Ti ka Begui (My name is Begui)

My group of 16 Environmental Health volunteers was sworn in on Thursday October 20th at the elegant and spacious home of the US Ambassador to Panama. The ceremony was pretty short and was attended mostly by Peace Corps staff, some other volunteers, as well as some representatives from the Panamanian government. The head of ANAM, the Panamanian environmental agency, was an honored guest. The Ambassador administered the oath- as a group we held up our right hands and swore to uphold the US Constitution and do the duties of a Peace Corps volunteer.  I and other volunteers have had two days to relax in Panama City prior to heading to our work sites on Sunday Oct 23.

My site, in the native language Kubabo, is in the first set of mountains facing south towards the Pacific ocean. From the village's ridgelines we can see broad plains dotted with farms and the distant ocean with islands on the horizon.  Around 120 people live in Kubabo. In general they are subsistence farmers, cultivating the steep slopes with rice, fruit trees, cacao, coffee, and root vegetables.  They may sell to outside if they have a good crop but generally they eat what they produce. Some members of the community work outside, or "afuera" in agriculture, housekeeping, or manual labor.  The people speak their language, Ngabere, at home, but are also fluent in Spanish. The women and girls wear homemade, brightly colored cotton dresses called nagwas. Some women make traditional style clothing to sell in town. The community is located near many services, but has no infrastructure within itself (no running water, electricity, or latrines).  Students attend a primary school a short walk away in one direction and a secondary school 20 minutes walk away in the other direction. In the large town with the high school, there's also a government run health center staffed by some passionate Ngobe nurses and a doctor, and the district government offices.  There are also several churches in the larger area that I would like to visit, both Catholic and Protestant. I have yet to discover what kind of Christian community there is here but I'm hoping for some fellowship.

The view from Kubabo

I will be just a 20 minute and 40 minute walk away from my two closest other volunteers: Winston who works in agriculture, and Erica, in my same Environmental Health group, who also keeps a blog (link on the side).   I'm excited about the opportunity to collaborate, both on Environmental Health projects and learning about agriculture. Our main focus will be on our respective communities. There are also other volunteers in the wider area. Several will be visiting our area in one week for a marching percussion band festival/ competition hosted by the high school, which should be both fun and loud.

The first 3 months in the community is called "Proyecto Amistad"- Project Friendship. It's a period of time to ask questions, visit around, participate in festivals and harvesting and whatever else is going on in the community, and to survey their health situation. During this time I hope to use a set of community analysis tools developed by the Peace Corps in order to learn more about the community.  During the first three months we are not to start any major projects- this time is meant to be the foundation on which successful projects and activities are built.

Francisca and Mindo pound homegrown rice to remove the husks.

Mindo shows off a bundle of rice while holding his rice harvesting blade. This rice is very flavorful and nutritious.

My site visit last week was good; the people were welcoming and excited to both work with me on health projects and teach me about their culture.  I'll tell a bit more about how this visit played out.  The Peace Corps hosted a one day conference for the new volunteers and a representative or guide from each of the community.  We talked about the work of the Peace Corps and our expectations for each other, as well as safety and security details. My guide, Chitoj, takes his responsibilities very seriously. He is my first counterpart, the Peace Corps term for an individual in the community with whom you work closely.  I hope to have others, too.The next day after the conference we set out for Kubabo. My site feels like a remote mountain village, but it's not that hard to get to. From San Felix, the large town on the highway, I just need to take a chiva (small, pickup truck bus).  The journey takes about an hour on a windy gravel road uphill. For how much stuff I brought, I was very glad that I didn't have a several hour long hike like some of my compañeros.

The Water Committee called a community meeting for me to introduce myself and for my guide to share the details of the conference. They also voted on a native nickname for me: "Begui."  (Most people in the community have both Latino and Ngabere names.)  The remaining days of my visit were spent visiting different homes in the community as well as the local offices and schools. 

home!

For the first few months, I'm staying with a host family: Chabi, a lady in her 50s whose kids are studying away from home. She has a great sense of humor. I look forward to a better Spanish level so I can capture everything she and the others say. She's also a great cook.  Her relatives dug a pit latrine out back for me to use (the only one in the community). There are also 7 neighbor children that live across the street (6 of them siblings), who like to come over and color with some crayons I brought. On another occasion,  kids showed me how to dance the hegi, a traditional line dance.  It is really fun to be with them. I'm working on learning the names of children as well as adults- it's going to take a while!  One challenge was that most of the time everyone talked in Ngabere. I definitely want to learn more of this! They were really happy that I was trying to speak it, fumbling as I was, and happy to teach me new words.

We are discussing holding a weekly English class for members of the community- there's a lot of interest, mostly from children and young adults. They do take English classes in school but have a long way to go towards holding a conversation.  I plan on doing this in order to build relationships; I'm not an expert teacher, especially of kids. But I think it'll be good from a friendship and cultural exchange point of view.

Well, I'm heading back to the community to live. I'm excited to spend more time with my new Ngabe friends.  I do think it'll be complex and challenging to find out more about what's really going on in the community and work with them to improve their own health- but that's why I'm there. 

I'm planning on checking email about every 10-14 days when I spend a day doing errands in town, so it remains a pretty good way of being in touch.  I also enjoy connecting by cell phone. Email me your number and I'll call you! And for those of you who are praying for me, thank you so much.  I was so encouraged to have a positive site visit. It'll take longer to understand the community and what God is doing there, but I hope to connect with other believers in the area soon.

