things which either never existed here before, or which existed but only for a small part of the population, are now real problems..such as miscellaneous social problems, alcoholism, teenage single pregnancy, violence, poverty, malnutrition, and so on.

Gigi: What about the economy?

F.C: Well, in the past, it was not a cash-based economy. People used some things from the outside, but they were not dependent on the outside. Now, more families are dependent on a person working afuera (outside)-and this person works afuera permanently, to provide income for the family.

Also, more families are spending at least half of the year working afuera in the coffee plantations-whole families, including small children.

Gigi: Whereas before?

F.C.: Before, people grew enough to live on, and they actually farmed their land. They grew enough-or almost enough-to eat, and they didn´t have alot of need for other things.

Gigi: Do people farm their own land now?

F.C.: Some do (points to Adan, the director of Medo, who was with us at the time), like his father-his father really works the land, he lives off of it. There is terrible poverty here, and there is no reason for it-there is plenty of farmable land here, and almost everyone owns a bit of land they can farm.

Gigi: In the past, I read that the Ngobe practiced swidden agriculture. Do they still practice this kind of agriculture, and if so, how efficient is that now?

F.C.: They still practice it..those who farm..but it is not an efficient way to cultivate the land..they need to learn new ways to cultivate the land.

Gigi: I heard you have been trying to help them with a cultivation project?

F.C.: I was, but not anymore. I was giving them seeds, but they weren´t planting them.

Gigi:Let´s talk about customs..In the past, the Ngobe practiced formalized polygamy? Is this still being practiced here and in the surrounding areas?

F.C.: Yes, it is still being practiced-and although you still find formalized polygamy being practiced, such as one man living with 5 or 6 wives in a hamlet of houses, or one man living with 2 or 3 lives in one house-now the practice is less formal.

Gigi: Do you mean, now one man has relationships with many women, but informally?

F.C.: Yes-exactly. It is part of the culture of the Ngobe for a man to have many women.

Gigi: I have noticed many single mothers living in their family compound and not in the compound of their children´s father(as was the custom in the past). I have also spoken to many young women, aged 12 to 15, to are single mothers with no visible means of support…Are these situations the product of informal polygamy?

F.C.: Yes, this is a tremendous problem. In the past, a positive aspect of polygamy-from the point of view of the rights of women-was that women did not have to deal with being single parents. Women were married off at a young age, sometimes as young as 12-and sometimes before puberty-as part of a system of creating family alliances. So this problem of single parenthood-or parenthood at a young age-with no support-did not exist.

Gigi:The man had to take responsibility?

F.C.: Yes, and if he didn´t..well, there were routes the woman could take. Her family could also demand responsibility, all in the name of family alliances. Now we have a big problem-the men still see the ideal as many women, but without marriage or responsibility or family alliances.

Gigi: Do you see the acculturation of the Ngobe as benefiting the role of women here? What about young women? Are there more opportunities available to them?

F.C.: The current situation for women-young and old-is very, very bad. Some women will have a chance for an education, but only some very few. Those who do get an education will probably want to work afuera-they will not want to stay here in this community and change things.

Gigi:What about other customs? Have the Ngobe retained many of their other customs?

F.C.: In the past, the women and men both wore traditional clothes-now the women buy the material instead of making it, and only the women wear the fully traditional dress. Most of the customs that are still practiced are around language and dress.( My note: the Ngobe made their own material in the past-now this has been forgotten. Material is bought in David, the local large city, or given away to the Ngobe in trade for votes by politicians. All the material now used is manufactured in China, and is polyester.)

Gigi: What about chicha(the traditional alcoholic drink) and chicharias(parties)?

F.C.: In the past, the Ngobe here made their traditional drink, the chicha de maiz. Chicha de maiz is a relatively low alcohol drink. But now, they drink alot more of it-and they also bring in hard alcohol from the outside. There is a big problem with alcoholism here.

They had parties in the past, but only around certain times of the year-ususally having to do with agriculture and work. Now, they have parties several days long, and people get dangerously drunk-many, many people. There is alot of violence, domestic and otherwise.

Gigi: Let´s talk about the clinic you built here. When and why did you build it, and how is that going now?

