A while ago when I was living near the city for our three months of training I wrote a blog post, ‘My Day in a Nutshell'. It was planned and repetitive- wake up, workout, bathe, eat breakfast, go to Spanish class, bath again, eat lunch, training class, play with my brothers, bathe again (final time for the day!), eat dinner, watch soap operas with my host mom, and finally, go to bed. This was my life Monday- Friday 6:30A.M. to 9:00P.M. for ten weeks and it rarely ever changed. Needless to say leaving training in the city and transitioning to life in my community in the campo (Panamanian countryside) has been a HUGE change. No classes. No homework. No electricity (which sadly means no cheesy Latin American soap operas). Do not worry- there are still daily, numerous bathes. Going from having every day of my life planned to having no plans and creating my own schedule took some getting used to, especially in a place where there were no English speakers, no stores, and people who spoke a completely new language. However, as one can guess I have learned to embrace, enjoy, and relish in it each and every day.
Schedule. I use this word as an extremely loose term. I should probably not even use that word because my daily life cannot even be described as a schedule. When have I ever been able to say in my life that I do not have a schedule? I do not think ever. Let me tell you it has been liberating and even a little overwhelming at times. I like to make plans and not having plans has been a learning experience in itself: to take life a day at a time and see what new adventure will come my way. Even if I do have a meeting ‘scheduled’ no one shows up until at least an hour and a half after it is supposed to begin so I find myself conforming to a different meaning of the word schedule. A meaning which has no nutshell to summarize my life because every day I am experiencing something new that opens my eyes to a new way of life and makes me even more grateful that I am able to call this my job. There is no such thing as a normal day here and some days I just stop and think for a while, ‘Wow, this is my life. Life is awesome!’ Sometimes my thoughts end at, ‘Wow, this is my life’, because of course things always happen that bring me back to reality, but there have been two days that stick out so far that I want to share that are as normal as the nutshell will get.
Claire and I spent the morning laboring over tying chicken wire, mixing concrete, and finishing off what would soon be the base of a new latrine! A few kids were passing by and stopped in to watch ‘the Americans working’ and rightfully we put them to work as well. With a lot of help, finally, after three days of hard work, we finished the latrine, and I happily walked to Claire’s house with her where we were going to eat lunch. She is in one of the previous Peace Corps groups and has already been living here a year which means she is living in her own house and cooking anything and everything she wants, which to my relief did not include rice. She made an incredibly delicious pasta with carrots, onions, peppers, and spices, and I did not realize how much I had forgotten what vegetables and flavoring taste like! Claire sent me home with a huge piece of chocolate cake frosted in peanut butter (yay extra protein!) and slowly I trudged back to my house waiting to be greeted by kids, rice, and unflavored food. I took the so called ‘shortcut’ on the way back to my community because there is a gorgeous view of the mountains which never gets old no matter how many times I pass by. As I walked past the view I sat on a nearby rock, pulled out my peanut butter frosted chocolate cake and treated myself as I gazed at the view, thinking, ‘Wow, this is my life. Life is awesome!’.
I headed back to the house and along the path I saw my host mom who was yelling some sort of Ngäbere words at me. I finally understood that she was trying to show me an edible plant that I had never seen before whose Ngäbere name is ‘Nura’. The plant was on the side of the path where I had walked a million times, and I had never known this plant was edible. I am blown away by the number of plants I walk beside which I eventually find out are edible and am continually learning new ones every week. After my learning session with my host mom, I headed back up to the house, hung up my laundry, and put on my ‘nice ngwaka’ to go pasearing. Usually when I leave to pasear I do not know whose house I am going to or where I will end up. It is fun for me! I just start walking and before I know it I find myself drinking coffee and eating rice with a new family. This day though, I had missions. I even wrote them down thanks to my love/obsession with making lists that one day I promise myself I will break. 1. Ask the neighbors for the rice husks for my latrine 2. Try to charge my phone at Ofelia’s house 3. Talk to Melvin about my house 4. Talk to Moises about bringing sand for my latrine 5. Go get vitamins for Bravo at Wilfredo’s house. Whew what a list for today compared to my average day! I forced Bravo out of the house (he loves to spend the day sleeping, but we were going to the pretend vet’s house-Wilfredo- so he had to come along today). A little bit about this pretend vet, Wilfredo. When Bravo was sick Wilfredo told me he had shots for dogs he could give him and when I asked him if he was a vet he said, ‘Well I have studied a lot about animals and one day I would like to be a vet.” Bravo needed a shot though and the nearest ‘real’ vet was hours away so I had to confide in him. Thankfully the shot did help Bravo, and now he is happy and healthy so the want to be vet must know something about animals!
