It could happen to anyone

You wake up wound kind of tight. It´s your first day without plans in a while. Kicked back in the hammock you read Henry Thoreau, Hermann Hesse and that Freakonomics book. You eat left over Spaghetti and drink two pots of coffee. You write a poem inspired by a brand of peanut butter. The furthest you walk from the hammock all day is to the latrine. It´s been a good day, a day of thought, a quiet day, a rainy day.

Night rolls around and even though you´re satisfied, you still feel the need to ¨let go¨. You get an idea, a stupid idea, a weird idea. You dare yourself to do it, because why not? But then you think of a couple reasons why not, they´re not stupid reasons. But you decide you don´t like them, they´re not good enough, and so you double dare yourself.

And then, you do it, you take off your clothes, walk out into the muddy grass, and lay down. You stare up at the clouds and the moon, and watch the bat flying around above you. You feel the grass poking you, and you tell yourself that its not bugs, it´s just grass. You remember the snake a kid told you he saw across the yard a couple days before. You get up and scoop some water out of your bucket to clean off.

You feel better. You also feel crazy, but you know you´re not, because it could happen to anyone.

What it looks like

My rain water collection system. Hey, I think it´s cool.

Can you tell I made did my English body parts lesson myself?

The children! Don´t ask what that kid in the middle´s drinking.

Steve trying his luck at the ring toss fund raiser in town.

He felt bad for winning the bottle of liquor with the dollar bill attached when the ring only cost a nickel. What are the odds?

Balloons are fun in the U.S. so you can just imagine how cool they are down here.

Mangos did this. Yes, I´m sure, I triple checked.

This horse was doing laps around my house for an hour or two.

The scorpion my mom carried in her purse on buses for about 8 hours.

Makin´ Chicha

Part of my job as a Peace Corps volunteer, is to integrate myself, to the best of my ability, into my community. This means living where live, speaking their language, hanging out at their houses, working along side them and eating and drinking what they eat and drink. This aspect of my job is probably the most important, because if I don´t do it, I can´t do much else, and this is why I´m learning to deal with the fact that it sometimes detracts from my ability to complete the other aspects of my job. This story is one of many about how I compromise some of my responsibilities for the PC holy grail of community integration.

The goal of the evening was clear, make three 55 gallon barrels of chicha fuerte for a party on Saturday (chicha fuerte is a the local brew, corn ground and fermented for a few days). My job was to help get the water, which was waiting for us down a hill about half a mile away, in a hole dug next to a creek. Our tools, empty 5 gallon jugs that once contained cooking oil and horses. Now, its been a few years since I´ve ridden a horse, maybe ten, and so I was a little nervous about mounting and "driving" the thing. There was also the fact that the horse was a little smaller than I usually picture a horse, bigger than a carousel, but not by much. Even though I managed to mount the steed relatively gracefully and without incident(I pretty much just stepped over it), I heard everyone chuckling. I think it was because I probably looked like Yao Ming at a petting zoo.

I got the hang of things quickly enough and we´d gone down and back a couple times when it started to get dark. We sat down to take a break and I watched the mist blowing through and the silhouettes of a couple of kids rounding up chickens and throwing them over the fence into the coop. I was tired, satisfied and looking forward to relaxing at home. Around this time my friend Nacho came over and told me that I was done, I could go home, and he and another guy would take care of the last couple loads. My relief was replaced with surprise as I found myself asking if they were sure, that they didn´t need my help, because I´d be happy to stay and haul more water in the dark. They took me up on my offer. I was brought a big cup, filled with the un-fermented corn mixture and water, and I drank it...all. I did this knowing that the water was the same water that I had been getting for a few hours, the same water that came from the hole next to the creek, that was at the bottom of a hill, without many trees, where cows and horses lived. I drank the water knowing that my project is focused on improving the water situation in my community and the understanding of how water borne illness is contracted and spread. I did it, as I´d done many times before and will do many times more I´m sure, because at some point I decided I´ll be much more effective as a health worker if I have their trust and friendship, and that to get that I should drink the chicha.

And so, I finished my cup got back on my horse with a flashlight and totuma (dried gourd bowl) in one hand and the reigns in the other. We started down the hill, in the dark, and I debated another strategic dilemma. Does the same logic of drinking the water apply to riding horses down steep, muddy hills in the dark?