Comunidad Hermosa

We are swearing in as Peace Corps Volunteers tomorrow, October 20th. For me, that'll be my new reference point. Since August 16th, our group of 17 has been together as Trainees. Tomorrow, we will be called Volunteers. Also starting tomorrow, everything is measured from October. This commitment, God willing, will last 2 years until October 2013. There are medical check ups and training events, and evaluations throughout at 3, 6, 12, and 21 month marks.  It's strange to look at a tentative schedule so long in advance.  I can look forward with anticipation to hoped-for visits of loved ones.  Time passes a bit differently in the campo (countryside)- I hear that while the pace of each day is slow the two years feel very short. I pray that I will be able to live fully in the present, with patience, humor and perseverance.

I'll be writing more about my experiences in my week-long site visit later this week, before I head back on Sunday to live there. Today I'd like to write an appreciation of our host community where I've spent the last few months. I appreciate very much the love and care of my host family, Jilma and Amadis. I dropped in on them after a last minute change of plans but they took it in stride and welcomed me right in.

Host mother Jilma was person at home number-one for me. She is an expert multi tasker, often caring for her two baby grandchildren while cooking, cleaning, and doing the laundry.  She definitely expresses her love and care in service to other people. For instance she would wash my clothes frequently, even when I didn't consider them exactly dirty, and wouldn't rest until my white socks were brush- scrubbed very clean.  If she were to see my white socks a few months from now, she might be disappointed in my washing efforts because I don't have her high standards for undergarments.  She also cooks each simple meal from scratch and dishes up individual plates. It's true that compared with the other women in the house, I don't really do housework, but they have their schedule and don't seem to mind... Well, I appreciate how my family has cared for me in many ways.

My host father Amadis always conducts himself as a gentleman. He keeps busy with lots of work- from his full time job in maintenance at the hospital, to weekends freelancing in construction, building furniture out of scrap wood, or cutting hair for the neighborhood.

My host parents displaced their 13 year old son, Edward, from his room in order to give it to me, and when he came home from school he didn't even grumble. He's a bright and funny child with an enthusiasm to learn.


21 year old host sister Jeidi is very loving and serious, taking after her mother in many ways. She is studying early childhood education in college and definitely wants a career rather than starting a family young (which is very popular here).




Host brother Eli was a bit of a tease. He likes to share about sports and is on the town soccer team. Eli's wife Sujeidi invited me to a tiny home church on Thursday nights, which I attended twice. It was nice to study the Word together. Their baby Elian learned to walk during my stay. He's a growing boy, and he doesn't even cry that much. Or, at least, his room was on the other end of the house.

Edward and his nephew Elian

There's more family outside the house- grandpa Julio, brother Julio and his wife Omira and son Jair. They are friendly and quiet, and their 8 month old baby serious and exploratory.

Aunt Mary, Uncle Samuel, and cousins Anet and Glorisel would often stop by and visit. Generously they invited me to come and visit more at their house as well. One Sunday we cooked a meal together with a home grown chicken "gallina de patio" which I helped to clean and prepare. We also made banana bread together. Even though I didn't visit them that much, they were always very welcoming.

making cinnamon rolls with Glorisel, Edward, and Anet

The rest of the community, too, was so inviting. It can't be easy to have a bunch of foreigners drop in on your tiny town for classes, asking questions, and so on.  But they opened their hearts and their homes to us and for that, we are very grateful.  They have invited me to visit them again, and I would like to do so.

Preparing arroz con pollo with another host family for our goodbye party

Pinata time at our goodbye party!

Take a look at my Picasa albums (link to right) for more photos.

Nyantori! Hello!

It's official- I'm headed to a small town of 100 people, more or less, in the mountains above San Felix in the Comarca (reservation) Ngabe Bugle. I'll be working with the indigenous Ngabe people as the first volunteer in this particular town. It's a popular area for Peace Corps- there are 4 other volunteers within an hour's hike, and 13 out of 17 trainees in my group are headed to Ngabe sites either in the Comarca or in the nearby province Bocas del Toro. In my town itself, as far as I know, there's no water or sanitation system, but there is cell phone reception. Though my town is small, we are just 20 minutes' walk from a larger town with schools and some services. On Oct 9 we visit our sites for one week, to confirm that we really want to do this before swearing in. A member of the community will be meeting me, and we'll go together to the pueblo. I'll have more to report in two weeks when I return.

I expect it to be climatically and culturally similar to our Technical Week location (described in my previous post). So I have specific things to be excited about and specific things that I was getting tired of last week- the monotonous diet and the rain. However, in my site I need to just take it as it comes, and trust that God knows what's good for me. :) Among other things, I'm looking forward to learning the Ngobe sense of humor, at times slapstick silly.  I also know I´ll grow a lot!

Next week we have introductory classes in Ngabere. The Spanish teachers said that some English speakers find Ngabere easier to learn in some respects than Spanish (!) because the verbs are unconjugated. I'll report back on that, too.

In other news, we are also gearing up for our big "community analysis" meeting here in our host town on Oct 7. In the past 2 months we've been talking with people about health issues defined broadly: the water system, household sanitation, medical care, education, and gender roles. We've visited the components of the locally-run water system as well. We'll share what we've found at the meeting and facilitate a community discussion about these issues. This project is a warm- up for the lengthy community analysis we'll be doing in our long-term sites.