The first house on my list was very close, and I greeted the woman who was cooking and the children who were playing together in the yard. Like always they immediately gave me a seat, and we talked in the limited Ngäbere I knew. Soon I asked what they had done with their rice husks, and they informed me that they had thrown them out in the woods, and it looked like I was out of luck here. I staying there a while longer writing down some Ngäbere words they were teaching me and soon one of the kids brought me one of the cacao pods from the cacao tree the family had. They began to bring me one after the other as the mom was trying to secretly yell at them to stop bringing me more- thank goodness kids never listen because I ended up with five cacao pods from the house! They taught me that after eating the fruit around the seeds, you can dry the seeds, and then crush them, toast them, and drink them! I left their house extremely excited about my new Ngäbere knowledge and went on to my second stop for the day.
The second stop was at the house of Ofelia, a middle aged women who walks with a cane and who’s only child died when he was young. Her brother supports her a lot, but she also has the best ‘store’ in my community and even a solar panel. People always charge their phones at her store, and I had some important calls to make and decided to ask if she could charge my phone. As I was buttering her up talking to her, her dog went over to where Bravo was sitting at the corner of the house, grabbed him on the back, and started swinging him around like he was trying to kill an animal. I started yelling at the dog and looking for a rock to throw but he continued biting Bravo as I was watching the entire thing. Finally, the dog let him go and Bravo was crying bloody murder and would not even stop as I tried to comfort him. This dog was the size of a big Golden Retriever while Bravo is the runt of the bunch, two month old puppy. Ofelia just stood there and stared, not even spanking her dog after he had just about murdered Bravo. I ran to Bravo who was bleeding profusely from the huge bite on his back. He was laying miserably on the ground, and it broke my heart as he cried when I picked him up because it hurt so bad. I wrapped him in a hand towel I happened to bring that day and fought back tears as I gave the lady my phone, done with trying to butter her up, and left in a hurry. This is one of the moments where I realized how different things are here than in the United States. If this had happened to my dog in the United States I would have rushed him to the emergency dog clinic, comfortably in a car probably about a fifteen minute ride away. It is a little different here. Okay, much different. I was an hour hike, hour and a half extremely bumpy chiva ride, and then a two and a half hour bus ride from the nearest vet, and it was a Friday. Now I almost understood how people in the community felt when someone was sick. Their choice is either to risk them dying or carry them out in a hammock the whole way and then travel on bumpy roads until the hospital. Luckily Bravo was just a little thing, but still, going to a vet was not an option at the moment.
changed the order of my list to go straight to Wilfredo’s house, which was still about 30 minutes uphill away, but still closer than any other help. Of course I passed more people than usual along the path, all asking me why I was carrying Bravo, and even telling me that he looked dead. It was all I could do to hide the tears, explain what happened, and leave quickly without being rude. Finally, I made it to Wilfredo’s house and was welcomed into the ‘kitchen’ (very loose term) by the family- kids, wife, grandma, aunt- everyone except the man I was looking for. Of course. I happened to arrive right as they were serving lunch so I quietly ate it wondering what I was going to do and honestly not knowing if Bravo was going to survive or not. Before I knew it the sweet, old grandma of the house came up to me and started blabbering Ngäbere as if I was fluent. Being in the fragile state I was and not wanting to break the old grandma’s heart, I smiled and nodded and said yes to whatever she was saying. This happens quite frequently where I do not know what people are asking me and just give a simple yes. Many times people laugh after I respond because they realized I did not understand what they were saying and I answered wrongly, but other times, such as this one, I get lucky and she ended the one way conversation with a smile. Shortly afterwards I see her motioning me over her way, and I find myself leaving Bravo yelping on the floor as I put him down, and being led to see her numerous pineapple plants that she planted. There were tons! I knew this women would be a good one to keep in my graces as she handed me a pineapple to take home while explaining, in compete Ngäbere of course, how to make a yummy juice from it. I smiled and nodded and this time added ‘bawnawnde’ (delicious in Ngäbere) because I knew she was talking about food. Bonus points for me as she smiled satisfied, and I rushed back to where Bravo had begun to yelp bloody murder again. The family had thrown some sort of grey powder on his wound and told me that this would stop the bleeding. There was nothing I could do now, and I just hoped that the family of the wanna-be vet knew something about animals too.
