It's About to get Raw like Cow Dung

...so buckle up.

It's summer and I don't think I've ever done more physical work in my life. Pickaxing for new fish tanks and garden beds, making compost, harvesting and shucking beans - lots of beans, carrying tienda supplies down the mountain, and hauling buckets of water to my house for myself, and sometimes for my neighbors. Probably not the best for my body to be carrying so many heavy things, but it's temporary - it'll start raining within the next month. The reason for carrying buckets of water is that we have not had water in the aqueduct for over a month. When I went to check on the half-built toma, it was a mess. Water leaking out from under the retaining wall we had built, lots of exposed tubes, mud and flies and cow poop everywhere. It looks like the cows that are kept in a pasture way too close to the toma have been trying to drink water from the area. Cows also apparently broke the transmission line because it was badly cracked and all the water was flowing out next to another pile of hot, stinking cow poop. Obviously I want to fix it but as a "good" development worker I refuse to do it alone; the gente have to fix it with me. And in over a month we have not been able to have a single work day. Not to mention the barely-started tank we have to finish too. And yes, the gente are pretty mad because before we started to work on the system, they had water in the house. (Before, the tubes that the cows broke were buried, but we had to dig some of them up to fix a sediment block during IST.) And now they don't have water, and tensions have been high between the gente and me. They know I am impatient and want to work, trying and failing multiple times to get them to agree on a workday - after all, in a month rainy season will start and WILL ruin our bags of cement. The gente are visibly unhappy that they have to carry all of their water to their house, cue me losing my patience and passive-aggressively starting to carry water for them. Oops... However, I'm slowly learning to be patient, keep my temper in control, and wait it out. The main reason we haven't worked is because there are still beans to harvest, and having food and income is more important than having running water. And they were not aware how much work this toma and tank were going to be - that was my fault for not being explicit enough. It's not like the gente are sitting around - they are working so hard. But working on the water system is just not priority #1, or 2, or 3. I'm hoping *fingers crossed* that next week, after the gente get back from the big river baptism excursion this weekend we can have a workday.

Four construction workers came and built the new govt-funded aqueduct for the Bajo Conejo neighborhood in the span of about a month. They finished the system and it was beautiful! And then after a few glorious days of water in the house...the same cows in a new pasture also too close for comfort to the spring broke the transmission line and cut off all water in the system. Melvin came back from unsuccessfully trying to fix the tubes muttering, "Bei I want to KILL one of those cows." Me too, Melvin. They got if fixed but I forsee the cows causing more problems in the future.

I've been working on finishing up the rainwater tank and making seats for the latrines we started at IST in February.

Rodolfo gets his son Roni involved helping on the interior of the rainwater tank.

Victoria working on the latrine seat.

Seat done and ready to attach to the latrine floor!

The water storage tank for Bajo Conejo almost done.

Everyone watches as the chlorinator gets installed in the new system.

In better news, my youth health promoters gave two successful HIV prevention charlas in Cerro Gallina and Cerro Mesa. Lucila, Dinora, and Dionicio killed it! They are back in school now so we're taking a break but plan to do some more HIV work during school vacation in June. Dionicio and I also traveled to Palma Gira to attend an HIV charla put on by another group of kids who went to camp. There have now been four groups from camp who have presented charlas back in their home communities, woohoo! A candidate for mayor had a political meeting in Gallina a few weeks ago and during the Q&A Enrique asked him, "What do you plan to do about the HIV problem in our district?" And then after the meeting Melvin said to me, "Bei, your charlas are working" and it was probably the best thing I've heard all year.

Lucila presenting the "Sí Transmite No Transmite" activity in Cerro Mesa.

Giving a demo...Dionicio there to break the tension as always.

Dionicio presenting at the charla in Cerro Gallina.

A sociodrama at the charla in Eliana's community.

And some other things I have been up to.

Harvesting plants to make natural dyes for chakra string with Elsa! This is turmeric to dye string yellow.

One of many SENAPAN juntas: shucking corn.

Crust made with whole wheat flour trekked in from the faraway land of the supermarket in David, mushrooms, olives, greens foraged with Bertilo and boiled twice to make them edible, homemade tomato sauce, garlic, wild turmeric foraged with Elsa, and parmesan cheese that I probably keep too long without refrigeration. Trying to relish in these days where all of my meals have a story.

Hiking to visit a toma in a nearby community with neighbor volunteer Corbyn "Toy". Yes, his Ngäbe name is Toy.

Took a lil trip up to Boquete to work on some computer things, and casually climbed Volcán Barú...
Kidding, it was anything but casual. Shellee, Emily and I took a taxi to the base at 11 pm and started hiking at 11:15. We reached the top at 4:30 am and proceeded to pass out against the wall of the electrical shed next to the cell towers because it was a wind block. Woke up FREEZING around 6:15 and scrambled up the rocks to get to the very top. The clouds cleared and we saw the sun rise over the clouds! I could see all the way over to my site too! It's about 1,500 m/5,000 ft of elevation gain from the trailhead above Boquete to the summit. Then we hiked down and reached the base at 11:45 am. Then celebratory leftover pizza, warm showers, long naps, and gigantic fish tacos. It was a ROUGH hike, I would only recommend it for the strong-willed and strong-legged. 10/10 but would never do again :) (:

We saw both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at once. How many places in the world can you do that from the ground?!

