This week I have been studying the language Ngabere (nao-berry). My language teacher grew up in the Comarca about 30 minutes from where I will be. Up until about 10 years ago, the language Ngabere had no written works except for the Bible, and it is still mostly a spoken language. My teacher was the first person to standardize the written language and to create a Ngabere/Spanish dictionary as well as grammatical guide to the language. Ngabere is a really strange language - it has more structural similarities to Japanese than to Spanish or English. For example, to say “I have 2 brothers” in Ngabere, I would say “I brother have 2” or “Ti ngwae tara nibu.” Also, there is a different counting system for different objects, so the number 2 is different for persons or animals or fruits or grains.
The Comarca Ngabe-Bugle was formed in 1997 and land was taken from 3 existing provinces after about 100 years of political controversy. Currently, the Ngabe population is 120,000 and the Bugle population is 4,000. Most people are Christian of some type.
Next Monday I will be meeting my counterpart (a community leader) at a conference and we will be traveling back together to the community. I will stay there with a host family for five days and then travel back here for the end of training (presentations, projects, blah blah). I am excited to meet and see my community, but the five days will probably be pretty long and overwhelming. I wrote a short introduction speech using my one week’s knowledge of Ngabere, but luckily most people speak some Spanish too. Actually, to someone like me, their Spanish sounds nice and slow. To a native Spanish speaker it is filled with mistakes but I doubt I will notice.
I joined Peace Corps and came to Panama with a personal goal to become fluent in Spanish. At first I didn’t want to be placed in an indigenous site for this reason, but after I visited in September I realized what a unique cultural opportunity it is. Also, 85% of my group of 21 was placed in indigenous sites so it wasn’t much of a choice. Another interesting factor is that in the past within my PC Panama EH sector, females have had much more difficulty working with Latino water and sanitations committees (traditionally a man’s role) than with indigenous committees (still a man’s role but slightly more open). One possible reason is that because few people in the Comarcas (reservations) have any education beyond 6th grad, anyone with a degree is highly respected. I will still be using Spanish quite a bit, but no one will be correcting my mistakes since it is their 2nd language too, so improving will require some self motivation. I think I should have the time to make it happen though.
About life in Panama in general (thanks Aunt Carol!): My training town is middle class by Panamanian standards. Most families have a car and a flush toilet. The town has a school and 3 family-owned stores that sell basic grocery items. Fresh fruits and vegetables are readily available in La Chorrera (nearest city) for cheap. La Chorrera is famous for its pineapples and the small ones are 3 for $1. However, in general people only like the starchy vegetables like yucca (kind of like potato). Mosquitos are present in this part, especially at dusk, but I sleep with a mosquito net over my bed so it’s not a big issue. Mosquitoes are worse in other parts of the country though.
Panama has two seasons. The wet season, called winter, runs from April through November. The dry season, called summer, is December through March. It has definitely gradually become cooler and rainier here in October. From what I’ve heard, the month of November is a lot wetter. Then I will have 3 months of dry, beautiful weather, but no water (or very little). It will be interesting to see what my host community currently does for water during the dry season.
No comments:
Post a Comment