- I was hiking up from a workday of trying to dig through a mound of landslide rubble to get to a water source with the awesome gente of Boa, and I was tired and frustrated. On my way home two of my favorite chicas, Edilsa & Yolinda, invite me to go pick mangos and puma rosa (small fruit that I don't know the English word for) with them. Okay, but only because I like you two so much. They led me to a spot I hadn't been to before, and there were clear remnants of an old abandoned house next to this big mango tree. I inquire, and Edilsa launches into a story about how Enrique used to live here with his ex-wife and they had a baby and etc... I carry a notebook with me all the time that I use for everything, to write to-do lists, new Spanish and Ngäbere words, names, and also, gossip. So I write down some Spanglish notes on this new information from Edilsa and forget about it. Two days later, we're hanging out at Elma's house after church, and my notebook is sitting on the ground next to me while I'm reading a newspaper. Enrique randomly walks over, picks up my notebook, and opens it to the very page that I have written this gossip about him. *nervous laugh* Um, Enrique...please don't read that! Sorry! and I grab the notebook from his hands. Hopefully I got it before he read anything...
- I am hiking to Guayabal with my host parents. Instead of taking the normal path, I follow Victor under a couple fences and then up a veritable cliff as he bushwhacks with a machete ahead of us. Like I actually had to climb with my hands at some points. At the top, I'm sweating buckets and practically wheezing, and Victor sees my face and chuckles a little. "It's a shortcut, Bei." Some shortcut!! We get to Guayabal and sit down at a family friend's house that I haven't been to before. The friend stares at me and asks the typical questions to Victor - What's her name? Where does she live? Why is she here? Is she married? Does she speak Ngäbere? all in Ngäbere. And Victor answers Jän, niara blite krubäte Yes, she speaks a lot. Yes! I smile. This is probably the only trace of any kind of validation I'll get this week, so I savor it. Later that day, we are getting ready for choir practice with Cornelio and Emilia, and a friend of Cornelio's stops by, looks at me, and asks him the same string of questions. But this time the answer is Ñakare Nothing. She speaks nothing. 100 to zero in a few hours. Así es la vida.
- Imagine this: Friday you are standing in front of a classroom of volunteers at an eco-lodge in business casual, giving a presentation about your community. Saturday, you are running into the warm ocean in the dark, drinking a surprisingly delicious iced tea-tequila mix out of your coffee mug, surrounded by friends and bioluminescence, feeling as though absolutely everything is right in the world. Sunday, hiking an hour and a half uphill in the blazing sun, your liter of water running out halfway up and getting so dehydrated by the time you get to your destination that you actually vomit up your dinner of boiled eggs and bananas. Monday, giving a presentation on water treatment to a group of Ngäbes, making a joke about some untreated water tasting like toads. The gente laugh, and you are happy that your point got across. Later, learning that "toad water" is actually a vulgar sexual innuendo. Ooooops. And that was my weekend!
- I am visiting Clemente's house. "Bei, do you get the stamp of the beast on your forehead this week?" Huh?! It took me a moment to realize that they were talking about Ash Wednesday. I explain, the ashes are in remembrance of Jesus's suffering in the desert and death, they symbolize that we are all going to die some day... I think my message got lost in translation because when I said "we're all going to die" their eyes widened, how morbid. Well, I tried. In the area of religion, especially explaining Catholic traditions, that is the best I can do sometimes.
- Roderik, little host nephew, comes by my porch. Give me ten cents, Bei. For what, I ask? To buy candy. Nope, sorry. It may sound cold, and it is hard at times not to give in, but I can't give out or lend money unless there is an emergency. Part Peace Corps rules and part common sense as a development worker. A few hours later he's back. Give me ten cents, Bei. For what? To make a copy for school. Nice try. He's in first grade and cannot write yet, copying a paper (which can only be done in San Felix) is an interesting choice for a lie, but request denied.
- Mucha plata por alla? Lots of money in the states? Is one of the questions I get asked most often. And my answer to that question is almost 100% dependent on my mood. Sometimes, I go into a rant about income inequality, sometimes I use my poor economics knowledge to attempt to explain that if we just print more money, the value of the dollar will decrease, sometimes I say money flies out of trees and see just how far I can carry the joke. :)
- Ñantöre, ti ngwae! Hello, my sister! I love when the men in my community call me their sister. Here, almost everyone is called family. A friend that is a generation older will be called uncle or aunt. Same age, cousin. A generation younger, niece or nephew. At first I couldn't believe that EVERYONE seemed to be related. Soon I learned that this is definitely not true - but it makes it hard to figure out who is family and who isn't, very important in analyzing the community social dynamic. I'm still learning who is actually family.
- I'm sitting in Emiliana & Julio's house, scratching a mess of bug bites on my arms (return of the rainy season means BUGS at night) and they start lecturing me on how they passed my house, "Your yard is so dirty Bei! Covered with trash! That's why you have bugs!" and I ponder the cultural difference here. My yard is impeccably clear of trash; I either hike out, recycle, or repurpose all of my trash and also pick up all the wrappers and empty juice boxes kids toss in my yard. Meanwhile, like most houses in my community, trash is strewn all over the ground around their house. (side note: I have plans for trash management charlas in the works, tossing it wherever is a huge problem here) but to my gente it is plant overgrowth, not plastic, that's considered basura. And I admittedly have not been great lately about macheteing my yard. Point taken, Emiliana. I will be making a better effort to maintain my yard to hopefully control those bugs!
- Riding up to site in the chiva on a Saturday afternoon. Saturdays are the worst days to travel in my chiva because it's church day, and so those who are not en el culto are getting plastered in San Felix. There are three drunk men in this chiva, already slurring and stumbling, and they are pounding six-packs and taking shots of seco from a communal plastic cup the whole way up. It's also pouring rain, so the canvas top is down and the chiva is hot and smelly. One guy vomits out the back, ew. Thank goodness one of my absolute favorite women, Rosina, is also in the chiva and sitting next to me. We share many eye-rolls at the drunks. We're almost to our stop when they light cigarettes. At this point I notice that we are carrying several full gas tanks up in the chiva bed. The pavo (still don't know why chiva attendants are called turkeys) is no help - *laughs* "Oh don't worry, this is only stove gas, not gasoline" but immediately Rosina goes off at them, screaming at them to put out the cigarettes, how we need to protect the health of everyone in the chiva. I was silently cheering on this badass woman, but simultaneously shaking in my seat, terrified that we were going to go over a bump, a bit of gas leaks out, and we would all explode.
- It is avocado season! I am hanging out with Melvin and Carmen and Dominga, and they are scooping avocados out with spoons. Have you guys ever tried guacamole? I ask. Negative. I explain that it's a Mexican salsa (salsa translates to sauce and is therefore a very general term for anything that's somewhat like a sauce) of avocado, cilantro, lime, onion, and tomato. Sounds delicious, Bei! So like, salsa china? (soy sauce) No, it's not really like salsa china at all, I answer...but I can't think of any foods similar to guacamole that they know to more accurately describe it. Can you teach us how to make it? Sure, give me a date and you provide the avocados, I'll bring the rest. "We're going to learn la salsa china de Bei" Dominga states contentedly. So this is how guacamole became Bei's Chinese sauce. P.s. we set a tentative date to make guac tomorrow. Hope it goes well!
Post with work & life updates and more photos coming this week, promise!
Cuchi Cuchi, Tuna, and Scooby Doo (or in Spanish, Escubi Du)
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