true life planet

I´ve been meaning to take the time to write about funny language mishaps I have here. Unfortunately, I have had quite a few. Although my Spanish improves day by day, it´s still beginner Spanish. Combine this with the fact that the Spanish here is somewhat different than where I have traveled in the past, and it´s easy for language mishaps to happen. Additionally, cultural differences abound-sometimes people don´t talk about a certain subject directly-or when they do, it´s done in a certain way.

Here´s an example:

One day a dog followed me home. Not sure if he was there to stay, or simply there for a meal, I fed him and figured he would go back home. The next day, he was on the back patio, waiting to be fed again. This happened for several days, so I finally named him Captain Jack Sparrow(Jhonny Depp and pirate movies are very popular here.). Captain Jack made himself comfortable on the back patio, and seemed to have decided Catalina´s home was his new permanent home.

I became concerned that when I finally left to go back to the States, my family would stop feeding Captain Jack. This was a valid concern, as as I have mentioned before, people do not feed their animals here-at least not regularly. Very few people have pets, who are coddled over and well fed, as our animals are in the US. So I was worried about his fate, and trying to figure out if I should take him to a friend´s house who has pet dogs here.

So I asked my family if they would feed him when I was no longer here. But what I actually asked them was ¨Tu come mi perro?¨, which means, ¨Will you eat my dog?¨!!!
This left everyone quite shocked, their mouths open. Once we all realized my mistake, we all cracked up laughing. As a matter of fact, they tell this story over and over again, every single day.

Here´s another example:
The other night, I was attending church with my family. Half way thru the service, the woman next to me started speaking to me. I couldn´t hear all of what she had said-there was alot of chaotic activity going on at the time, and quite a lot of noise- but I did hear her say something about ¨….a person had died ….¨

. So, all I heard was that someone had died, in the church.
Right after she said that, I was looking around at all the people near me. Suddenly, I realized the woman who had been rather fervently dancing in the middle aisle was lying down on the cement. She was in the position of someone who had been laid out-and she wasn´t moving. Was she dead?, I wondered? She did not seem to be moving at all, and people began praying over her. She did not move.

Oh My God.

I am sitting 4 feet away from a dead body, I thought.

Everybody kept singing, praying, dancing, and jumping-it did not seem to matter to anyone that the poor dead woman was in their midst.

I was freaking out. I mean, I was trying to be calm, thinking to myself that this was just another cultural experience-but honestly-I was reeling.

Trying to remain composed, I was about to point out the dead woman to my hostess-she had been onstage and had just come back to her seat-when…

The dead woman suddenly leapt up and started dancing!

Oh my God, I almost had a heart attack! I fell backwards off my seat, and my hostess looked alarmed.

I explained that I had thought the woman was dead! I explained that another woman sitting near us had explained to me that someone had just died, and that I thought it was the (now) dancing and jumping woman, who had been lying on the ground and not moving moments before.
Great hilarity broke out in my family-and they began explaining in Ngobe why I was so shocked when the woman leapt up minutes before to the surrounding people on the benches. With everyone laughing, Catalina explained to me that no had just died-the story I had been particially told happened a year ago. A missionary had died building the church-no one had died that night.
gg

Last night was the night of the total lunar eclipse. My family and I had stayed up late to watch it together.

I was having hard time staying awake, as I was really tired from working alot during the day. Also, when I got home, I was very hungry, so I asked my family to make me some food-which turned out to be an enormous bowl of white rice, with chunks of yucca root. Yum. After I ate that, I was ready for a long nap.

However, I had promised to stay up and watch the eclipse, so I dragged myself outside to the lawn.

There were about ten family members visiting-and they were all sitting on scaffolding, made of the small branches of trees. The scaffolding was about one story high, and surprisingly stable, considering it was made of sticks and small branches-and no nails! A few days previously, several men in the family had built the scaffolding to begin repairing Catalina´s house. her house, which is made of cement cinderblocks, has alot of cracks in it at the moment (which means we have alot of scorpions crawling inside the walls of the house-and I do not like scorpions!).

We all sat on the scaffolding-the women in their long brightly coloed dresses; the kids, their clothes soaking wet, from just having bathed in the river; the men, all having just returned from working in the fields; a few dogs, chickens, and horses; and me, with a baby on my lap.

Although they knew that this was the night for the eclipse, interestingly enough, they did not know what an eclipse was. As we sat watching the entire eclipse for two hours(while every bug in the neighborhood made a beeline for my ankles), they bombarded me with questions about the universe, speaking in Ngobe and in Spanish.

