Oink!

While I am always quite surprised when a rifle passes by me in my host homes, I know it means pork for the next couple of days. Sr. Omar brought out the gun, which I didn’t know I was living with, and headed out into the night to a neighbor/relative’s house. Sra. Cirila then left in the dead of night a few hours later to what I can only imagine was to butcher what was left of the pig. And without fail, we ate plenty of pork for the next few days. (The difference being that this house has refrigeration, so I didn’t feel as bad about eating the meat after days of gathering flies on the counter of my last host family.)

Ciri asked me if I ate tamales. This is always a tricky question. Sure, I eat them, but it is the hidden treasure inside that I might not eat. I knew I wouldn’t be surprised by pig feet again as they know I don’t eat feet. Visions of delicious pork nestled inside the tamales danced in my mind as I responded with an excited “yes!”

I guess I wasn’t thinking: People raise pigs by fattening them. Therefore the pigs are fat when killed. Therefore people eat lots of fat. QED.

My tamale was filled with a two inch by four inch by one inch chunk of pig fat. There was no meat at all, as you can be sure I poked the jelly-like form. Chorizo is palatable if only for it’s texture as you can crunch into the fried shell as your teeth melt into the nuggets of fat and rip through the skin. If nothing else, the work required to eat chorizo makes it tolerable, not to mention it is smaller. But this was just soft lard. I couldn’t do it.

The first night I ate around it and slid it onto the top plate in the pile of dirty dishes. The second time I was alone in the kitchen and tried to throw it out to door to the dog or whatever animal might find it more appetizing than me. “Tried” is the operative word here. I wound back and released… only for it to hit the overhanging zinc roof with a resounding thud. So much for being stealthy!

You’d think that would be clue enough to keep the lard off my plate the next time. But for breakfast the following morning I found a chunk of unfried, soft pig fat on my plate sans tamale. This time I threw it within inches of the dog that gobbled it up before anyone was the wiser.

Adjusting Nicely

On Sunday I moved into my third and final host family. It is like a combination of my first two, though only the best parts of each. I am living with a real family again, aka with kids which make for great conversation. The girls are 5, 7, and 11 years old. And my host mom is around more, which makes me feel like I don’t have to leave the house too. My host dad is awesome too and wants to take me to the waterfall on this side of the community as well as Cerro Punta on the other side of the national park. And his brother brought me home in his truck the other day when it was raining. Major points. hehe

I have my own room too. I have a double bed, instead of the single (not twin) beds I’ve been accustomed to. Plus, it is my first mattress with springs in my community. Granted all you can feel are the springs, since there isn’t any padding left in the mattress, but hey, what can you do. The first time I picked up one of the pillows on the bed, I felt like I was lifting a dead animal. I guess the best way to describe the filling is perhaps strips of jeans tied in balls, and just as comfortable… I really have no idea what it is made of or why on earth anyone would make a pillow using it. But I bought my own pillow back in Training, so I’ve got that base covered.



It is a further walk from the rest of town, but the chiva will still drop me off on that side. I´ve finally included a picture of the Toyota Land Cruiser that is typically filled with 20 people (made to carry just 10) and at times is packed with over thirty. It is our own version of those contests to see how many people you can pack in the car, only this is daily with a real purpose.

It’s pretty amazing what you get used to. By now I’ve taken for granted that I will eat whatever is served in front of me. My host families and other community members do ask me what I don’t like to eat. I try not to make my list of things I don’t like eating too long in case that is what they were planning on serving. I do let them know that I don’t eat feet. After a surprise of a piglet hoof in my tamale at a birthday party, I’ve been making sure the community knows that I do not eat feet. Pig feet, chicken feet (haha, it’s not a monkey paw Scott), oh, and cow’s feet are not to enter my digestive system. Honestly though, it is all just skin and cartilage, with hairs of the beasts prinking out. Typically I would say yuck, but I’m learning to recognize that it is yet another cultural difference. I mean, the kids fight over them, so there must be something appealing. I was pasearing the other day as one woman was cutting up a pig’s ears and plopping them in a pot of beans. I’ll have to remember to add that to my list of things I don’t eat.

