Homesick for Holidays

With Halloween gone and Thanksgiving around the corner, I have been feeling so homesick.  I imagine cold autumn wind biting into my nose, walking with a scarf tucked into my red plaid pea coat; the smell of pumpkin spice, hot chocolate and baked goods in a warm café with soft jazz playing; waking up in my parents’ house and padding downstairs in multiple socks, flannel pants and a sweatshirt to eat a breakfast of frosted mini wheats (or if I’m lucky, Dad’s pancakes!) in our yellow kitchen with Christmas music in the background.  I miss talking to my parents over Scrabble after dinner, joking with my best friends at Kayak’s Café, or taking walks in Forest Park, feeling winter settle in and hoping for snow flakes to fall from the battleship sky.

Of course, I can expect none of that here.  Sometimes, if I lay in my bed with earplugs in, I can imagine that there aren’t a dozen chickens looking for breakfast outside my window and, if it’s chilly after a night’s rain, I can pretend like I’m at home in the cold.  But most of the time, it’s hard to picture Christmas here, in the oppressive, humid heat, the steady 12-hour days (6am to 6pm), típico music with accordion and drums playing everywhere, and complete lack of pumpkin lattés or need for a hot drink to warm me up.

                I have been doing what I can to spice things up.  I hung twinkle lights in the rancho behind my house with my hammock, though that was mostly to replace the broken light bulb as much to create a warm ambience.  A friend of mine gifted me an extra zapallo he had – a squash resembling an overgrown acorn squash with the insides of a butternut and the flavor of a pumpkin – which I have turned into quite a successful pumpkin bread.  Of course, since I only have a range top and no chickens, I have had to use my neighbors’ ovens and eggs.  Being generous Panamanians, they are more than happy to help me out.  With anything, for that matter – just today I was given two lunches, a handful of tiny bananas, a large papaya, several green plantains, and milk.  I sometimes suspect it’s because I live all alone and have no one else to help me take care of things.  The women frequently tell me that they would hate to have to cook for just themselves, so much work for just one person.  The prospect of living without one’s family is inconvenient, at best, and sleeping alone is terrifying.  The only people who live alone are those that have no other place to stay.  I was told, upon moving into my house, that I should invite the neighbor’s daughter to come sleep in the extra room so that I wouldn’t have to sleep alone.  I responded by saying that my neighbor’s two dogs and my cat are keeping me company.

                In general, it’s hard to imagine autumn in this weather.  Although this rainy season has been inconsistent and unsatisfying, it lingers with sticky humidity clinging like saran wrap without the relief of a cleansing downpour.   When it does rain it’s a blessing – the skies turn grey-white, blank with no depth, and the storm will bring in a wind that can chill sweated skin to the bone in a matter of seconds.  At times it will roll thunder in great grey clouds above, trees half bent in the wind that sounds like the rain itself, and then it will pour buckets.  Other times the breeze is softer, accompanied by a constant, soothing rain that lasts for hours, but chills off the day leaving me with the urge to make tea.  But a lot of the times, it will threaten like all get-out, and then drop nothing.  Or worse, it will tease you, pretending it will rain cats and dogs, but then stop after a minute or two, leaving the air thicker than ever. 

               

                Of course, for Thanksgiving all the volunteers get together to celebrate in the coldest area of the country – in Chiriquí in the mountains that surround the dormant volcano, Volcán Baru.  I have been told to expect all the traditional food: turkey, sweet potatoes, gravy, and (dare I hope?) cranberry sauce.  This week I taught my kids about Thanksgiving, using the Three Sisters planting technique (pretty awesome, check it out!) for an environmental agriculture aspect and having them draw hand turkeys.  It amazed me to see them choosing blue, black, yellow and green for their turkeys, rather than my expected orange, yellow, brown and red.  Some even chose red, white and blue as a nod to el mes de la Patria.  For Panamanians, the month of November is not the waiting period to put up your Christmas decoration, but rather the month of Flag Day, Independence Day, and Separation from Colombia Day.  Starting on November 3 and lasting until pretty much November 30, Panama celebrates one party after another.  Trying to be efficient, I suppose, they have three large national holidays on November 3 through 5, honoring their separation from Colombia and the Panamanian flag.  November 10 is the Cry of Independence, November 28 is Independence Day, and November 30 is Teacher’s Day (which the teachers, naturally, take off).  To top it all off, November 27 is the day of my community’s patron saint, La Medalla Milagrosa, which is considered a local holiday.  Suffice it to say that the school calendar is pretty much shot.  Of course, school lets out for summer after the second week of December, so no one’s heart is really in it from November onward, including the teachers, who are more than happy to let their pretty white Peace Corps Volunteer use up an hour of the 5-hour school day to teach their kids how to draw hand turkeys.