F.C.: I wanted to build the clinic soon after I came here-the people had nothing, they had nothing in the way of medical care. It was very bad here.

I got the money from my friends in the USA, and we built it-not what you see now(it´s a larger building now), but the smaller, original basic building.

After we built it, I got Doctors Without Borders to come in and run it-and they were here for five years. They trained the local people to run the clinic, to attend to the people who came in. Then they left, and the government of Panama came in and took it over. They run it very poorly-it is a terrible mess.

Gigi: Yes, since I´ve been here, I have both witnessed and heard terrible stories of Ngobe people not getting the care they need at the clinic…

F.C.: Yes, it´s very terrible. It is a travesty, really.

Gigi:For example, I just heard about a man who had two sick little boys. He lived in the mountains, and he walked them all the way here-more than a ten hour walk dwon the mountain. When he got to the clinic, they told him that they couldn´t see his boys that day, because they were only going to see thirty patients. So he waited until the next day, but he had no place to go-so they slept ouside under a tree. They had no food or water.

The next day, they told him they were only going to see emergency cases-and that his two sick little boys did not qualify as emergency cases. He decided to wait all that day, just in case. His two boys were very ill, both running high fevers at this time. They waited outside-once again, with no food.

By evening, the man had no choice-he could wait no longer, and he and his boys had not eaten for several days. He left the clinic and began walking back up the mountain.

I heard this story from a local Ngobe man, who saw the man and the boys in the street, and gave them a bit of money for some food. At the time the man saw them, the boys were extremely ill, and had broken out into smallpox.

Does this kind of thing happen alot at the clinic?

F.C.: This happens every single day, countless times. It happened today, and it will happen tomarrow. As I said, it is a travesty.

Gigi: What is the biggest problem facing the Ngobe at this point, in your opinion?

F.C.: Poverty, malnutrition, and lack of food. There is no good reason for people to be without food here-there is plenty of farmable land. We need to educate them about farming, about cultivation.

The question is: if we are going to educate the Ngobe, what should we be educating them in? Should we preparing them for careers that will only take them afuera, outside of the community? Or should we be preparing them, educating them, in professions that keep them inside the community, and benefit the community-such as farming, such as methods of better cultivation, such as the environment?

Gigi: It seems like your initial desire of wanting to be in a community where you are challenged has come into fruition-are you feeling challenged here still?

F.C.: Oh yes!(laughs alot) I´m very challenged here. But I came here 25 years ago to give the Ngobe a Christian message and also to help them, and I plan on helping them for a long time to come.

-end-

gg

 On Friday morning, I took off for David. I had planned on waiting until saturday night-but, some things were getting on my nerves and making me edgy, so I took off a day early.

The ride to David this time around was much improved from the previous week, as they have been working on the roads for several days. (This should make future volunteers and visitors very happy!)

Once I got to David, I rushed over to the same little sad hotel I had stayed at the previous week. It was sad, but satisfactory-and I though it would be perfect for a night´s peace and quiet, a hot-ish shower, and some much needed privacy and alone time. When I arrived at the hotel front desk, I discovered they had no rooms. Now what?

I was pretty tired, feeling rundown, and the thought of walking from low budget hotel to low budget hotel for a few hours in 100 degree heat wasn´t doing wonders for my state of mind. I dragged my sorry self to two more hotels-and neither had a single room.

What next? I bit the bullet(financially speaking) and went to the best hotel in town. At 60 dollars a night-ouch!- I was expecting magnificence. And that´s exactly what I got.

When I saw the room, my mouth fell open-I had not had such luxury in months. I mean, let´s face it, outside of the low budget hotel I week after visiting the hospital, I hadn´t had an actual hot shower, with actual soap, in an actual shower stall, for over four months. I had not watched television, except for terrible pirated copies of Kung Fu movies with my family, and a few movies back in Guatemala, for over four months. I had not been alone, in an enormous, clean sheeted bed, without being fully clothed(either because of custom, lack of privacy, chiggers, fleas, or other biting insects) in months.  This hotel had air conditioning. It had a huge bottle of bottled water, and two actual glasses wrapped in paper. It had little toiletries(mouthwash?hair conditioner?shower cap? what is that?). It had six gloriously white, enormous, fluffy towels, just for me. It had enough room for a family of fifteen or so Ngobe to live quite comfortably. It had complete silence, with a view of a fantastic tropical garden. And, best of all, it had room service, and it had a delightful man who brought me whatever I wanted for a dollar tip.

