true life planet

 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

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