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!