My flight back to the US is scheduled for September
2. That’s less than 8 weeks away! The countdown begins.
With the end in sight, perspective has shifted,
perceptibly. Things that before I had
been tolerating – with minimal internal or external complaining – I now meet
with the refrain: That’s something I’m not going to miss. I know that as the end gets closer, I’ll
become increasingly conscious of what I am going to miss. For now, I’ll try to reflect on both.
Food
Food may be the most basic way to experience a place, or
so it seemed in the beginning, when food from my host family was the most
visceral adaptation I had to make – and I was aware of it constantly. Now, I have adapted to the food my people eat
to the point that I get excited about eating chicken necks – because at least
it’s not chicken feet or canned sardines.
With such little time left, now every time I get a bowl full of rice
with half a sardine on top, I think about how much I look forward to only ever
eating food I enjoy. Not even specific
foods. Just always enjoying it.
On the other hand, I’ll miss all the produce – coconut
water and oranges from my front yard, cacao freshly processed from the finca, avocadoes and pineapples and
mangoes and passion fruits and yellow bananas – all from here.
Energy and Connectivity
I’m looking forward to washing my clothes in a machine
that is not simply a bucket and a plunger and my own hand power. And it will be nice to just “have” the
internet whenever I want instead of “going to” the internet. And I’m tired of poor phone connections and
dropped calls and keeping track of every minute I talk so I don’t run out of
money. It will be nice to know more
about what’s going on in the world, and in the lives of my US friends. And I appreciate how nice it will be to have
a refrigerator. And a way to recycle
cans and glass and plastic.
On the other hand, I’ve lived well without constant
electricity and internet connectivity – which is what my people do their whole
lives. Heck, I have it easier than a lot
of other Volunteers – “going to” the internet isn’t that far away, and at least
I do have cell service in my house. My
personal ecological footprint is certainly miniscule compared to my US
lifestyle. How much of this
reduced-resource-use lifestyle can I bring back with me? There are some advantages to living in a
little tropical country. The vegetables
come from just down the road all year long – rather than the other side of the
country. My solar panel and battery meet
my essential electricity needs – lamp, phone, podcast-playing device. The rain falling on my roof and my storage
tank usually meets my water needs – when the community aqueduct isn’t working. I’m more conscious of what I consume and the
trash I produce because I have to take personal responsibility to dispose of
any waste – there are no collection systems.
Cheap public transportation and walking takes me basically everywhere I
want to go – even if personal space is nonexistent and the 12-hour bus ride to
the capital is always miserable. Hey, I
get to walk to work through a chocolate forest every day. That’s a commute I’ll be dreaming about.
Nature
This place is beautiful.
I get a glimpse of the sea every day.
I live and work on the steep, lush slopes of mountainous rain forest,
filled with tropical flowers and birds.
I still can sit on my hammock and watch the emerald-colored hummingbirds
drink hibiscus nectar all day. I can
climb to the ridge and look out over the never-ending jungle valleys and
mountains to the west and the Bocas archipelago to the east. I hear birds chirping all day long, and a
chorus of frogs and insects all night.
Little bright red frogs and sapphire butterflies cross my path wherever
I go.
Of course, I do essentially live outside. I sweat pretty much constantly. The only place I can truly escape the bugs is
inside my mosquito net tucked tightly around my bed. Even the 30-second jaunt to the bus stop sometime
involves enough mud to get my knees dirty.
I’m not going to miss the semi-trucks engine-braking past my house, the
babies crying 20 yards away, the inharmonious evangelical singing next door at
any hour of the day or night – because I can never actually shut my door to the
noise, and the concept of noise pollution doesn’t seems to exist here. Not going to miss the smell of chicken poop
or trash fires wafting onto my porch – which is also inescapable.
Work
Some days I think I’m really going to miss setting my own
schedule. Other days I look forward to
more structure – and people to work with who have my same sense of
schedule. I do enjoy that I choose what
I work on – so that I only do what I’ve decided is important, based on the
context and my own interests. I rarely
have to do things that I don’t believe in doing. And I have lots of time and space to evaluate
and question everything, constantly reconsidering whether I still believe in it. I fervently hope I’ll be able to find that
again – work that I believe in doing.
Being “special”
There are some perks to being different. I’m afforded some extra allowance for being
weird – because after all, I’m weird here anyway. I can blend myself into my people’s world or
into the middle-class city-Panamanian world.
Peace Corps enjoys a warm and respected reputation in Panamá, so my
Volunteer status gets me better treatment, information, and leeway than the
average tourist (as my visitors have witnessed) – as does having an
understanding of how things work here. I
can talk to just about anybody. More
people know my name than I can possibly know.
But being different is something a very individual
burden. While I’ve adapted to many
cultural things here, that are some boundaries I have not been able to cross,
some ways in which I’ll never be at home here.
When my community friend and often counterpart, Omar, died last month
from injuries due to a freak accident, I – like the rest of my community –
mourned him greatly. We have all been so
sad. During this period of grieving, I
missed the more familiar cultural traditions that we have in the US for the
process of mourning. I wanted to be part
of the community grieving process, but it was something I just could not adapt
to emotionally. I wanted to talk about
Omar and share memories and hug people and cry and bring over a ziti casserole
to the family’s house and… well, that’s not how it’s done here. I attended a few days of the 9-day vigil and
sat around quietly in the dark with dozens of other people. I offered to help the family however I
could. I talk with his mom about what an
inspirational man and father and leader he was.
I just got to the end of it all wishing that I could be at home in the
US, grieving from within my own culture, instead of being here and being
different besides being sad.
In the end, the last two years have provided in many ways
a sharp contrast and a new perspective.
I’d like to think that I can see most things from both my native point
of view and that of the people of Quebrada Pastor. I can here hoping to develop an appreciation
for another way of life – and I believe I have found that, in many senses. Of course, at the same time, I developed a
greater appreciation for my way of life from before – and I look forward to
enjoying some of those things again. The
trick in the future will be how to adapt into my life the best of each of these
worlds – and continue discovering new ways to open my mind to appreciating ever
more different perspectives…
Just a handful of recent pictures that also represent
things I’ll miss…
Puppies!! So many
baby animals in the campo. And, of course, Arcadia.
Ema. (With her
brand-new reading glasses sent to her by my mom, and little mochila to keep them in!)
Birthday celebrations with Willy’s family (always
featuring a brownie-cake that I make with his cacao!)