It ain't easy being old in the Comarca

At a meeting a week or two ago I met an older gentleman named Julio. Julio is probably around 70 years old. He can´t see well, and he walks with a cane. But as a respected elder in the community he still participates in meetings. This particular meeting was winding down, it was dark and 8 or 9 people were still hanging out just talking. Julio decided it was time to go, he said his goodbyes and started off into the darkness. He had his cane and a flashlight that would shine intermintantly, flashing briefly every couple seconds. Julio was walking toward a barbed wire fence and everyone was well aware that he would need help getting through it, but no one got up with him, the conversation continued seamlessly. The fence was about 30 yards away, I decided to check my watch. We all kept talking, someone would glance over every so often toward the fence. The flashlight would flash from behind a bush or tree and the conversation would continue. Enough time passed for everyone to become immersed in the conversation. Finally someone realized, "oh yeah, julio", they jumped up and shined a light over, he was just arriving at the fence. Someone ran over to help. I checked my watch, to go thirty yards, it had taken well over six minutes, and he was hardly almost there. I left 10 or15 minutes later, and passed Julio and his guide along the way, still not even half way to his house.

Six months in, but who´s counting?

The 5-6 month period is said to be one of the hardest times for most peace corps volunteers. The ¨honeymoon¨ period comes to an end, and you´re left sitting in hammock one day, wondering what exactly the hell it is you´re doing here. Well, I´ve said before that I feel like I´m getting the ¨real¨ peace corps experience, and this was no exception. On the bright side though, I think I´m coming out of it. Ideas and plans are starting to take form and I´m getting ready to launch version 3 or 4 of my master Peace Corps plan. The gist at this point is, less latrines and aqua ducts and more teaching and dropping subtle hints like ¨hey, if you wash that shit off your hands you won´t feed it to your baby later.¨ So I´ll leave the brooding at that and instead tell some of the better stories I´ve got from the last couple months.

Cultural Body Surfing at PML- I can´t remember what the acronym stands for but its a great seminar we invite community members to so we can practice leadership techniques and organizational tools. Its located near this all-inclusive beach resort called the Decameron and after the seminar ended I took my community counterpart down to the beach along with 3 other volunteers and 4 other Panamanians. Demographically we were 4 gringos, 3 Ngobes, 1 Wounaan, and 1 Afro-Antillean. Despite living his whole life on a 60 mile wide isthmus, my counterpart had never been to the beach. We got there and found perfect body surfing waves. We were all swimming and surfing and having a blast, except for my counterpart. Until finally, after about a half hour, he tripped down to his underwear and joined us in the waves. We proceeded to play like a group of grade schoolers in these waves for the next hour. In panama, racism is definitely still a major issue and I´m sure that the Panamanians walking by were wondering how such a group could possibly have come together. When we finally got out, everyone but the gringos were hauling a collection of sea shells to take home as proof of their trip to famous beach. We finished off the afternoon with some cokes and volleyball and on the way home, ice cream bars. All and all, probably one of the coolest experiences I´ve ever had.

Herrera Baseball- Here in Panama, baseball is actually the most popular sport, followed closely by soccer. I went to my first pro game a few weeks ago and had a blast. The game was in Herrera, a province known for being loud and over the top when it comes to sharing their culture. Herrera was also the defending national champion. The stadium was small, or if you prefer, intimate. It reminded me a lot of where the Bakersfield Dodgers played. We got to the game late an the only seats available were the in the first and second row, we had to shell out $3 for them but they were worth it. Inside the atmosphere was intense. A few thousand fans and almost everyone was dressed in yellow and blue, whistles were blowing, and there was a marching band (well drums) going non stop. It felt like a high school state championship game, except with 60 cent beers. The whistles and maracas were constant but whenever the home team scored a run or made an out you´d have thought they just one the world series, and this was the beginning of the season. In the 6th inning the actual home team band showed up (Panamanian time is real). Herrera was winning at that point and I´ll never for get the bass and snare drum going back and forth, bat a tat tat, bom bom bom, bat a tat tat, bom bom bom, 4 or 5 times until they finally joined together to a simultaneous flood of cheers and whistles, you could literally feel it (the beer helped).

Grave Digging- A women died recently, after being sick for a while. The day of the burial I went down to the cemetery and found a group of about ten guys taking turns swinging a pick axe or shoveling. One by one they´d jump into the hole dig or pick for about five minutes, then hop out, take a spot in the shade, and let someone else go. I got a chance, after my friend picked the hole, to shovel. The hole had looked deep, about head high, until I jumped in and saw it came up to mid torso on me. I started shoveling, listening to what I could understand of their conversation about how big we gringos are. I got all the loose dirt out and then took the coa and cut the sides strait, and shoveled a little more. I got out of the hole, and the conversation switched back to Spanish, ¨gracias¨, ¨de nada¨ I said. A little later I watched the procession of the body from the house toward the cemetery and caught a whif of the indescribable smell, of a body that had sat in the Panamanian heat for four days. I walked to the cemetery again and watched as they started filling the grave, first with small logs and leaves, then one by one, ceremonially with the dirt from bare hands.

Other Highlights;

Learning a little Panamanian style guitar with my friend Nacho.

Hanging out in the dark, swinging in hammocks, listening to noises and watching silhouettes run around in in front of the full moon lit sky.

