USA!

Well I’m very excited, because tomorrow I will be setting foot in a magical land called the United States of America! It’ll be the first time I’ve done that in about 14 months. I can’t wait to see my family and friends! Truly it has been too long. A lot of things have changed since I left for Panama it seems. There are two new babies to meet and possibly a third on the way; one of them is my new niece! Our family’s cottage on the big lake is gone, and a new one in its place. Friends have moved to other places, gotten new jobs, and started families. My nieces are not so little anymore. And I’ve just been hanging out in the jungle drinking from coconuts. No but really it is a strange thing to realize that life goes on while I’m here in sort of a different world.

The timing is great because I will be able to celebrate the most American of holidays, Fourth of July. Lately I’ve been dreaming of burgers on the grill, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes… Ohh I just drooled on the keyboard a little, that’s gross. Feeling cold will also be a wonderful experience, granted the temperature drops below 80 degrees.

Anyway I’ll be visiting just for a couple weeks, and then back to… normal? Something like that I suppose. So I’m hoping to see and talk with as many of you as possible during my long awaited vacation. Then maybe I can share a few stories in person.

Let’s Talk Emberá

A long time ago I told myself I was going to study really hard to learn to speak Emberá in addition to Spanish. Well I was hoping to be a little further along by now, but I’ve picked up a decent amount through casual conversation and just a lot of listening. People keep telling me, “How long are you gonna be here? Another year? Ah you’ll go back to your village as an Emberá professor!”

Emberá people really like to talk. And I mean so much so that much of their day to day communication is based on completely unnecessary interactions. For example I could be standing in the river rubbing soap on my arm. Someone walking by will ask me, “Hey Benjamin, are you bathing?” In which case my response will be, “Yeah friend, I’m bathing!” Then he’ll say, “Ok good, keep bathing friend!” Or if I’m sitting in my house eating fried plantains, someone will ask me, “Benjamin what are you doing?” And I’ll say, “I’m sitting here, eating fried plantains.” Then of course he will say, “Ah you’re eating fried plantains, that’s good friend.” At first I thought that they would just talk to me like that because my Emberá language skill was pretty limited. But I realized that they actually do talk to each other like that all the time. My favorite is when somebody comes face to face with you and asks simply, “Are you there?” Then I’ll say, “Yeah I’m here” And he says “Good, keep being there friend.”

Everyone has something to say in community meetings 

Since the community is being ever more influenced by Latino culture creeping in around them, Spanish is spoken more commonly. But just as there are certain things you can’t express in Spanish that you can in English, it’s the same for Emberá. The result is what I call Spambera, a mix of Spanish and Emberá. I’ve gotten somewhat used to it and even started using it myself. This makes it somewhat amusing when a Latino comes from outside the community and can only understand half of what we’re saying.

 

Discussions with some of the water committee 

The challenge of communication is especially apparent in community meetings. It’s one thing to sit and listen to a group of people talk in circles for a while. It’s another thing when those people constantly switch between Spanish and Emberá and talk for six hours straight. I’ve been getting better at interrupting people mid-sentence so that I can get a word in. It’s actually not offensive at all, since most of the time somebody is just talking to break any silence. Usually in community meetings when I stand up to talk, people quiet down to give me a chance. “Benjamin is gonna say something, everybody shut up!” they´ll say as I get up out of one of the tiny school desk chairs we use for seating in the meeting house. After I finish they’ll nod and smile and say “Bia bua djaba!” which means “That’s good, friend!” The purpose of the meeting is often lost in a sea of tangents about anything from where the best coconut trees are to asking if anyone has seen their horse lately. When I schedule community meetings I usually count on at least a half hour for tangents, and maybe fifteen minutes for Joel to tell some jokes.

As you can tell, Emberá are really good at talking. They’re pretty funny too, sometimes without realizing it. Over the past month or so I decided to write down some of the random things that people in Nuevo Vigía say to me.

Here’s a sampling of Vigían quotes:

 “Emberá people really like playing basketball, we just don’t know how.”

-          Lucio

“You need a woman to keep you warm at night!”

-          Everyone

“So in the United States, even little kids know how to speak English?”

