After ten weeks of training Group 77 has graduated from trainees to Peace Corps Volunteers!! We did it!! We leave today to begin each of our next adventures in our site wherever they may be. It's been hard to leave all 43 members of our group, but I think we are ready for the adventure to begin and see where the next two years are going to take us!
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I could not fit everything I wanted to say about my site visit in the last post so I had to make another one because it was such an eventful week! But first, I have a confession. I did it. I came into the country saying no, convincing myself that I would not, until I even believed it myself. But I could not resist. I just could not say no, especially when I was new to the community, and it was a gift. It touched my heart until my girly side showed through and won me over and that was the end of it all. The convincing and rationale went over the river and through the woods and there I was. Now…I have a puppy. It was not my choice to have it so technically I did everything I said I was going to about not getting a dog while I was here in Panama; it is not my fault I just happened into it! It was day two of visiting people in my community, and in the latter half of the afternoon I was visiting my guide, Adeline, and her family’s house. I was sitting at a makeshift table innocently enjoying (and I say that word freely) a lovely bowl of rice and beans (woo, protein!) when all of a sudden I see a litter of puppies huddled together by the side of the house. So I did what any American would do and I said, “OH MY GOSH YOU HAVE PUPPIES THEY ARE SO CUTE.” Apparently in Ngäbere this means ‘Oh she so wants a puppy’ because immediately afterwards Adeline said, “Oh you want one!”. Woah, woah, woah. Noooo. I just saw puppies and cannot help that I am American and that is normal puppy reaction phase. I tried to explain that to her, but she was having none of it. She then followed to ask me how I was going to take care of it to which I responded that I could not because I was returning back to the city in a couple of days and could not take it with me. “Don’t worry we’ll save you one and bring it to you when you come back to site.” Boy was she good. She continued to tell me that they were born right around when I arrived to Panama. You mean I can have a puppy that can have the save birthday as my anniversary of arriving in Panama?! ‘No, Kari, no’ was soon followed by yes, Kari, yes. And I melted. I said thank you, accepted the fact that my previous months of convincing myself not get a dog while I was here was over, and I had lost the battle. Little by little I am getting more excited about having a companion explore my new community with me; however, there is only one slight problem. The puppy was not that cute, and I did not get to see the mom, so I do not even know if my puppy is going to turn out to be a cute one! Like most things, only time will tell…. Now that I can breathe because my confession is over, I can tell you more about the week full of learning from my site visit. The women wear dresses call naguas every day and to put the importance of the dresses into a bit of perspective, I was gifted a nagua even before I was given a cup of coffee in the community! They are bright colored, long dresses to the ankles, with designs called ‘dientes’ which means teeth decorating the collars and edges. The ‘dientes’ are always in an up and down pattern and represent the endless mountains of the Comaraca Ngäbe Buglé region. The dresses are hand made by women in the community and the ‘dientes’ are each carefully cut and sewn, always with a variety of colors. Because the stitching is extremely detailed it takes about a month to make a nagua, and I felt very honored when a women gave one to me as a welcoming present. While the nagua of the women fall to the ankles, the kids’ naguas usually only go just below the knee, whether it is because it is a hand me down or because it is easier to play outside that way. To show the gratitude I felt when I received the nagua, I put it on immediately; however, it only made it to a little below the knees, almost exactly to where the kids where those. All of the indigenous people are short, and I do not think they planned on having a tall Peace Corps Volunteer coming their way. The people chuckled a little because I was so tall, but it made me feel like a kid whenever I went anywhere because the nagua was so much shorter than that of the women and thankfully gave me so much more freedom as well! I hope they keep it long because the women cook, clean, harvest, hike, and do everything imaginable in these dresses while I am still just getting used to walking in them! My last day in the community I played kickball with my host siblings, and I had to hike it up to run around the bases because goodness knows I was not going to let a dress get in my way of taking another base! I think it might have been a little promiscuous as I ran around the bases especially when it started to show my knees (ooh noo!) but when it comes to kickball I could not give those boys any edge! Besides learning to do everything in a dress, I also spent the week learning an incredible amount not only about the indigenous