So I spent the next 24 hours in complete luxury. I had no guilt-why, look at where I´ve been living, and how I´ve been living, for goodness sakes.

I watched hours of CNN, and caught up on world events.

I ordered room service-and ate an entire pepperoni pizza and a fruit salad.

I laid around not fully clothed, as where I currently live, I must respect the customs by basically being fully clothed all the time-even when I go swimming. There are the added problems of little privacy and also many biting insects, so add to this the issue of having to sleep fully clothed as well.

I took four showers, all piping hot, one of which was over an hour long. I actually shaved my legs and was shocked how different they looked afterwards!( I am somewhat embarrased to admit this, but it is true. That is what many months in the third world will do to you, when all you have is a cold bucket of water to bathe in. Showering, let alone shaving, has become something to get over with…therfore, I am afraid, shaving had fallen by the wayside!)

I drank loads and loads of bottled water-ah, the luxury of not having to hike down the hill, collect the water, and boil it! Ah, the luxury of drinking as much water as I wanted.

I looked in the mirror(what is that?) and agonized over my newfound wrinkles-and then spent a good hour actually moisturizing my face, something I normally do not do much.(Moisturizer seems to attract more dirt and bugs!)

I laid around on the enormous bed, which had a spectacular mattress, and watched Lara Croft, Tomb Raider, until I fell into a gloriously undisturbed sleep, until the next afternoon. Unlike at home in Soloy, where I am woken up at 4 am by people talking, playing the radio, cooking, and in general, living, this hotel room was a haven of tranquility. I never heard a single sound from outside the room, and I slept better than I have slept in weeks.

The next day when I woke up, I new it was time to bid adieu to my new friend(the hotel room).  I could really only afford one night in such a place, and anyway, I had promised my family I would return Saturday afternoon.

I made my way to the bus terminal, and took in the scene as I waited for the next 4 x4 to Soloy.

I really haven´t spent much time in David-and frankly, it´s not a city I really like. It´s hot, crowded, and dirty-and it´s design is a somewhat messy suburban sprawl, mixed with cracked sidewalks, trash, and so on. Even the ¨nicer¨parts of David aren´t that nice. It looks like exactly what it is-a stopover for people on the way to other more interesting parts of Panama.

However, it is the second most populated city in Panama, after Panama City. The population is incredibly varied-a real melting pot of many different groups of people.

Many people are on the heavy side, perhaps due to heredity, or perhaps due to a diet that seems to consist mostly of carbohydrates such as white rice-and lots of it. It is definitely not a health concious culture! People walk around eating icecream, candy,deep fried treats, snowcones with sugar syrup,drinking soda.

I had been waiting over two hours at the bus terminal when I realized I had a big problem. Two 4×4´s had already come and gone-and neither had a space for me. There were so many Ngobe waiting to get on one of the 4×4´s that I was wondering what to do-only 5 show up on Saturday, and there were well over 150 Ngobe waiting for the few that were left.

The reason that there were so many Ngobe waiting is that school, public school for children, started on Monday. they were all returning from working in the fincas just in time to get their children home for the first day of school.

I sat there waiting with all of the Ngobe-some of whom I knew, and some who became fast friends as we all waited-and contemplated the difficulty of their lives.

The all had all of their possessions in the world with them-including puppies, dogs,blankets, cooking pots, a little food, machetes, clothing, and of course, lots of children. All of these possesssions(except the kids!) were in large plastic bags, sort of a woven type of bag they normally use to transport maiz, but also used for other purposes as well. Yes, this includes animals-animals, including full size dogs, puppies, cats, kittens, chickens, and chicks were all in plastic bags. The animals were not given water-and rarely, a bit of ice cream, or a bit of cake-and they suffered terribly in the plastic bags in the heat on the hot sidewalk. Some animals, such as puppies, were carried by small children, and were passed out from the heat.

