¡Bienvenidos a Nuestra Aventura!

Saturday, November 25, 2006

A few random shots...





A "Harpy Eagle" that we saw at a local refuge organization. The Harpy is the world's most powerful bird-of-prey, with claws and diving-velocity powerful enough to snatch 100 lb. sloths out of 100 ft. trees with ease.


















A young Ngobe girl leading Panama's "Flag Day" parade at the local Cerro Brisa elementary school.


















Amanda during Flag Day celebrations, participating in the tried and true "lime-on-the-end-of-a-spoon-in-your-mouth" relay race. We didn't win this one...(note the children in the foreground watching the other racers waaaay down to the left)











"Mimi," the tragically one-eyed pet dog of the Montero family. True to how Panamanians seem to regard their pets, the family heartily laughs everytime we bemoan the fact that Mimi lost her eye to a local kid's well-aimed marble.



















"Kenya" (we think), a cousin of the Montero family, who lives nearby and whose brother is the prime suspect in the case of Mimi's missing eye.



















No, not a tree with an afro! This is a termite (or maybe an ant?) nest about the size of two basketballs. They are everywhere, and are burned by the Ngobe during funerals to ward off evil spirits.

Around the House....






Backyard table at our host-family's house. We usually eat outside only for special occasions as it frequently rains most of the day during the dry wet season, which ends in mid-December











The view towards the right from the door of our small "studio." This road is our link to the outside world, and a two 4x4 pick-ups (called "chivas") packed full of people travel its appx. one-hour length roughly 4-5 times per day. While the ride is dangerous and uncomfortable, one can jump on the back of the pick-up and hold dearly onto its welded iron bars, while it skips and slides over the mud-trenched and cliff-flanked rock road for a mere .75 .








A view of our front door and porch area from the direction of the road. The hombre, Felix Montero, is the father of the family in whose home we reside. His family is one of the hardest-working, friendliest, and involved families we have as of yet encountered in Panama. The woman on the right is Heather Ballance, the volunteer Amanda & I replaced in Cerro Brisa (our community), who was a great help to us during our initial site orientation.







A wider view of the whole house. As you can see, our "studio" is attached to the rest of the Montero house, but we have our own entrance and personal space, which makes it feel very private and comfortable. We hope to remain here for the duration of our two-year service









Felix Montero, holding out a "baby" venemous snake that he found while clearing land near his house with the pictured machete. I am not sure what the name of thise snake is, but he assured us that it could kill us quite efficiently.












A closer view of the above snake. Don't worry, it is quite dead.

Brian, doing what he does best.

Amanda sucking on/eating cacao seeds from the cacao fruit. If you've never done this before, its really hard to explain (trust me), but it is definitely one of the tastier experiences we've had thusfar.

WooooooOOO.....PICTURES!!!








Swear-In day! This is a (admittedly poor) photo of our Environ. Health training group shortly after swearing-in at the Panama Canal Museum.













Shortly after swearing-in, our whole group (appx. 34 volunteers) went to the beach for a few days and, as it coincided with Halloween, rather spontaneously organized a costume party at which the theme needed to evoke "Panama" in some meaningful way.












As tumbling garbage is an excessively common site in many (most?) Panamanian towns, streets, yards, sidewalks, etc, our dynamic duo took advantage of its low cost and easy acquisition to use it for our guise. Yes, we were garbage for Halloween.











Creativity abounded, with our friend Casey (from Kansas) donning the familiar garb of a government policy representative. Not long ago, Panama held a popular referendum to widen the canal, before which the federal government went throughout the country to promote their (obvious) opinion in its favor. (side note: the widening was, thankfully and overwhelmingly, approved by appx. 80% of voters. VOTA SI!)

Our new site/ home...

Hey Everyone!

Brian and I have now been in our site now for almost a month! It has been an adjustment, like everything has been in Panama, but we definitely have been adjusting well. Overall, we are happy, healthy and glad to be doing what we´re doing.... a lot of reading! We have begun doing some work in our community, but it is always slow moving for most new volunteers during the first few months, which allows for a lot of reading time. I think Brian as already read something like 10 books in only the last four weeks!!

A little about our living situation: We live in a good size room that is attached to our counterpart's family's house. The former volunteer lived in the same room for a year. Usually one stays with a family for 3 months and then moves out on their own, but they invited her to stay longer, which she did and which we also hope to do. Our room is big enough for a full size bed, a table, three shelves and a little cooking area. We also have two windows and our own entrance. We have our privacy and I have been busy trying my best to create a cosy home for Brian and I. Trying to find a balance between creating a relatively comfortable home for us while not being too ostentatious can be a challenge, however, as appointments that we consider basic and essential for our sanity are still often out of reach for the majority of our community.