people of the community, but also about my host family. The people in this area are usually very reserved and having a conversation can be extremely hard especially when they are wanting it to be in Ngäbere when I am still trying to have one in Spanish. However, poco a poco (ah that word again!) I began to break the barriers with my host family which I know is only the beginning of reaching the whole community. A couple of days during the week I arrived back at my host house in the early afternoon and would rest in the hammock reflecting on all that had happened that day. Some of those days my host dad was at the house and this is when we really bonded through conversations about life, religion, and crops. He told me about how they never had shoes when he was growing up and the hardships this caused as they were harvesting and poisonous snakes would be around, one even biting his brother in the foot and killing him. He told me about how he saved most of his life to buy a plot of land and after finally buying it had to wait almost 15 years to move his whole family there. I learned about the missionaries from various countries that had arrived in the Comaraca Ngäbe Buglé 40 years ago who took the time to teach the indigenous people about God and even worked to get bibles translated in the Ngäbere language. This in turn affected the rest of my host dad’s life as he became a pastor in the local church in his old community and is now co-pastor at the church in Alto Estrella. Every morning I would walk outside to see my host dad sitting on a rock, enjoying the scenery, and reading the Ngäbere bible, and a couple mornings he even taught me a few verses in Ngäbere. My host family told me they were blessed because their volunteer is a Christian, but truly I am the one who feels blessed to be part of such an intricate, dedicated family. Through these conversations and more I was able to see into the life of my host dad and begin to capture a glance at the life he had lived and where he had come from. Although this was a wonderful way to bond with my host dad, I bonded with my older host brothers who are 22 and 24 and Melvin over the topic of language. They are very interested in learning English and, believe it or not, I am interested in learning Ngäbere so the evenings were full of learning new vocabulary and laughing over wrong pronunciations and spellings. My favorite was when they would play an English song and would want me to translate it. Some were old classics like Bon Jovi which I loved to sing along with and attempt to translate while others were new pop songs which I could only try to translate from pop language to Spanish. They would say ‘Good night’ in English when I would go to bed and even that little bit of broken English helped me feel a gratitude of welcoming after the Spanish and Ngäbere filled day. My host sister was a little harder to reach. She is at the prime age of 15 where you are awkward meeting people and just want to do your own thing away from everyone else. The beginning of the week I just kind of eyed her and she would eye me. I said hi and how are you, and she gave me brief responses, just enough to get by without having to say more than a couple of words. Hmm I remember being that age (way back in the day!) and sometimes you do not want anything to do with some people so I knew I had to find a way or it was going to be a long three months. One night after returning home from visiting some houses my host mom was taking all of the kernels off of the corn and making a huge pile of them. I wanted to help so I could begin to learn their techniques of life so I offered my help, and she gave me a knife and the eyes began. Everyone stopped what they were doing to watch me work which was probably the worst think that could have happened because I was awful! My host mom was taking the kernels off with a knife beside me, and she was a least tripling the amount I was getting done. I had to take the corn in one hand, knife in the other, and cut off all of the corners- but the catch was that the whole kernel had to come off, all the way to the core. I watched my host mom’s technique for a while until I realized it was better to hold the knife towards the middle of the handle and do a little bit at once, but of course very fast. Everyone continued to laugh and take pictures and by the end I think I had more corn on my hands than in the plate! After taking the kernels off my host sister was using a machine to mash up the corn to create a mush. Round and round and round she was turning the machine, and I went beside her to steady the machine and keep it full of corn. After a few minutes I told her I could turn the machine now. She did not hesitate as she stepped away, beads of sweat running down her face, and I wondered what I was about to get myself into. I turned and turned and turned and then turned some more. Slowly the beads of sweat started to roll down my face as well, but I knew I could not stop. Once the rest of the family realized I was helping with this part of the process too, I immediately had a crowd surrounding me with pictures and videos. They taught me how to say what I was doing in Ngäbere and told me to say it into the camera, so there I was dressed in a nagua, surrounded by