Saturday, January 31, 2009

Saga of the Salmon

There once was some salmon. They were born in Alaska (or maybe Canada) and swam all over the ocean. One day, they were caught, cut up, and canned. Now they are tasty.

There was a man, living in Panama and working in Peace Corps, who wanted to eat these fish. His wife and another PCV were also interested in eating them. The man requested his friends from Alaska who were planning on visiting to bring these fish down to Panama so that he could eat them. He also wanted some wood bowls from the Great Alaskan Bowl Company.

The friends arrived on Christmas Day 2008, but they were not planning on visiting the man and his wife for many days. They asked where they could put the fish and bowls because the fish needed to be kept cool. The man´s boss suggested the office of the Peace Corps headquarters in Panama City where the friends´plane landed.

The friends tried to go to the office, but when they got out of the cab and saw the building, an armed guard began quizzing them about their activities. Not knowing Spanish, the language of the guard, the friends had trouble communicating this strange task of leaving fish and bowls at the office. The guard decided to get help and an Italian passing by offered to help. He translated for the friends. In the end he offered to hold onto the fish and bowls until the man from Peace Corps Panama could come pick them up. The friends took his name and phone number.

During their travels around Panama, the friends lost the phone number, but remember the Italian´s name. They let the man know the problem, and the man asked his boss for help again. This time, all the boss could offer was to look for the Italian where he was last found, walking passed the office. The man, his wife, and the other PCV were heartbroken about the loss of the fish and the bowls, but such is life.

The friends had their visit to the man´s site and left the next day. They had a good time and the man and his wife enjoyed their visit very much. Their only regret was that it was so short a time for a visit because the friends wanted to see more of Panama and the man and his wife had meetings and work to do. They knew that the kind Italian would enjoy the fish and bowls and that these things would not go to waste.

The day the friends were to board their plane to go back to Alaska, one decided that they should look for the Italian. Another considered this a bad idea and a waste of time. How would they ever find this Italian again? Nevertheless, they returned to the office...and immediately saw the Italian walking down the street! He welcomed them back and gave them back the fish and the bowls that he was still keeping for them. He was a very nice Italian.

The friends were overjoyed. They called the man and spread the joy to the man, his wife, and the other PCV. They were all happy to hear that the fish and bowls would be theirs again. The friends dropped off the fish and bowls at the office with notes to say who they were to go to. The friends then returned to Alaska on their plane.

The other PCV went to Panama City a short time later for work that she had to do. She wanted to pick up the fish and the bowls for the man and his wife, and for herself too. Unfortunately, she could not because she got too sick to leave her hotel room except for her necessary work. She could not go to the office. The fish and the bowls had to stay at the office a little while longer.

An office staffer came out to the regional meeting of the man, his wife, and the other PCV. He could have brought the fish and the bowls, but he did not. Still the fish and the bowls are at the office. The man and his wife have begun to wonder if these fish and bowls were ever really intended for them or if fate has some other purpose for them. The man and his wife have begun to wonder if the fish and the bowls every really existed at all.

(Stay turned for the continuation of the Saga of the Salmon)

The good life...

We´re still here, we´ve just been being ¨really good¨ volunteers and spending all of our time in our site, and neglecting this thing called the Internet. I heard it was a series of tubes or something...

So, where do we start... We are living in our own home now! And we´re very happy about that. We´ve had some time to get things settled, although we´ve been in the house for a month now and still don´t have a bed that can sleep both of us, nor a table, a bench, or anything to keep our clothing bags off the floor. But we can cook for ourselves, and that´s a lot. Thank you Kraft, for exporting Macaroni and Cheese. It really is the cheesiest.

Here are some pictures of the inside and outside of our home. It´s basically an 18 foot by 20 foot wood box with a zinc roof and a tiny window. Our floor is dirt (boo), and we share our home with an assortment of cockroaches, scorpions, other bugs, and the occasional chicken that sneaks in.

