After a camp for teenagers (regarding auto-esteem and safe sex) we took some kids to the beach. For many this was the first and maybe will be the only time they see the ocean up close, even though, for example, the kids from my site can see the sea from our ridge.
They loved it.
My host brother, age 14, headed for the waves.Hello all,
It´s been a busy month and as always I find myself swamped with things to do at the internet cafe. I just got back from celebrating Carnival. We had alot of fun, we did some dancing in crazy outfits at crazy hours, slept under the stars on the beach and ate alot of ¨street meat¨. Now its back to work, harvesting beans, beating bean pods with sticks to release the seeds, and then carrying them to the road. (My host father plans of harvesting 800-1000 lbs of beans this year). It´s quite a shock to go from the thump-thump-thump of the base in a discoteca back to the comarca.
Last night the vacation ended with a bang when our minivan (driven by a fellow PCV´s friend) was pulled over by some cops at a checkpoint. We watched the scence with somewhat giddy anticipation as the cop took two of the guys across the street to a scetchy dark building to talk to them. Kate left the car to help with the negotiations. Maybe they needed a woman´s touch? Aparently so. The cop, satisfied with several bottles of liquor and cranberry juice and a Maxium magazine, happily posed with his billy stick, pretending to hit the two gringos. Then he helped us flag down a bus to take us girls home. It may have been the funniest thing I´ve seen in Panama. I´ll try and get the photos!
The summer keeps getting hotter and dryer and its harder and harder to stay clean. After a week of no water I finally went down to the stream to fill up some bottles to take back to the house. The stream that my family had pointed me too is about 20min down the hill and has dried to a trickle that that seeps out of the rocks, catches in a peice of halved bamboo and dribbles into a murky pool about one foot by two feet.
This is really depressing, so dont read it if you dont want to. I wrote about a little girl that came begging to my house frequently After several times I began to turn down her requests for sugar, salt, rice, and the really hard one, milk for her baby brother. I hadn´t seen her in weeks and had wondered why until three days ago I heard that her family had left when her little baby brother died. My mind made an instant conection which may or may not really be relevant. I know milk on that one occasion wouldn´t have saved the baby´s life. And the one occasion would have multiplied as the word spread that I was giving out food. But how would I have felt if this had happened similarly in the states? or in my first months here? I know I would have felt more affected. I would have been upset, felt guilty and regretted the lost opportunity to safe a child´s life. But I watch my reaction with a feeling of distance between me and that baby, I feel removed even though with each passing day I spend in my community I am in truth less removed. So many babies are born here, and so many die. It´s not shocking like it was before. And my jaded lack of guilt,my assured reaction that in the name of ¨sustainable development¨ I could not have done anything doesn´t really shock me either. It suprises me, maybe. I wonder if I am in essence loosing my humanity. I had a conversation with a young man visiting Panama about a similiar topic. I tired to explain why I do not lend or give money to anyone (in most occasions). He argued that to make a difference in one person´s life, for example, supplementing the diet of a child in their formative years was more important than being fair to everyone else. I tried to explain the debilitating effects of paternalism. But even as I felt the heat rising up my neck as I tried to defend the actions that I have debated so often inside my head, I knew it would not be last time that I had this discussion, with someone else or with myself.
My neighbor Benida, with her brand new baby. This may be confusing so I will clarify: This is not the baby I wrote about.
Winds that charged throuh our area at 115km per hour tore roofs off even the sturdiest buildings. The light on the floor is let in by a missing sheet of zinc.
One of numerous photo sessions. My neighbors standing by the church. The red writing says ¨God gives you time. Don´t wait until tomorrow.¨