Questions like: What is an eclipse? Is that the shadow of the moon? How often is there an eclipse? How long does it last? Does the whole world see the eclipse at the same time?

This led to more complex questions…such as: Why is the earth moving?Why do we have only one moon? Where is the sun right now? If the Earth is moving, why aren´t we flying off of it?

I did my best..but I am afraid my Spanish is more day to day-not suited to complex questions.

It really surprised me how little they knew about the universe. A few of the people there had had some secondary schooling-and so were informed about planets, the role of the sun and the moon, etcetra. But everyone else kept asking more and more questions.

For example, trying to explain gravity to them in a way they could understand wasn´t easy. But when I explained that there were people at the botttom of the Earth, right now, who weren´t going to fly off either-they couldn´t believe it. It was shocking. They could understand gravity for them-because they were experiencing it. But it was hard for them to believe that it existed somewhere else.

Also of particular interest to me last night was that we could actually see the milky way.
Normally, the milky way cannot be seen from this area of the world-but last night, it was there in all of it´s glory, trailing thru the universe. They had never heard of the milky way, and I explained it is called the ¨Camino de Leche¨-a trail of stars thru the sky.

I told them how lucky they were to live here in the Comarca-with no lights, no electricity, and no pollution, their view of the night sky is the most spectacular I have ever seen in my life. All the stars are crystal clear, cluttering the sky to the point that it is hard to see a distinct constellation.

The Ngobe have many names for constellations of stars. Among them are: The Eyes of the Cat; Maiz and the Machete; Woman with Child; Jaguar Stalking Animal; and Walking Dogs.

It is really interesting to see the universe thru another culture´s eyes. I have a whole new appreciation for it´s vastness and beauty.

gg

Hello. Girl Scout Readers in Alabama!

Your Girl Scout Leader, Becky, sent me an email telling me how you are all reading my blog.

I wanted to say thankyou! It is such an honor to have you experiencing the trip along with me.

I have learned a great deal so far on my trip about myself and other cultures. You might have read(back at the beginning part of this blog), that I am devoting several years of my life to the service of others. I know that this is what the Girls Scouts are all about, too!

I really want to encourage your group to volunteer as much as you can-for me, volunteering has been such a wonderful experience. I have grown alot as a person and I have developed some traits in myself because of putting myself in situations which require compassion. Among these traits are organization, courage, confidence, and humility.

Volunteering also has helped my appreciate everything I have-family, loved ones, friends, pets, food, a house..so many things that others don´t have that I have taken for granted in my own life. We have so much, and we take that for granted. Often, people don´t want to share their time, their money or their resources-but when they truly give, they realize that is the best thing of all.

There was Girl Scout troop here in the past-they worked with the women´s artesian groups. They helped paint signs, they played with the kids, and they helped with starting up a ¨keep our community clean and green¨project. They found the courage to live here for a few weeks, in spite of the bugs and the bats!

I hope you keep reading!

gg

Last Sunday, I finally got an invitation to the local Evangelical church, which happens to be an Assembly of God church.This church is the church that my family attends-actually, it´s the church almost everyone near me attends! I had been interested in going to a church here;howver, Westerners are not always welcome at some churches/events. Therefore, I needed a formal invitation.

On Sunday morning, my family told me that that afternoon, three of the church elders would be paying me a visit. I would be expected to play hostess-meaning, offer coffee with lots of sugar, and some other treat.My family would provide me with a girl in the family to help me serve and prepare the coffee. Providing a girl to help serve or prepare food is the custom here, and girls begin learning these duties from the age of six on up. My helper for this special event was a eight year old. I would also be expected to wear my traditional dress as a sign of respect.

The elders showed up at about 3 in the afternoon-one man was the head pastor, and the other two were assistant pastors. They sat down on the back porch, where all family and friends sit when they visit. We were introduced in Spanish, and they sat down and talked with Catalina, my host mother.

I was wearing the traditional dress of the Ngobe-it had just been completed the day before by a friend´s sister. I was somewhat used to wearing it by Sunday, as on Saturday night, I had had to wear it for a meeting with a local women´s group.

I was, however, still not used to walking in it! The dress is VERY ample, and is down to the ground. The day before I had struggled alot, walking up and down the mountain and on the dirt roads here.

I also was having a hard time with the colors-it is bright bright green, with red, light blue, and yellow zigzags. Compared to my practical travel clothes, It felt like I was a walking rainbow.

At any rate, the dress recieved many compliments from the church elders. I was glad I had had it made-once agiain, proving that adapting to a different culture is much more effective than insisting on your own!