Me - Emily - Shellee

Gente Spotlight #2: IWD Special

Happy belated International Women's Day! I want to highlight three strong females in Cerro Gallina whom are inspirations in my life.

Tatiana

Out of the group of neighbor kids who regularly visit my house, my host cousin Tatiana is my favorite (sorry, everyone else). She LOVES to read and is the best reader in the group. Sometimes kids will ask her to read a book out loud to everyone, and even those older than her will listen. Since reading for pleasure is just not a thing here at home nor at school, it's amazing how well she reads. She's an avid questioner, loves to learn how and why things work, and picks up new concepts quickly. She's also the responsible one - when kids are wrestling on the porch and hitting my cat after I have told them a million times to stop and my poor disciplining skills are failing, I can count on her to keep los traviesos in line. One day she came by right as I was leaving for a work day. Where are you going Bei? To go pickaxe the dirt road. But Bei, that's men's work. Before I could start ranting on why there is no reason women can't participate, she breaks out into a grin. Just kidding, Bei. Out of maybe five road workdays I've attended in Gallina, I have been the only female each time, but I have hope that I'm helping bring up a feminist in Tatiana and when she's old enough she'll brave the insults and participate too. Basically, she reminds me so much of myself as a 5th-grader and I'm grateful for her.

Yesi

Yesi (pronounced like Jessie) is the oldest daughter of Eduardo and Luisa, a year younger than me. For the first 8 months I was here, she lived in Panama City. Then one day in May I stopped by their house and she had moved back home with her adorable baby daughter Yoany. We talked for a few minutes and then I continued on, looking for Isaías in the nearby finca. All of a sudden, I heard a buzzing that drowned out all other sounds and saw a swarm of black closing in on me. All I could think was, they could be wasps. A swarm of wasps could kill you. RUN!! I took off sprinting as the buzzing black things stuck to my clothes and hair. I tore off my hat and t-shirt as I went, screaming bloody murder. I stumbled into their yard crying Yesi, help me! She looked horrified as she set her baby aside and started rapidly pulling flies from my scalp. Turns out they were not wasps, but these black flies – I don’t know what they’re technically called – that make nests on my walls out of mud and don’t bite but love to burrow themselves in human hair. I must have had at least 50 on my head and another 50 stuck to the clothes that I hadn’t ripped off yet! I couldn't stop shaking for quite a while, and she calmed me down and lent me a hair tie. I knew from that very first day that we were going to be good friends.

Yesi loved studying English in high school in Tolé and has been studying with me for about six months. She recently passed her entrance exams to study English at university in Chiriquí, one of the first woman in my community to go to college!! She starts classes this week. She wants to be a high school teacher. She’s also the only person who has actually put my baking lessons to use, making a sweet carrot-beet bread for her birthday! Yesi has been such a blessing to me in the community, someone my age who I can chat with and who also has big dreams for her future. From the outside the two of us are from different worlds, me from a privileged background and her from a poor indigenous family single-parenting a 1-year-old while paying and working her way through college. While so many young moms hardly leave the house, she'll hike with Yoany several hours up and down mountains to go work at election tables to make some extra money. But in the moments when we sit on the tarp under the shade tree studying English and Ngäbere and drinking chicheme while her baby sleeps in the hammock, we are equal. In a place where I often feel alienated from everyone in my community because our lives are just so different, these times are so important to me.

Elsa

Elsa is truly my "site mom". I love my host mom, but there is no woman that I click with as much as Elsa. She is my number one gossip source, teacher of gardening skills and medicinal plants and natural dyes and Ngäbere and how to cook the tastiest rice and so many more things. She is an artist! Honestly, I think that all women here who make beautiful naguas and chakras are artists, but she more than anyone has capitalized on this skill as the president of the artisan group in Cerro Mesa. Right now they are planning a big artisan fair for April. There are so many people who seem to find every excuse to put off work, citing heat or aches & pains or simply pereza (laziness). But not Elsa, and that's why she inspires me. She's always moving, cooking and making endless coffee for the guests that flock to her house because she's probably the best cook in the community. And when she's not working on household stuff, she's doing artisan work. She and Marcelino, although they weren't born with or handed more resources than anyone else, have it better off than others. That's because they put effort into their garden, into making their agriculture more sustainable, they go and meet people and form connections and make opportunities for themselves. Instead of seeing the world as a place that has treated her unfairly, she sees a world filled with possibility. I wish more people could follow their example. Drinking coffee and gossiping with Elsa under the round rancho is one of the things that I already know I will miss the most after I leave.

Six months left, where is time going ?!