-          Niño

“There’s nothing more to life except eat, sleep, and shit.”

-          Old man Francisco

“As the gringos say, there are a lot of fish in the sea.”

-          Rubén

“It scares me to walk across this bridge at night, I feel like I’m going to fall in and get eaten by a crocodile.”

-          Enilda

“Here in Panama we just vote for whoever gives us free t-shirts.”

-          Yonairo

“Benjamín, you need to shave that beard. You look like Osama Bin Laden.”

-          Joel

“See that old guy over there in the loin cloth? Don’t mess with him, he’s a wizard.”

-          Cholo

“You’ve been getting pretty fat lately. Eating lots of plantains huh?”

-          Joel

“NEIGHBOR! What are you doing neighbor?”

-          My neighbor, Merqui

“Your yard is a mess, maybe you should do something about that.”

-          My other neighbor, Gilberto

“Ben-ha-MEEN… Plash!”

-          5 year old Poroto

“I was gonna come to your house yesterday, but I got really lazy…”

-          Estela

“Wait, so you’re not cold right now?”

-          Yamisleth

“Oh no, you’re sick? It was probably that juice I gave you.”

-          Esmín

“I’ll help you work on that right now. But first I’m gonna go sleep.”

-          Felino

Filling Buckets

I think maybe every Peace Corps Volunteer goes through doubt, wondering if they can actually make a difference in their community. Those doubts have certainly been through my mind. When the changes you are trying to make are basically intangible, it’s even more difficult. But the good news is that every once in a while I get a nice pick-me-up. Usually it’s something small, an encouraging word from somebody. That’s what we call filling someone’s bucket.

For example the other day I was sitting in Linito’s house talking about how many different ways there are to cook plantains. As it turns out there are about seven or eight different ways: boiled, fried, grilled, mashed, double fried… Anyway the conversation turned to how much longer I would be living here, and he asked me what happens when I leave. I told him that if the community requests another volunteer from Peace Corps then somebody else will come to take my place. Linito thought about that and said, “But how could anyone replace Benjamín? What if we make a special request to your boss and ask that you stay for another two years?” I told him, “Okay, we’ll see what the boss says.” What I love about people here is how they are so accepting regardless of my perceived productivity or my value to the community. Since I’m mainly working with a small group, most people never actually see me working behind the scenes. And yet they still think it’s great that I’m here.

A different day I was talking with a few guys at Joel’s house over some plantain soup. We talked about Spanish gold hidden in the Darien and how I should quit Peace Corps and just become a gold hunter. They asked me what people back in the States thought about me living in the middle of nowhere in the jungle. I said people probably think I’m a little crazy. Now Leonurcio is a somewhat awkward guy, and very shy, especially for an Emberá. So it was unexpected when he spoke up and said to me, “You know people might think you’re crazy, but the Bible says that everyone thought the prophets were crazy too. You are working here in this community for a reason. God has a purpose for you.” I literally just sat there staring at him with my mouth half open; I didn’t know what to say. It seems that God speaks through unlikely people in unlikely places.

This kid's filling his bucket, a very small bathtub

One Year in Panama

As of today I have been living in Panama for a whole year. On May 2, 2012 I stepped off a plane into a blast of hot and humid air, wondering what I had gotten myself into. Oh, how far I’ve come since then. Let’s take a moment to look back on a few of the lessons (or just random facts) I’ve learned about Panamanian life as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the past year:

1.       There are only three times each day: hot o’clock, lunch o’clock, and dark o’clock.

2.       The rainy season changes everything.

I spend a lot of time watching chickens

3.       A plastic bag of frozen sugar juice is always worth the ten cents.

4.       Ahora means anything but “right now.”

5.       Fried plantains go with everything.

6.       A coconut falling on your head is a legitimate danger.

7.       Never bathe in the river at night.

8.       Endangered animals are delicious.

9.       Always keep your machete sharp.

10.   Just pretend you know what you’re doing.

11.   Roosters are the most terribly annoying creatures on the planet.

12.   Don’t worry, it always works out somehow.

13.   The bus will get there when it gets there. If it gets there.

14.   Kids are experts at getting fruit out of trees.

15.   Palm branch roofs are extremely flammable.

16.   English is a really bizarre language.

17.   Your mosquito net is a night time force field.

18.   The jungle will swallow anything if you leave it long enough.

19.   Build people, not monuments.

20.   Hold onto the small successes.

And the list continues to grow each day. This past year I have been on a path of mountains and valleys. I’ve had bad days, and really great days. There have been days when I’ve felt that I shouldn’t be here, and days when I’ve felt right at home. Through everything God has been teaching me his own lessons, when I choose to listen. One that keeps showing up is just how relational we are meant to be. I have to rely on my community every day just to survive out here. It’s exhausting mentally and emotionally to develop relationships with people who are so different from me. But I feel a push to always reach out to these people more, to pour myself out into them. That’s something I will continue working on for my next year of life in Panama.

Kids are always the easiest to talk to

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

A Good Idea

Remember that movie with Leo Dicaprio, Inception? Well if not, it's basically about entering a person's subconcious and planting an idea without them knowing it. That idea grows and the person never knows that it came from someone else. But as the movie shows, there is always resistance and the act of inception is very difficult.

After watching this movie again recently, I realized that this is exactly what we are doing as Peace Corps Volunteers in development work. I mean there are a lot less machine guns, explosions, and zero gravity fight scenes, but it is quite similar. For example, trying to get people to care about protecting their water source from pollution and contamination. I can't just tell people that they should care and do something about it. I have to plant the idea in a way that makes it seem like it came from the community members themselves, and somehow get it to stick. If the Embera people see protecting the river as preserving their way of life and culture then it is more likely to stick. That idea is still in the process of inception.



Giving my first water training seminar



One of the quotes that circulates in Peace Corps that I like is this, "We are not here to build monuments, we are here to build people." Most of what we do is completely behind the scenes, often times nobody will ever know exactly what a volunteer was doing in a community. That's because we are working to build capacity, to give people the tools and skills they need to take leadership and develop their own communities. I'm starting to realize how much harder that is than building a latrine or a water system. So yes, sometimes we do build things, but more importantly we develop the people that are going to use those things.



My coworkers demonstrating water pressure



Lately I've been pretty excited about our new water system here in Nuevo Vigía. The government project started when I got here, and was finished a few weeks ago. It's a somewhat complex system that uses solar power to pump water from the river through a small treatment plant. For a long time I was feeling discouraged about it since very few people were showing any interest in the project. The engineers couldn't even get enough people to work burying pipes, so they had to hire workers from other communities. There wasn't much motivation since they already had all the water they could need right there in the river.

When the government decided they weren't going to give any training on how to manage the system, that's when we stepped in. I worked with three other Peace Corps Volunteers to give a three day training seminar. I invited everyone in town who was interested to come and learn. To my amazement we had way more people show up than I had hoped for. The seminar covered topics like how dirty water makes us sick, the physics of a water system, how to make a maintenance calendar, and everything in between. We formed the official water committee and chose five water technicians to be trained. The Costa Rican engineer who designed the system came and took everyone step by step through each part. I could see the enthusiasm growing each day of the training. Those who knew how to write scribbled everything down in their notebooks.

Now there are a lot more people on board with supporting the new water committee, even offering to raise money to get them started. We have successfully filled up our new storage tank with clean water and people have been drinking out of their new taps. The technicians have been taking their job very seriously as I've been coaching them along. We're learning together how to troubleshoot problems with the pump and water treatment equipment. The other day we had our first emergency that tested the technicians abilities. The river came up fast after a ton of rain and threatened to damage the pump, a very expensive and important piece of equipment. The team came and told me, and we had to remove the pump in the dark of night to bring it out safely.



My neighbor kids trying out the new water



The idea that I want to stick is that this water system is a huge benefit for the health of the community, and it belongs to them. That means they have a big responsability to take care of and manage it. It's really great to see clean water coming out of those taps, but I know there is a long way to go toward making this sustainable. For now I'll continue to try and incept the idea that will help Nuevo Vigía work together to keep their clean water coming.