I mention that they are things that don’t exist in the States, so I am simply not used to them. It seems to hold over most people, though some take it as an invitation to offer the gringo something new. After two months of warding off chorizo, I was finally served a slab for dinner tonight. In the States I would avoid the white of bacon. Here on my plate prepared by my new host mom was a half inch thick, inch and a half wide, and three inch long chunk of fried pork skin and fat. At least she was nice and gave me a small piece! I ate it, thinking of happy thoughts instead of where all that extra fat is going to pegar on my body. That’s another thing, the new question for me is “Have you gained weight?” or “You look más gordita.” Hmmm, yes I do. Could it be meals of pure fat? The fact that just about everything is fried? Or perhaps is the typical meal of top ramen and spaghetti soup, spaghetti with tomato sauce, and rice dinner? I think I’m certainly getting my fill of carbs here!!! So I can’t wait until I can cook on my own and choose what I eat again.

I start my English class on Saturday. I am a little afraid of who is going to show up. I’m labeling the class as Intermediate, but I have a feeling many beginners and little kids sent by their parents might try to sign up. Plus, I’ve decided that since I don’t really want to teach English, I am making it basically an environmental education class simply with lots of English words throw in. hehe I put in a lot of the past month planning topics, vocabulary, grammar, activities, and methods to evaluate the class. I’ve got my fingers crossed it will pay off and run somewhat smoothly. One of the gringo’s in town is going to help me with the first few classes too. After I finalize who I am going to let stay in the class and who has got to go, I’ll be making it official with the Ministry of Education. (At least that’s the plan.)

¿Qué más? Oh, speaking of school, it’s pretty much a mess right now. No construction has happened for the past month. The representante won’t show, and class is still in the rancho communal. The teachers pushed for suspending class completely (which thankfully didn’t fly), and another meeting will be held on Monday to see what they are going to do. People are supposed to come today (didn’t happen) or tomorrow to check everything out, including the possibility of holding class in the half remodeled school. Oye. I am pushing the Padres to go to the Ministry of Education and get something done about the amount of days the teachers are missing too. So many little projects…

I’m inventorying the vivero too. Admittedly, I stopped after the second day of getting through just four species and over 500 plants when I ran into a monstrous ant nest. I have the worst luck with ant bites, and boy do they hurt! The trees aren’t going to be planted any time soon, unfortunately, so I’ve got time. Man though, one of the guys in town got bit by a scorpion when I was at his house chatting with his wife. He said the pain shot right up his arm into his chest and didn’t go away as we watched his finger turned black. Note to self, do not touch any creepy crawlies around here!

Life is going fine here in Cabecera. Hope this latest update finds you equally well! I miss you all and hope you had a great Labor Day!

Movers and Shakers

In the United States, I would religiously watch the Olympics. With so many different sports, each day would bring new competitions. From gymnastics to baseball to volleyball, I would forward to each event. Okay, maybe I wasn’t such a fan of baseball.

This year in Panama, there is one sport: track and field. And at that, there is only one event: the long jump. Panamanian Saladino’s jump has been on repeat so many times that I think I could now make the gold metal jump. And what an important gold metal it was. In the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Panama won its first gold metal EVER. And this metal is the third metal of any kind after a 60 year delay when another Panamanian scored two bronze metals in the hurdles.

So what does this mean to the typical American? Probably nothing. But to the typical Panamanian, the metal is a source of great national pride. So much so, that the President declared a National Holiday on Thursday. A parade greeted Saladino’s arrival as well as festivities in Panama City. His home town of Colon celebrated as well. A popular neighborhood took his name. And he got a fat check from the government as well.

Early Friday morning brought more shaking to Panama as a 5.0 earthquake rocked Chiriqui. Yep, that’s where I live. I woke up to the rumbling of my bed and enjoyed the ride that seemed to last longer than the events in California. It could be that I am just out of practice. You’d think that after living in Earthquake country for a total of 15 years I would be used to them by now. My heart was definitely racing as I hoped that with as minor an earthquake as it was the block house enclosing me was constructed soundly.

