Just Give It Some Time

It's a never ending job clearing brush around town

Talking with other volunteers who have been here in the Darien for a while, I realize there’s this shift in thinking about our time here in Panama.  I’m not sure when it happens, but apparently you go from looking at your service as a break from your “real life” in the States, to actually living life in Panama.  Right now I still feel kind of like I just fell out of a plane and landed in the Panamanian jungle, left trying to figure out what’s happening.  But I can see down the road how this will all become so familiar.  It will become home.

Seeing how I’ve been living in my community for less than three months, I still have a lot to learn.  Every day is a learning opportunity.  Like how to wash your clothes in a river, or what brand of peanut butter not to buy when in the city.  The process of figuring out how to live here is a fun challenge, and exhausting at the same time.  I just realized that I am completely unprepared to move out of my host family house, which is supposed to be happening in the next week or so.  Essential things like a stove, dishes, rat proof food containers, a machete, and a mattress are all things I do not own.  The good news is we haven’t started building my house yet.  Actually that’s the bad news. 

The main thing I’ve been trying to learn is how people function in Nuevo Vigía.  Honestly I still really haven’t figured out what people actually do every day.  I mean they are usually doing something related to farming or preparing food, but it’s not the structured kind of daily routine I’ve been so hammered into my whole life.  The days seem to blend together since time is not that much of an issue.  I often forget what day it is.  One time I told my host mom what the date was and she said, “It’s September?  Well, there went August…” 

 

Maestra Elida with her kindergarteners in a row

It makes me think about how much time can seem to own us.  I certainly want to make the best of each day, but I also don’t want to be thinking of everything in terms of time and deadlines and schedules.  Maybe my brain will soon start to shift.