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 ?!