My meeting on Sunday brought just seven participants. People told me later that they couldn’t come because of the aguacero. (I guess they forgot that the downpour started more than an hour after the meeting.) Oh but there were dark clouds in the sky… so they must have just known that they would get caught in it, since the meeting wouldn’t start until later because people don’t arrive on time. It was still good number to have, and mostly women, so they listened to me. I got what I needed to get done and can use the information they gave me as a jumping off point for the next meeting. A bit of a surprise came when they expressed interest in fish tanks to grow tilapia. This is an agriculture project, aka not in my sector, but I’ll see what I can do to help them.

I’ve got just one week left with my current host family. I’ll be moving to the other side of town next and am looking forward to getting to know that side better. Plus one of the ladies over there makes delicious plum wine. She’s going to teach me too! Mmmm, I’m salivating at the prospect of sipping the fruits of my labor in just three months.

I don’t think I can end it on a better note than that. I hope you all are doing well and I can’t wait to hear about what you’ve been up to! Shoot me an email or send me a letter at:

Kerry Piper

Entrega General

David, Chiriquí

Republica de Panamá

Patronales

Since I missed most of the festivities of Cabecera´s Patronales (Saint Day) in June, I was sure not to miss the Patronales in Potrerillos Arriba. Festivities started on Thursday the day before the official saint day, August 22nd with a procession of the Virgen. Yep, I stayed in town that day. I went down Friday to take pictures of the kids in town that were getting baptised at Mass. Only I ended up getting there a half hour after it started and thus remained outside of the church. (I was told it was to start at 11am, but it started at 10am. Oh well, I´m not complaining!)

I then waited around for the Cabalgata, a parade of horses. I was told it was to start at 3pm... at 4pm I waited anxiously with members of my community, and at 5:30pm it started. By that point it was raining and the horses ran by in one direction, returned and the riders got drunker and drunker with every pass. Hmmm. Okay. I can check that off of my list of Panamanian festivities I need to observe.

I headed back up in the chiva at 6:30pm due to one of the guys from town not leaving me alone. The other folks from town were great about it though and stuck with me dispite his drunken annoyances.

I headed back down late the following day to catch the Barrera. It is a Panamanian bull fight. Well, at least that´s what they call it. I walked with Abby and her host parents to the ring constructed hastily of bamboo. People were seated all around the top of the ring waiting anxiously for the bulls to enter. Now these bulls aren´t your typical American bulls. They come from the fields lining the hillsides of Volcan Baru. They eat the grass growing out of the volcanic soil! So when the first bull entered the ring, it was just as big and bravo as all the other bulls I´ve encountered here, which is to say that it is quite small and tame as a kitten.

The drunken men jumped into the rings and did what they wanted to the bulls: waving jackets in front of them, touching their backs when they came close, and pulling on their tails and ears, usually after they wrangled them and tied them to the ring. The true entertainment came when one guy who was so drunk he couldn´t stand fell over in the path of the bull. His friends helped him up and then he went back in and fell yet again. Also the rungs of the ring kept falling every ten minutes, making the ring shorter and shorter to the surprise of the seated observers.

There were also discotecas and bailes, but I figured I´d soaked in enough culture for one night. I headed back up in the chiva by midnight during a special run. And with that, I survived my first Patronales of Panama!

Earthquake!

Okay, so it just shook my bed for quite a while and got my heart beating in the early morning hours. Nothing fell off my shelves or anything of the sort. But it was quite a rumbler!

Magnitude 5.0 PANAMA-COSTA RICA BORDER REGION
Friday, August 22, 2008 at 11:04:56 UTC

Preliminary Earthquake Report

Magnitude 5.0
# Date-Time Friday, August 22, 2008 at 11:04:56 (UTC) - Coordinated Universal Time
# Friday, August 22, 2008 at 06:04:56 AM local time at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location 8.39N 82.82W
Depth 43.7 kilometers
Region PANAMA-COSTA RICA BORDER REGION
Distances 45 km (25 miles) W of David, Panama
45 km (30 miles) SE of Golfito, Costa Rica
120 km (75 miles) SSW of Bocas del Toro, Panama
370 km (230 miles) W of PANAMA CITY, Panama
Location Uncertainty Error estimate: horizontal +/- 10.4 km; depth +/- 11.6 km
Parameters Nst=123, Nph=123, Dmin=313.4 km, Rmss=1.06 sec, Erho=10.4 km, Erzz=11.6 km, Gp=148.5 degrees
Source USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Event ID uswaa7

Earthquake Location

Group Work

My conservation group is lacking when it comes to meeting attendance. In fact, there have been a few meetings when I am the only one who shows up, despite the fact that I didn’t even call the meeting. Interesting. Anyhow, I decided I needed a little break and breather from my community and luckily other volunteers had the same idea.

