Settling In

It has been two weeks since I last posted... and it seems like this will probably be about the pace I can get into the city (David) to use the internet and refuel. I haven´t touched my computer that is still sitting in the bottom of my bag at a neighbors house. Hopefully I´ll get it up and running soon so I can put a bit more thought into these updates.

That said, I am settling in quite well to my new community. As I´ve said, the people are great and very welcoming. I´ve spent time pasearing with several families and enjoyed pork from the pig I said hi to the day before. One afternoon I kept warm next to boiling sugarcane juice and sampled the progessively changing consistency of the dulce. We started out by drinking the ¨tea¨, which is literally sugar water. (I often get this tea at home mixed with not just milk, but sweeted, condensed milk out of a can. That milk goes into coffee too, so there´s no such thing as unsweeted anything around here!) Once the mixture cooked a little longer, we helped ourselves to bowls of ¨honey¨ which we sampled by dipping lemon leaves in and licking off the now citrus-tasting sweet. I also use the honey over my pancakes. It doesn´t have quite the same taste as maple syrup, but it does the trick! After about four hours of cooking, the concoction was ready to pour into the molds as it had now crystalized. As the thick caramel-like goodness dribbled between the wells of the mold, I joined my two host sisters in ¨cleaning it up.¨ Yum! Once cooled, the patties, called raspadura, are bagged and sold in David. They are used as brown sugar would be, or simply as fuel during a long hike.

Ada, Kirsten, and my host dad, Javier, took me on a hike to Chorro Blanco. None of them had ever gone before and I for one will never go again. hehe I live up in the mountains. As you can imagine, our destination waterfall is also located up in the mountains. Volcan Baru is the start of just about all of Chiriquí`s important rivers. Those rivers start out as many streams that cut between ridgelines and eventually converge. So our hike consisted of blazing trail literally straight up and down ridge after ridge and crossing streams that at times were up to our knees. We hopped so many barb wire fences we lost count. I stopped counting the ridgelines after we hit ten and I was too exhausted to focus my mental energy away from the impossible task of not falling. On one 75`downhill pitch, my feet slipped out from under me and the walking stick that Javier made for me snapped in half behind me. My butt and head caught my fall, and I think the stick may have gone into my shoulderblade creating the buise for which I can´t find any other origin. The waterfall was not the most impressive I´ve seen... perhaps 12ft tall. After such an ardous hike, I was expecting more. The best part of the hike was just passing through the tropical forests and descending down the riparian zones between pastureland. We walked through many communities that my Panamanian counterparts didn´t even know the names of. After twelve hours of speedhiking faster than I ever have before, we made it back to Cabecera de Cochea. I hopped in the shower and then headed to Ada´s house for an early birthday celebration. All in a day´s work!

Where exactly am I living? I´m glad you asked... Instead of having my own room as planned, I´m sharing with my five host sisters (well, one is the 2 month old baby of one of the sisters). The three beds are arranged in an L-shape. My hopes of my host dad building me a promised partition so I would have some space to my own was dashed when I was directed to the center bed. For the first two weeks, I squirreled away my clothes and toiletries under the section of my bed that wasn´t blocked by the other bed. My few books that I brought as resources to catch up on lay at the foot of my bed while I curl up each night to go to sleep. You´ve got to know me better than to assume that I would be able pack for two years in just a small backpacking pack and a handful of books. Since no more than this fits in my living quarters, I´ve got my other two bags (a duffle and a larger backpacking pack) at the Solis´s house (my first host fam during my short visit) since they have an extra room where I can store them. (That room has two beds that no one is sleeping in... so envious!) I did finally get a part of a shelf cleared off right before I left for David, so perhaps I´ll feel a little less cramped for the remaining two weeks before I switch host families.

I´ve been keeping busy learning more about the community. (Some things I´ve heard could be great fodder for an unbelievable telenovela. My jaw hung open forever after I heard one accusation after another. Unfortunately it wouldn´t be very appropriate to post all of it here. Sorry!) For these first three months, I´ll continue learning and prioritizing their needs to direct my work over the two years I´m here. I´ve been handed the reins of the chicken project and will be planning the slaughter and sale of our 74 fattening pollos. I´ll hopefully start teaching some of the groups some organic composting recipies as they have ganas to produce it.

The conservation group got their Persona Juridica (aka legal NGO standing) so their Biological Cooridor grant money should be deposited in the coming months. (They were approved for the grant to build an ecocabana, two lookouts, fix up their trails (which I only hope are better than the one we blazed to Chorro Blanco), expand their reforestation efforts, and more). I´m planning to work closely with this group with reforestation, ecotourism, and environmental education.

The area is ripe with diversity. Two Canadian girls did a survey of the trees in and around Las Brujas coffee plantation that lies in the north part of the community. A girl who lives at the bottom of the community did her senior university thesis with a friend on all the birds around the area. They mist netted and did transect counts by both sight and sound, finding over 180 species. I´ve got my hands on both and can´t wait do a more thourough reading without paying $0.75 per hour internet time. (She has a computer at her house, as does the other tienda owner, so I might stop by again to check things out. Dell and Sandy, a sweet American couple splitting their time in the mountains of our community and the Carribean coast on sailboats, has also offered me use of his printer and GPS to get some projects done around here. They make the best cups of coffee in town too!)

This weekend I was in the city for our agency visits. We met the big guys of ANAM (think all encompassing environmental organization), MIDA (agriculture agency), and MEDUCA (education body). Hopefully I´ll be able more easily link my community to their vast resources. Of course, getting together all 7 new volunteers called for a celebration. Other volunteers throughout the region and some from the Comarca gathered for a barbque last night. I held up the Piper name in flipcup, surprising myself with getting it flipped on just about the first time for the majority of the game. hehe A great bed waited for me at Hotel T, and that´s all I needed to make for a relaxing trip out of site. Until next time...