Language: I was amazed that my volunteer, Chelsea, could listen to older men mumble in half Spanish, half Ngäbere and understand exactly what they were saying. She started about the same intermediate level as me in Spanish, so I'm excited to reach the level of comfort she has with communication. She does an English/Spanish book club for the kids at her house, and I got to help out with that and even give a mini-charla (a charla is like an informational presentation that you'll hear me talking about a lot, there's no good English equivalent) on nutrition, which was fun! So far in Ngäbere I can say hello, goodbye, thank you, good/okay, my name is ___, and "I pooped". I was given a Ngöbe name: Besi. Many fellow volunteers have remarked that it sounds like a good name for a cow.
Community health: this was the hardest thing to see. Families with 10 kids will live in 3-room homes, no one wears shoes regularly, handwashing is not practiced, there are no latrines, the community doesn't treat their water, I saw many little kids with protruding bellies, the diet is primarily rice and bananas, girls commonly get pregnant in their mid-late teens and drop out of school, the few that are still in school at this age. There are some interesting myths that people believe in - like adding chlorine to water makes you sick instead of preventing it, and rainwater is dirtier than water from rivers people poop in. I can see that behavior change is going to be as difficult, or possibly much MORE difficult, than physical infrastructure development.
WASH projects: Right now Chelsea's just getting started with a rainwater catchment tank project for 10 homes in the community. She already has one at her house and there's one at the school. She's also considering constructing a composting latrine and seeing if the community is into that. We hiked to the tank and tomas for the aqueduct a neighboring volunteer, Alex, had designed and built with her gente. This week in tech class we've finally started more techy stuff: going over latrine construction, surveying methods, and aqueduct data collection. I'd be happy to work with any of it but truthfully I really want to build an aqueduct :) I requested that in my site placement interview so we'll see!
By far the most important part of the visit, though, was seeing how Chelsea thrives in her community. Her house is wonderful - decorated, clean, homey, sustainable. She has a huge herb & veggie garden, compost bin, and is recycling all of her trash to use for a big art project at the school. We cooked some bomb meals in her kitchen - omelets, stir fry, guacamole, garlic bread, homemade juices from oranges straight from the tree. She loves and trusts her community members and they look up to her. This is what I will strive for.
I'm writing this post on the bus to San Felix (I snagged some cell data gratis today, score) where all 24 WASHers are staying tonight before heading back to Bocas del Toro tomorrow for TECH WEEK! We finally get to do some excavating, constructing, data collection, etc as well as health charlas we have prepared for elementary school students. And then we have a free night on the way back to Santa Rita, so we're going to the beach!
P.s. Still haven't gotten diarrhea, though the enormous daily quantity of rice and minimal fiber has given me the opposite problem. I've stocked up on dried fruits like prunes and raisins and they've been helping me out with that :)
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