We headed off to Las Lajas, a beautiful, sandy beach lined with coconut trees in Eastern Chiriquí on the Pacific Coast. Ten of us came together to trade stories, play cards, body surf, and plan out projects in each others communities.

I sold off 63 of the chickens at the school for a grand total of less than the amount I paid to keep those suckers alive. Argh. After speaking with the president of Padres de Familia on Saturday and stressing that we need to kill the remaining 10 asap since they were running out of food, she agreed to do it before the Monday meeting of the group. Monday rolled around and before the meeting I popped in to check on my feathered foes. They were still alive and clucking. So during the meeting (which the president didn’t attend), I laid out the loss of money from the project, the fact that there was now no food left for the chickens, and that we need to kill them and pop them in a freezer for the school kids.

Everyone was up in arms that the chicks were just too small to kill now and that we need to keep them alive for another whole MONTH. (That translates to another $60 in corn feed, after this round has already resulted in a deficit of -$65.) Yeah, that didn’t make me happy. Plus, no one would listen to me and everyone was talking over each other. I finally made my point that the project didn’t have the money to pay for more feed and that all the remaining chickens were much bigger than any of the ones people bought since they scrambled for the smallest (aka cheapest) birds. They decided that each family would take a bird and fatten it up themselves.

At the end of the FOUR hour long meeting, the padres came to the school to collect their chickens. In fact, only 6 people came (out of the 23 in attendance). Everyone exclaimed how big the birds were, and how they were ready to eat right now. Geesh, sounds a little familiar. I think someone might have said that in the meeting… Nah. Anyhow, they ended up divvying up the birds, and deciding to kill the four remaining. A small triumph!

(And another reason why the meeting lasted so long was that the Representante came to discuss the progress on the school. They had planned a remodel to let more light into the very dark classrooms. An architect drew up plans approved by MEDUCA (Ministry of Education) and all was set. The first wall was finally completed, perhaps two weeks behind schedule. However, it does not have bigger windows than the original building. In fact, it has NO windows! There was quite a scwabble over who was at fault, but the fact remains that the kids will be having class in the community meeting place for longer. Oh, and since that was the first day of class there, the teachers decided that it is too difficult to keep the kids in their desks and under control. So they proposed to the parents that for the safety of the kids, they need to build a fence around the new classrooms. It will be more difficult for the kids to get out of a barbed wire enclosure during class hours. I wish I thought of that!)

After hiking up and down the community on Monday, I requested a horse for the following day to GPS some points in the park. My wish is their command! At 6am I arrived at the Solis’s house with my horse waiting. Well, it took a while to get it ready, but by 6:30am I mounted the horse and took off into the hills with Chicho walking at my side. Hehe, yep, I am lazy. Anyhow, we traveled up the mountain for two hours at which time I had to dismount and make the rest of the trek on foot. Seven hours of hiking (aka bushwacking on the “trails” and sliding down eroding hillsides) later, we made it to the top of the peak closest to Cabecera de Cochea (8684ft), down to the refugio, and back to my waiting horse. I hiked down to the main road next to the horse, as it was pouring rain and advised not to ride it as I would get wet. Seriously? It is a downpour and my legs are going to get wet regardless! Oh well, I pretended not to be as lazy as I was only got back on the horse after my pants were soaked from an hour more of walking in the rain. It only took about 45minutes more to reach the house again where hot coffee and dinner were waiting. (Though another dinner at my host family’s house was also waiting…)

