I don’t properly know how to explain my time here, since
everything is so varied and unexpected, so I decided the best way was to list
as many things I could think of that were weird. Figured it was better to do this sooner than
later, since I’ll eventually acclimate and won’t be able to remember what is
weird anymore.
I can sum up the first month with this conversation with
Ángel:
The good thing about my first month is that everything is
new and different! (Everything is
exciting and interesting and there is so much to learn and do and I never know
what to expect every day!) The bad thing
about my first month is that everything is new and different. (There’s too much to learn and it’s
overwhelming and I have to become accustomed to many things about life and work
and language and people that are different and often challenging and I never
know what to expect every day.) And then
Ángel asked, what’s the ugly thing? The
good, the bad, and the ugly? It’s the
people who only look out for themselves and don’t care about making the
community as whole better. Yes, Ángel,
the ugly is that there are some things that aren’t new or different at all.
And this is why I get to end of some days feeling like
everything is possible. And other days
everything feels impossible. And there
may be only the smallest of differences between them.
To better illustrate all that is new and different:
·
Food
o While
pasear-ing, I was given some pork to eat.
It was almost entirely fat – though I think there was a little meat – as
well as a layer of skin. The skin still
had hair on it. Maybe I’ll start keeping
kosher.
o Every
meal (or at least every lunch and dinner) involves an entire two-pound bag of
rice.
o I
get ridiculously excited to eat eggs.
And every time I’m served vegetables (I take back every time I
complained about salad as a kid, Mom).
And when there is enough sauce to flavor all of the rice. And plantains that are fried instead of
boiled. And love getting gifts of fruit
– oranges, mandarins, limes, mamones, mangotones, pipa (coconut) water – right
now all the citruses are ripening, so the next fruit season will be different
things!
o It
is impossible to find a drink without sugar added to it. I suppose sugar and water is cheaper than
fruit juice, even in this land filled with amazing fruit. Unfortunately.
o Try
as I might, I just can’t make myself like pifa (peach palm). It’s supposed to be something of a miracle
food in terms of nutritional value, and everyone here grows it and eats it and
makes chicha out of it, but every time I force myself to eat one, I have less
and less success finishing it.
o On
the other hand, I find myself perfectly happy to eat fish with the spines still
in it, and canned sardines, and even broccoli if it ever happens to show up
(highly unlikely at this point). And I
take back all those times I turned down raisins when my Dad offered them. I went so far as to buy some as secret
emergency food to store in my room with the peanut butter.
o I
had a dream about food. For the first
time ever. The best part was the mashed
potatoes.
·
Entertainment
o Action
movies are apparently the best for sharing when you don’t have languages to
offer other than English – Pirates of the Caribbean, Jackie Chan, and Indian
Jones were all hits (my host family doesn’t believe me that my laptop is
actually for doing work). Davy Jones is
now a household name and the local boogeyman.
o Random
family members always come and eat dinner and crash on the floor for the night
at my host family’s house. It’s rare
that just my host family is in the house for the night, or at any time during
the day.
o Turns
out Mechi is a pretty darn good goalkeeper.
So far I have only played fútbol with the family and neighbor kids. On a field that is half mud, that when the
slightest bit damp makes it practically impossible to stop or change direction
without falling. Might be the most
frustrating field ever. But that won’t
matter when I finally go persuade the muchachos that a girl can play on the
grass field with them. In the meantime,
it’s good host family bonding. And I got
to play volleyball, which is apparently co-ed.
o I
was asked to sing the US national anthem while walking on a path through the jungle. I think that’s the only time I have sung it
by myself, a cappella, with an audience.
Probably best to keep it that way.
·
Communication
o Guari-Guari
is the local creole that is a mixture of English, Spansh, and Ngӓbere, spoken
by several community members, especially those who often travel to the towns,
where it is the primary language of the Afro-Antillean population. However, it does not actually sound anything
like English – more like changing English words to make them pronounceable in
Spanish with a Caribbean accent – and aside from being impossible to understand
as a native English speaker, is rather painful to hear.
o It
is a relief to hear and speak Spanish – when compared to the numerous Ngӓbere
conversations I am either excluded from or ineffectively included in.
o Viagra
jokes apparently still apply in the campo of Panamá.
o Didn’t
realize my name could be 1) such a source of entertainment for others, and 2)
such a source of irritation for me.
Every child who doesn’t know me calls me Gringa. I tell them this is not my name. Every child under the age of 5 who has
learned my name loves to say it.
Over. And over. And over.
“Alex. Alex. Alex.
Alex. Alex.” Regardless of how I respond. My tactics have ranged from responding in
Spanish “Yes? What? How are you?
How can I help you? What do you
want?” to saying they will kill my name from overuse to completely ignoring
them to giving a long speech in English about how annoying they are. All met with the same reaction. “Alex.
Alex. Alex.” Turns out there’s also a community division
in the use of my elected Ngӧbe name, Chinӧre – some like it and use it, some
don’t like it and chose a different Ngӧbe name to call me. As it I weren’t already confused enough.
o No
one ever has saldo (money on their cellphones).