indigenous people, singing the American music I was supposed to be translating, and mushing corn by lantern light. There were piles and piles of corn to mush; however, by the end of it I could tell my host sister had let her wall down a little bit, and I was one step closer to breaking that barrier. The following day I was home when my host sister returned from school and it was not long before she asked me to translate a song for her. Her brothers had asked me numerous times to do this before; however, this was the first time that she had acknowledged me to help her. Although it was a simple task of reading English and teaching her in Spanish, because no one else was at the house, it was the first time we truly got to bond. We soon began a conversation about what she was studying and her future plans in life. She is studying biology and had plans to go on to the university after high school which is a HUGE step for a girl in an indigenous community. Later that night she gave me two scrap pieces of wood that she had painted from a tree her brother had cut down for firewood. Although it was a simple gift, to me it was a sign of something more. A sign that we had finally connected as she gave one of her few precious belongings to me. A sign that finally, after working and sweating shoulder to shoulder, singing cheesy American songs, and translating, we finally had the bond that I longed for from a 15 year old. Unfortunately I found out that she will be leaving in a couple months to study in a better high school in a city further away, and although I am extremely sad she will be leaving, I am forever thankful that I was able to finally bond with her and know that when she returns to visit it will be a welcoming experience. Throughout the week of meals of rice and coffee, meeting countless people, and headaches from multiple languages, my amazing guide Adeline accompanied me throughout every experience. She suffered with me through the seventh cup of coffee, told me the meaning of pig in Ngäbere for the millionth time, and introduced me over and over again in Ngäbere to house and house. As we walked together I was able to ask her questions about her, her family, and everyday life in the community. Although our initial conversations were brief, she eventually let down her barriers and opened me up to a whole new world. One day she said to me, “You are the first one that I have ever talked to.” I did not understand what she was talking about at first and as I questioned more I realized she meant I was the first white person she has ever talked to before and only the second she had ever seen. It had not hit me until this moment as we were walking up the hill that most of the people in my new community had never left the community in their whole life, or if they had done so, had not ventured far past the reals of the indigenous lands. All I could think about was the pressure I now felt to represent the United States as best as I could. The Peace Corps always tell us that this job is 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and now I realize how true that is. No matter what I am doing in the community people are always going to be watching me because I am a new, foreign thing they are discovering just as I am exploring as well! Today, Thursday, August 26 all 44 of Peace Corps Group 77 (my group) will be swearing in to become official volunteers! It is a day we are putting aside the crinkled work shirts for ironed collared shirts and the Chaco’s for flats to show Panama that we can look fancy every once in a while. Numerous government officials from Panama and the U.S. Embassy will be there to recognize our achievement over the past ten weeks and finally, after countless sessions, bowls of rice, and new vocabulary we will become official members of the Peace Corps Program that was began so long ago. Sadly part of this new change meant leaving our host families in Santa Rita this past week. The ten weeks flew by like I would have never imagined and was full of love, laughter, and wonderful memories. My greatest accomplished in like was achieve here- my host family went a whole day without eating any rice. I made them chili and cornbread for lunch one day, and they were so full that the just had some of the leftovers for dinner without even cooking the rice she said she was going to cook. A Latin American family went one whole day without eating rice. Wow. I just wanted to let that sink in a little bit! To make the night even better I went to a typical dance with my host mom and dad that night, and we stayed out until the wee hours of the morning dancing the night away Panamanian style. It was hard to leave them, but I know I will be returning to visit within the next two years so that made it a little easier to say goodbye. (the three pictures below are with my host family) The week of goodbyes continues as this weekend all of the newly sworn in Peace Corps Volunteers of Group 77 (whoop whoop!) will travel our separate ways to begin creating a home in our new communities. Hopefully I will find some time before I leave to post pictures of the Swear-In Ceremony, but if not I am glad I got to update you on my life so far and cannot wait to begin to tell you the adventures that are bound to be coming!