Babies, as well, had to bear the heat just as the adults and animals did. Several women had newborn or month old babies in their arms. Ngobe do not use anything in particular to help them carry their children-occassionally, a large net bag is used on the back, but I saw none of these today-and so the babies rested in the mothers arms. There was little shade, and the babies and mothers bore the full brunt of the heat. Mothers nurse publicly by opening a large slit in the front of their dress.

Small toddlers, red faced from the heat with sticky foreheads and dirty clothes, clung to their mothers skirts. Often the mother or father had no money for refreshment for the children-so they too, slept from the exhaustion of what was an obviuously very tiring long journey. On occassion refreshments were bought, especially to placate crying children, and these were always very sugary treats, such as little cup of ice cream or candy or perhaps a soda. I never saw anyone drink any water, in spite of waiting for more than six hours.

Finally, I managed to get onto a 4×4 that was being paid for by one very large group of Ngobe, all heading hope after having worked at the finca for 6 months. There was one spot in the front next to the driver, and I managed to squeeze in-and although it was very crowded, and not the most pleasant of journeys..I was relieved not to have to go find a hotel for yet another night(which might have proved impossible at this late hour.)

I didn´t get home until at least 8:30-and , remember, I had been waiting at the bus terminal since 12:30 that afternoon. When I arrived home, Arturo and my family came out, everyone happy to meet me. I am family, they told me. They need to have the family together, they said.

In spite of the challenges of living here, I felt ¨ at home¨, once I arrived at Catalina´s house. I have changed so much since being here with the beautiful people here..In many ways, I feel more affinity for them and their culture, than I do to the more prevalent, latino culture in David. Here, things are simple. People are not concerned with the same things-and when they are, it is not expressed in the same way.

I loved taking a night off-it was a well desrved break-but I´m happy to be home. I kind of missed the noise, the lack of privacy, Arturo popping into my room at any given moment, kids perched on my windowsill watching me reading a book, the pig snorting outside my bedroom window, Meiko the cat begging for the rest of my dinner, and so on.

It´s good to be home.

gg

Here’s a basic update on me and how things are…

A few days ago, I was down in the dumps due to being sick. Well, I am happy to report that I have improved greatly over the past few days..in part due to the medicine I’ve been taking, in part because I’m more in control over what I’m putting into my body, and in part because I have decided to return to David the upcoming weekend for one night of luxury.

Well, not really luxury..more like a clean bed, a hot shower, and so on at the hotel I visited last weekend when I was really sick. I decided I both need it and deserve it.

I was feeling rather sorry for myself and quite miserable until I decided to just go ahead and make the trek to David and spend just one night in the hotel there. Deciding this so lifted my spirits, that frankly now I am quite cheerful!

On the volunteering side of things, I went back to work..that is..volunteering, yesterday.

My first class of the day had 46 kids! We did an art project about butterflies using words in English to make the butterflies. The kids loved it. They go back to school next week, so I’ve only got the rest of this week left with them. Tomarrow we will be making enormous snakes out of paper, and writing a story about a snake.

My afternoon classes for adults has expanded into two groups. One group has no experience with English, so they are beginners. We’re just now finishing up with letters and moving into words. Many sounds in English are unfamiliar to the Ngobe tongue, so they need alot of practice.

The other group is extremely advanced, so their focus is on writing. We are writing letters of introduction as well as describing past events right now in this class.

My homestay is, as always, interesting. It is really astonishing to me how privacy is not understood at my house..but how could it be, as personal space doesn’t exist-what with 10 to 15 people living in one or two rooms. I will really appreciate personal space when I get home. I probably will not need as much, since I won’t be accustomed to it.

On the other hand, it is precisely because of this custom that the culture has here of sharing, that they opened up their house, their family, and their lives to share with me. I am always amazed by the graciousness of Catalina and her family…they are welcoming and hospitable to people at all hours of the day or night.

Having an outsider, someone from a totally different culture, living with them can’t always be easy..yet they take it in stride. We have developed a very nice comraderie, in spite of..or perhaps due to..the hilarity of our cultural differences.

