Although these past few weeks since my last post have been quite the whirlwind of emotions, right now I am nothing but happy, relaxed, grateful, and excited. I am sitting at a resort (mooching internet) right on the beach on a cool breezy day with a new storm rolling in waiting for my cousin and best friend to show up. I just finished skyping my parents and talking to one of the best friends I could ask for. Not too mention I am drinking a beer, even if it is a cheap low quality Panamanian beer. Tomorrow will be another day entirely when my cousin will embark in the adventure of heading into the Comarca Ngabe Bugle with me and I couldn’t be anymore excited.
Gonna kick this blog off with the “goods” and do it Peace Corps style. This involves making a sandwich, start with the good, put the “bads” in the middle and finish it off with more “goods”. I have finally gotten start with a few more project related activities so I finally feel like I am doing something instead of just getting to know the community and people better, which is equally important. In honor of National Handwashing Day I gave a “charla” to the kids at the nearest school in the neighboring community. This school is K-6, includes about 4 towns, and has about 200 students. The people in my community hardly know what soap is except to wash there clothes and definitely don’t know the benefits of using soap to wash hands after going to the bathroom or before cooking, so it is best to start by molding the minds of the young! I thought it was a success after I finished the talk, mainly filled with activities, but wasn’t quite sure because the Ngbere people aren’t none to show much emotion or be very interactive. However, when visiting housing and hearing kids say, “this is my soap” or “I just washed my hands with soap” or “Eti, when are you going to give another charla” makes me realize they did take something away from this! I also had my first community meeting. I went all out and even made little invitations with colors and drawings for every house! The day before I was so nervous that no one was going to show up because some of my main people weren’t coming! I was being a little pessimistic and planning for a failure. It turned out to be quite the opposite of a failure. I had many more people show up than expected, women, men, children, teenagers! They people showed up promptly two hours late as planned! I could not have predicted they would have been so participative and out spoken. It was a 3 hour meeting filled with hands on activities: community mapping, daily schedule, and a seasonal calendar, all divided in two groups by gender! The people spoke up and even did some critical thinking, still sitting on my cloud from how well it went. They even liked my coffee and they are very picking about having over a ton of sugar in their water coffee.
It has all been ups these past few weeks. It is still a challenge every day getting integrated especially learning languages. It can be really hard at times when I am sick or starving because I have only gotten white rice that day but it’s how the people live too, sometimes there isn’t much food to harvest and there isn’t money! I also have a host brother that very very sick and had been sitting in the hammock deteriorating rapidly. He has been sick for quite some time and the doctors had thought he may have a brain infection. Before they hiked him out of my site in a hammock, he could hardly walk, was barely eating and dry heaving a lot. Times have been really hard in my host family so I would like all the readers to keep them in their thoughts and prayers. When i returned to my site last week after getting internet and packages my host mom and dad were at the hospital with him. He has now been transported to Panama City for better care and my host dad went with him. No news yet on his condition.
Sandwich. I started a garden! Also it isn’t looking all that healthy, sure is worth a shot and we will see what comes out of it. I will have to keep a picture of it soon! My first house is being built! The guy with the chainsaw finally came and started cutting down the trees to make the wood out of. How many people can say they watched their house being built from the trees being cut down! Can’t wait for it to be done and live on my own with my future kitty!
I saw a chicken lay an egg without a shell, I don’t know who was more confused me or the chicken…
My ladies got a great laugh picturing me in a loin cloth which is what the indigenous people used to wear…
I showed my host family pictures with my friends and it was like where is Waldo for each picture, they just didn’t know which one I was…
I learned there is a universal sound to I am walking in on you naked bathing….
I TRIED to eat a chicken neck?…
Taught my siblings to play slap Jack! They thought it was so funny!
Things I shouldn’t be used to:
- Covered in bug bites
- Giant spiders/bigs in my bedroom
- Plain white rice, more than once a day
- 3 year olds using machetes
- Walking/hiking everywhere I want to go
Erin Storck 