                Some things haven’t changed for me this year despite the shift in climates.  For one, I still got a pretty heavy head cold this month.  Having a cold in a hot climate was a different experience however.  Instead of the urge to bundle up in sweatshirts and sweatpants, I lay on my hammock sweating, not sure whether the heat was from the day or from an oncoming fever.  But, as soon as the slightest breeze would blow through, I would get chilled.  Luckily, citruses are in season, so I could eat 4 to 5 oranges, mandarins and tangerines a day for some extra vitamin C.

                Another thing that hasn’t changed:  like in college, I find myself very busy with the end of the year arriving, but my motivation slowly abating.  I am so tired, and so excited for my family to come visit, that I am having trouble staying focused on the events going on in my community.  Four weeks until I go pick up my family at the airport!  I am trying to be active – I bake bread with my women’s group, for whom I am organizing a business seminar to teach them some basic business practices; I go to school and teach Environmental Education, English and Agriculture class; I am trying to start a youth club; I turn compost with the men who make compost and are growing a community garden; and I constantly attend social events.  But I really just want to stay home in my hammock, watch my cat play with her new avocado peel toy, read a good book, work in my garden, experiment with recipes and make pumpkin baked goods.

Food

 After plucking out the feathers of the chicken, they have to put it over a fire to make sure all the feather pieces come out

 They eat all the chicken here - even the liver and things

 My host grandfather picking a fruit here called guava (not what we think of as guava in the U.S., see below)

 This is what they called guava here - the black things are the seeds, and the white things next to the seeds are the seeds with the pulp around them . You suck the white part off and eat it, and spit out the black seed.

 Mangoes!

 grated coconut

 Maranon cruzado - it's a fruit that tastes roses

 This is called changa - it's made from newly-harvested corn.  They blend it up and put it in a banana leaf and put it over the fire (left).  It comes out looking like the one on the right.

 On the left is the grind up corn and on the right are corn husks filled with that mixture.  They boil it and eat it.

 These are hojaldres - basically fried bread

 Taking dried corn off the cob - they then feed it to chickens or make it into a tortilla

 Passionfruit

 pixfae - it's a fruit from a palm tree that is boiled with salt and eaten.

 This is how they pick pixfae from the palm tree - they use a long stick with a hook at the end and try to catch it with a big tarp















Four different types of bananas

Peeling coffee with a heavy stick -  they mash the dried coffee beans until the peels come off and all that is left is the bean that they then roast.

What goes up must come down

This past Saturday was the follow-up meeting to the community analysis meeting I had held back at the end of June.  Then, my boss had come to community and I had spent a whole week planning the meeting and walking around inviting everyone personally to come.  During the meeting, I had presented them with proof in the form of a jeopardy game that I had in fact been doing something for the first three months when all I was doing was getting to know the community.  I had also divided them into small groups to list some of the environmental projects that they wanted to do to improve their community, but out of the many ideas they listed we hadn´t had enough time to actually pick one or two to actually begin working on.  So last week, I did it all again – I planned a meeting and I walked to as many of the 150 plus houses in my community as I could to invite them.

            Now, those of you who have been reading my blog will know that I have been really happy.  And this past week was no exception.  I gave successful environmental education talks at the school, I took care of the school garden, I met with the newly-formed women´s group to teach them how to make banana bread and identify their values, vision and mission statements, I had finally gotten my kitten to keep me sane, and in general I felt confident and comfortable in my community.  The morning before my meeting I went to the nearest town to buy supplies to make the customary bríndis, or meeting snack, and baked banana bread with my neighbor (since she has an oven and I do not).  The meeting was set for 4pm, but I left my house after lunch to drop off my stuff at the school where the meeting was to be held and set things up.  I then headed to the house of a woman who had offered to paint my toenails for the baile the next day.  As I walked to her part of my community, I started to get butterflies in my stomach.  Due to the nature of my community, there are large stretches of road with few to no houses, and as I past by fields planted with corn and pastures of cows under the heat of the sun, the thought of leading a meeting all by myself weighed on my mind.  And what if no one came?

            At my friend’s house, they asked me about my meeting.  What activities was I going to do?  What projects was I going to hand out?  Could everyone participate still?  Despite the fact that I had posted signs on all the local tiendas, they didn’t know what time the meeting started, which did not make me feel any better.  But when I left, they indicated that they would show up, if for no other reason than to eat the banana bread I had made.

