Nantore Dere! Or Good afternoon, in Ngabere. I'm very slowly picking up the native dialect here, which has been halpful to integrate more into the community.
I hope everyone had a great holiday season! For Christmas, my host family was travelling to another community about 4 hours away on foot. As luck would have it, another volunteer, Aleah, who is a year into her service, lives right on the way. So I went to her community to celebrate Christmas. Although there is very little that goes on for Christmas in the Comarca, especially in my community because of the lack of money, a few families in Aleah's community organized a lunch celebration. So Aleah and |I spent Christmas eve and Christmas day baking cakes and carmel corn for the kids. Of course at the celebration both Aleah and I were asked to stand and say a few words about Christmas. We ended up singing a few Christmas carols in English- which gave us tons of blank stares, but a loud round of applause. We finished off Christmas day by cracking open coconuts that were gifted to us with our machetes. A step up from egg nog, I think...if only we had some rum to go with it.
For New Years I stayed in Cerro Banco to celebrate with my community. In Panama, it's typical to make a "muñeco" which is basically a scarecrow that they call "the viejo," or the old. Then at midnight on New Years Eve, they burn it to signify burning the old and bringing in the new. So my host family and I made a viejo, I helped stuff the doll and drew the face. On New Years Eve, I spent the evening lying in a hammok, drinking coffee, eating bananas, and gossiping with two of my better friends in the community. We had a great time. Once midnight hit, we light a firecracker...which scared me half to death, and burned the viejo. Then, naturally, I passed out because my usual bed time in site is somewhere between 8:30 and 9.
It was really great to be apart of the holiday celebrations here, but this time does make me think a lot about life here in general. Living up in the mountains is beautiful. Most the time I think anyone would be so lucky to experience life up here- working in the beautiful atmoshpere, eating naturally off the land. And then i think the exact opposite. The lack of opportunities and poverty here hits outsiders hard. Since there is currently no acueduct in my site, we drink water from the river, which is full of bacteria. This is fine for the adults, because they have developed immunity and grown accostumed to this. However, it makes the kids extremely sick. Many children here have extended stomachs full of amebos or worms and are sick with diarrhea. Unfortunately it is common for families to have lost a child due to this. This for me is the hardest thing about being here and witnessing first hand. But what I do love is that many people in my community are generally concerned with the health of their children here. In fact, the most functional committee in my community is the PTA and health comittee in the school.
There are many times I feel like I should just donate all the money I have here and then leave because that would be the most helpful. However doing that would not provide any type of sustainable development and probably benefit only a few families, and not an entire community. Also the cultural exchange aspect and most importantly the education factor would be lost. Now that I have spent two and a half months in site, people have been getting to know me and more and more, and are getting comfortable with the gringa who lives here. Soon, I will be starting work in projects including health lessons, latrine building, and possibly having a muchachas guias group (girl scouts). But for now, I'm still enjoying time with people, making friends in the community, (which I love to do), and avoiding the snakes.
Thnaks for reading
Be well,
Melidi
