One Month Wrap-up

It´s become increasingly difficult to update this blog, not just for the obvious reasons like, for instance, lack of computer, internet and electricity, but also because my first month in site has been a rollercoaster. Actually it´s been more like one of those rides that takes you up really fastonly to drop you into freefall, leaving your stomach in your mouth and your head.... somewhere else. It´s hard to sum it up.

The hardest relization thus far was the discovery -day 1- that for the first time in my life, I have no one to affirm that I am doing enough. I have no professor to grade my article, no swim coach to tell me I did all I could, no boss to appreciate my hard work, not even my mom to tell me I´m pushing myself too hard. I´ve been aware in the past that I have always thrived on postive feedback (perpetual brown noser? maybe)but I never realized how much I have depended on it. So here I am setting my own pace in a place where there is no pace. One day I might spend 6 hours in a meeting that started 4 hours late and listen to nothing being accomplished. The next I may go work in the field with my host family for 8 hours without food, drink, shade or rest.

So, I´ve been talking to myself alot. Sometimes the ngabes hear, but I dont care. I tell myself I´m doing a good job, that its ok to call it a day, that I can make it to the latrine before the next wave of diareah and nausia catch uo with me. Go Andi, go!

A quick list of things I´ve been up to lately:
1) learned how to say ¨you are stronger than me¨ ngabere - appropriate when a man passes me on the trail carrying 200lbs of rice on his back.
2)Cooked successfully, rice and beans (arromumabeh) over a cooking fire for my host siblings when their parents were gone.
3)worked in school garden
-built soil retention barriers
-planted nitrogen-fixing plants in the clay, i mean soil
-planted tomato and pepper seedlings
-given classes to school kids in English and about sustainable agriculture. poor kids, how boring
-built my own house garden. the fence in ugly, but i´m no carpenter
-cut my right hand with my machete (first peace corp scar!)i´m not sure how. I still cant remember what I was doing with my machete in my left hand
-learned how to sew nagwa (traditional women dress). it is also ugly, but it makes people laugh and I joke about how it should only be worn after dark.
-survived 3 arguous panamanian meetings ngabe style. 6 hours long, nothing accomplished. I tell myself I am doing penence for being type A.
-Walked around the community getting to know the people. Telling kids its rude when they ask me if I´m wearing panties and no, i dont have money to give them.
-stared down 4 horned cows for their manure. I thought they were going to trample and gore me, but really they were just interested in what I had in my sack. I think they were dissapointed when they discovered it was what they had just excreted.
-carried said excretement (about 25lbs) on my back uphill for an hour in blistering heat. I sweated, the shit sweated and the juice ran down my back and legs and into my rubber boots. It was a first.

It´s a ride all right. WIth high highs and low lows. but I´m learning alot, about my community, about myself. more later, entonces.


Just some pretty views of my ridge-line community


My future house, and my current room in my host familys house


My Host family´s house in terrential downpour, and my host siblings


My two gardens, the school garden and my home garden.