¡Bienvenidos a Nuestra Aventura!

Monday, September 25, 2006

HOLA Familia y Amigos!!!

(a work in progress over the past week)
Brian and I have been quite busy! Right now we are in the middle of our two weeks of cultural and technical training which is being held in different volunteer sites.

We had an amazing visit to an Embera indigenous village that you had to take a canoe to get to. The Embera are known for their beautiful weaved baskets. If any of you saw the movie, ¨The End of the Spear¨ then you might remember the group of ingenious people in the movie. Well the villagers in the movie are the same people we lived with for a few days. The dad in the hut we stayed in was one of the villagers who speared one of the missionaries in the movie! Their huts were elevated quite high reaching into the trees. You had to climb carved out tree trunks (as a ladder) to get up in them. The floors were made out of really flexible wood that gave when you walked on it. It is a type of wood that despite the flexibility it is actually really sturdy. However, I couldn't help but feel a little uneasy walking on it.

Another thing that took me off guard was that most families in this village had TVs!!! Often the women don´t wear shirts and the men traditionally wear nothing but a small beaded skirt over a loin cloth. The interior of the huts didn´t have much of anything in them but I was shocked to find most huts had TVs We have noticed that almost all Panamanians have a TV no matter how undeveloped of a place one might live in. All you need is a simple generator.

One day we took a canoe up the river to an amazing waterfall. It was so refreshing to swim in such clean water and play in the water fall. On our way back we did run into a poisonous snake! It ended up swimming away though...feeww!

The second site was not as .... lets just say comfortable. Yesterday I had one of my most challenging days. I almost had a nervous breakdown. I woke up with bites all over my body that burned and itched. Most often the bites are from a little red bug that bits, sits in your skin and sucks your blood. They make you long for the days when mosquitoes were your only worry. We had been working pretty hard building a latrine for two days while sleeping on a hard floor at night. My body really ached. We had only a dirty river to bathe in. This river is often used for washing dishes, clothes, for bathing and crapping in.

The hut we were staying in had a ton of bats, giant spiders,cockroaches and a wasp´s nest. I was feeling so miserable when I went to pick up a 30 lb. bag of sand to start working when I noticed there was chicken crap all over it which smeared all over my shirt. I almost lost it at that point. I started laughing and crying at the same time. I decided I would sit out and pull myself together for the afternoon.

Today Brian and I are split up again as he continues on to get more technical training and I head back to Santa Clara for additional Spanish classes. I miss him already but I know it will pay off later. I will take a bus on Saturday and meet him in the city where we plan on spending the night and finally celebrate our first year anniversary. We are very excited to stay in a hotel and have hot showers for a night!

We have been learning more and more about the site where we will eventually be living for the next two years, and which is sounding better and better all the time. I can´t wait to share more about the Kuna community that we will live in with all of you as we learn about them ourselves. I hear they are very organized and work really hard at keeping their traditions, language, and culture alive. If you want to learn more about our Kuna site, you can google the words KUNA and LAGO BAYANO, which is the lake that our village will be on. The name of the village is AGUA CLARA, which may help as well.

We think about all of you all the time while trying to imagine what you are doing at the moment. It´s usually something really nice like sitting in air conditioning or sipping on a cold drink. So far what I miss most is a washer and dryer and ice. There´s nothing like drinking warm milk on a warm day... yummy!

Even though we have the occasional rough day, I am often reminded why we are here and how blessed I am. I find joy in small things like the beautiful butterflies and the cool leaf cutter ants. I feel
so so blessed to have such a wonderful husband to share this experience with. Brian is such a motivator and brings me such comfort when I need it the most. Thanks for all of your prayers and emails. Even through the challenges we are doing really well.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Address...

(Our Name (s)!)
CUERPO DE PAZ - PANAMA
Apartado 0834-02788
Panamá, Republica de Panamá