The young girl in my family made the hot boiled coffee and I poured it into plastic cups for the 3 men. Then, I brought out a chunk of cane sugar, which we cut into pieces. This ¨candied¨cane sugar is considered a dessert here-and I had been given it by the women´s group the night before. It is eaten in chunks,or slivers, and very very sweet.

The three elders began talking about God, about Jesus, about Heaven , about everything you can think of. All three spoke with great fervor and excitement, for about 2 hours. The whole time, they were drinking cup after cup of coffee, and after two hours they had polished off all the sugar as well.

Frankly, I didn´t understand much of what they said-particially because they were sometimes speaking in their language, and particially because when they did speak in Sapnish, it was very fast. But I did understand that they were very excited, that they wanted to invite me to their church.
The invitation itself was rather formal-they asked my family to ask me, and then my family asked me.
Of course I said YES!

So that night,we prepared to go to the Asssembly of God church down the road. Maybe I shouldn´t use the words ¨down the road¨-that sort of implies ease. Rather, it was a half an hour walk in the pouring rain on a slick muddy road in the dark.

Accompanying us was a large group of neighborhood women and children-including one woman pastor from the church(who is my next door neighbor); a young woman, about 16 years old, with a baby;several elderly women; a rag-tag group of about 15 children; and my family.

I could not believe that we were all going to walk there, in the rain, in the mud, in the dark, with a little baby. The women had no umbrellas(they are a luxury here for some people); they were wearing the traditional Ngobe dress down to their ankles; and flip flops. I could hardly walk in my high tech sandals-I had to hold on tightly to the shoulder of Arturo, the boy that lives at my house, or I would´ve fallen. There were also frogs everywhere-and I mean everywhere! (it doesn´t normally rain this time of the year, so they were all out frolicking in the mud!)

In my country, people would never take a little baby in their arms and walk to a church(or anywhere, for that matter) in the pouring rain, on a slick muddy road. They would have the perfect little carrier or stroller for the baby; sturdy shoes; raincoats; umbrellas; and probably take a car to begin with. But here, people have nothing-and they make do with nothing.

We hiked up a hill, rounded a bend, and came upon the church itself.

The church was basically an enormous, open on all sides, carport-like building. It was not even a building-more like a cement slab, with posts around it, and a very nice metal roof. It had no lights, and only a few benches for people.

As far as people, there were at least two hundred people there, and more coming by the minute. People were coming with their entire families, babies, small children, women, young adults,men, old people, sick people on stretchers-you name it. There were also quite a few dogs running around; cows grazing right next to the church; horses tethered to the posts; and chickens and their chicks in boxes.

We sat down on a roughly hewn bench, held up by a few cement cinderblocks,and I got a chance to look around.

One thing I noticed immediately was that there was a large space in the middle of the church-much larger than an aisle-and this was full of people, who seemed to be swaying back and forth in a line. The second thing I noticed was that on the right hand side of the church there was only one pew-or rather, bench. The entire right hand side of the church was taken up by families and their posessions-and I mean everything, from cooking pots to chickens to blankets. Catalina told me that these people had basically been camping out here, waiting for the church service-most of them had walked over ten hours to get here from the campos(farms), in the mountains of the Comarca.

The service began with the lead pastor calling out for a prayer. A man offered to come to the front and begin the prayer, and as soon as he started praying, EVERYONE in the entire church started praying also. Everyone was praying differently, calling out, singing, reciting..it was impossible for me to distinguish any one prayer in particular. The women that had been standing in the middle of the church, swaying back in force, were particularly fervent.

After the prayer, they did a reading from the Bible. They read from the book of Job. The reading was donw by seven different pastors, including a few women.The only light used in the church were flashlights, so the reading of the Bible was done by flashlight. People in the congregation would call out ¨Gracias Dios¨(thankyou God) alot during the reading.

Also during the reading, life went on as usual-children did no sit still, they ran around, played, slept; people ate; diapers were changed; greetings were exchanged between adults.

After this, the singing began-every age group took turns singing songs. All the singing was accompanied by musical instruments: a guitar, a whistle; a gourd full of dried maiz,shaken like a rattle; a drum, of animal skins; and a conch shell.

Halfway thru the singing of one group of children, the women in the middle of the church started swaying and dancing faster and faster.One woman´s body began shaking violently, and people began walking her up the front of the entire congregation. Once she was in front of everyone, her dancing and shaking and speaking got faster and faster-and people were calling out ¨Gracias Dios¨and so on. The woman danced, whirled, shook, and spoke rapidly for more than 5 minutes. When she was done she collapsed near one of the pastors, and immediately the entire congregation broke out into wild applause.

