Ya Se Fue Marzo

Like they say, time flies when you’re having fun. I guess I must have been having a lot of fun lately. Let’s go back in time to last month, since I haven’t had internet since then. Though I completely missed March Madness, it was an exciting month for other reasons.

To start, I had the opportunity to be a part of something we affectionately called the Epic Health Seminar, because it was not your average seminar. Amber, one of my neighboring Peace Corps volunteers, organized the three day event as part of her composting latrine project in her community. Amber, Chris, Danielle, Jenkins, and I covered topics on hand washing, drinking water treatment, household cleanliness, and how composting latrines work. Since we didn’t have any funding to serve food to the people attending, it was no easy task to keep everyone engaged for three whole days. The solution to that was to make ourselves and the participants do ridiculous things like perform skits dressed up as mosquitoes and throw fake poop at people. The Health Olympics made hand washing and purifying water into pretty hilarious games. The best part was that it actually worked, and people really enjoyed it. The highly competitive Jeopardy game at the end showed that they had learned a good amount from the sessions, such as the amount of Clorox to use to purify water. Although we were exhausted by the end, we were quite happy with how it turned out.

 

The Epic Health Seminar in action

The kids going all out in the hand washing competition

The most exciting part of March was a visit from Nate and Emily, the first time I had seen family in almost a year. Talking on the phone or on video chat is nice and all, but there’s nothing like being able to talk face to face and spend time together. They were able to experience a lot of Panama in a short time. We traveled across the entire isthmus, from beautiful beaches in the Caribbean islands to winding rivers in the Darien jungle. Where we stayed in the island region of Bocas del Toro, I think I was about as excited about the condo as Nate and Emily were about the beaches. I thoroughly enjoyed putting all the luxuries to use: the oven, microwave, grill, dishwasher, and washing machine. Our time at my house in Nuevo Vigía was a little less luxurious, where in place of a flush toilet there’s a bucket, and instead of a shower there’s a river. But my brother and sister-in-law are pretty tough. For a couple days they were able to see a little bit of what my daily life looks like here – visiting large families in their little huts, drinking homemade juices, eating plantains (of course), sleeping with bats, and swimming in the river. It was sad to see them go, but I was really glad to share the experience with them.

On the way to Nuevo Vigía

 

Nate and Emily all Emberá-ed up at my house

Sporting my new wayuco with a buddy

 A few days after Nate and Emily got on a plane headed back to the USA, we had a party in Nuevo Vigía to celebrate electricity coming to town. Emberá came from six or seven different communities up and downriver from us to join the celebration. The party was complete with a basketball tournament, a whole cow to eat, Panamanian dance with live band, traditional Emberá dance performances, and lots of body painting. I ended up playing in the tourney, but unfortunately our second game was around 1:00 in the afternoon and I thought I was going to die of heat stroke. After that I’d had enough. Meanwhile I figured this would be a good time to show my appreciation for Emberá culture. The traditional dress for men is a loin cloth, called a wayuco. Everyone was very surprised and entertained to see me walk around town in my homemade wayuco. Many of those from other communities had never even seen the giant white man of Vigía before, so it was even more shocking. Apparently I’ve gotten so used to feeling like I’m an exhibit at the zoo that it didn’t bother me to have hundreds of indigenous people staring at me, some with confused looks and others just laughing. I’ve been here long enough to accept my role as the crazy white guy who is always doing strange things.

The Rio Tuqueza basketball tournament

This is traditional Emberá