Ti kä Meriyi Biäbiä
My name is Meriyi Biäbä. You may now call me Meriyi, or Meriyi (mare-e-gee) Biäbiä (bee-aw-baw) if you are feeling adventurous! Recently all of the Peace Corps trainees went to visit what will soon be our sites! My community is named Alto Estrella and is located in the Comarca Ngäbe-Bugle. As part of a welcoming tradition my community members gave me a Ngäbere (the language they speak) name, Meriyi. At first I could not even pronounce it so everyone was laughing at me, but finally after having to introduce myself multiple times, I can say it without stuttering. It was pretty weird when they would say ‘Meriyi come here’ or ‘Here is your food Meriyi’ because it was almost as if I had an entirely different identity. The best part is I met two people in the community with the same name, so at least I can remember two people’s names in my community! Before I got my name, however, I was thrown on another car on the awkward Peace Corps train. For me joining the Peace Corps was kind of like starting college all over again. I left my friends and family at home for a foreign place where I knew no one and experienced newfound challenges. This time my foreign place was Panama rather than Kentucky, and my challenges were learning Spanish and Ngäbere rather than learning to cook Ramen Noodles, but still, I knew no one and was having to form new friends and family all over again. Thankfully, or not, Peace Corps is great at having us practice new situations. First, we arrived in Washington D.C. to meet 46 new friends that would become family over the next two years. Then we arrived in Panama greeted by staff members whom I only knew from the countless emails they had sent out beforehand. After a week we were then sent to the community of Santa Rita where we would be living with a host family. Over the next 9 weeks that we were based in Santa Rita, we left for a volunteer visit to spend a week with a current Peace Corps Volunteer whom was a complete stranger and another week was spent with a new host family at training in a different community. Finally, we just left for a week to meet our new host family that we will have for three months and many of our new community members. If you have not seen the trend so far, the Peace Corps is pretty good at throwing us in awkward situations and having us work them out. We are meeting new people and staying with new families over and over again to the point where now I feel at home in any place that I am staying more than a couple days. It is getting easier to have conversations with complete strangers and my list of topics to talk about is becoming increasingly engrained in my mind. Along with all of this my rice belly is continuing to grow, but hey it’s better than a beer belly, right? One of the most recent cars on the Peace Corps train I experienced was visiting my soon to be community for a week. Bright and early one Monday morning all of the Peace Corps Trainees traveled to the city to meet their community guides who would be with them the rest of the week teaching us about our community. We arrived at the office wearing backpacks and Chaco’s (obviously Peace Corps people) and were thrusted into a crowd of Panamanians wearing nametags. Each person was wearing two nametags, one that said their name and community and the other that said our name and our new community. It was like playing a huge game of ‘Where’s Waldo’ as we walked around the huge group of people looking to see who had our nametag. Ah! I finally saw my name! “Hi, my is Kari!” That was all I could muster up to say as I met this complete stranger with whom I would soon be spending the whole week. We walked to the breakfast room, and as if it was not awkward enough, the guides had already eaten so we sat there and ate while the guides looked at us. I kept asking questions about the community while trying to eat at the same time and finally I finished and we went outside for a ‘get to know each other game’. However, we had already been over most of the questions at breakfast so once again I found myself thinking of topics. My guide’s name was Melvin, and he was in his late twenties and one of the leaders of his community. We spent the day at the office going through training sessions together and learning more about how the next week and even the next three months was going to look. There was one session we had that day with the country director that I will never forget. The country director asked what was supposed to be a rhetorical question of ‘Who knows how the next three months are going to be in site?’ Obviously no one knows how the next three months are going to go, but all of a sudden I see Melvin’s hand raise, and he was standing up. Say whaaaat. The county director said ‘Oh, you know how it is going to go?’ And Melvin responded, “Yes, I think it is going to go very good. We are excited and Kari is excited, and I know that we are going to have a good time and learn a lot.” Whew that bar is already set high and then even a little higher. I guess the rhetorical question got lost in the language! The next morning Melvin and I traveled from the city of Panama to Alto Estrella. It is quite an adventure to get there, and I was glad to have him guide me throughout the trip. First, we had to take a bus from the city to a small town called Tole which was about a six hour ride. Next we took a ten minute taxi ride further in the little town where there was a chiva stop. What’s a chiva you are saying?! Only the coolest and most unsafe way to get around Panama! A chiva is a pickup truck with bars around the bed of the truck and above your head. They go all the places buses cannot go so if you are having to take one you know it is going to be a bit bumpy. We found the chiva that went closest to Alto Estrella, threw my luggage on, and hopped in. Not so fast. Another Panamanian lingo you need to know is ‘hot girl seat’. It is the front seat of the pickup truck/chiva or of the little buses that are found everywhere around Panama. As you could guess from the name usually there are girls that sit there, but to save my reputation I have seen guys there before! Anyway as I was about to climb into the back of the chiva, the chiva driver motioned me to the ‘hot girl seat’. Oh great, my first ride to my site, and I am already in ‘the’ seat. Reluctantly I took the ‘hot girl seat’ and enjoyed the hour and a half squished ride between the driver and Melvin sipping on an orange juice. Along the ride Melvin showed me other communities and pointed out important places while the bus driver tried to pretend he knew English so at least it was an interesting ride! We got out where the chiva ride ended and then had a 45 minute walk. It was a combination of downhill and uphill, but immediately I was struck by the beauty and of course the heat. We walked into the center of the community, a soccer field, and I unloaded my stuff as indigenous community members started walking out from nowhere. Somehow they all knew I had arrived and soon there was a group of about 30! I was given a seat, a cup of coffee, and I realized they were about to have a meeting. Meetings. Something Peace Corps Volunteers dread holding because community members never come, show up late, or do not understand the meaning of the word ‘meeting’. While meetings in the United States mean the place where everyone shows up on time to get some serious business done, meetings in Panama are the place where people happen to walk by where you were going to hold your meeting and you stop them to talk. Here I was having ten weeks of Peace Corps training learning how to motivate people to come to meetings, and I show up and they are already having one! I was so excited to see their motivation until I heard the word ‘dar palabras’ which means ‘give words’. I was sitting enjoying the scenery and water filled sugary cup of coffee when all of a sudden they expected me to dar palabras out of nowhere. I should have known. So I stood up, pulled out enough Spanish to say my name, where I was from, and a little about what I was doing. As I sat back down I realized how much I did not say, how bad my grammar was, and how everyone was still staring at me so I just smiled and asked how to say my Ngäbere name again. When in doubt laugh at yourself; I found that out extremely fast. When the meeting was coming to a close I heard the words ‘dar palabras’ again. You have got to be kidding me! All my words have been given! However, I knew how important this day was and how important giving words are to them so I said a few more thank you’s, emphasized how excited I was for the millionth time, messed up a few more words and was finally left in peace. Soon after we made the way to my new host family where I unloaded my bags in my new room and looked around the house I would soon call my home. I did not take many pictures this week, but I will be there for two years so do not worry they will come sooner or later! In my new house there are my host dad and mom, four of their children-one who has two kids- and two more grandkids. A lovely house full of ten people and now me! They speak a lot of Ngäbere so I could not understand much of what was said, but I sat around with them and would laugh at the little kids when I could. All I can say is thank goodness for kids! They are the best. They are not shy, ask questions until you want to scream, and are the best icebreakers of them all. They were they easy part of gaining my host family’s trust. The rest of the family took a little longer to get to know but by the end of the week I felt like were had truly began to understand each other even with the extreme language barrier. Most of the week was spent walking around the community getting to know some of the families that I would soon be working with. And boy did this happen. Melvin had a few things to do during the week so my other guide, Adeline, took me around for much of the week. The first day