Panama Ponderings: Thanksgiving

In elementary school, growing up in Massachusetts, we would celebrate Thanksgiving in the classroom by dividing up the class – half wearing construction-paper hats and half wearing construction-paper feathers – and sitting all around a big table made of all the desks pushed together, to share a meal as “Pilgrims and Native Americans.”

In school we talked about how the Pilgrims were about to starve to death that first winter in America and only survived thanks to the help of the Native Americans, hence our celebration of Thanksgiving.

Of course, being in first grade, we didn’t really talk about how the Pilgrims ended up giving the Native Americans smallpox, which killed most of them.

How strange, then, ironic perhaps, to be celebrating Thanksgiving with an indigenous community in Panamá, especially since the people of Quebrada Pastor took me in as an outsider, taught me how to live here, and were responsible for feeding me for the first three months. Although, in a new twist, I was more concerned about tropical diseases than they were about smallpox, and my work here revolves around teaching how to reduce water-borne illness so that children grow up healthier.

However, the way my family always celebrates Thanksgiving in the US doesn’t really address any of that. As with all holidays, we made it our own – the important thing to us was to reflect on what we are thankful for in our lives. This tradition was carried on here in Panamá among the Volunteers celebrating with me. But instead of just sharing one thing for which we are thankful, we shared with respect to all three of our lives – our lives within our communities, our lives within the Volunteer network, and the lives we left – but are still linked to – in the US.

I said that I was thankful to have such dedicated community leaders working with me, especially, of course, Ángel; that I was thankful for the network of Volunteers that will always understand this experience better than anyone else and that I can continue to be part of after I leave Panamá; and that I was thankful for the wholesale, unwavering support of my family and friends because that made being here possible in the first place.

And I am also grateful that the US government affords me this opportunity and that I have the privilege to choose my field of work, including the privilege to choose to be here. Living in Quebrada Pastor has helped me be so much more grateful for the things I easily took for granted before.

I am grateful to have had a quality primary, secondary, university, and graduate education – the first two of which were guaranteed to me, the second two of which I can thank my parents for supporting. My teachers showed up every day of the school week for the entire school day. I did not have to walk an hour of more to school, crossing streams that got dangerous when it rained. My education was rich with creativity and self-exploration and hands-on learning and critical thinking and analytical skills. My parents gave me full support, could buy me all the tools I needed, could help me with my homework, took me to museums, bought me books and read them to me and with me even before I started school, encouraged all of my learning and supported each of my interests. All of that makes me incredibly fortunate – and completely unusual here, such is the extent of my privilege.

I also grew up knowing that I could pursue whatever career I wants – and that being a girl did not diminish my choices – my Mom was adamant about this. That it was not automatically my job to raise kids and take care of housework – that I could choose, that housework should be shared, that I could focus on my education and growing up and having a career before thinking about having a family, that men and women should be equal partners and equal decision-makers in a relationship. I took all this for ranted but realize that not everyone does. These are not automatic assumptions in Quebrada Pastor; when I see and hear people express this view, it comes as a pleasant surprise rather than the norm.

Yet people here are still thankful for what they have – for their families, who live close and are available to support them, for their fertile land and ample rain that allows them to grow food and cacao all year long – which inspires me to be thankful for the blessings of family and of nature as well.

So I sit around the table of my Quebrada Pastor family, eating the “Glorified Rice” that is my Mom’s family tradition, looking over the verdant Bocas islands shimmering under a bright blue sky, marveling at this opportunity to see with renewed insight the good fortune I have been given.

Pictures:

Glorified Rice – the dish that makes an appearance at all of our family holidays, and that on any Thanksgiving, Christimas, or Easter I know someone, somewhere, on my Mom’s side of the family, is also eating.

Homemade hot sauce – my host family gave me my own bottle – add three drops to your meal and your nose will run.

Food to celebrate Willy's birthday – which we happened to celebrate on Thanksgiving, two events for the price of one – home-raised chicken with rice, boiled green bananas, and daishin (a root vegetable)-and-egg salad.