On the work front, we´ve been busy. We´ve got meetings scheduled for almost everyday, and our calendar for February is already full. We hold a lot of meetings with groups in our community, but we also hike (for many hours sometimes) to visit other communities and work with other groups. We feel fortunate to have so many groups so excited to work with us, and at last count, we´ve met with 22 different groups, and many of those several times. We´re starting to get a feel for their needs, and now we´re getting down to writing some ¨charlas¨ or presentations, to give to groups to teach about numerous subjects and themes. I think the best part of our job is where we live. It´s gorgeous country, the people are amazing, and we feel really well suited to be working where we are, with the groups we are.

It´s not all meetings though, and we do get time to play with the kids that live near us, or to go on a hike to check out a new spot. This last week we headed off to climb up Peña Blanca, a large, imposing mountain we can see from our community. It took nearly 4 hours to get to the base of the mountain from a friend´s community, and from the base, another hour up, on the craziest trail I´ve ever seen. Most of it was through very dense jungle, ripping at your head, face, legs, anything. I got trapped and tripped by vines at almost every step. Much of it was also along a cliff, so you had to grab at anything above you to stay on trail – which led to quite a few scratches, holes in my hands, and bruises. When we emerged from the jungle, we went straight up, up, up and there we were – the top! I´m guessing it may be nearly 2,800 meters in altitude (I´ll let you do the math). The views were amazing, you could see miles in nearly every direction, and quite a bit of the Pacific ocean. If you want to see more pictures, check out my (Lisa´s) facebook page.

So many things have been going on for the last 3+ weeks, so I´ll try to pick a few stories to share before signing off.

One interesting experience was a hike to Canoa for a meeting with a small group of farmers. We took off from our town in the morning, and didn´t know where we were meeting up with our group, so when we got in Canoa, we asked around. First we ran into a guy we see a lot, who asked me how to say ¨This place is beautiful¨ in English several times, and then regaled us with a tale of American soldiers being in there community in the past when Noriega was in power. He apparently armed the Ngobe people in the area and asked them to defend him, but when the soldiers arrived, the Ngobe´s didn´t want anything to do with this battle. Interesting story, and eventually we got the guy to guide us to the man we were meeting with. We get there (after learning the name for every tiny hill, valley, and anything else notable along the trail), and then head off with a guy from the group we were meeting. He has a machete, a gun and a horse, and leads us off onto a tiny trail into the jungle, us walking in front of him. And we keep getting deeper and deeper into the jungle, the trail keeps splitting, and I keep asking which way to go. The trails almost seem to double back on themselves, but we keep going, and going.

Eventually, we´re both privately wondering where were going, when we´ll get there, and wondering why he´s got a machete and a gun, with 2 gringos in the lead. Ambush? Nah. It got even more curious as he pointed out the cemetery to us – on our left. Then we get into a section of even denser jungle, where you can´t even see where you´re placing your feet, and then we´re there. At a house, and a farm, and we get ready for a meeting. And the meeting was great! The people were so enthused that someone finally came to visit them, and to offer support and hope. An interesting and memorable experience!

On the health side, we´re doing well (other than a wicked case of gas I have now after eating some rich food in David), but we did get to try to pull a bot fly larvae out from between the toes of a cat recently. We noticed that the cat had a sore, a sore with a worm. It kept poking it´s little head out for air, so we thought it was small, and if we covered the air hole, we could grab it and pull it out. We tried, and tried, for over an hour, to no avail. The next day, the locals put poison on the wound, killing the worm and then pulled it out. It was HUGE. Google the bot fly if you really want to see what I´m talking about. Ben wants one. OY.

Speaking of Ben - He´s quite hairy. I think that says it all. Check out any recent pictures of his beard for proof. He´s also getting quite skinny. Even cooking for ourselves now, we just don´t have the appetites that we used to. I guess 2 months of white rice, and hiking a lot almost everyday are a pretty good weight loss regime.

