I heard on Tuesday that the Patriots lost. Tom Brady’s wife is a poor sport.
Background: Right in the center of the Comarca Ngabe Bugle lies one of the world’s largest copper deposits. A year ago, Ngabes blocked the main highway in opposition of the planned mine for about 4 days until President Martinelli promised he would sign a bill giving the rights back to the Ngabe people. They don’t want the mine because it will pollute the rivers and very little profit would stay with the people. However, the bill was never signed so the Ngabes decided to start protesting again on January 30, starting in San Felix which is my nearest town and the entrance to the mine.
Monday, January 30: I already knew that a protest was planned for the morning but I had to drop two thirteen year old girls off at a Peace Corps-run 5 day youth seminar in San Felix. We arrived at 10 am and saw a bunch of police cars waiting but no one protesting. By the time I left the girls and headed back to site at 3 pm, I saw a bunch of people peacefully protesting by the side of the road. By evening both lanes of the road had been closed to traffic but I was already back home.
Wednesday, February 1: I walked around with some community counterparts to all of the participating houses in the latrine project, as we had previously chosen Feb 1 as Inspection Day in order to verify that project participants did their prep work (dig a 3-4 m deep hole and get 5-gal buckets from before buying latrine materials. We measured the depth (3-4 m) and the width (1x1 m) of the hole and checked to see if they had gathered their 10 5-gallon buckets of gravel from the river. Almost everyone was ready. The plan was that materials would be delivered and the project would begin on Saturday, if the road opened in time. Cell phone signal was turned off all day.
Friday, February 3: Fifth day of road being closed. I hiked a different route (3 hours) to be able to access the road north of San Felix which was still open. Many of the seminar participants and other volunteers were stuck because of the road, but luckily my girls and I could get back.
Saturday, February 4: Well, it was clear that the materials would not be arriving for the latrine project due to the ongoing road closure… Cell phone signal went back out. Everyone stayed at home listening to their radios as the road continued to be blocked and the protest movement spread to more towns along the highway. Things were getting more heated.
Superbowl Sunday (January 5): The first protester was killed in San Felix which caused an uproar. Afterwards the police hauled over a hundred protestors away to a jail 2 hours away, because protestors had already burned down the police station in San Felix. Some government cars were burned in another town. For some reason I couldn’t find any news about the Superbowl on the radio.
My nearest volunteer neighbor Emma hiked 1-1/2 hour over and we tried to replicate the Superbowl experience by lounging in hammocks instead of couches, listening to the radio news instead of watching football, and eating bean egg ramen soup instead of wings and pizza. We had a pretty decent time.
Tuesday, January 7: Cell phone signal came back after 3 days of signal blockage. I didn’t even realize until several hours later because I had given up checking. The government agreed to meet with indigenous leaders so the road was able to re-open. I talked with my Peace Corps friends and found out that everyone was ok.
Since then, things have slowly gone back to normal. Some local families have had their own scares though - my water counterpart´s 16 year old son was locked up in a jail two hours away for two nights because he was present at the protest, and the family knew nothing about him until he had returned.
Now, time to continue with the latrine project!
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