Cheers To New Hats

So after 16 months living in the Comarca I finally got a sombrero pinta'o! Enrique made it by hand and I love it.

My Ngäbe getup is now complete. Photo by Dionicio.

So far in January I have tried on two completely new hats, per se, that are not my new sombrero. I know this is a cheesy analogy but I don't care. First, I spent a week as a theater director for a group of six amazing teenagers from Cerro Gallina and Cerro Mesa. And then we began work on our aqueduct improvement, and I am now lead engineer for the construction of a water storage tank, expanded spring catchment structure, three new latrines, and a rainwater catchment tank - coordinating uneducated rural farmers and soon, ten new WASH volunteers that are coming to Cerro Gallina for a week of in-service training on February 6th. Yikes!

First, Acting Our Awareness theater camp! Anyone who knows me knows that I LIVED for camp growing up, first as a camper and then a counselor. Shout out especially to Camp Anokijig and Huron's orchestra camp at Interlochen. So I couldn't wait to facilitate at AOA camp, and it was one of the best weeks of my service so far.

I love these kids. Top row: Manuel, Dinora, me, Lucila. Bottom row: Dionicio, Jonathan, Juan.

We had quite the photoshoot at the park.

Album cover?!

Photoshoot continued.

Youth from six communities across the Comarca gathered together for a week of new friends, art, and camraderie. We taught about healthy relationships, consent, HIV transmission and prevention, sexual orientation and gender identity, being a community health promoter, Ngäbe identity and culture, and more.

We had special courses every morning, and participants got to choose dance, scenery design, or chorus. I was one of the choir directors, and we prepared Puedes Llegar Lejos by Gloria Estefan and sang it at the final performance. The choir nailed it!

Each community group also spent the week preparing a play. My group's play focused on homosexuality. I purposely chose this topic because it's something that needs to be talked about more, and needs to be dealt with in a more mature way, both youth and adults alike. People use a whole slew of offensive terms like "cueco". I've heard adults of the church say that you must repent even for just feeling a same-sex attraction. If a guy wears fitted jeans, people whisper oooh, he must be gay, stay clear of him. It's really bad. I'm not here to change anyone's beliefs, but I am very vocal about the fact that as humans we have to respect everyone, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender expression. Where does "criticize and ridicule your gay neighbor" fit into the Ten Commandments? How about you shall love your neighbor as yourself?

And the kids got it. They really got it, and developed a funny and and thoughtful little soap opera about a girl who falls in love with her female teacher, tries to run away, gets ridiculed by a macho bus assistant, who then gets reprehended by her supportive friends, etc. They did an incredible job and really made the play their own. And Dionicio, Juan, and Lucila are already asking when they can see their new friends again and when we can give an HIV prevention workshop in the community! Woohoo! In the new few weeks we are going to plan it.

One of many acting drills and games to warm up for rehearsal.

Rehearsing the scene orrrr posing for the camera?!

After camp I jumped into total prep mode for our aqueduct improvement project. We have begun to prep for the construction of the tank and expansion of the toma and have selected three families that will be building latrines and one family a rainwater tank as part of In-Service Training (IST). One of our WASH coordinators, Marlana, came out to help us get started and no one showed up the first morning to work, and I felt so ashamed. I never scold people when they fail to show up to a commitment or arrive hours and hours late (I cannot count how many times this has happened) because that is the culture -- feeding your family comes first and working with the Peace Corps volunteer always comes second. And just putting food on the table is a full-time job for subsistence farmers so I get it. But doing this project will require the gente to devote a serious amount of time, and it hasn't been grasped yet. I realized that the biggest challenge for IST will be getting the gente to participate fully when there are 14 gringos in the community working. Normally workdays start leisurely around 10 or so, there is no penalty for arriving late or not showing up at all, and no one ever works after lunch. But the training week with packed 8-hour days will be totally different from anything the community has done before. In the next ten days, we have to deliver six truckloads of construction materials from San Felix, carry materials to the different worksites, get the gente ready to host volunteers in their houses, prep to pour the tank base and latrine floors, continue to prep the toma, and prep the counterparts who will be working with the volunteers to develop health charlas. This is probably the biggest task I will have my whole service and boy do I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing and I've put too much on our plate but así es. I'm off to the hardware store to schedule the deliveries!

Beginning to level for the tank.

 Excavating the toma (spring catchment).

Almost done leveling!

Regional Meeting January 2018. Viva las ardillas de la Comarca!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

¡Feliz Año Nuevo! Happy New Year! Kä mrä kuin!

(I’m pretty sure there’s no Ngäbere expression for this, so we’re gonna go with “year new good” and call it a day.)