People continued taking turns singing, including a particularly beautiful song sung by a blind girl who was about 12 years old. Her singing was interrrupted occassionally by another blind girl at her side, who would begin speaking rapidly, or alternatively, calling out prayers of devotion. People went wild in the congregation when the two blind girls were walked off the stage.The applause, the prayers being called out, were incredibly fervent for the two girls.

I myself was simply blown away by the beauty of their singing.

At this point, the main pastor announced I was in the audience and requested for me to come forward. There was thunderous applause for me as I came up to the front of the stage. I was pretty nervous, and I had no idea what was expected of me at all!

I went up to the front, and they proceeded to ask me if they could lay hands on me. I said yes, and immediately people in the congregation were singing out prayers and praises-there was alot going on at once. Suddenly, at least half the congregation got up out of their seats and came towardsme. I had no idea what to do, so I just stood there!

They all began laying hands on my body, taking turns. As they laid hands on me, they would call out, tremble or pray. By the time they were done, almost every adult (more than 200!) had laid hands on me in the congregation.

What did it feel like? Well, first off-it was different! I´ve never had an experience like that before-with so many people. Secondly, I would say it was a very moving, deeply spiritual experience. Although it is not something I have experienced before( I have been to similiar churches in the past, but none with this degree of fervor and prayer, expressed in such a uniquely Ngobe way), I have no doubt that the presence of God was there. The people approached the stage with such joyfulness that it astonished me.

When I left the stage, I felt significantly different than when I first walked up to the front-I felt no nervousness, no anxiety(social situations on stages make me anxious!) and felt a true sense of peacefulness. Interesting.

Everyone came up to me and shook my hand, and it was as though I was part of the Ngobe who were there.

We all walked home in the pouring rain, Catalina using my umbrella to cover the newborn baby.

Definitely, a very beautiful memorable experience for me.

gg

An average Saturday night, here in the Comarca:

I was visiting with the neighbor kids last Saturday when we heard music playing from far away….it came closer and closer. Someone was playing music in the street, and they were walking towards our house.

The kids and I (all twenty of them-from age 2 on up…) all ran out to the street to get a glimpse of the musicians. When we finally saw them, I was really excited-because although I had heard the traditional Ngobe music before, I had never been able to see it being played.

The music itself doesn´t have name-it´s actually part of another custom here, called Balseria. Balseria is kind of hard to explain, but I will try.

Basically, it´s a fighting event, hosted by different communities in the Comarca. People travel great distances to attend these balserias-sometimes traveling for several days.

Once everyone gets there, the fighting begins-both between women and men! There is a big, lightweight, stick-and this is used by one person to actually hit other people. The hits must be delivered with force. People try to avoid getting hit by running away. The best balseria players are very fast runners who can also withstand a great deal of pain(being hit with the stick over and over again).

While on this fighting is going on, there is alot of drinking going on-of the local brew, chicha de maiz(literally corn juice). I haven´t tried it, but one of the local Peace Corp guys told my it tastses terrible and is very very strong. People drink alot of this, and then walk around hitting one another, or, alternatively, trying to run away.

Music is played during the entire event-usually by different groups of men. The men are dressed rather colorfully, with the most unusual outfit being worn by the leader. The leader of the group of 3 or 4 men wears a colorful dress-like garment, often red, with contrasting trim; a hat with feathers; and, on rather astonishingly, an entire stuffed animal on his back(normally a jaguar). The other two or three men in the band wear normal street clothes, indigenous clothes(brightly decorated Western style shirts and pants), and hats with feathers or beads.

The instruments played are a conch shell; a rattle with maiz inside, played with a stick; and a whistle.

When there is a Balseria in the Comarca, I see lots of these small groups walking down the mountains into the area I live in-usually playing instruments, and having had quite alot of chicha de maiz. They will usually stop along the way and play for people on the street for a few centavos, a meal, or more chicha de maiz.

The night I saw them up close was such a different experience-I could not believe it was a real jaguar on the mans back. The kids were all laughing, everyone was drinking quite alot, and the women in the dorrways of the houses were smiling and calling out-some laughing and shaking their heads at the scene.

The music itself-both the playing of the instruments and the singing-doesn´t sound like any music I know. I have never heard anything like it. It is very repetitive, and to my ear off tune-but to the Ngobe ear it is a beautiful noise.

Once again, another interesting night here in Panama!

gg

Last Friday my host family went to David, where they visited the local mercado.

They promised me that they were bringing back some delicious, ¨cucina typica¨for our dinner that night..