we went to 15 houses which covered only a small section of the community, and I was already feeling overwhelmed. Panamanians show they care for you by giving you coffee and food and the first day I was given 11 cups of coffee. Yes that is right, eleven cups! Luckily what they consider coffee is more like coffee flavored water with lots of sugar so I was not going crazy with caffeine! More than coffee I received 3 cups of juice and 4 huge bowls of rice apart from the three scheduled meals I had that day. I was so full of liquids and rice I had to cheer myself through eating the last bowl of rice so I did not offend them, and I can eat a LOT so that is saying something. By the end of the first say I was stuffed on rice, exhausted, and ready for bed. I thought that since there was no electricity my family would go to bed early, but I had no such luck. I was ready for bed about 8:00PM, and they were still going strong. All of a sudden I looked up and saw the prettiest sky I had ever seen. The sky was full of stars glowing like they never had before. With no electricity or lights for miles away you can only imagine how much the stars stuck out. I sat down on the side of the house to enjoy the stars and reflect upon the day when all of a sudden I was surrounded by five kids. Where in the world did they come from?! So my star gazing turned into me teaching them English words and them teaching me Ngäbere words. Eventually three of the kids left to go home and David and Jonathon were left. They are six and eight and were being very silly learning English words. Once the other kids left I asked them what they liked to do for fun and both of them said “Look for water.” I was already assuming in my head they would say soccer and was stunned when this was the first thing that came out of their mouth. I said “Okay, and what else do you like to do for fun?” Their second answer touched my heart even more, “Look for firewood.” Wow, I could not believe that asking a six and eight year old such a simple question would led me to discover such eye opening information. My host family does not have water at the house and so we have to go about 5-10 minutes away to get water for drinking and cooking as well as to bathe and wash clothes. Furthermore the host family cooks over a fire and so firewood is used on a daily basis all day long. When it comes to soccer or food and water, it is an obvious choice what they have to do. Peace Corps has been training me how to build and maintain aqueducts and latrines, develop capacitation, and create a sustainable environment in the community; however, nothing could have prepared me for the answers I received from David and Jonathon. Here’s the mail it never fails it makes me want to wag my tail and wail, maaaaaail! (Thought I could throwback a little with some Blue’s Clues there!)
Thank you to everyone who has sent me mail, an email or Facebook or Weebly comment so far! I cannot express how much I truly appreciate every email, comment, letter or package that I have received or that I have been told is on the way! Although I am not always able to respond to the Facebook or Weebly comments due to short internet time, I always read them all, and they put a smile on my face or bring that little extra strength and courage to me. It has also been a blessing to come into the office and be told that I have mail, and I re read each letter over and over and over again. The first three months in site tends to be pretty hard because you are living with a host family who does not have much of anything themselves, and I know the letters will be key to getting me through those days! However, as I am soon moving to my new site, Alto Estrella, I will also have a new address! I don’t move there for two weeks, but at the rate the mail has been taking if you send any mail from now on, please send it to the address below! This will be my permanent address for the next two years. Kari Kviten, Cuerpo de Paz Entrega General San Félix, Chiriquí 0444 República de Panamá I have quite a trek to get my mail: 45 minute hike out of my site, hour and a half chiva ride, and then a 35 minute bus ride for letters or an hour and a half bus ride for packages. So as you can see I will not be able to check my mail very often so please be patient if you send something, and I will definitely let you know when I receive it. Some letters I have received in two weeks; others were sent a month ago and still have not arrived so who knows when it will get here. I have to leave my site about once or twice a month to get groceries so that will most likely be when I will check my mail as well! Some of you have asked what to send in packages as well. If you read the end of my last blog post you saw the data for living conditions, especially noting the malnutrition rate of 50%. Although my plate was always full of rice during my week visit, sometimes a meal consisted of rice, and only rice. I’m preparing to stock up on peanut butter to get me