I cradled Bravo in my lap as the children in the house brought out their school books and started teaching me more Ngäbere words, which was a much needed distraction from thinking about Bravo. Soon, one of the young girls, about eight years old, came over to me holding a chicken and said something to which I heard ‘regalo’ (gift). “For me?” I asked. She had the biggest smile on her face as she handed me the chicken, and I immediately was overcome with a sense of gratefulness and love. To understand my amount of happiness at this point you have to understand two things. Firstly, I have always wanted a chicken. Ever since I was young I thought it would be the greatest thing ever to have my own chicken for eggs and later on, of course, for eating. As soon I arrived in Panama I knew one of the first things I would do when I had my own house was buy a chicken and here I was receiving my first chicken as a gift. I tried to express my gratitude as I explained this was the first chicken I had ever owned in my life, but I do not think they understood that concept seeing as even my one year old host nephew has a chicken. Secondly, you have to understand that people do not even sell what they called ‘patio chickens’ (free roam chickens) here, nevertheless give them away. Chickens are priceless here. They keep them not to eat the eggs, but rather to have more baby chickens who will one day grow big enough to eat after living off of the bugs they find and leftover rice. Chickens are only killed to eat for special birthdays and holidays, and yet still here I was being gifted a chicken by this amazing family who threw a mysterious powder on my dog.
I left their house when the thunder began- my bag full of cacao and pineapple, one arm full with Bravo wrapped in a towel, and the other arm with my new chicken. So here I was having an American moment, carrying two animals in my arms through the middle of the community greeting numerous people along the way. The people here never even touch animals because they consider them ‘caca’ (poop). It was one of those moments where all I could say was, “Wow this is my life.” And this time, after such a day, the saying ended there.
I did not think my day could get any crazier and as I arrived home I set my chicken to run free in the yard and set Bravo in his box, wrapping him in blankets to protect him from the cold rain that was about to come. My host family came to look at him after I explained what happened and they begin to tell me that he was probably going to die. I did not think I was that attached to him, but every time I explained what happened I got tears in my eyes so I guess the little ball of fur had grown on me in the couple weeks that I had him. I left him in his bed and went to eat dinner as I could hear him yelping in the room when he tried to move himself even just a tiny bit. I had to eat all of my rice that night because Bravo was not there to share it with me, but I did manage to sneak a little bit for him without my host mom seeing. After dinner I went to the latrine, pulled open the curtain, and somehow suppressed a large yelp. There- in the latrine behind the seat- was a SNAKE. Now some people love snakes- and that is great for them- but as for me I am deathly afraid. Partly because snakes have always freaked me out and partly because I have heard SO many stories of people dying from snake bites here that my fear is heightened even more. I walked right back up the hill and told the first kids I saw that there was a snake in the latrine who immediately ran to inform their grandpa and my host brother. They grabbed their machetes and hurried to the latrine, and opened the curtain slowly…slowly..more slowly…only to see- nothing. Just my luck. Of course they asked me if I was sure it had been a snake- and by golly I was sure. I was still scared to go to the bathroom so I stayed inside and talked with my host brother until my fear subsided. It eventually did and I went to use the latrine which just happens to have the best view ever especially on a clear night like this one. I spent the rest of the night talking with my host brother about chickens and planting seasons (hot topics here) and went to bed as usual around 9:00P.M. wondering if Bravo would survive the night. He would not eat or drink anything and would not even get up from his bed ever since I had laid him there.
Campo- the Panamanian term for countryside
Ngwaka- the tradition dress of the Ngäbere people
Chacera- the traditional purse that the indigenous people make out of a special plant, sacks, nylon or cotton
Quebrada- a creek
Pasear- the act of visiting houses, receiving coffee and rice, and trying to make conversation
Caca- poop
Regalar- to gift (an item)