...if it is not
shared?
The past
month & a half, I’ve experienced the unexpected joy of being relentlessly generous. I will admit, I’ve been selfish all my life. What’s mine is mine and
what’s yours is yours – that’s the culture I grew up in. Say I received a $20
bill in a birthday card, I would have spent it on something for myself, or put
it in my bank account. But if one of my gente in Cerro Gallina received a $20? They would probably use it to buy food to make a huge feast for their
family and invite all the neighbors, take the last bowl with the burnt bottom rice and less-desirable chicken parts as the host typically does, and probably also get some special treats
for the kids. Keeping it for themselves? Not a chance. Even though the sharing
culture has its downfalls - as an American assumed to be very wealthy by
default and therefore obligated to share the wealth - I’m appreciating and adapting to it more
and more.
I've hosted so many guests! I love my daily routine alone in my little house, but it has been so nice to share life with many people recently.
First up, Michelle’s visit to Panama! We spent a day exploring Panama City, then traveled up to my site. On our hike in, a thunderstorm rolled through very suddenly and we were hiking in a wall of rain, gusty winds, and very VERY close lightning, a.k.a. lighting struck a tree maybe half a football field away from us. We both screamed and were on the verge of tears but the storm then quickly passed and all was well. We did some pasearing, gave an English class and another soap-making charla, and mostly just hung out around my house the two full days we were in my community. Kaitlyn came to visit from Bocas during this same week and helped me give an aqueduct meeting! More on that below. Michelle was given the Ngäbere name of Melichi by Enrique. We then spent the afternoon at the beach and a night at these adorable bungalows in Las Lajas, then a night in El Valle de Anton, then back to the city where we visited the artisan market and ate Korean food before heading to the airport. It was a short & sweet trip, and Michelle got along great with my community, especially the kids! So grateful she visited :) :)
Manuelito & Melichi
Making kids pose with us on the walk from school
The most delicious & beautiful breakfast at the bungalows!
After returning from dropping off Michelle, I had two really solid weeks in site, probably some of my best weeks so far in Panama. I think it was because I didn’t have too many commitments or meetings so I was able to spend quality time with my gente. The daily volume of kids hanging out at my house has exploded lately. Especially on weekends and when there is no school, there are always kids on my porch, reading, coloring, looking through my binoculars, singing, playing cards, playing with Cuchi Cuchi, trying to wrestle and getting reprimanded by me. One day Vidal came by randomly and said, "Bei, I've been thinking about a limpieza de patio here on Sunday." Basically, I let my lawn get so grossly overgrown that Vidal couldn't stand it anymore and planned a workday, hehe. So on Sunday Vidal, Eduardo, and Manuel came over and chopear-ed that patio for a couple hours, and I made them lunch of rice & lentil soup. I had transplanted a small lemongrass stalk from Elsa's garden to my lawn back in maybe November and forgotten about it. So I was pleasantly surprised when Eduardo uncovered a giant lemongrass bush under all the monte sucio! So lately I've been taking advantage of the free & unlimited source of tea and have been making lemongrass tea for almost everyone that visits. I've also got spinach, sweet potato, basil, lemon balm/toronjil, mint, squash, habichuela, and ginger currently growing, and I harvested my first vegetable - a little squash. Woo! I've been continuing to go to work days for various SENAPAN groups, even though agriculture has nothing to do with my job here - and have learned to accept that work that could be accomplished in just a couple hours is stretched into a full-day event, done slowly with plenty of time for gossip and unnecessary passionate speeches and chilling in the shade gulping down cups of chicha. Even though it is a little unnatural for me, learning to share freely my house, my things, my time with my community overall has been a really good feeling.
I had a couple other volunteers visit me, including a new WASH trainee and soon-to-be volunteer, Elisabeth! She came for three nights and got to experience campo life for the first time just like I did at Chelsea's site last year. We went to visit families, taught English class, she was named Beyi Kwitubu by my favorite abuela, and got gifted so, so, so much pifá. We had lots of fun and I have no doubt she'll be an excellent volunteer.
Elisabeth blended right in in my nagua. Dionicio finally brought his CONCH SHELL to English class and we were both quite excited
I then went back to Santa Clara, Panama Oeste to co-facilitate training for the new WASH group G81 for a week. I helped teach about pit latrines, surveying, hydraulic grade line, school charlas, water sources and tomas, among other topics. Soon there will be 23 new WASH volunteers and it was awesome to get to know them a little bit. Eight will be in the Comarca, including my second closest volunteer.
