The Ngäbere equivalent of “work hard play hard”. (Can you tell where I went to undergrad?!) While probably not the most relevant title for this post, I will be talking about what we’ve been working on lately, and some fun stuff!
First up: Mom and Dad’s visit to Panama! They arrived April 27 and we spent a few days in the city checking out the ruins of Old Panama (before Captain Morgan arrived), the canal visitors’ center, Casco Viejo, the fish market, a rainforest preserve in Colon, the Bio Museum, and went to mass in a beautiful Catholic church. On Sunday morning we headed out early, stopped in Santiago for groceries, left the car at the RL house in San Felix, taxied to the piquera, and boarded the chiva to head up to Cerro Gallina! This was the part of the trip I was most excited about - showing my parents to my community for the first time - and at the same time most nervous about. What if someone gets parasites, we get caught hiking in a thunderstorm, I lose my house key, etc…but everything went smoothly. I introduced them to campo life, we visited some of my favorite families, and I showed them some spring sources to be developed. The second day, I had planned a meet-and-greet type event in the rancho. We prepared popcorn, watermelon, chicha, cacao, apples & peanut butter, and tuna salad on crackers for the community to try. WAY MORE people than I expected showed up - I counted 53 attendees! It was a whirlwind but the gente definitely enjoyed the food and tossing the Frisbee discs my parents gifted to the community. Dad was named Jidi and Mom was named Mechi. After the event it started to downpour and we ended up having a whole crew camped out on my porch waiting out the rain, asking English homework questions and playing with Cuchi, Cuchi, Tuna, and Scooby Doo. For the last leg of the trip, we drove to Almirante, left the car, and took a water taxi to Bocas Town on Isla Colon. What a quirky little place! I kind of loved the combination of Indigenous, Latino, Caribbean/Jamaican influence (heard some of the elusive language Guari Guari for the first time!), and tourist culture that formed the town. We rode bikes, snorkeled, cruised around on a catamaran, and one day headed back to the mainland for a day trip to my friend Willy’s organic chocolate farm and factory - the same one I toured during my visit as a trainee nearly ten months ago (!!). The whole trip we ate great food, including sushi twice, two tuna steaks, shrimp udon, curried mahi mahi, ceviche three times (holy seafood) plus some wonderful margaritas, sangria…things that I certainly cannot afford with my living allowance. Overall it was fantastic to see my parents and catch up, show off everything that I have learned so far, and demonstrate why I love Panama so much. And they did a great job communicating with Panamanians and questioning them about their culture, even with their limited Spanish. Thanks a ton Mom & Dad, see you in December! Abrazos y besos!
And back to the grind. I went to Carl’s site to help with an Elige Tu Vida “Choose Your Life” seminar for high schoolers for two days. The seminar begins with discussion and activities on goal setting, identifying your strengths and values, positive self talk, and the importance of education and information on different career paths. Then we talk about our reproductive systems, sexual health, the importance of consent, how STIs are spread, birth control and the consequences of teenage pregnancy, and we even teach how to use a condom! It is a really fantastic and impactful program and important in the Comarca; many young people, especially women, drop out of high school after becoming parents. For example, my host brother became a dad at 16 - he is currently finishing high school but his 17-year-old girlfriend is at home caring for their son. Zach and I immediately went to Pilón to talk to the director about doing one there. He was into it - 20 pregnancies in the high school last year!
I never would have expected this, but my English class (that now takes place in a chicken coop because the rancho is leaky and we’re in rainy season) has really been the most consistent part of my service so far. Probably because I only have a few committed students who live right next to the class location and who choose the date of the next class with me each time, but still. I decided I wanted to make things a little more official instead of just making up content on the fly as I had been doing, so I started to keep attendance with the promise that those who complete twelve classes will get a treat & a certificate, and began to follow a community english class guidebook written by Panama TELLS volunteers. So far, so good! I definitely like more structure, although of course I try to make it as fun as possible. We ended class with a game of ninja last time (no, it had nothing to do with English) and I have never seen my favorite teenager Dionicio laugh harder. I also went to Cerro Mesa to help get the ball rolling with an English class for Zach’s gente, which he is going to continue regularly.