            Hora panameña refers to the fact that Panamanians are almost always late, so when 4pm rolled around and no one had shown up, I told myself to just be patient.  But when 4:30 came and I was still the only one in the school, my stomach dropped.  At my last meeting there had been a few people who had at least shown up on time.  Today, there was no one.  A boy had paused in front of the school and just stared at me as I prepared the room.  I invited him in, but he just looked at me mutely before disappearing.  Finally, a handful of people started trickling in.  We sat in the front of the school waiting for anyone else.  Due to the chronic tardiness, Panamanians are used to just sitting around and waiting for things to start.  They talked about the weather, the baile, and upcoming birthdays.  At some point, one of them mentioned that I should have put the time at 3pm so that people would have shown up at 4pm, something I heard from everyone I had invited.  Another mentioned that everyone was always on time for mass.  When mass was at 11am, people showed up at 11am, because otherwise they would miss the mass.

            Finally, an hour late I started the meeting with the handful of people who had come.  We talked about the different projects we could work on and then we all voted.  In the end, the projects were ranked eco-stoves, waste management and then reforestation.  I wonder how the vote would have come out if more men had come.

            As we walked back, I was lost in my thoughts.  What could I have done differently?  People will show up when my boss comes, but when it comes time to supporting me, just me, no one bothers to come.  Even the family who had painted my toenails earlier hadn’t come, and I had just told them about it.  I was so frustrated, so down.  I felt like I had failed, like I was a joke.  Why else would everyone else in the community blow off my meeting?

            I don’t know what the people talked about as we walked home.  I was in no mood to chit chat.  I heard one of my companions call to a woman who had not attend that we women had won, meaning that the women had outnumbered the men and would get their improved cook stoves.  After about 15 minutes of walking, one of the ladies said to me “Are you getting sad?  Don’t get sad, I am here to support you.  Lots of people here support you.  You have to just keep going forward.”  There is a saying here, echarse pa’delante, which literally means throw yourself forward, and they use it to mean keep going through tough times.  That’s what she said to me.  Hay que echarse pa’delante.

            I live farther than the rest of the women I was walking with, and after they had all gone to their houses, my neighbor’s son passed me.  Apparently a lot of guys had shown up to play soccer that day, since the afternoon was so pretty.  I should have held the meeting by the soccer field, he said to me. 

Since then, many people have offered me their excuses of why they didn’t go and told me how I should have done the meeting differently.  All the suggestions are a little different, and all the suggestions are most convenient for the person offering them.  You should have held the meeting in this part of town, one person says, while another says I should have held the meeting in another part of town.  I have to remind myself that the concept of the community members themselves choosing their projects is relatively new.  In the past, all projects have been offered to them by external agencies and organizations without any real consultation of the community.  I also think that day in general was just bad.  Not that Saturday at 4pm is inherently a bad time, but for some reason or another, no one could go when they otherwise would have.  And, of course, I have to remind myself that this is my third meeting I have ever held, and it was the first not to be well-attended.  I just have to keep throwing myself forward and hoping that there will still be people to support me.

Two years is not enough...

Hello!  I know it´s been a while, so I figured I would send out another update.  Things are still going really well, now that I have my own house and don´t feel quite so much pressure to be busy every second of the day.  I still don´t have a cat (hopefully next week), but I have adopted my neighbors dogs, and two of my host family´s dogs.  At any point in time, I have at least one dog following me around – to school, to run, to random events – but one of the dogs, Mop (pronounced Mope), has my heart.  I have taught him to sit, and we are currently working on stay.  He hangs out at my house when I am not there and greets me when I arrive.  At night he sleeps under my window outside and barks at anything that comes near.  And in general, he´s just a really sweet dog.  I love him very much!  I am going to buy him flea shampoo soon.

Things are also going well with my service.  My activities and projects are evolving slowly.  I go to the school three times a week to help with agriculture class, and starting next week I will be giving an hour or so of environmental education to 4 of the 6 grades.  I had my first youth fun time – I brought Uno and invited all the kids to play in the community house after school (15 came!  That´s a lot.)  The First Lady´s Dispatch is working in the community teaching people how to have organic gardens by their house (although almost everyone makes a living here through agriculture, very few people grow or eat vegetables) and I have been supporting this project and learning for my own garden.  I am also working with a new women´s group that wants to start a bakery, and my group of men who make organic compost want to start a community vegetable garden.  And I am going to try to work more with the local cooperative, though that is still uncertain.  I am planning on having another meeting with the community to see which of the projects mentioned in the last meeting they want to work on most.  I´m hoping that once I get those projects started, I will feel better. 

For now, I still feel like I am in limbo.   I still say that I have two years left, but really it´s more like one and a half, and that makes me feel frantic.  Time keeps flying by, and I still haven´t done a dozen things I want to do.  I know I am the first volunteer here, so I am not expected to move mountains or anything, but I want to move mountains.  And two years is really not enough.  All the other volunteers say that the first year is practice.  You experiment with different activities, different levels of participation, different projects, and by the second year you really have your groove down.  You know what you want to do and what the community will do with you.  So I have about seven more months to experiment with stuff, and figure out how much I want to be in the school, in the different community groups.  One thing I have learned here is patience.  I have learned how to feel things out, watch ideas and activities evolve, and to nudge them in the desired direction.

