Carolyn in Panama: What Carolyn Probably Doesn’t Notice Anymore

Don't worry, I haven't reverted to writing in the 3rd person. Eric wrote a guest blog post for me reflecting on his visit to my community!

In late May, I visited Carolyn in Panama for 10 days – the longest consecutive time we had spent together since our early teens. While she didn’t beg me to stay, I think we had a great time. Something we both remarked when she visited me in January in New York City is that our lives couldn’t be more different: I live on the 19^th floor of a doorman building in Manhattan, often work 16+ hours/day, rarely sleep more than 5-6 hours/night, and rarely cook. My neighborhood is known as one of the post-college hotspots in Manhattan; of the 1,500 or so people who live in my building, there are about 15 school-aged kids and the same number of people over 40, and 1,200 people who act like school-aged kids (no comment on my own inclusion). With this difference in lifestyle, I can comment on aspects of Carolyn’s lifestyle that she just does not notice anymore.

· Kids are everywhere: Carolyn has commented before on the number of children in each family at her site, but it worthwhile to consider what that means. At 5 or so children per mother, and often multiple mothers per house, there are children everywhere. At dinner at her host family’s house, I counted 12 kids under the age or 13, and saw similar numbers at other houses. Carolyn commonly has 5-10 kids outside her house, playing with each other and getting in her way.

Lots of animals too.

· Lots of meat is a rarity: While Carolyn eats meat less often then I do, the amount of meat she eats is significantly less. Beef is a real rarity, and the freely ranging chickens and pigs get far too much exercise in their foraging to produce the breasts and cutlets favored by Americans. I get the feeling that meat for Carolyn (at least at her site) is more like a dessert.

After hiking through a cloud forest.

Washing clothes in the stream works well: Carolyn hasn’t detailed it in the blog yet, but her clothes washing process goes something like this: go down to the stream, wet the clothes individually, rub soap in, brush them off with a stiff-bristled brush, whack them against the rocks, wash them again, and leave them to dry. After this process, I found my clothes just as clean as I do at home, and the entire laundry process took about the same amount of time. What my laundry process does not include are the treacherous rocks by her stream, made slippery by the combination of soap and mango rinds.