Got to celebrate Elisabeth's birthday with her host family in Santa Clara :)
Finally, Michigan Technological University! Four seniors - Kira, Sasha, Matthew, and Julie, and a professor Melanie spent a week camping in my site. They took water samples from springs across the community, brought survey gear and surveyed the Bajo Conejo water system that is being built by the government, a potential future EU system, and decided to do an analysis on different kinds of inexpensive and off-the-grid pump systems to pump water from Rosa's spring source to their house. All of this will go into their senior design report. I can't wait to see what they come up with! What awesome guests, so curious to learn about the culture. They were also great (and oh-so-much more patient than me) with the kids. They were troopers through the hike with a crazy amount of food and gear, sitting through a five-hour political meeting in Ngäbere (sorry about that, haha), getting clotheslined, pesky intruder cats in my house getting into their food, an infected foot, a boa constrictor attack on a chicken a few feet from their tents in the middle of the night, and some midnight double dragon dilemmas (PC speak for simultaneous vomiting and diarrhea...) But all was resolved. For me, going house to house with them the first few days was very eye-opening, because we had the families take us to their springs where they get water so we could take samples. It was my first time seeing a lot of these springs, and I finally got an idea why some of these families don't have much interest in aqueducts - they have beautiful water sources very close to their houses already. It made me realize how valuable education and efforts on spring maintenance and household water treatment & storage could be.
The community was really interested in the water samples they, which tested for total coliform and E. Coli. I took advantage of this interest and scheduled a meeting with a few families to explain and discuss the results. Unfortunately only two households showed up, but regardless we had a productive discussion on how we can better protect our springs, protect water in transit, safely store it in the house, and treat it with simple methods like boiling, chlorine drops, and solar disinfection. The gente could visibly see the difference in the number of coliform from the families that had good source cleaning practices already and those that didn't - which was huge and I think very valuable for them. I had naively assumed that most people already knew how to treat water in the house because I know my previous volunteer did education on it - but a volunteer obviously cannot reach everyone in the community and it's important to reinforce to make ideas actually stick. I'm looking forward to doing more meetings like this soon!
Water sampling
Showing Roger how to use a rangefinder
Modeling artesanía purchased from Miriam & Elsa
Post-soccer game "When are they coming back, Bei??"
Oh yeah, Cuchi Cuchi had four more kittens while MTU was here. I've now got five cats living with me, so I think that officially makes me a cat lady right?
Silly faces...? o_O
Our government representative came to Gallina twice in the past month for meetings to talk about upcoming projects like the Bajo Conejo aqueduct. This was a BFD for the community since it's the first time he's been here, at least in the past year since I've lived here. At the first meeting, Vidal, the repre's volunteer promoter, proudly presented a solicitation letter for materials to build a roof for a new hut for the visiting MINSA doctors since the existing one is about to collapse. Enrique, the community's health promoter, had come to my house one afternoon and we sat down and wrote out the letter. He can't type but he dictated to me everything to put in it. I then printed it out and Enrique went house-to-house and collected over 110 signatures from community members to turn in along with the letter. I'm so proud of him. And the repre gave us at least a verbal promise that he would find a way to get us materials for a zinc roof!
The letter and three pages of signatures from nearly every home in the community (except families that are feuding with the health promoter's family...classic)
I’ve also gotten to visit nearby volunteers for some cool events – notably the ‘Bettering Your Life’ seminar in Quebrada Loro organized by neighbors Sam and Michael. I helped facilitate sessions on water treatment, caring for the sick, and HIV/AIDS prevention. Hundreds of people showed up and got very passionate when discussing the problem of AIDS in their community. Sam and Michael just finished their services, and it was amazing to see them in action facilitating fluidly in Spanish and Ngäbere, and their confidence and ease with the gente. I also went to Michael’s goodbye party as well as the inauguration party for my friend Sean's community's aqueduct - the one we helped build for a week in February. It’s bittersweet to see these incredible people leaving, the new volunteers have some big shoes to fill. (I’m not crying you’re crying!!!)
A project update! So in July I had to make a tough decision and abandon for now the idea of writing a grant to build an aqueduct to serve three families. For many reasons, which maybe I'll elaborate on later, I could not justify trying to get them funding for a project I couldn't see as feasible nor sustainable. We're exploring some other ideas to improve access to water for these families - will keep you all updated. But I did write a different grant - for a few of my closest families that had build their own aqueduct, that functions but needs improvements. The proposal includes fixing and expanding a leaky and dirty toma (spring catchment), getting rid of a leaky plastic tank and building a concrete tank, and a few other minor upgrades, as well as Water Committee Seminars for the beneficiaries. I feel strongly that these are the people who are dedicated to working with Peace Corps, and we all hope that this project can inspire other sectors of the community to make their own efforts to improve water access in the future. I have submitted the grant request and prepared a report for an NGO that funds rural gravity-fed water projects, let's see what happens!
I'm in the city at the moment for mid-service medical and dental exams. This weekend G79 will be celebrating one year in site in the city, and then Michelle (different Michelle) will be visiting me for a few days in Gallina. More visitors!
Allllmost one year into my two years in Cerro Gallina, and boy do I have a lot of plans and hopes for this coming year. Gonna try to blog more often so I don't have to catch up several months at a time and write novels like this. Paz y amor, ja mräka tikwe. (Spangäbere for 'peace and love, my friends.')
Bei out ~~