That´ll probably be all for now, but we should be on more frequently. We´ve got some more training coming up soon, and more time in the land of electricity and connectivity!





















Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Feliz Año

Feliz Año is how you wish someone a Happy New Year (Feliz Navidad = Merry Christmas), and we are really looking forward to a great one. This year of 2009 will be our only full year in the Peace Corps, supposing as I do that at the end of two years we´ll be dying to have our first baby and our work with the Ngobe will be so successful that they won´t need any more help from volunteers. Here are a few things we are looking forward to over the next dozen months.

We have moved into our own shack and are having fun outfitting it. Setting up a home on a Peace Corps budget is only slightly less taxing on the finances as it is back in the states. Although we lack the urge to have everything that makes our lives a little easier, it is still not cheap to buy a bunch of new stuff when you have very little income. We need to find a whole kitchen set including a stove and storage containers (strong enough that rats and cockroaches can´t chew through), build our own kitchen table and bed-table-thing, and pick up a load of new, dry food to get started. Luckily, I´m happy to buy some new tools, albeit the cheapest on the rack.

Lisa has been very easy-going about going without, I think because she is so excited about having complete control over our food and meal times. She is happily planning on cooking with only one pot, one frying pan, and one burner. We have not been able to find a gas stove with an addition oven built in, but that hasn´t dampened her mood one bit. So far, we´ve had two dinners in our house, and both involved macaroni and cheese. Somehow, we forgot the white rice!

Even without express permission, it looks like we might be able to build our own house, if we are so inclined. It also appears that the prices might be low enough for us to afford the raw materials. While we only have a few months left of summer in which to complete the building, one doesn´t need as solid a structure in the topics as we would back in the temperate zone.

The Ngobes in our immediate area really seem to be taking a liking to us, and us to them. We are finding friends in all the surrounding communities, and so far we´ve managed not to disappoint them. Of course, our work is just getting started and we´ve hardly had a chance to demonstrate all of our skills and determination, but it all still looks promising. Each day, our calendar is filling up more and more. Its getting to the point now that people are realizing they can´t just pick a day on their own before talking to us because it´s not likely to be free. And these are all just getting-to-know-your-organization meetings.

And speaking of friends, not a week had gone by in the new year and already we had some Estadounidense (Americans) come and visit. Ian, Josh, and Scott from Fairbanks, Alaska made the trip down for Christmas and New Years, and we were able to meet up with them at the Interamericana. Actually, they had already arrived from an adventure in Bocas del Toro in their own rental car while we did not get back from a New Years Eve and New Years Day visit to our old host family from Santa Clara until midnight.

The next day, we headed up to our site and showed them around. They got to meet a few Ngobe, try out a meal or two, some Seco, and see a bare-shirted, bare-knuckle fist fight. Scott even spotted the first scorpion in our new house, and it had eggs when we chopped it open. It was really fun to sit back and tell stories by candlelight and by under the bright, unobstructed stars. It was the kind of thing that only .05% of tourists will ever get to see; the Comarca Ngobe-Buglé is still not listed in travel books so most don´t even ever hear of it. Of course, there are very little amenities that travelers are used to. We had a ball anyway, and thanks guys for bringing the booze and cigars!

We are also looking forward to other trips from friends and family. While most are still in the early scheduling planning stages, Lisa´s parents have bought their tickets for April. Hopefully by then our Spanish will be passed the most painful stage (really, it feels like that is already passing) because they have some elaborate plans of seeing much of the highlights this little country has to offer, and they want us to tag along! We are really looking forward to seeing some more of the historical or ritzy parts of Panamá.

We certainly are anticipating an exciting and productive year ahead of us. Hopefully, you guys out there have as much in front of you. Of course, if you need a little adventure, get a hold of us and arrange a trip to the end of Central America. We are down here and would love to share it with you.