Since my last post I have finished my training, moved into my new community, started working on projects, made an amazing garden and become frustrated often, for various reasons. These life events will be summarized below.
Pre Service Training
Training was a magical time full of refrigerated beverages, mattresses, occasional cold beers, cell phone service and a diet consisting of more than starch vegetables and rice (yucca, ñame, guineo (green banana), otoe (taro), daichin and more boiled green bananas is my general diet now - all are starchy white root "vegetables"). In general it was a time to learn about Panama, learn not enough Spanish, meet the awesome people in my group and generally get excited about where we are going to be spending the remaining part of two years. My host family was great and in general it was a good experience that acclimated us somewhat to our new lives. That time, is over. The work has begun.
The First Two Months In-Site
I got lucky in my site placement and basically have one of the most beautiful, interesting and (God bless it) not overwhelming hot sites in the country. The town is called Guabal in the district of Santa Fe in the province of Veraguas. Google it and be jealous (well, Google Santa Fe, Guabal wont show up). I am living with a host family until December 1st when I move into my new four bedroom house (yes, four bedrooms, when are you coming to visit?). Granted a bedroom here is just a small, sectioned off area with chainsaw cut boards creating a bit of privacy, but it means I have a lot of space to work with. I may turn one into an office; an office without electricity, internet or cell reception, but an office none-the-less. A sort of contemplation-space type of office.
The host family is great in my site (different from the host family during training). Four brothers, a sister, a sister in law and a nephew all live in the house with the parents. I have my own room, which I think they kicked the 15 year old out of to make space for me because the walls are covered with newspaper clippings of women in bathing suits. After two months in the jungle, I occasionally catch myself staring. Most of the family either sleeps on the floor or on wood slats raised off the ground. Spending a few months in the campo (Spanish for rural areas, boonies, middle of no where) is bound to make any white US citizen feel like a well pampered poodle.
Most of my time over the last couple of months in site has been divided between getting to know my community, learning about the wants and needs of the community to figure out what type of work I can do over the next two years, and building my garden/ mini-farm. It is social acceptable and expected here that a newcomer such as myself, basically just walks up to each house, yells “Buuueeeenas,” which is the equivalent of “’mornin” or”howdy” and promptly makes themselves at home on the porch while starting a conversation about the weather. That took some time to get used to.
I have started to work with the local cooperative and have gotten requests from local farmers to do presentations on natural pest management strategies for fungal problems and a worm that decimates banana and platano trees. That’s still in the works. It has been nice to have people come up to me and ask frankly for help with certain things. It makes me feel like I can actually do some productive work here.
And my garden! She is a beauty. I took a piece of hill side covered in waist high grass and turned it into a terraced, trellised piece of art (see the pics!). I have built eight large terraces, cleared two large sections of hillside for corn and beans, built a greenhouse with two large beds and made a seed bed for starting plants before transplanting. I am also almost finished with a hydraulic pump made out of PVC and check valves that uses the force of the stream to run water uphill without electricity or any type of motor. It’s pretty cool. I am planning on setting up a drip irrigation system in my greenhouse with it - GOML G75 SASers. The projects I will be doing have not been figured out yet, but I am excited to get going with something. More to come on the projects in the next post.
On a more personal level, being the lone gringo in a small town in the jungle can often times feel pretty isolating. Coupled with me still learning Spanish and often not understanding exactly what’s going on around me, can be hard. Luckily there is another volunteer who I get to see on a semi regular basis so I get to let off steam in English with him. A person smarter than myself told me the days seem to last forever and the weeks fly by. Truer words have never been spoken. I definitely miss my friends and family in the US, so please send me an email, message, comment here or something to keep in touch, it would be much appreciated! Also send me something in the mail! My address is under the contact tab.
I will share some stories about jaguars, bravo (aggressive) turkeys, tree frogs and various types of excrement in my next post. Be excited!