Monday, November 20^th – this day was a good representation of my life from mid-November to mid-December – packed and frantic. But mostly in a good way. I left my house around 6 AM to head to San Felix to purchase supplies and prepare for a water treatment workshop the next day. The truck arrived an hour and a half late, and when I got to San Felix the whole town was without electricity and water with no guarantee it would come back on soon. So, I had to take a bus all the way to David to print out my water treatment cards and get supplies. I had decided to try something new and provide lunch at this charla, so I hiked in about 40 pounds of rice, chicken, tomato sauce, vegetables, sugar, and powdered juice. I had hoped to get back by mid-afternoon, but because of the detour to David I got back at twilight. On the way in I ran into Walter and traded my bucket of raw chicken for a flat cardboard box carrying 100 chicks (the cooperative had just gotten a new batch) for the last 15 minutes or so. My arms are not accustomed to carrying loads on my head and they alllllmost gave out and sent chicks toppling, but I made it! I was at my house salting the chicken to preserve it for the next day when Jorge stopped by and announced that I was in trouble for missing Diana’s second birthday party that afternoon. So I grabbed my solar lamp and went to explain the power outage that had made me several hours late, apologizing profusely and expressing (truthfully!) how much I wished I could have made it. “We were ALL waiting for you, for HOURS, Bei.” The family was obviously still pissed even after my apologies, and Diana’s mother Leila wouldn’t even look at me. She has since forgiven me and we’re all good now, don’t worry! I felt pretty deflated the rest of the night as I finished all of the poster papers for the charla and “laminated” the water treatment cheat sheets (with a roll of clear plastic tape, cheap solutions!)

However, the effort was worth it because this was one of the rare occasions I was satisfied with the outcome of an event. The charla was Enrique’s idea, stemming from a chronic community-wide problem with diarrhea that he sees at each gira médica (two-day visit from MINSA doctors). I based the lessons on his ideas and he introduced the charla. Although I ended up doing most of the teaching, I was ecstatic that Enrique helped in the planning and facilitation. For the last 8 months (and most important months!!) of my service, I’m really focusing on encouraging my gente to take the reins in planning, getting the word out, and leading instead of expecting me to do everything. We taught about at-home water treatment (chlorine, boiling, and solar disinfection) and storage, made a "plubo", had a chicha break, and then I presented a new topic: trash management. The gente got really into that, and it was fun to see. A few people made statements about how they want to be better examples for younger community members and want to make the “ecological landfills” that I introduced, which are basically glorified trash pits, but much better than just tossing trash wherever. Then we feasted on chicken, rice, and veggies!

The gente making a plubo = pluma + cubo (or, faucet installed in a bucket) to eliminate the common and unsanitary practice of scooping cooking/drinking/dishwashing water from buckets with bowls touched by dirty hands. I raffled off the plubo, and Enrique's household won it. His challenge was to ONLY drink water from the plubo, and only put treated water into it to see if it reduces diarrhea. Back in December, he was following the challenge!! I'm excited to hear if he thinks it has been effective after a couple months.

The next day I headed to Cerro Caña, my friend Matt’s site, to facilitate two days of Elige Tu Vida seminars in the high school. Always love doing those! Thursday after the second seminar, more friends arrived for Thanksgiving celebrations! Using his stovetop and neighbor’s fogón, we made vegan Sloppy Joe’s, kidney bean and squash curry, mashed potatoes and gravy, beef & veggie stuffed peppers, and deviled eggs. It was so delicious.

Some of the food we made.

Thanksgiving crew.

In December, we celebrated Mother’s Day and sixth grade graduation, had a workday to fix up the road for the arrival of aqueduct materials for Bajo Conejo (!!!), I taught three baking classes at Dominga’s, Marta’s, and Luisa’s houses, another trash management charla to Marcelino’s producers’ group, the second charla in my leadership series with my neighbor Corbyn, helped Vidal solicit a holiday celebration from our representante, helped with a Water Committee Seminar in Sophia’s site, and tried to start a latrine directive – this last one had to get pushed back to the new year because I literally ran out of time. Whew! I felt like a headless chicken running around trying to get all these things done before my vacation.

Heading down to lunch after the road workday.

Rice tanks a few weeks after planting.

Neighbor Corbyn helping me out with part II of the leadership charla series.

And the rice tanks looked like this right before I left for the holidays! I do believe everyone enjoyed arroz nuevo pa' la Navidad! 

Elvin bossing me around as always during a photoshoot.

Building penca hut #2.

And then I went on a glorious three-week vacation. First to Cerro Punta to celebrate at the Peace Corps Holiday Party, then to Panama City to fly out, then Ann Arbor, Madison, Racine, and back to Ann Arbor. I got to see lots of family and friends and kept quite busy, but also was able to relax plenty and soak in all of the convenient joys of America. Honestly it was bittersweet to leave all of that behind for eight more months of sweaty and unglamorous work. Dale, pues. 

Walking the Cinta Costera before my flight.

Enjoying the beginning of another Polar Vortex with friends in Racine!!