Here's the group, trained and certified

One of Those Moments

The sugar cane grinder: wood + manpower = sugar juice

Maybe it’s because I have a college degree, or just because I’m white, people seem to have certain expectations of my capabilities.  This means I sometimes get roped into things unexpectedly.  Such as being asked to become a full time English teacher, to give a sermon and lead the singing for a church service, or to do a survey of a five kilometer line through the jungle.  Sometimes it’s just little things, such as fixing a refrigerator at the store or suddenly becoming part of a sugar cane grinding operation. 

I had to try it for myself to confirm that it really is hard work

Other times it creates ridiculously awkward situations which, while uncomfortable at the time, make for pretty good stories later.  The other day I was relaxing on my porch in the hammock making a bowl out of a totuma fruit and Marvelia, one of my neighbors, climbed up my ladder to visit.  After talking about how many bugs there were and showing me how to carve designs on my bowl, she told me she wanted to ask me a favor.  She said something sort of flippantly in Spanish and I didn't quite catch what she said, but it had to do with her daughter.  Whatever it was didn't seem like a big deal, and she said, “So you can come over to the house later and do that?”  For some reason it was one of those moments where it’s just easier to nod and smile than to try and figure out what someone is saying.  So I agreed and she left, telling me she would come get me later.  I figured she wanted me to help her daughter with homework or something like that. 

As I made my way down the dirt path to the river, as usual every person I passed asked me where I was going.  The answer is always obvious, “Mua kuide wania!” or “I’m gonna go bathe!”  I came back and cooked some plantains to go with the iguana meat that Merqui had given me.  While I was eating I was summoned by a little girl calling from the ground below to come to their house.  By now it was around 7:30, and pitch black outside with no moon.  When we got to the crooked old house with thatched roof on tree trunk stilts and climbed up, it was too dark to see much with only one dim light inside.  But I could make out Marvelia, her husband Felino, and their baby girl.  Something didn’t quite feel right about this.  There was a pot cooking on the stove, and she started mixing salt water in a cup.  I don’t know if she could see the look on my face, but she said to me, “You know how to do this right?”  Before I could respond she set the cup of salt water, a candle, and matches in front of me.  Bringing the baby over in her arms she said she was ready.  By this time another woman had come over to watch and I was feeling extremely uncomfortable, trying to think of a way to get myself out of this.  What had I agreed to do with this baby?!

Just then the other woman asked if we were doing the baptism now.  A sudden relief washed over me.  Then I thought, “Baptism?  I can’t do that!”  But at that point there was no turning back.  I asked her the girl’s name and did a very brief baptism.  I held the candle above the baby’s head and sprinkled on the salt water, “en el nombre del padre, del hijo, y del espiritu santo, amen.”  Please forgive me anyone who may be offended that I offered sacraments without being a pastor.  After that there was nothing left to say except, “Bia bua” which in Emberá means, “it’s good” and then made my exit.  Just another one of my many awkward moments in Nuevo Vigía.

As for updates, our community here has been changing quite a bit as of late.  The lower part of town (which was officially condemned as a flood zone) now officially has electricity, thanks to the Panamanian Government.  Obviously this changes daily life as light bulbs, televisions, refrigerators, and music systems begin entering homes.  In the upper part of the community where I live (out of the flood zone) we still rely on kerosene lamps and flashlights.  However our new water system, which only serves the hill town, is nearly completed.  So now one part of the community gets electricity, the other will have clean water.  I think I have the better end of the deal.  As you can see it gets a little complicated with these government projects, as they rarely coordinate well.  Rather than try to make sense of how things work around here, my focus for the time being is to organize a water committee and make sure they receive training to maintain this water system.  So far we have an unofficial committee without any training.  The good news is two other communities around me with volunteers have similar situations, and I've been able to learn from them and develop better strategies to tackle this challenge.

By the way thanks so much everyone who has sent me something in the mail.  There is nothing more exciting than the guy at the post office handing me a letter or a package to open.  Just saying even though chocolate melts by the time it gets here, I don’t mind at all - it’s still incredibly delicious.

Here's a brief photo summary of some things I've been doing the past few weeks:

Peace Corps water committee seminar in community of Lajas Blancas

Translating for a Christian medical mission group from the USA

Building composting latrines in community of Alto Playon

Work on our community water system nearly finished

My first Emberá wedding experience - it was quite the party!