through the rough days, but if you are looking to send something snacks are always welcome! I am definitely not a picky eater and I like all food but in case you wanted some ideas here it goes: Cliff bars, any kind of nutritional bars, dried fruit, nuts, chocolate covered goodies, candy for those, days you just need some, and that is all I can think of for now! Nutritional value is a huge plus but my sweet tooth does not always agree! As for other things I’m not so sure yet! I always love photos of anything, and the people here love looking at photos of things in the States as well. I plan to start a kids’ club in my community and a few things for that would be a world map, wiffle balls or any small sports things, games (Uno, etc. that are easy to play in another language), and anything you could think of that would be fun/useful for kids. I’m trying to get their creative juices flowing and teach them new things in a fun way! I also plan to have a garden so any type of seeds are great. It’s going to be trial and error figuring out what will grow, but I’m willing to try anything! Music (CD or USB), magazines, spices, tea, hand sanitizer, any basic supplies, floss (huge plus if it’s threader floss so I can use with my permanent retainer)- those are some things I could see being helpful once in site a while. Because I have only visited my site for a week, I still do not know exactly what else I could use or what would be helpful. Once I move to my site I will let you know if I think of other things as my work develops, but as always I love surprises! Thank you for all of your continuing support in every way, and I will continue to keep you updated as my adventure moves on! So it is one of the biggest days of your two year Peace Corps experience. The day when you find out what community you will be living in for the next two years, the people who will be, or not be, surrounding you, and taking one more step to becoming an official volunteer. The Peace Corps bus was picking us up bright and early at 5:00AM in our town of Santa Rita to bring us to the office in Panama City for site selection day. This is all anyone had been talking about for weeks and today was finally the day. I was stoked! I set four alarms I was so stoked because I was not going to miss that bus. This day was important after all! Now for site selection time! Bum, bum, bum. There was a huge map of Panama in the front of the room with stars marking the spots our group was going. All of our photos were placed at the top of the map in a line and as we saw our faces on the boards the suspense was building. There was a box to the side with all of the sites folded up and one person would draw out of the box. They would read the name of the site and depending on whether it was an Environmental Health site or a Sustainable Agriculture Site, depended on which director stepped forward. The director would describe a bit about the site and then FINALLY announce who was going there. This is how it went all for all 46 of us! Every time the Environmental Health director stepped forward to explain another site for us, everyone would hold their breath a little and try to imagine who was going there. There was so much suspense in the room, now I cannot even remember what was said about my site before I heard my name. All of a sudden I remember my name people called, people clapping, and me walking to the front on the room, claiming the folder with all the details about my site, and pasting my picture on my spot on the map. Alto Estrella. High Star. I begin to slowly pull everything out of my folder, wanting to learn everything possible about the new community where I would soon be living and working. Alto Estrella is located in the providence of Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé. I would be living in an indigenous community who speak the language called Ngäbere. The questions began to come, one after the other as I became more curious about my future home. Site placement was on a Friday and the next Monday we were leaving to go visit our sites for a whole week. Here we were going to meet our community guide, meet the family who would host us the next three months, and learn the new area we were to explore for the next two years. No pressure!
Poco a poco (little by little) is a popular phrase here in Panama, especially since everything happens at a slower rate than most of the things in the United States. I want to understand every word my host family is saying right away, and they tell me “poco a poco”. I want to know how I should get the community I will be living in to accept me and how to build relationships with them, and I am finding out the only way is ‘poco a poco’. I wanted to try every flavor of the yummy popsicle duros they sell, but thankfully I have told myself “poco a poco”. And I wanted to jump into my community ready to help it for the better until I understood “poco a poco.”
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