Our counterpart, Felix Montero and his family are better than we could have hoped for. Felix is super-motivated and way ahead of his community. He does it all including; maintaining his diversified organic vegetable/fruit garden, his tilapia (fresh-water fish) farm, building a house for his neighbor ( as well as other things for people in the community), acting as president for the parent committee at the school (kind of like a PTA), helping with the aquaduct committee (which maintains the system), latrine committee (which wil have more work to do once we help to build them), and a number of other things. Lately he has been requesting for us to give talks about AIDS and HIV, which is almost unheard of for someone in an indigenous community to take such a great interest in. Therefore, Brian and I have set up a two day seminar on HIV and AIDS for both young adults and adults for next week in celebration of world HIV/AIDS awareness day. Felix is an amazing person with lots of energy who I know will keep Brian and I on our toes. We also recently hosted a presentation by the Panamanian Ministry of Health in our community regarding basic nutrition, which went really well even after an unanticipated 2 hr delay!

Hi wife Angela and two kids, Felix Jr. (10) and Nata (19) are also wonderful. They have been hospitable and respectful above and beyond our expectations. Each day they make us three meals for which we are very thankful. The food is simple and usualy fried, but tasty. We also have one of the only latrines in the community near our house and have a cement area for taking bucket showers (with plastic-tarp walls, which makes bathing in breezy conditions rather interesting!). The family also has two dogs, a horse and many chickens, roosters and ducks.

Our community sits on a ridge in the mountains surrounded by other small communities above us and below. We live right off the dirt road which makes getting to and from our site pretty easy. We usualy have the option of taking a chiva (small truck) up and down the moutain (about 1 hr.) or walking (1 1/2hrs.). We are surrounded by lush trees with amazing views. We have one school in our community with an uncounted number of kids in grades k-8. The teachers are mostly latino and who commute in from towns outside of the area. They are very friendly and great to have around. We have already been invited to eat at a teacher's house for Christmas. In addition to the teachers most people in our indigenous Ngobe community are also very friendly, while are usually very shy at first.

So far, we have yet to have very many problems with unwanted critters. We do have these little gnats that come out during dusk which will eat you alive before you even notice. Thankfully, they don´t itch too much (unlike thier unbelievably evil cousin, the chigger) and if you don´t scratch thier bites go away within a day or two. Other than the nightly moths, roaches, and occasional palm-sized spider, we can´t really complain. However.....

The other morning Brian woke me up around 4:30am saying he though there was a bat in our mosquito netting (which we seal ourselves in during the night). I was half asleep and told him to go back to sleep. He kept saying he thought one was in our net and I kept telling him he must have been dreaming. Finally after his persitance I picked my head up to look up and as soon as I did a bat came charging at my face! We both dove under the sheet as Brian shouted, "lets hide!!" I began cracking up so hard and we both giggled like little kids under the sheet trying to figure out what to do. I finally slid out and we were able to get the bat out with a broom. I still laugh when I think about it and can hear him saying "let´s hide". (side-note: Brian swears the bat had a wing-span the size of an eagle)

Brian and I also had our first overnight guest on Monday. Another volunteer (Casey) from our group walked a few hrs from his site to come to our first health presentation. We then showed him around the area and roasted marshmallows and made smores on our propane stove. Ahhh the simple pleasures in life!

The next day we made our journey together as we travelled to an amazing town named Cerra Punta. It´s close to the Costa Rican boarder and at a higher elevation than Denver. There about 120 Peace Corps volunteers met at a local cabin/lodge resort to celebrate Thanksgiving. The town was misty in the mornings and evenings while sunny during the day, but always a little nippy. I took my first hot bath in months, which was like a slice of heaven. We went on a beautiful guided hike though a tropical forest over bridges and streams and past jungle foilage of every kind. The hillsides were covered in rich agriculture and flowers, and it seemed that strawberries were the local crop of choice. The only bummer was that we didn´t get to eat until about 8:30 at night because the cooks (PC volunteers) ran so far behind (we were scheduled to start at 3:00-ish. In addition, aswe we are the newest volunteer group we were forced to eat last, not leaving much of a variety of food left. But overall we ate well and had a very nice time.

Yesterday on the way back to our site, we arrived in our provincial capitol named David. David is a rather uninteresting city that supports many of the sterotypes associated with chaotic, dirty Latin American cities. Regardless, we spent the night so we could buy a few things and update the blog and will be returning to our site today.

We hope all is well with everyone, and hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Brian and I are both very thankful for the blessing of having you all as our family and friends, and we look forward to future Thanksgivings in your company.