Happy Thanksgiving...here's for your entertainment while the turkey cooks

ImnotdoinganythingmomIswearIswear!

My valiant bodyguard kills a roll of thread while maintaining lots of balance and cuteness.

Sup?

What are they running from...?

Mona wants to catch a Thanksgiving goose.

mail situation...

Ok...this is what happens to packages on their way to me.  I'm pretty sure my mom didn't masking tape the sides together herself, which means somebody tampered with it (well, the woman at the desk said something that could have been that they did it in the post office, but other volunteers say that they only open your packages in front of you there and I was just so excited for my first piece of mail in 6 weeks that I wasn't really listening).  IF you plan on sending mail, I highly recommend religious decorations and a list of items inside, which can be in english, but with a title of "Lista de Cosas en Este Paquete" so tamperers know they're being watched and so I know what you intended to send and I can appreciate it fully. I'm so sad that this happens, though whoever opened the package didn't notice the silver necklace that my friend Emily had sent to my house and which made it here unstolen.

I'm only going into this much detail about the subject because I know that sending packages and letters is a way many of you wonderful people can feel connected to what I'm doing here and I don't want that effort to be in vain...not because I think I deserve to be so spoiled.

Religious Sayings in Spanish, perfect for packages:  "Dios Te Bendice," (God Bless You) "Que Viva el Amor de Jesus," (no direct translation--That Would Live the Love of Jesus) "Señor de los Milagros, Guianos" (Lord of Miracles, Guide Us --the Lord of Miracles is major here)

A tip I've also heard from volunteers...since seeds are technically not ok to send, relatives have taped them inside double-folded magazine advertisements and it just looks to a careless customs officer or package hijacker like it's a magazine.  I think CD's and DVD's would also be well packaged this way.

Please do not spend lots of money on the contents of a package, I'm not in desperate need of expensive things, and I'd hate for anybody to spend money on things that will get stolen.  Second hand books aren't too big of an investment, will be appreciated by volunteers for years to come (we have book exchanges) and if they do get stolen, don't hurt thy sacred pockets too much.

P.S. I never had nor saw a tampered package in Bolivia.  Harumph!

Grito de Independencia

Boys in sombrero panameño and girls in pollera, doing baile típico.

It’s November, which means it’s country pride month.  The kids have maybe 10 or 15 days of school this month, since there are so many days off to celebrate various facets of Panamanian pride.  I went to my nearby city’s Grito de Independencia – the “cry of independence” which celebrates when the Panamanians literally cried independence from Columbia.  I think.  It was, in finest Panamanian style, a parade.  There were bands from schools from all over our province.  Here, being in band is really cool. Especially if you’re a drummer.  My host brothers really want to be in band so they can pound the drums and wear sunglasses in the parades!  I think parades are going to punctuate my experience on a regular basis.  Recently I was in Santiago (my regional capital) and suddenly there was a parade.  I asked my waitress what they were parading for, and she said, “es para las virgencitas.”  It’s for the little Virgins.  Sure enough, seemed like every Virgin Mary statue from the Catholic churches around Santiago and Veraguas was being paraded that day, along with her devotees.  One day someone will have to explain to me why there are Virgins of xy and z.  The great thing about parades is just about everyone can join in.  If you have a kid in band, you are allowed to walk near or behind them.  For the virgencitas, anyone who was devoted to that virgin put on a super duper clean outfit and heels and opened up an umbrella (that day, for the sun) and walked behind their statuette, proud to show everyone that they were showing their devotion to Mary.  Believe me, I think that’s real dedication to walk slowly in heels and nice clothes when it’s hot or raining or both for a few hours.

Heels, short skirts, independence.

Hatchets?

Little girl in pollera--the traditional latino cultural dress (the indigenous groups have different traditional dress)

Little drummer boy.

Ding the goat says stay tuned for more updates...they´re really coming! She also says she´s glad she´s not a turkey in the United States right now. She´d rather eat grass and bananas than be a Thanksgiving centerpiece. Haaaapy Thanksgiiiiving.

Things have been just about the same here in the last week and a half.  I’m getting a better sense of the way of life here (read: very slow and lots of family time), and I finally worked out my living situation.  I know in the last blog it seemed I was set up already, but that house fell through.  Luckily, there was another empty dwelling, which is much smaller but big enough for me.  I almost didn’t get that house either because they are expanding it this summer for future use…but the owner took pity on me and said I could live there as long as the construction wouldn’t bother me.  It might a little, but of course I said yes as long as they tell me when the workers are going to show up.  My impression is that they’re not building directly onto my house, but more like in my front lawn.  What a relief to not have to invest in building a house—it would have been really hard to do and after seeing houses that were already standing, I didn’t want to deal with the headache.

 

I’ve gone swimming in our river a few times.  It’s really pretty and extremely refreshing in this heat.  There’s just about nothing you can do to feel cool when it’s so hot—it’s a heat you don’t believe until you experience it.  I bought a fan, which helps at night, but when you’re out working in the day (it gets hot at about 8am), you just have to wear a hat and convince yourself you’re “sweating out the toxins.”  That’s why most people around here don’t work much in the summer.  Though my host family does, because they have irrigation (another reason most people don’t farm in the summer, which is December to April here, is that there isn’t always water).  People seem impressed that I work alongside my host family, and as word gets around people are being more enthusiastic about showing me their crops and saying we should work together some time.

