The Family Comes to Panama

My mom, dad, and Myles were my first visitors in Panama! They were here the first week in March during Myles and my mom's spring break. I decided to head out of site a few days before the family arrived in Panama City, as I haven't left my province (Chiriqui) since I arrived to my site in October. I haven't left Chiriqui because it has everything I could possibly need - mountains, a beautiful beach, and the city of David, which is much cheaper than Panama City. The first night my friend Chris and I travelled back to our training community (5.5 hour bus ride) to visit our host families. The host families are already hosting another group of Peace Corps trainees, so I slightly felt like I had been replaced, but it was really nice to catch up with Carmen and Manuel.

The next day, Chris and I took a bus (6 hours) to visit our friend Monique in the Darien region (province closest to Colombia). Her Embera indigenous community is only accessible by dugout canoe on a mud-brown river, so I partook in my first boating experience in Panama. The Embera indigenous people are very different from the Ngabes - much more outgoing, and less conservatively dressed. I learned that they also bathe differently - we all crouched on the steps of the dock area of the fast-moving river and lathered up, in plain view of almost her entire community. And there were 4 of us gringos in the river, so believe me, everyone was watching. It made me feel lucky to have my stream with privacy in my site!

The next day I headed back to Panama City to meet up with my family. That night we ate dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Miraflores Locks, and it was absolutely stunning to see the lock compartments open and close, with gigantic boats passing through. As we were taking pictures of the boats, we could see the sailors on the boats taking pictures of the Miraflores Canal as well. Imagine finally reaching the Panama Canal after months of pure ocean travel!

On Sunday, we drove east to Island Boca Chica in Chiriqui province, on the Pacific coast. The drive was a particularly long haul because of several checkpoints due to the ongoing Carnaval activities. The next day, we took a boat to go snorkelling in a few white sand coves. My friend Jake joined us in the afternoon for some exploration of the island and the discovery of dozens of howler monkeys in trees! The monkeys weren't afraid of us, probably because there are no predators on the island.

Next, we headed up into the mountains of Cerro Punta where I spent Thanksgiving last year. I am officially acclimated to Panama - I was so, so cold that night (it dipped into the 60s perhaps?) and we even had a fire going! We took a beautiful hike up into the jungle and luckily it was a lot less muddy than last time I was there.

The best part of the vacation for me was when we all stayed in my new house in my community for 3 nights. First of all, it was really nice to be in site and have somebody to talk to about interesting things all of the time. Myles and my dad helped me out with several projects – for one, I now have a swing and thus my yard is the playground attraction for kids from all around. I took them to visit both of my host families, who have been asking me questions about my family since day one and were so excited to meet them. Myles made some solid friendships with a few 9 year old boys, who still visit me daily to ask when Ismael is coming back.

The last night before they flew out of Panama City, we camped out on a beach on the Pacific side. My mom buried our valuables in the sand under the tarp, and besides the cows that almost stampeded us, it was a tranquil last night.

My mom kindly uploaded the photos from the trip for everyone's enjoyment: https://picasaweb.google.com/chris.mchugh.purington/PanamaMarch2011 Overall, it was a great vacation and my community keeps asking when my family is coming back.

Que Pena

Que pena means ¨what shame¨ or something like that.

Today I was enjoying the breeze, sitting in the back of the passenger pick-up truck with about 15 others headed down to the Interamericana Highway. The breeze was so fresco that it swept my baseball cap right off my head, and it blew onto the ground. I started yelling ¨Parada! Stop!¨ but the driver didn´t hear me for another 1/4 mile down the steep hill.

The truck stopped, and some kind-hearted gentleman on the back of the truck ran up to find my hat for me. The driver still had no idea what was going on, and after a minute of waiting, became impatient. The older guy sitting next to me yelled in response, ¨The gringa lost her sombrero!¨ and everyone laughed. The guy finally ran back with my hat, the truck continued on, and I was given the suggestion by an older woman to keep my hand on the hat.

It was really embarrassing.

La Balsaria

Ngabe indigenous villages have a tradition of battling a neighboring village after a big harvest, by hosting a huge festival during the summer months. Two men are armed with 6 inch circumference balsa poles (think balsa wood airplanes), and charge into each other and attempt to throw, and hit, the opposing man’s legs. The other purpose of the event was for men to meet a new spouse (polygamy is only slowly going out of fad here) from another community. Traditionally the balsa winner can take the loser man’s woman back home with him.

