true life planet

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

Tags: 1, Panama, Travel, volunteering

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 11:22 am and is filed under 1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.