Drinking home brewed Cocoa and talking local politics.

Getting a crazy skin infection that made me look like I got beat up, then finding out that the actual cause is an allergic reaction to mangoes.

Getting a taste of home watching The Big Lebowski.

Switching from a creek a quarter mile away to one almost a mile away, for drinking and bathing.

Getting used to saying things like- ¨nothing´s free in this world¨ and ¨no you can´t have that magazine¨.

Hammock Time

I sit in my big yellow and white stripped canvas hammock. Occasionally a small, hard mango falls from one of the two trees I'm swinging between. Sometimes I feel it bounce off a branch or the rope of the hammock. I read an alternative version of US history, pausing occasionally to ponder it, and sometimes just to look up at the trees and leaves and butterflies that surround me, and zone out. I hear some leaves rustling from the other side of the yard. It's not the usual noise of the chickens, it's people, more than one. My hammock comes up on each side of my head like blinders so that I can only see in one direction. I wait for someone to walk into view. A girl in a green ngagwa appears, then another. They're followed in a line by five or six smaller boys wearing navy blue pants and no shirts. They're all looking at me, and I'm looking at them. We're all smiling. One of them waves and I wave back. Then others wave, I keep waving. Their line turns, now heading away from me, but their eyes, now looking over their shoulders are still focused on me. Another one waves, I wave again. We're all still smiling. They climb through the barbed wire fence and onto the road. I open my book. Another mango falls.

February 20th

Four months after I arrived in my community, I still didn´t have a name in Ngobere. February 20th was chosen for the event, and for more than a month before it was advertised with fliers, word of mouth and even over the radio. Finally the day arrived and I couldn´t wait. I´d spent a few hours writing a speech, in case that was part of the program and I´d had my host mom make a special shirt for me to wear. I was still a little nervous though, the only time I´d seen people meet in my community was when there was food or something being offered.


I spent the morning getting ready and headed over to the health center, just before 10, when things were supposed to start. There were about 30 chairs set up all facing a table. The only people there were my second host family who organized the whole event. I wasn´t surprised, the english class I´ve been teaching typically starts at least an hour late, Panamanian time is no joke. I went across the street to my first house and watched the finishing touches to my shirt and drank some coffee. Later I went over to the center and sat with Serefin and hung out. They brought me a totumba (dried half of a gourde) of chicha fuerte (basically corn wine) to sample to make sure it was good. The bummer was that I´d just found out a couple days before that I had giardia and my stomach was still a little uneasy, I sipped a little and then held the round bottom cup for a half an hour before telling the I wasn´t going to be able to drink more until the ceremony.

At about 11:30 we started wondering, Serefin started telling me that this is the problem here, no one wants to come to meetings, I began to worry that no one was coming, not even my best friend in town was there. At about 11:45 there still wasn´t anyone there and I decided to go over to his house. He was hanging out and invited me to come in and do the same, but at least he was dressed to go out. I told him I couldn´t stay, that they were waiting for me to start, he said he´d be right behind me and I left. When I came back around to the center I saw that the chairs were almost all full and a huge weight lifted from my shoulders. I went across the street and put on my shirt and had the strangest feeling as I walked toward the crowd of people staring at me, that I was about to get married. I sat down at the table in front of them all and stared back. A couple minutes later, I got my face painted, black, like war paint. Eventually we got started.

First I was introduced which transitioned into an aqua duct discussion, the first since I became a volunteer there. Eventually we set a date for the next meeting and I stood up and gave my speech. Then we moved over to the road and they all circled around me. I got another totumba full of chicha fuerte and the cantors stood in front of me and started singing. Chitigaw was the first name they gave me and then, for the balseria, Rrurubon Chorcha. The balseria is a traditional drinking and fighting ceremony that also involves throwing balsa logs at each other, the name they gave me is some kind of cat, from outside of the comarca, that´s apparently very swift and agile. After they gave the name they stood me up to dance, I finished the chicha fuerte and joined the stomping circular dance that moves to the beat of a maraca. After we went for a while and I didn´t mess it up (there´s one move and its only hard after way too much chicha), they started cheering and clapping. Then they served me some traditional food, palm heart soup and bollo (a tamale minus any filling). Then another round of dancing, and one more big cup of chicha. We´d started more than two hours late, but by this time there were around a hundred people watching me, many were even smiling. I sat down and looked at the crowd, feeling as good as I had since coming to town (the chicha helped).

Later I was relaxing at my house, exhausted from the day and being sick. My friend came over and invited me to go with him to visit another house. I agreed, thinking I´d be back in an hour or so, I should have thought about it more when he told me to bring my flashlight. The house was an hour away walking and the visit was a three hour bible study. It was exhausting but worth it because at about nine (an hour later than I probably would have gone to bed otherwise) the full moon started to eclipse.