Getting to know my new home

This week I spent my first week in my new site!  We only came to visit for a few days to get to know it and the people.  We still have two more weeks of training, discussion about the site and the next two years, and closure, but it has been a really great week.  Before I arrived, all I really knew about my community is that it was big (around 1200 people), had electricity, running water all the time, and cell phone reception.  I also knew that it had a lot of agriculture, but I was worried that with all these amenities I wouldn’t have the real “Peace Corps experience” – you know, roughing it in a poor foreign community with no water or light.  Now, after visiting my site, I’m not worried about having that experience anymore.

                My community is extremely rural.  When they said agriculture, they meant it.  Pretty much everyone has a farm, cattle and at least one horse, and everyone has chickens and fruit trees.  It comes complete with latrines, unreliable water, cockroaches, and free fruit every day.  For four days I walked (and one afternoon rode horseback) around my community with my community guide, a man who was designated to help me get to know not only the people but how to get around without getting lost or offending people.  After four days of walking around, I still don’t know everyone, which is a little overwhelming.  The first day I spent getting to know everyone, I walked all day, spoke Spanish until my brain went numb, and came back cranky and really overwhelmed with all the names and faces I was forgetting, but I felt like it would be ok because I thought I had reached half of the community.  The second day, Monday, I went to visit the school.  On the wall is a large painted map of the community, and I realized that instead of walking around half of the community, I had really only met a fourth of it.  This place is huge!  And it’s really spread out, because all the houses have land that they work.  I’m still a little concerned about the size, but mainly because I want to get to know everyone as well as I can, and I’m worried that won’t happen.  But, as I told everyone I met, I love my community because the views are beautiful, the people are friendly, and everything is tranquilo.  Dental care and hygiene are lacking, but generosity and familial love are in abundance.

                In Panama, there exists the custom of pasear-ing.  Pasear is where people go to other people’s houses to visit, and they typically do more than one house because everyone sits on their front porch and everyone knows each other.  It is also customary that when someone pasears at your house, you offer them food or drink.  This is typically how a typical visit would go for me in my first days in my community:

                I walk towards a house with an open door with my guide.  We shout “Buenas!” (hello) and wait for someone to appear and tell us to come in (typically their front porch) and they either stand up and offer us their seat or they find a seat to give us.  Sit down, they say.  They themselves lean against the wall or the door frame.  Everyone who is in the house stops what they are doing to come join us.  We shake hands and I tell them my name and that I am the new volunteer here.  Luckily for me, there were two other volunteers here about 10 years ago and one of them was very loved and walked around a lot, so they know what Peace Corps is.  How long have I been here, how do I like the community?  I say yes, it’s very beautiful, very tranquil.  They agree, but it’s so hot!  It’s so sunny here.  Aren’t I from the cold?  Well, I say, I’m from Texas, and it’s a lot like here: hot, dry, with lots of agriculture.

                It’s true, this place has a lot of hills with brownish grass, since it hasn’t rained since December.  There are a lot of trees, also fading to brown because of the summer here.  There is always a breeze, though, which helps alleviate the heat.  I mention this to my host, and they agree.  We then lapse into a silence, in which my hosts lean against the wall or door and stare out into the distance.  I, too, look out into the distance, look at the trees, try to think of something to say, or, more commonly, let my mind wander.  It’s quiet because there are no cars and the houses are spread out.  Some houses have music or the TV on, but mostly you just hear the wind blowing strongly through the trees, the clucking of the chickens, and birdsong.  A child that’s too young for school peaks out from behind the door frame, but when you ask their name, they are too shy to tell you.

                My host then tells me that there was another volunteer here, what was her name?  Oh yes, Amy, similar to my name, Emily.  Amy, she was so caring, she did a lot for the community.  She helped build the communal house, she was always walking around.  I ask if they knew her well.  Oh yes, she spent a lot of time here, many years.  My guide says she was here for two years.  My host agrees, adding again that she was so caring. 