I went to the city to 1) get my cast off - finally!! 2) a free day, so I went to visit Milvia, Elías, Jose Ismael, and the rest of the crew in Santa Rita! So lovely to see my Panama Oeste family and catch up. 3) attend the two day training-of-trainers for the next group of WASH volunteers. I will be co-facilitating training the second week of August. This week is pretty heavy on technical sessions, which is what I wanted! I have a lot of planning to do editing last year’s sessions and creating some new materials as well. The last day of TOT was Zach’s birthday, so we all went out dancing in Casco Viejo to celebrate. Ajooooé! So much fun. To follow up from my last post, I did end up making guacamole with Dominga, Carmen, Melvin, Jorge, and Oscar. I brought the tomato, onion, and plantains to make fried chips to scoop, and they provided culantro, lime, and avocados. It was not the tastiest, but most definitely the freshest guac I’ve ever had. I also went to Julio & Elma’s to teach them how to make popcorn (it was such a hit at my parents’ visit) because they are interested in selling it at their tienda. We did some quick profit calculations to figure out how they should price the bags. I also celebrated my birthday in Cerro Gallina! A bunch of kids (and some awkward chaperones) arrived to the chicken galera on a rainy afternoon for a piñata, pin the tail on the cow, guess how many beans are in the jar, popcorn, chicha, and the limbo. The tiny pan of brownies I made was not nearly big enough to feed all of my guests, so Zach and I ate it all ourselves. #treatyoself
I went with host aunts Elsa and Tita to an ASMUNG (Asociación de la Mujer Ngäbe) conference for two nights in another community. Many women from various parts of the Comarca arrived to hang out, catch up, and participate in an all-day conference with licenciados y licenciadas from the University of Panama and United Nations. They had done a study on the current state of indigenous women in Panama and shared the results with the group, for example the percentage of women holding government positions, food security, domestic violence, literacy rates, etc. There was a big brainstorming session that lasted probably four hours where the women pitched ideas for how to make life better for women across the Comarca. I tuned out during the parts in Ngäbere but overall WOW, what smart and determined women that make up this group. Their next meeting is in August, to elect a new directiva, and they want me to come. I am excited about potentially helping to form a new partnership between Peace Corps and this awesome organization.
I have quite a few things coming up. Tomorrow Eugenio and I travel to Coclé for a four-day PML (project management and leadership) seminar with the rest of my WASH group! I don’t know Eugenio super well yet, but he is a happy guy, a hard worker, consistently shows up to meetings and community work days, and the gente pretty much unanimously agreed that he should be the one to go with me. I’m pretty stoked for this week. I have a watershed protection charla planned for the 5th and 6th graders at the school later in June that I hope to later modify for adults too, if it goes well. The last week of June, Zach and I are doing a week of Elige Tu Vida seminars in our closest large high school! Since it’s an hour and a half walk from my house, we’re renting out an old Peace Corps volunteer’s house nearby for the week and are inviting many other volunteers to come help. Here’s to youth empowerment, wooo!
Ok, so… I feel very good about everything that I have mentioned so far; let me tell you it is great to do work that you truly believe in. However, I must be honest here and admit that I’ve felt overwhelming stressed lately about the topic of “work” in the community. Gallina originally solicited a Peace Corps volunteer to build aqueducts…but at this point in time I am quickly losing hope of this actually happening. My biggest aqueduct proponent and surveying counterpart, Eduardo, recently got a job in the Comarca capital and now only returns to the community on weekends. We planned three surveying workdays and had to cancel them all because only one person showed up to help. When I am visiting these houses and explaining the process and need to land survey before planning a water system, many people seem to be somewhat indifferent about it. This potential system would only serve a small sector of the community, and I am seeing that this sector just doesn’t have enough animo right now. The people that have been consistently showing up to my meetings are dispersed throughout the spread-out community. So I am beginning to see that maybe a household-level project (possibly latrines, rainwater tanks, or both) would be a better idea, and also desired by the community. This way, only the families that are invested, regardless of what part of the community they live in, can directly benefit from a project. Great, right? But there are still certain people asking me, “When are you bringing us water, Bei?” which I will need to figure out how to deal with. And although I still have a couple months before the hard deadline to apply for a grant for a larger project, time passes rápido (where have the last two months even gone) and work gets done slooooowly. So yeah, I am stressed about this. Wish us luck, trying to move forward with WASH work!
Victor, Mom, Dad, me, Tito, and Benita
I got the best role - playing the baby mama in the teenage pregnancy skit. A gringa and a Ngäbe produce a lil blonde baby in a nagua. Here I am asking for money from the baby daddy to pay for diapers!
What a cast interior looks like after four weeks in the campo! Gross.
Hanging out on my porch!
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