For now, I am still enjoying my time with the people here.  They have a great sense of humor and are so generous.  I continue to receive gifts of eggs, yucca, plantains, cucumbers and fruit.  And now that I have my own house, people have started to visit me, so I give them coffee, juice and cookies.  Despite the bouts of homesickness I still feel for cafés, good pizza, brownies, and a night life, the people here make it so that I never really want to go home.  For now, my home is here.

Traveling

For the first three months of service, volunteers are not allowed to leave their site, the purpose being for them to really invest in their community and fully integrate.  My three months ended in June, and for the fourth of July I went to the beach with a bunch of other volunteers to celebrate.  It was a really good time – there was swimming time, ultimate Frisbee time, relaxing time, and for dinner there were chili dogs and sparklers.  The beach was on the Pacific side and was long and straight.  At night the tide was low and the moon was full, leaving a wide stretch of wet beach that looked like glass in the moonlight.

            Since the July fourth celebration was kind of far from my site and it was only a little farther to the mountains of Chiriquí, I decided to go see some friends and hike up Volcán Barú, the highest point in Panama.  A fellow volunteer who lives near the volcano found me and my friends a guide to take us up the mountain from her community, and he brought along three youth from the community as well – a 16-year-old girl who was going up for the first time, and two brothers (14 and 16) who had already gone up four times before.  Our guide was training the 14-year-old to be a guide as well, but they were all going up for fun.  As with all traumatic events, my memory has blocked out the near-death experiences and I look back on the trip fondly.  In a few more months I may even be able to convince myself to go again.

            It started out so promising, beginning the hike at 6am, with good spirits and carrying as little as possible.  We were told to prepare for a cold night at the top, with some warm clothes and food, so when I first put on my backpack I hardly noticed the weight.  The first three hours we were walking on a narrow trail through a beautiful cloud forest in the mountain.  We refilled our water bottles with cold and delicious spring water our guide showed us along the hike.  We rested periodically and ate peanuts and looked at the bamboo and tall trees, listening to birds.  We were starting to get tired when we burst forth into our first picturesque view of the surrounding tree-covered mountains, with the town where we started cradled below us in a valley.  At this point, we thought the hike was challenging, but not too difficult.  Then, after four hours, we left the montaña and entered the part of the hike that was the actual volcano, which was a combination of steep uphill hiking and rock climbing.

One thing that we learned was the difference in how Panamanians view time, and how Americans view time.   For the next four hours, whenever we asked our guides how much further they said ¨poco, just around that wall way up there and then a little further.¨  Unfortunately, one of my friends got sick (what with altitude, questionable hotdogs the night before, and lack of sleep), and I spent a lot of the next four hours coaxing him up the mountain.  The guides were extremely patient and kind.  They refused to leave us (though I´m pretty sure I heard the brothers say to each other that if we were Europeans we would have already arrived), gave encouraging words, and one even pulled my friend along with strap of his backpack.  Of course, my friend was not the only one suffering – I used his frequent breaks to cover for my own slow pace and to recover from my lack of breath (there´s not a lot of oxygen on top of a volcano), light-headedness, and the constant feeling of lactic acid in my legs.  Then, as I was sitting with my friend, trying to get a little more energy to go ten steps farther and contemplating how terrible it would be if I dropped my water bottle (or myself) down the mountain, we heard a shout and watched as the backpack of my other friend (who was much farther ahead of us) began tumbling down. And down. And down.  We did, I am glad to report, make it up the mountain in one (albeit exhausted) piece with all of our belongings – the 14-year-old trotted down the mountain to retrieve the fallen backpack and caught up to us before we trudged all the way to the top.

            That night we stayed in the bunker at the base of some radio towers.  We all went to sleep immediately (2pm) and renewed our metabolism with Ramen Noodle Soup (good old Ramen, helps out every time).  There was perfect signal for the TV in the bunker, so I got to watch my telenovela (score!).  But the best part was the next day, when we hiked to the tip top to watch the sunrise.

WOW.

They put a cross at the highest point (very common here), and there were a bunch of other people who had come to witness the event as well.  A lot of people actually leave around midnight to hike to the top and then come right back after sunrise without sleeping (how????).  It was on the way down, of course, that we discovered there was a dirt road that went all the way to the top.  Our guide said that he preferred the other, more difficult path, because there are rocks and plants and handholds to help pull you up the volcano, rather than a steady and relentless incline you can only walk up.  Since I had already started to forget how much pain I was in the day before, I agreed with him.  Also, since the worst part was over, walking downhill felt like a piece of cake.