Or else they are lacking battery or service. So no one can ever effectively call
anyone. And the perpetual question is, “Do
you have saldo? Can you lend me your
phone?”
o The
wet rocks in the streams are super slippery – when I told Nayelis that the
rocks are like ice and you can skate on them, I realized the simile was
completely useless. She can’t possibly
know what it’s like to skate on ice.
o I
get to explain physics sometimes – which makes me feel like a nerd and is
awesome, though sometimes I wish I paid better attention in class – how does a
prism work? (Got to explain light, with
UV treatment of water as a bonus.) How
does an airplane work? (Got to explain
using the “lift” demonstration on a piece of paper.) How do pilots not fall in the military planes
that do flips like you see in movies?
(Got to explain centripetal force in terms of swinging a bucket.)
o Some
days I walk around muttering to myself in English, cursing babies.
·
Housework
o “Going
to do laundry” means taking all your clothes and soap to the stream. Now, as an environmental health volunteer, I
am hyper aware that this is the same stream that lots of my community members
use as their bathroom up the hill, and it’s where all the wastewater, all the
drainage for the watershed goes. I was
taught how to do laundry on my second day.
First, I put my dirty clothes in the poopy water of the stream and then
slap them as hard as I can against a big rock.
Then I rub soap all over them and slap them against the big rock
again. I have no idea how the big rock
is helping me remove the dirtiness from my clothes. Then I rinse the soap out using the poopy
water of the stream. I don’t feel like
my clothes are very clean, but it was a lot of work and took a long time. As a bonus, I got to bathe in the stream when
I was done – which means soaping up and rinsing off in the poopy water. So much cleaner now.
o Being
not thrilled with this experience, I took the advice of a fellow volunteer and
built a manual washing machine. It’s a
bucket with a hole cut in the lid and a plunger with holes cut in it in the
middle. Clothes, water, and soap go in
the bucket, mix with the plunger. Still
using poopy water, but at least it felt easier, faster, and more
efficient. And Mechi, my host mom, tried
it out – now she wants one. Ángel and I
think we’re going to start a business.
Buy materials for $3, sell washing machines for $5. This is how he is going to make $10 million –
the ongoing joke we have.
o Apparently
the best accelerant for starting fires for cookstoves (the more “natural”
alternative to using gas stoves, as people tell me) is using a plastic bag.
o I
learned how to chopear with a machete to clean up the school grounds. At first all the men laughed at me, but once
I got the hang of it, I kicked some serious vegetation butt.
·
More observations
o In
Panamá, winter is defined as the rainy season and summer is the dry
season. In Bocas Del Toro, there is no
true dry season, so “summer” is just any day or week or month when there isn’t
any rain. No one can predict when this
is going to happen.
o I
have had amoeba-induced nightmares about Peace Corps Monitoring and Evaluation
– under what outcome indicator can I categorize sleeping?! Every moment has to be identified as
work! That was a bad night.
o I
am told constantly, “Don’t fall!” Every
time I leave the house. Any house. Haven’t had my epic fall yet – that the
people will talk about for years, like they do about the previous volunteers –
but I’m sure it’s coming.
o Chacos:
endorsed for cockroach smashing.
o Walking
up the hills in the community led me to admit that I do not like going down –
because as soon as you cross the little stream between the hills, you’re just
going right back up again.
o Giant
banana-bearing trucks braking while going down the hill may be the only thing
that is loud and obnoxious enough to drown out the sound of crying babies.
And there’s some pictures to go along with weird things
as well:
·
Critters
o Spiders,
everywhere, crazy-looking spiders
o Little
crabs that live in the streams – according to the water committee, the big ones
poke holes in the aqueduct pipes
o Mono
perezoso! Literally translates to “lazy
monkey” – this is the first sloth I have caught in the daylight. In the training community, I saw one booking
it down the electrical cables; it was the fastest sloth I’ve ever seen. This sleepy guy was hanging out in a tree on
Ángel’s farm.
o So many cool frogs! And my host family loves putting them on people -- is a theme, apparently.
o So many cool frogs! And my host family loves putting them on people -- is a theme, apparently.
·
People
o Sharing
some oranges fresh off the tree. Turns
out oranges are ripe – and orange on the inside – when the peel is still
green! Would never know that going to
the grocery store in the States. Also,
everyone peels their oranges with machetes (or just a knife if you’re at
home). When I peeled one with my hands,
I was told I had the nails of a tiger!
o Another
victim! Arcadia learned French braids,
too!
·
Scenery
o I
like big trees.
o Chiquita
Banana leaves out of Almirante, the port town twenty minutes away. Big boats coming and going constantly. The use of the word “banano” is everywhere –
not actually a word in any language – some combination of the English banana
and the Spanish guineo, I suppose. Still
sounds ridiculous.
o Dawn
looking out my host family’s house.
o Highest
point in the community. Tasty oranges.
o Same
spot, one day apart. One day there’s no
line on the horizon, the next day the sun lights up everything (and is super
hot!).
·
Work
o Getting
some participation at a community meeting to discuss my role in the community,
community expectations, and environmental health priorities. Turns out the women will only participate in
front of the whole group if men and women are split up to discuss first, then
present. The picture is of the men’s
turn.
o Community
charla (“chat” or seminar) on latrines – Omar helped me in planning and
presenting.
o Toured
a couple of the existing aqueducts that the previous volunteer built –
community members proudly showed me the tanks that they hauled up the mountain
as part of the project.
I hope that’s a fairly accurate representation of my
range of experiences so far. I realize I
haven’t discussed much about my “actual work” – the process of collecting
information, mostly (and there has been plenty of that) – maybe more on that
for the next post!