We lapse into another silence.  It’s hot out, but we are sitting in the shade so the breeze takes the heat away.  Dogs are scattered about, lying on their side.  Hens and chicks of all ages and sizes wander around, pecking at the ground.  I ask about their families.  How many children do they have?  What about siblings?  Do they all live here still?  What are they doing now?  They answer, but the silences keep coming, more comfortable each time.  They like to just sit with each other for hours, sometimes with long, deep conversations, other times not saying anything.  Eventually, my host will either ask if I want something to drink and will give me water or chicha (juice) or soda.  Finally, we say we have to meet more people, and they say, oh yes of course.  But before we leave, they give us something to take with us, either a bag of oranges or guandu, the bean that happens to be in season.  Next time come and stay longer, they tell me.  Come spend the day, and we can cook food.  I say, of course, I look forward to it, and we move on to the next house.

I’ve actually gotten a lot of food this way.  Every day I have come back to my host family carrying bags of plantains, oranges, guandu, and eggs, pieces of cakes or cookies, bottles of coke, or boxes of juice.  If I keep this up, I won’t have to go to the grocery store.  Everyone here is so caring and excited for me to be here, and they all seem to want to take care of me.  I’m definitely not complaining – I feel really welcome here and I love it!

Here are some highlights:

                The first night I arrived to my site, my host family took me to the provincial capital (about 2 hours in bus) to attend the birthday celebration of a four-year-old cousin.  It was pretty chill at first, just hanging out, getting to know the family.  But when we went to the party, I realized they had gone all out.  As they say here, they had thrown the house through the window.  They had rented out a communal house and there were about 40 little tables set up for all the guests.  There were three piñatas, snacks, dinner and a cake, a popcorn machine, a hired entertainer for the kids, a DJ and sound system, fireworks and, since it was Carnaval themed, they had hired a band to play music while the birthday girl, decked out in a fancy, and probably pricey, Carrnaval outfit came dancing into the venue surrounded by her family.  I asked one of my host cousins if this was a common practice for birthdays to be this big, and she said that for the quinceañera, yes.  For four years, not so much.  It was pretty fun though.  The band is called a murga and consisted of a saxophone, two trumpets, two trombones, a snare and a bass drum.  The music is aggressively cacophonous, but contagiously festive.  It made me want to cover my ears and dance at the same time.  And of course everyone was family to this girl so everyone was supportive and loving.  It was a pretty good time.

I went to the river with a few people, though I didn’t swim because the pants I was wearing would never have stayed on if they were wet, so instead I sat on the rocks and watched the other swim.  We had popsicles with us and I asked them to put their trash into a plastic bag I had.  I only meant to throw away the trash that we brought in, but as we walked back eventually all the kids were running around picking up trash from the side of the road an putting it into my plastic bag.  When that bag was full, they found a plastic bag that was on the side of the road and started using that instead.  In the end I was carrying four bags of trash.  While this moment was extremely exciting for me as an environmentalist, I’m still realistic – the next day I saw them throwing the popsicle wrappers on the ground.  Poco a poco, bit by bit.

My host family has a latrine outside of the house, so they gave me a bucket to use to pee in during the night so I wouldn’t have to go outside in the cold.  Let me add that the walls in the house do not go all the way to the ceiling and that you can pretty much hear everything throughout the house.  So when I woke up in the middle of the night needing to use the latrine, after much deliberation I decided to try using the bucket...and quickly stopped.  It was so loud! I was certain that I was waking everyone up with the thunderous waterfall, so after more deliberation, I chose to just sneak outside and use the latrine.  But I knew that this would happen again and I needed to get used to using a bucket if I was going to live with them for three months, so when I woke up in the middle of the second night, I tried again.  It was still a thunderous waterfall, but it couldn’t be helped.  I was so embarrassed, but I just hoped that they wouldn’t wake up.  The thing is, they all do it.  I’ve woken up to the sound of someone else’s thunderous waterfall, but no one talks about it.  And if they do, it’s not a big deal.  I suppose that if you could hear everyone else in the house using a bucket all your life, you wouldn’t think it was a big deal.  Just me, with my need for an American private bathroom, felt uncomfortable by it.

As I was writing this post, I was sitting in my bed with the light on and computer in my lap.  I felt a tickle on my leg and, thinking it was one of the numerous little bugs in my room, I swatted at it…and felt the nice crunch of an exoskeleton.  I jumped out of my bed and there, right where my legs had been, was a dead cockroach.  I don’t know how long it had been dead, but ugggghhhh.  So I swept it off my bed with a book and inspected my bed for others.  Luckily there were none, but for the rest of the evening I felt imaginary bugs crawling all over me.