I attended a modern day Balsaria for a morning with my neighboring Peace Corps friends on day 2 of the 3 day event. I started hearing talk about it a few weeks ago, but it was not publicly advertised with posters or radio ads, mostly just because it wasn’t necessary, but also because such events have apparently been outlawed. My community is very Christian so most people were not planning on going, and did want me to go either. So many people talked about it distastefully that I told very few people that I was planning on going. However, I knew that some of my neighbors would be there, as I heard loud conch shell horn noises late into the night for the entire week beforehand.

I hiked to the party site at 10 am with 3 other girls and 1 guy, all of us girls wearing naguas. As we descended into the valley we could hear cow and conch shell horns as well as war wooping. It sounded pretty ominous. There were men and women passed out on the sides of the trails, as chicha fuerte, a fermented corn drink, is what keeps the party running. We entered the corralled area and were immediately surrounded by a group of men who thought we were newspaper reporters. However as soon as we all proved we could speak and understand a bit of the local language, the attitude completely changed and they tried to get us to start drinking.

Imagine a wild west saloon, everyone milling around holding half gallon containers of this corn drink. Many of the men are wearing dresses, and have stuffed leopards and cats tied onto their backs. Men and women have their faces painted somewhat like football players. There are a few organized balsa games going on, but people are also crowded around pairs of women, men, and boys wrestling and fighting each other.

For all of this, I felt safe there. A few of us knew community members in the crowd and people mostly just wanted to talk to us and figure out what we were doing here. Just to be safe though, I told everyone I met that my husband was waiting for me in my house, and it worked relatively effectively as a deterrent.

Two hours of watching the fights in the hot sun was enough, and I headed home. For all of my neighbors who were so against me going, many of them were very interested to see my photos. A couple of young woman even told me, “Why didn’t you tell me you were going? I have always wanted to see what it’s like!”. In retrospect, I’m not sure how I feel about the Balsaria. Today I asked a guy that I work with if back in the good old days, people used to throw the balsa without drinking obscene amounts of corn liquor. He told me that balsa throwing only ever comes after chicha drinking. So, it is tradition, which makes the debauchery slightly more acceptable. And the costumes are just so bizarre that I will most likely be back next year.

Good morning, teacher

Good morning teacher, Good morning teacher,

How are you? How are you?

I am very fine thanks, I am very fine thanks,

And you? And you?

I learned this song to the tune of "Are you sleeping?" or "Frere Jacques" from some of my English students during my first English class back in December. I was very impressed until I realized that most of the kids didn't understand what they were singing. And that's where we started, with greetings, in the very first class.

I taught weekly 1 hour English classes between December and February, and will be starting up with a new course in April. When I arrived in the community in November, I was immediately approached by several people about English opportunities, but I figured my attendance would drop off after a month or so once my students realized how ghastly English is. However, over the course of my 11 classes my attendance actually rose from 12 to 16 students, between the ages of 7 and 50. Every week I taught a verb and a topic such as greetings, the weather, the kitchen, jobs, the kitchen, and self-presentation.

The hardest part is teaching to a group of such varied level and age. At first I was hesitant to play games and sing songs with adults in the class, but it turns out that that my hit activities for everyone were singing "Feliz Navidad." drawing and coloring pictures of the vocab words we had learned, playing the game Telephone with an English word, and playing another game that involves a lot of jumping up and down and no English.

By conversing with some of my more advanced English students, I was also reminded how tricky English really is as compared to Spanish. How do you explain why the word "do" is used in questions, optionally with affirmative responses, and necessary with negative responses? For example, "Do you read? Yes, I do read OR I read. No, I do not read. "

A man who self-studies English from old magazines asked me what "walk the dog" means. I started out by literally translating, and quickly realized that it does translate in Spanish. Then I realized how bizarre the concept of walking a dog is out here. Why would anyone walk an animal that spends all day scrounging around for food? Why would anyone even get that close to such a flea infested animal? I think I ended up translating it as "going for a walk with a dog" which makes a whole lot more sense.

Mailing Address Update

Thanks again to everyone who has sent me a letter or package or email. I really enjoy reading them.

Originally I posted 1 address for packages and 1 for letters, but I am going to change that since checking mail at 2 post offices is proving to be not fun. From now on, send everything to the address below. Thanks!

Carolyn Purington, Cuerpo de Paz
Entrega General, David - 0426
Provincia de Chiriqui
Republica de Panama

Going Sola

Photo 1- Hanging out with Gordy (her accepted nickname means Fatty) and my host aunt Teresa, shucking corn.

Photo 2- Work crew with the finished house!

Photo 3- The finished product. There is a window above the line of the penka (palm leaves).