 

The other day I feel like I actually imparted knowledge, when I suggested that we make barriers around our raised beds into which we were about to plant cucumbers.  In just a week after working that soil into beds, the heavy rains had really almost flattened them again, and I’m sure a lot of good topsoil went to never never land.  To avoid this process, I suggested we intervene.  So the two older boys and I hauled banana stems from various parts of the property and we arranged them around the beds.  Hopefully we can see that the soil stays within the barriers now.  I wonder if it will have a measurable effect on production.  It was a pretty easy process, sort of blows my mind that this isn’t already done considering the vast amounts of barrier material and the well-acknowledged erosion problem (they express it as "soil washing" here).  Next step: try this technology with more people!

Mona attempts to deflect child's hands with cuteness

My host brothers: aged 11, 7 and 12

rainbow (I see one about every other day); also pictured: banana palms and some other tropical trees

first semana

Since I have arrived in site, I’ve been quite busy! My host family for this first month is amazing, they’ve really taken advantage of training that the Ministry of Agriculture has offered them. For the past 2 years, they have been receiving materials to build various useful technologies like drip irrigation and a seed drying shed. The best thing is that they really use these technologies to their advantage, and constantly seek out ways to improve what they’re doing. They’re innovators/early adapters, in sociologists’ words. It’s great that I live with a family that actively does agriculture, since I’m quickly learning about the ins and outs of Panamanian agriculture. Some highlights:

-practicing machete-ing grass and weeds to make a clean planting surface; you’d be impressed how a properly wielded machete can act as a lawn mower-slash-weed whacker
-explaining the properties of tropical clay soils, and how we can bury organic matter to make soil that is easier to work and more productive; they already do this, but now they know WHY the soil is so darn hard regardless of whether you get the guy with the cultivator to break it up
-extolling the virtues of worm/kitchen waste composting bins; next step: finding the California Red Wrigglers (there are a TON of government and non-government agencies here, someone must have them), building bins in such a way that the very greedy, very destructive ants won’t eat all the eggs
-agonizing over the extreme, real problems with insects; although it is fascinating to watch leaf-cutter ants de-foliate entire trees and plants, it really is a problem when you need to eat what comes off those plants

Like I said, my host family is great. I have three “brothers” who crack me up, it’s fun to feel like an older sister to them. They are all different and I like them for different reasons. I already feel welcomed as a part of the family, hopefully I will be able to be a positive influence on them while I’m here. The oldest one was so amazed at how much I read, and decided to see what the fuss was about and started reading more too (though he started reading one of my Isabel Allende books that mom sent me…maybe a little adult for him)! Send kids/preteens books in Spanish! Scholastic I know translates many of its titles into Spanish. I bet my brother isn’t the only one who will discover that a book that isn’t boring and for school is actually FUN to read, and it would be awesome to have a collection of books that kids could sit and read in my house—an antidote to the television watching which is destroying these kids’ spirit to do anything constructive or outside (since parents didn’t have television in their childhood, they haven’t realized that they need to make rules about watching television). We’ve also been bonding over Phillies games, so I guess I have to be grateful for the TV in that respect. I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY WON! I can believe it, but it’s never happened in my lifetime. It was a thing for Panameños too because the catcher, Carlos Ruiz, is from here. I love how biased the papers are towards him being the star player…though he is a very good catcher I suppose.

My host mom is so energetic, very concerned that I’m comfortable and happy, and doing things that I want to do. She explains to everyone we go to meet that I don’t eat meat, or pork, or sausage, or chicken (not even the chickens that run around on the lawn! That even counts as meat to Raquel!), and that I’m so funny that I don’t take my coffee with sugar or milk, and that I already speak Spanish. It’s amazing how fast people go through sugar here though. My mom seems to buy about a pound a day. So maybe I can avoid gaining too much weight if I at least don’t pump myself full of sugar—I’m already eating lots of deep fried foods, which sure are delicious. On that note, it is less than a month already that I have left until I can live on my own and cook entirely for myself. There is a house built here that I can use, but I have to pay to re-wire the faulty electricity and have free reign to decorate and paint and landscape--anything would be an improvement. It’s a great blank slate of a house! My host mom says that we will make up some transplants as soon as we have a free afternoon, so that I’ll have some things to plant right away. I’ll also probably amend the sink and build a gray water filter off it so I can use that water in a garden, especially during the dry season (December-April). I also want to build a solar hot shower, even though I can stand a cold shower with the heat, there’s something about hot water that makes you feel really clean. I have lots more ideas too.

Oh, I already have a kitten. Lucky me that my host cat had kittens about a month ago, and my host mom was looking to give one away. I wanted to name her after a famous thief (Cristobal Colon?) because she is very greedy and steals food out of her mom’s grasp and then whines for milk. However, I couldn’t stay apolitical with a name that clever, so I settled on Mona, which is the female form of the word for monkey. Because monkeys are funny and steal stuff and climb all over the place. It´s not an instant love like with Dracula, but that´s because the mommy is still around...I can´t really compete with that.

This is the time when Mona decided to wear my Cornell hat as a cape and run around with it like super-kitty. Well, that´s not actually happened. She fits under it so I hid her under it, and then she poked her head through the loop, and started trying to escape, which she couldn´t, so she just kept trying harder. It´s like tying a bell on the tail...hilarious, but if you have a soul you take one or two pictures and relieve the animal of its misery.

Sorry not more pictures of site...but it´s only been a week!!