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.