The house is complete! Last Sunday the chainsaw man finally arrived to cut up the 3 trees, and we hauled them on our shoulders to my house site. On Sunday and Monday nights I slept in my wall less house in order to guard the valuable boards from potential thiefs. On Tuesday, four men came over to nail up the walls and door. I moved all of my cargo up from my host family´s house as soon as the door was lockable. On Thursday, my boss showed up for his 4 month visit, and we were all proud to show him the (barely) completed house.

I am still eating with my host family because due to political protests (I will save that for another post), I could not leave my community for the past week or so. Today I came into the city to buy a stove, pots, and a gas tank. The fun part will be getting it all back to my house!

Living alone is a scandal in the Ngabe, and probably Panamanian as well, culture. Everyone lives with their parents usually until there are too many kids and they need to move out. Every time I tell some one I just moved into my house, the same questions arise: ¨Who else stays with you? What?! You´re all alone? Doesn´t that give you fear?¨. I assure them that I am currently looking for a pet cat to guard my house.

I realize thatI haven´t written much about my environmental health related work. Truthfully, it´s because during the first 3 months I wasn´t doing much besides observing in terms of health and water and sanitation. I did learn a lot this way. I learned that everyone in my community walks up and down steep ravines to collect drinking water from spring sources. I do too.

I learned that luckily, no one drinks out of the river or stream even during the dry season. I drank enough coffee during house visits that I often had to ask if there was a latrine, and I found out that about 50% of houses have functional latrines. I have observed that no one treats the water, and that diahrea is common among all ages.

The next steps will be education in the forms of workshops, seminars, house visits, and meetings. After that we will move into project phase hopefully by mobilizing the current water committee, and creating a latrine committee. The sticky part of the situation is that our local politician has announced that through a government grant, the majority of the aqueduct will be built this upcoming month. This will include the water collection tank, the storage tank, aquifier, and some tubing. The problem is, he and other politicians have promised this same project before to no avail, so no one knows if the construction crew will arrive or not. I am very worried about the arrival of this project because often times, such projects arrive with little engineering planning for tank or tube size and thus the water system does not work well. There´s not much I can do about it for now though, so I will wait and see and continue working with the water committee to make our own plans.

Ya cumplí 23

(written on 1-26-11)

As far as I can tell, Ngabes do not celebrate birthdays so I did not have high expectations, but I ended up having a great birthday week.

I went to the nearest beach on the Pacific side to celebrate New Years with my Peace Corps friends a few days after 2011 had actually started. In transit I had bought a cake mix and frosting on a whim at the huge, exciting supermarket in David that actually sells such things. My dreams of cake became a reality when I asked the German cabin owners if I could borrow their oven, and they offered to bake the cake for me. The cake was then dubbed ¨German chocolate cake¨. My friends made a matchstick candle. Much later in the night, my friend Jessica demanded that the 10 or so in our group go around and say something they like about me. I was extremely bashful at the time, and now it seems super cheesy, but it was so sweet!

Back in the Comarca (reservation), the day before my birthday my host brother Domingo invited me to visit Boquete with him, which is a highland town in western Panama famous for its coffee farms, cooler climate, and high population of retired North Americans. His offer had nothing to do with my birthday, but of course I accepted. If I had a car, Boquete would be 2 hours away but with public transport it took 5 hours each way so it turned out to be quite the long day trip. In Boquete we visited the coffee farm where Domingo´s brother-in-law works, the farm where he used to work, and some beautiful flower gardens. Although there are plenty of coffee tours available to tourists for $25, it was great walking through the farms with Domingo, talking to the people, and seeing the somewhat squalid living conditions. Although Boquete is far outside the Comarca, seasonal coffee labor (harvesting) is almost soley provided by Ngabes.

Interesting fact about birthdays in my area- it is a common conversational question to ask, ¨When is your birthday?¨. In Spanish, this literally translates to, ¨When are you going to complete?¨ If the birthday is yet to come in the calendar year, the custom is to provide the date, for example January 7. However, if the date has already passed in the calendar year (as mine has), then all I have to say is ¨Ya cumplí 23¨ or ¨I already completed 23,¨ and no further questions are asked about what the specific date is. This system definitely took some getting used to when I arrived in November, because most people had already completed their birthdays! (After rereading this paragraph I think I am making this sound more confusing than it actually is. Oh Well.)


Other life update: My house is still wall less, which is the norm in my area, but I can´t live there alone until it has walls for safety reasons. Who would have guessed that 2 different types of agency permissions have to be obtained before cutting down trees. It has been a huge headache.