Right here and now I am swaying in the cool night breeze. Hammock rocking back and forth, flannel on, and a sleepy cat purring on the afghan in my lap. The stars are brilliant nothing washing out their brightness, down in this valley. In the distance I can hear a dog barking and some “gente salimando” (men do the Panamanian yell greeting). I am feeling content and appreciating the wonders my new home brings me…
This past week I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to be a facilitator at a Peace Corps run gender and development camp. There are four camps across Panama and all Peace Corps volunteers in Panama have the opportunity to send at least two get from their community. The camp I helped facilitate was in a neighboring province, Veraguas. This alone turned out to be a unique experience because this created a mixture of Latino and indigenous youth, two very different culture. The goal of this camp is to educate the youth on values, goal setting, sexual education, premature pregnancy, and the opportunities that education can bring.
What I didn’t expect was to get so much out of it myself. One of the most rewarding parts of my service up until this point. Watching the kids transform from not even looking at each other to giving hugs on the last day (even more amazing because the Ngabe culture does not show much affection, even hugging normally) was a truly heart warming experience for me. Some of my favorite moments came during their evening free time. After the first day of seasons a pair of facilitators were teaching salsa to whomever wanted to learn. This eventually turned into a couple indigenous kids teach the others one of the local dances, Jegi (pronounced Hegi), and of course I joined in. The next day the indigenous girls were giving the Latinos Ngabe names, I just couldn’t believe the exchange of culture!
The week wrapped up with team Olympics, bringing out the competitive side and an evening talent show. The talent show basically turned into a “school dance” which is something they don’t get the opportunity to have.
In addition, I could not be more proud of the two kids I brought, arguable two of the most shy kids there, as they speak only Ngäbere in their houses. However, when hiking back into our community they went on the whole away talking about what they learned! They want to give presentations to the community about what they learned and start on a community project, an artesian group. I feel almost like a proud mother right now. Every adventure here has it’s surprises One of my favorite parts about Peace Corps is “It’s like a box of chocolate, you never know whats you gonna get.”
I should have more blogs to come, off to visit another indigenous group on the other side of the country, the Kuna Yala.
Erin Storck 