Two Weeks of Work and Play

It´s been three weeks since I posted last to this site. I spent the first two weeks outside of Santa Clara, our training site, going through what Peace Corps calls "Cultural Week" and "Training Week". Cultural week for me was spent in a Ngäbe site close to my future home of La Laguna. This was my first opportunity to spend time with Ngäbes, working with them, talking with them, and living with them. Culturally they are quite different from the Panamanian Latinos.

Traditional Nagua dresses.

The Ngäbes tend to be very quiet people, especially around outsiders. Additionally, they traditionally speak their own indigenous language, Ngäbere, (which I am slowly learning) among themselves, not Spanish. This made communication a little difficult, but I still learned a lot. I was intrigued with the number of questions that they had for me about the U.S., especially about the Indians that live in the U.S. Here in Panama, Indigenous groups are treated very poorly by the Latinos, primarily because of their poverty level. My family was very curious how their lifestyle compared to the lifestyle of Indians in the U.S.

The Battery!

Most Ngäbes have no more than a sixth grade education. Consequently, I was caught off guard a lot by questions they would ask and about how to answer them. Things like, where else in the world do people speak Spanish? What part of the pig is the fat? Is the United States bigger than Panama? It created some pretty interesting conversations.

Cleaning a pig for dinner.

The Ngäbe women wear dresses called Naguas (top picture). They are traditionally very bright in color and all hand made. There was one young girl the first week who didn´t wear a Nagua because she was always getting it dirty. She had so much energy the community called her "The Battery" (second picture). She was a cute little girl and quite entertaining.

For us the meals consisted of rice, beans, and bananas. At times we would get yucca, potatoes, or some other form of vegetable. For special occasions the families pull out cans of sardines or spam. Although, towards the end of the two weeks Peace Corps purchased a pig from the community to cook and eat (above). I can´t recall too many times in my life where I have feed an animal in the morning with my leftovers and eaten the same animal for dinner. The meat was amazing!

Ngäbe children dancing.

I spent the second week in a different Ngäbe site, called Junquito, near Costa Rica. I worked with other Peace Corps volunteers to construct a composting latrine and lived with a Ngäbe family for the week. The last day that we were in site, the community had a performance for us to demonstrate their traditional cultural dance. We decided that we could teach them a thing or two about American culture and shared the Hokie Pokie (sp?) in return!

My family´s composting latrine, without the walls.

The mother of the family I stayed with in Junquito is the same age as I am down to the day, she was born within a few hours of me (I´m 23). The three children in the picture above are all hers. Her fourth child, the oldest, isn´t in the picture....he´s 9! Do the math, it´s sad, but common for Ngäbes.

Another interesting thing about the Ngäbes is that they all have a Latino name and a Ngäbere name. So when a bunch of gringos walked into the village to construct some latrines, the first thing the community did was give us all Ngäbere names. I quickly received the name Kwra (Tiger) and was referred to as such throughout the week. When I returned to Santa Clara and told my family about the experience, they told me that Jaguars and Pumas are common in the area of Panama I will be working in and decided that Tarzan would be a fitting name for me...so I am now referred to as Tarzan around my house in Santa Clara.

Sunset on the Pacific Ocean.

We finished the two weeks up with a stop at the beach for a night, and treated ourselves to the ridiculously overpriced $0.70 beers. But, the sunset made it all worth it.

Sorry this entry is a bit scattered and not too personal. I feel like a lot goes on that I want to share, but my time in front of the computer is always limited. Consequently I just end up sharing the facts, and not the experiences that come with them. I´ll work on that over the next two years, and try to share both the good and the bad that comes with this experience.

Tomorrow I head out to La Laguna, for a week long visit of my site. I´ll be returning for two more weeks of training after the week long visit and then be officially sworn in as a Peace Corps volunteer and begin my two year service. I open the invitation to all of you to come and visit if you are interested, just give me a heads up!

Thanks for reading!

Rob