Site Visit in the Darien

Yesterday I returned from our second volunteer site visit.  Nathan (a fellow trainee) and I traveled to Puerto Indio in the Darien province (near the Columbian border) to visit a Peace Corps volunteer site.  On Thursday we had a good long tour of the Pan American highway on a bus with a few too many people crammed in.  Then the next day after a 3 hour boat ride in the Pacific and the Rio Sambu we arrived.  Surprisingly in this isolated place in the jungle it turned out to be almost a small city.  There were cars, TV, internet, and lots of loud music.  Apparently a barge from Panama City supplies many things to the town.

During our time there we were able to talk with the volunteer about living there and the work he was doing on their water supply system.  In order to get a sense of a normal Embara indigenous community in the area, we hiked about 2 and a half hours through the jungle to Tigre, a much smaller village.  The people were very welcoming and gave us some chicken soup and rice to eat.  The river there also made for a very refreshing swim.  Since Nathan had some pretty bad blisters we decided to take a dug out canoe back to Puerto Indio.

Hiking to Tigre in the Darien

My host family kids, Ronaldo and Randol getting ready for school

The experience was a lot of fun, and gave me a little insight as to what some sites are like.  But everyone always says that every volunteer experience is very different no matter what, so don't have expectations.  So I suppose I still don't have expectations.  After coming back to our training community my family was happy to see me again.  I've had a lot of fun playing with the kids and helping with their homework when I can.