During our hike, I could see the drastic effects of the major logging campaign that occurred in the park just before its inception. Enormous trees like the kind you’d see in Redwood National Forest in the States were cut and moved with equally huge cables and sold to the US and France. The Solis family owns a big chunk that they used to clear and seed with grass for cattle. They are no longer allowed to do this in the vast majority of the park and those parts are slowly growing back. I sensed some bitterness that they can’t sell off the timber any more, but I didn’t hold back when asked if I thought it was a good idea to protect the land as a park. Along the way we spotted a scat and kill sites from big cats, fungi in all shapes and colors, a Three-wattled Bellbird (really bad pic), countless hummingbirds including the White-throated Mountain-gem, and a Two-toed Sloth. I was certainly please that this habitat is being conserved.

Next Sunday I have a special meeting to plan out the charlas (presentations) and workshops for the Producers group. They expressed a lot of interest in learning how to make organic fertilizers and insecticides. I hope that enthusiasm carries into this next meeting. They decided on both the time and date, so I’ve got my fingers crossed that at least someone will show up! Plus, they seem to be much better about meeting and I’m going to make more pretty signs to remind them. Hehe

Indoor Plumbing!

I switched homestays as planned into the lap of luxury… at least as good as it gets for my community. I have my OWN room, complete with bed, desk, and chair. Although the bed is still just wooden boards with an inch-thick piece of foam laid on top, it is my very own, free from coughing children and crying babies. As it is my own room, I now have space for my things, which I moved out of storage from another house in town. What difference to have my books at arms reach whenever I need to look something up! I bought a wooden shoe rack at the Do It Center which is the perfect size to hold all of my clothes and stay organized. (Although I’m still working out where I want to keep the clothes I’ve worn already but aren’t quite dirty enough to warrant a full days work to wash.)

Other improvements include a family with seating, a dining area with enough chairs for all of us, and a kitchen inside the main house. Plus all the floors are cement, as opposed to dirt. And best of all, there is INDOOR PLUMBING! Not only does the kitchen have a sink with running water, but there is a bathroom with both a flushing toilet and a shower with a drain! Yep, I’m livin’ the high life!

However, the first day I moved into my new home, I was greeted by a torrential downpour and thunderstorm. Moreover, within about a half hour of my arrival, the house was struck by lightning which burned out the TV. I didn’t have TV at the last house, so I am not complaining about missing episodes of Victoria like my host mom.

Two days later I managed to eat something that didn’t agree with me. I can’t decide if it was a sip of already fermenting juice or perhaps an empanada that I was given at the conclusion of my Producers Association meeting. Whatever it was, I was up all night with the worst gas I’ve ever had. And this is to say that every ten minutes I would sit up to release a fruity flavored, carbonated belch. I hadn’t drunk any soda or beer since I arrived in my community a month ago, so go figure. By about 3am, I decided that it wasn’t just gas coming up from my digestive system. I reached for my Nalgene bottle, and knocked it off my desk. Darn it! As it clattered on the floor, I dove for it and immediately released the building pressure from within. As it rapidly filled with the first two heaves, I fiddled with the lock on my door and emptied out the rest of my upper digestive system just past the front porch stoop.

I then took a walk into the sugar cane field to pour out my Nalgene and get some fresh air. I figured it probably wouldn’t be best to leave my little front door surprise, and used my water bottle to dilute it a little and prayed it would pour soon. I then unlocked padlock I put on the front door each night and made my way to the bathroom to finish emptying out my system, from the other end. However I was thwarted in my effort by my host mom.

It must be explained that Panamanian house construction in the campo does not involve any insulation to buffer noise levels. In addition, my host parents share a wall with my room. So needless to say, I must have made quite the introduction with my midnight symphony. She asked the obvious if I was feeling poorly. I wonder how she could have figured that out. And then proceeded to offer me an assortment of medications. No, really, I will be okay. Please, for the love of God, just let me use the toilet! She eventually let me past. Two trips to the bathroom later, I don’t think I had anything left in my system by the time morning rolled around all too slowly.

Though I ran through a mental list of all the possible parasites and bacteria that could have caused me such discomfort, I was as good as gold by the next day. So while my first impression probably wasn’t the best on this new family, I certainly gained some confianza with them...