I was pretty excited. Visions of pineapples and coconuts danced in my head all day long. When I finally hiked the long hike home, I was starving. I hadn´t eaten lunch in anticipation of the glorious meal to come.

When I got home, everyone was really excited. They made me walk thru the front door of the house(we usually use the back door)..apparently the surprise was on the back patio.

I walked thru the house to the back patio and looked for dinner. Where was it? I saw nothing that looked like it could be food. There was no enormous pile of glorious fruits, no huge bunch of bananas…

Then I saw them. Two enormous iguanas were tied up to a post. They were tied by their tails, and their legs were broken backwards, and stuck into their backs so they couldn´t move. One, a female, was obviously full of eggs.

Oh my god.

Everyone was pointing and laughing at the poor iguana´s fate, at their trying to escape.

¨Is this dinner?¨, I asked, trying to appear nonplussed, etcetra.

¨Oh yes-and the eggs especially are very good ! We got one with lots of eggs just for you!¨ my host replied.

I took a step back, smiled, said thank you, and excused myself to my room for a moment. I was no longer hungry-the animals broken legs kind of killed my appetite, not to mention their fate.

My real problem was-how to tell them I couldn´t eat the iguana they bought for me? Iguanas here are an endangered, protected animal. Even if I wanted to eat iguana(which I didn´t), I will not eat endangered animals.

How to explain this in a way that is understood by my hosts, without offending them? As I think I have mentioned before, animals are not valued here the way they are in other countries-they are food, or they are things that consume food, of which there is not much. Therefore, their treatment is low on the list of priorities.

Iguana is a typical meat for the Ngobe. They have always eaten it, in particular for special occassions. The fact it is endangered is of no importance-how can it be endangered when they have so many? How can it be endangered when people sell them in the market? And, from their point of view, how can other people tell them not to eat something that they see as theirs?

The other problem was that each iguana cost five american dollars-that´s ten dollars, a small fortune here. It is an honor to be asked to share such an expensive meal.

Catalina, my host, came into my room. She looked worried.

¨You don´t like it? You don´t want it?¨, she said.

¨Oh, I´m sure it is delicious. But I can´t eat it because it is a protected animal. People in my country don´t eat protected animals.¨, I said.

This was not understood at all. They had many questions, such as who decides it is protected? Are they Ngobe? Are they gringoes? Why do the gringoes decide this for us?

Finally I said, ¨Well, it is your custom to eat this animal. But it is not my custom.You can´t break your customs, and so you understand, neither can I.
Why don´t you prepare your animals for dinner and I will make some lentils and rice. I will share my lentils and rice with all of you, but I won´t have any iguana.¨¨

So I went inside, made enough lentils and rice for everyone-while outside, they killed the iguanas, cooked them, and took out all the eggs and cooked those too .

Everyone was happy, because I made the rice my way-brown rice cooked with onions-and they had never had brown rice before, only white rice. I made enough for EVERYONE-which was about 15 people.

This situation really has had me thinking alot about how to decline something that is offered-and frankly, most of the time I am offered something, I don´t decline. However, I have learned alot about cultural differences , and how sometimes…

I just have to say that something is not MY custom.

gg

1. Long skirts
2. headlamp-no electricity here, or at least not much
3. can opener
4. travelclothesline
5.water sandals
6.sunscreen
7.tweezers to remove ticks
8. lice comb-for, well, lice.
9.pot to boil water in
10.mosquito net

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

gg

One thing I´ve been meaning to write about for awhile is fear.

Traveling-at least as far as I see it-is about confronting your fears, and getting over them. At least, for me.

When I first started this trip, I remember feeling a s trange combination of elation(for actually doing it) and being really scared. I was scared of lots of things: getting robbed; getting sick; bugs; not speaking a language; being isolated; being far from home…the list goes on and on. Read the rest of this entry »

Ok, so you will not believe what I just did-I took the family pig for a swim in the river.

For those of you who know anything about pigs, you know this is alot harder than it sounds. For those of you who know nothing about pigs, my advice is don´t attempt this alone!

The said pig, who has no name, as he is going to be eaten in several months at a birthday party, loves to go swimming. He actually has quite a nice life compared to other animals here. Many people here have pigs-and many of these pigs are skinny, sad, and closely tethered to trees.

My family´s pig on the other hand, is enormously fat, with a shiny black and pink coat. On hot afternoons, he grunts alot until Arturo takes him down to the river for a bath. On this particular afternoon, having never taken a pig for a bath, I decided to accompany Arturo and the pig down to the creek. Read the rest of this entry »