An Enlightening July

August 1, 2015

An Enlightening July

A blue moon rose over Santa Rita last night. Its light bounced off the mango trees and illuminated the dancing grass in Mabel’s front yard. Her friends and family members gathered on the lawn while they ate slices of cake covered in any one of the many letters that make up feliz cumpleanos Mabel, 53!. They were celebrating the life of a wonderful woman in their community, and the many cycles of the moon that she had lived through. The moon lit up their faces, faces of joy and celebration of the past, the second full moon of a unusually enlightening July.  

About three weeks have passed since Aaron and I spent that long night on the lancha. I spent two of those weeks in Santa Rita, sandwiched around a week spent in Bocas Del Toro where I lived with a host family and learned about campo construction techniques. The weeks in Santa Rita were relatively predictable and the monotony and restlessness engendered some good conversation and reflection. The week in Bocas left me with images and experiences far removed from my culture. The month ended with site announcement, and as I write this, the folder with my site name, location and description sits on the same table.

In Santa Rita, there is routine. It is predictable and practical with creativity as the relief from the structure. My four classmates and I did not have Spanish class one day, but were assigned to write an essay about our time in Bocas Del Toro. We wrote a song instead. We perform many skits during tech class, some funny and worth the time, and others an attempt to animate an exhausted class. Outside of class we debate the Peace Corps approach to development, some with resistance and others with affirmation.  There are many strong minds in the group, and some would like to see a greater focus and training on engendering critical thinking skills within our communities.  Given the engineering focus of our sector, unfortunately the training has been rather dry, and has left those with humanities backgrounds thirsty for “the why” behind what we are doing, instead of simply “the how”.  Otherwise, Santa Rita is a place to rest between very stimulating weeks in different parts of the country.

Cebrada Pastor

Tech Week is the 5^th week of training, and an opportunity for us aspirantes to live with host families at a current volunteers site. Our cohort went to a community called Cebrada Pastor in the Bocas Del Toro province, which had a principally Ngäbe population. The Ngäbe people are Panama’s largest indigenous group, and have a semi-autonomous region known as the Comarca Ngäbe-Büggle, however many ngäbes live outside of this region in the Bocas Del Toro province. Durring Tech Week I stayed with a ngäbe family with the last name of Taylor (an immediate realization of the areas history of colonization). The home consisted of six people and was easily accessible from the road. It was a three-story house, made of wood and nails, and only half of the supports had concrete foundation. Senor Taylor worked as a spear fisherman, and would explain he did not mind his poor life because he got to do what he loved everyday. He told me of his attempts at making a larger wage in cities like Panama and David, but the hours were so long and wages so bad that being a poor fisherman was a better life. My mother would explain Ngäbere words to me, and the kids would stare at me until I smiled at them or held their gaze until they couldn’t hold back the laughter.

The week was a good window for what was to come, and yet another step closer to the reality of the coming two years. I began to eat more simply, rice with the occasional fish, or a bowl of bananas was the norm. I got sick, and had to use a pit latrine for more that it was intended for. . We had electricity, but a diesel generator had to run, and the exhaust would fill the second story as we watched films on a small tv screen. We spent the days in the hills, working on building ferro-cement tanks, repairing the aqueduct’s distribution line and giving charlas (presentations) at the town’s elementary school. I left feeling like I had another family away from home in the Bocas del Toro province of Panama.

At the end of the week, I boarded a bus with all the other EH aspirantes and we soon found ourselves on Las Lahas beach in the Chiriqui province with the SAS aspriatnes. We spent the following 24 hours distressing in a rather spring break fashion.

 Another week passed in Santa Rita, and the long awaited day of site placement finally arrived. The announcement process was drawn out with each site having to be explained, its location expanded upon, and then with a suspenseful pause, the volunteer that was going there would be announced.

I will be living in a site called Cerro Pita in Distrito Morono of the Comarca Ngäbe-Bügle. It is an indigenous ngäbe site, which requires an hour and a half hike into the hills from the bus stop. I will not have electricity, or running water, and food will be what is harvested from the fields. Otherwise, in classic Peace Corps fashion, I do not know much else. I head out for site visit on Monday. While there certainly won’t be a personalized cake on someone’s birthday, the same moon will rise over the hills in Cerro Pita, and the grass will dance in the same fashion in the tropical breeze as it does in the now luxurious Santa Rita

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