The upcoming week, I hope to visit some other families for an introduction to the homestay program here. The women in these families are well traveled, and familiar with other cultures. They work in areas of health and social activism and employment for women here..so I think they will be perfect candidates for the homestay program.

I will also be visiting the local medicine woman. I am really looking forward to this, as it is a rare invitation. I am hoping to work with her and incorporate her into the ecotourist project.

I also hope to photograph more of the women here..particularly domestic scenes and women working up in the mountains nearby.

I have been working on my trip a bit more as well…

The Camino part of the trip..in Spain..is taking shape quite nicely. I have a ticket to fly into Madrid from the USA on May 6th. I’m giving myself a little under 6 weeks, which is more than enough time to do it without too much pressure. I’ve decided to skip the Pyrenees part, as I think it would be too grueling. Although, after living here for 3 months, who knows! I hope to have a few days at the end to rest in Santiago, and, I hope to then travel back to Madrid and so on for some museum hopping and so on.

After Spain, I will be heading to England, hpoefully meet up with my friend and travel goddess Sande. I hope to travel a bit with her, then head off to a working volunteer retreat at a Tibetan buddhist monastery in Derby.

I have applied to the monastery in England for one and a half months. I am hoping the work will be hard, but that the environment will be balm for my soul. Right now I plan on being there for part of July and August.

In September, I plan on quickly heading over to Paris, where I have a friend to stay with. I won’t have much time..maybe a week…but that will be quite nice.

From Paris, I will fly on to Istanbul, Turkey. I will travel thru Turkey for a few weeks, then make my way to Georgia, where I have a volunteer job working with disabled kids on a farm. From there, on to Armenia, where I will be working with the elderly and orphans.

Then, I will head back into Turkey, and fly to Jordan, where I have a job teaching English to girls. From Jordan, I will fly on to India, where I will travel a bit, and of course, volunteer. I will be volunteering with the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta. I hope to spend some time in Calcutta, and then move up to Northern Bengal, and work with the same organization in a community of people with Hansen’s disease. I will also be visiting and working in Nepal, Bangladesh,Myanmar….and so on.

So that’s the next year in a nutshell!

gg

Well, I´ve got giardia.

The odds of me getting giardia here were pretty high-especially because I am living with a local family. If I was camping in my own tent, and had control over every aspect of the preparation of my food and water, the odds would still be prettty high.

The river here is contaminated with giardia, ecoli, and lots of other bacteria and parasites, because the people go to the bathroom in the water. They have always used the river as a bathroom-and in the past, they didn´t have as many problems with contaminated water, because they didn´t have as many people living here.

My illness started about a week ago- I think.

It is the result of random chance and cultural differences.

How it happened, was that about a week ago, my families house stopped having running water(normally water straight from the river is pumped from the aquaduct to their house for two hours every night). This meant that we had to-or should I say, I had to-go down the hill, fetch water with a bucket, and then carry that same 5 gallon bucket up to the house. Sound easy? It isn´t.

Sometimes I was tired from teaching and tutoring and so on, so I would ask one of the boys in the family to go get the water for me.

When I would go get water, I would get it upstream. The kids were basically scooping it up where people went to the bathroom and pigs went swimming. I did not know this until it was too late, several days later.

Additionally, the family ran out of gas for the stove. We had to wait for the gas man to come by with more-and he never showed up all week. Which meant that the only alternative to the now defunct gas stove was cooking over a woodfire-not something I am particularly adept at, especially in the Ngobe fashion(very little wood!).

Basically this meant that I left the cooking of my water to the women in the family, as whenever I attempted to start a wood fire, I caused a great upheaval-having used more than two tiny pieces of wood, and so on.

I felt I had throughly explained the need for ¨hardboiling¨the water, and satisfied that this was being done, went about my other tasks, and assumed the water was boiled. A fe days later. as the sharp stomach pains started, I realized it had not been boiled.

When I asked them about boiling the water, they told me they had ¨cooked¨it. This means: they had heated it a little bit.

I could not get angry, even though I had explained the importance of boiling the water countless times. To be angry, or show being upset, would really be very upsetting to my hosts.

It is not the custom for the Ngobe to be confrontational or upset-it is more important for everyone to get along. It is confrontational enough for them that I can´t drink their water as they do, and by not drinking it, am pointing out that there is something wrong with it, or in their mind, wrong with them or their actions(using the river as a bathroom).

I felt a little sick-but not too bad, and I hoped for a mild stomache flu at the worst.

By Wednesday, I thought I was better, and was very glad becasue that night I had been invited to have dinner with 15 missionaries from Tennessee(thanks, guys-that was the best food I have had in months!). But right after dinner, walking home, I felt terrible. Something was wrong.

Thursday I decided not to eat anything, and see if that helped. It did, somewhat. However, the real problem at this point was the water situation. Since we had no water at the house, I was having to fetch my own water, boil it-and use that single bucket for all my cooking, washing, and drinking needs. I wasn´t drinking much at all, because I was rationing myself.

My plan was to get up early Friday morning and catch the 5:30 chiva(goat-another word for the 4×4 that you have to catch to get out of this place), head to David, and stock up on some backup supplies: water, gatorade, and food that didn´t have to be cooked.

I woke up Friday morning miserable. Thinking it was solely because of my diet and lack of water over the past week, I hopped on to the chiva heading to David.

Rather, I should say, I sqeezed on to the chiva-vehicles designed for cargo, not for passengers, the chiva drivers are notorious for cramming as many people as possible into the back of their vehicles, sometimes as many as 16 people.

Sometimes people are not particularly clean, having walked ten hours or more to catch the chiva. Sometimes they have lice, fleas, or other bugs, having been living in cramped, almost outdoor conditions, with animals. However, everyone is in the same boat-packed in so closely, no one can even move.

Once I made it to David, I headed to the supermarket, where I stocked up on everything I though I would need for two months. I bought enough water for few days, figuring I would have some back up water for when I didn´t have time to boil any.

I took a taxi back to the terminal, and boarded the chiva to return to Soloy. The driver of this chiva has a terrible nickname-they call him ¨Black Hand¨, because he is always taking advantage of the Ngobe. Today was no different-he packed us in like sardines, then locked the door-and went off in search of other passengers. He left the windows down a little, but already, the heat was unbearable. There was also a strange smell.

I suddenly noticed where the smell was coming from-it was coming from a very sick Ngobe woman, obviously infected with smallpox. The woman became sicker and sicker, and the Ngobe pounded on the inside of the chiva to be let out(or to let the woman out) but the ¨Black Hand¨never returned. Finally, some other guy came and let us out-and the woman with the smallpox left the chiva, trailing behind her husband, carrying a tiny child.

I had not seen sadness until I saw that scene.

I boarded a different chiva that was ready to head to Soloy-and the ride was agony. So much bouncing along, and nothing to do but grit your teeth and bear it.
By the time I got home, I was dizzy from the heat. I just wanted my bags of food and to got o bed.

Saturday morning, I woke up in terrible pain. Adan came to visit me-and then several of the other volunteers in the area.

My family did not seem to understand that I needed water-which I was storing on the back patio.(Ngobe do not drink water usually-and when they do, not much. They drink hot coffee or soda drinks.) I kept asking for water, but I was too tired and weak to get up from the bed.

By the time Dennis came(a local peace corp volunteer), I was crying and had a fever. Dennis took one look at me, and I knew I was going to the hospital.

We managed to get into yet another chiva-and that bouncing ride was the worst one yet. I had been afraid to get back onto the chiva, purely because of the terrible roads…
We got me to the hospital..where, a very nice doctor took one look at me and told me I was severely dehydrated and also had giardia.

Five prescriptions, 6 bottles of gatorade, a few hours of bad tv in a so so hotel in David,an actual hot shower in the same hotel, and yet another chiva ride back to Soloy-I´m back at ¨home¨, still not feeling great, but a little bit better.. Still not eating much, but drinking lots of water(that I´m boiling myself).

Also am taking this experience very much to heart-and in spite of not wanting to refuse food, etc offered to me, I have decided for now to only eat and drink what I have prepared myself.

Taking a break from teaching for a few days, and blogging for the next week.

If you are reading this blog, please leave a comment to this post. I need comments, they keep me in contact with the world.

The Comarca is a world of it´s own.

gigi