Jake PC Panama

What else.....

2008-09-04T15:20:00.001-05:00

So shortly after I began work on my house, I snapped this picture of the river early one of the mornings. In the summer (here, which came and past already), the river and lake filled up, and in the mornings the men prepare the boats for tourists and the women clean the fish in the river. On these days I would sit down in our community port to talk with the old guys and look at the lake of glass.

Here are some pictures of the men carrying gasoline and the motors. They carry the motors daily, and the lower the river, the longer and harder the trip.

We had a few meetings where we were put up in a place near the beach. These are beaches on the Pacific side.

Early on morning at the beginning of march, I found a little surprise in my towel. Sometime in the night a scorpion decided to bed himself in my towel. He stung me in the thumb as I grabbed it. Since I was using some special language in English, the whole house was wondering what happened. I pulled my towel out and the scorpion started running across the floor. My host dad ended it with my water bottle. That day my arm hurt up to my mid-forearm and my thumb and part of my hand were swollen. The next day my thumb hurt and my hand was numb. After a couple days it returned to normal with a little blister. This would be the same thumb I tried to cut off a couple weeks later with my machete.

Here is a picture of a cockroach that had chewed his way into my bread, but was too hungry to chew the whole a little bit larger and was stuck.

After I got back from the states (everything up till now was written a while ago), I had machete accident. I won't repeat myself on that. One day some tourists came to the community and landed 2 helicopters there. My community is very welcoming, so when the first one started coming in, the people all ran out to greet them and play music. Before long, the people were running from the dusty wind kicked up by the helicopters. Here are a couple pics.

Our community meetings, which usually last long into the night, are always very open with the men and women and sometimes even myself talking to the group. I snapped a picture but it's hard to know what its really like until you sit in on one.

While my dad was here, we visited the Mira Flores Locks on the Panama Canal.

The following are a few pictures my dad took while he was at my place. The first one are my main tools I used to build my house.

The next one was me clearing the trail for him to pass. I did let my dad carry the little machete, but under the condition that it stay in the sheath.

Here was some grilled cheese I made for us in the evening.

And a butterfly at the waterfall that my dad caught in this picture:

What a bad-ass

Those were pictures of when my dad and I went on a short hike around the forest and followed our community's water line. I had to show him that even though we didn't come across any snakes or spiders or anything, the jungle still plays very dirty. Overall, it was a great trip and I loved having may dad here. He was a little weaker than I expected, but I tried to fight off the beautiful weather and minimal bugs we encountered. I'm kidding, but I enjoy having visitors, and now he has an idea of some of the things I talk about on the phone. (hint, hint. VISIT!) He was also able to meet my host family, the people that have been raising me this past year.

Finally....

2008-06-02T14:35:00.000-05:00

Well, sorry about not writing for a while. A lot has been going on. I'll go back a ways and overlap some stories and pictures, but hopefully you get the idea of what I've been doing on my house. I'm also writing this at my house and can't see my posts from months ago. In the beginning of February, I started to build my house. I just grabbed my machete and started clearing the spot where I wanted to build and the community said 'oh, he wants a house'. On valentines day we went upstream to cut the main columns for my house. Here are a couple of pictures of the guys that came to help me. The first picture you can see the scaffolding we made using the available trees and vines for rope to steady the tree while they cut on the slope of the hill. This picture also gives you a good sense of the slope.

Here is a picture of the second tree we cut for the main columns. Both the trees we cut these two days we dead, but one was still standing so we dropped it. When it started to break, it sounded like a gun firing and when it finally fell, the whole ground shook.

Here is a picture of my lot. I had dug the four main holes and cleared the top of the hill. You can see some of the main columns on the left side, the rest were still waiting for me to carry them up the hill. While we were carrying one, I slipped and fell in the mud and the column fell on my back and cut me. It hurt so we quit for the day. It was a huge pole that probably weighed more than a couple hundred pounds.

This is the path I cleared down to the river. You can see some of the posts we carried to where it isn't quite as steep. The river has since dried up, but there were lots of hungry fish that visited me there. We could have cleaned up and had supper everyday if we had a fishing line, but instead we through spears at them and, of course, caught nothing but had fun trying. Also, in the bottom picture, that is the post that dropped on my back.

So now for the actual house. We first set the main columns and started from there on the roof. For the roof, we had to go upstream again to find all of the poles, and believe me there is a lot. I then had to strip all the bark off of all the poles, which is now probably my least favorite job. This took about a week.

I went home in March and got to see my family. I think my mom and my cat Frank were the most excited to see me. It was really nice to see everyone, but I was excited to get back to work on my house. About 2 days after I came back I had my first (and hopefully my last) serious machete accident. I was filing the blade to sharpen it and my hand slipped and the machete cut down into my right thumb, through the fingernail and almost down to the knuckle. The blood rushed out like an faucet and I decided immediately that I was going to go to the hospital. This was Easter Saturday, so the closest hospital was deep in the city, but it is a really nice place. The shots and stitches hurt more than the cut, but I still have both halves of my thumb growing together and I still have feeling in it. Here are a series of pictures of my thumb over the past two months. And of course during those two months work didn't stop, but I kept my thumb covered and clean and have since taken on a new technique to sharpen my machetes.

This is were I got the most help on my house. The roof. The palm leaves are from the Wagura palm. Here are my buddies helping me. We threw up the entire roof in only 2 or three hours, but that doesn't include all of the prep time like hauling the palm leaves (about 900 in bundles of 15-25) and cutting Jida palm for the hatching. Here are a couple of pictures of us making the roof.

Here is a view of my house from down the trail to the river. At that time we only had finished the roof.

After we finished the roof it was time to work on the floor. The floors in my community are made out of a type of palm called Jida. It is very strong, but flexible and heavy. It also splinters when it is new which has caused my feet to very upset with the new floor. In the past, the Embera people used this palm for spears and harpoons for spear fishing. Also they would use it to make arrows to hunt. It is similar to bamboo in the sense that it can hold an amazingly sharp point and is often dangerous. After carrying the incredibly heavy trunks of the palms, we had to picar them, which means chopping on them with an axe while rotating them and then splitting one side to open it and take out the spongy inside to lay them flat. My host dad's brother and I finish all 20 in one day. I still had time to peel more poles to the dismay of my hands.

After cutting more poles, carrying them, and peeling them, we threw up the floor in an afternoon. That night since I had a floor and a roof, that's where I stayed.

The pole leading up to the peak is what they used to climb up and down to finish weaving the peak. Also we had used it so support the roof poles from the inside while we were working. On the 12th of April, I moved into my first house, and I had literally built it. Here is a picture off of the side of my house. It is the trail I cleared down to the river when the river was higher.

When my dad came to visit me mid-April, this was basically the same house he saw. For security purposes, I am required to have a closed room that can lock. This set other work back some, but we got up early one morning and set off upstream to cut bamboo for the walls. Twelve men came with me to cut straight trunks of bamboo, 8 of three arm lengths (about 15 feet), and 20 of 2 arm lengths (about 10 feet). I did not know the bark of the bamboo stuck to your skin and itched. Needless to say, I had a very long, sweaty, and itchy day of work ahead of me. Here are some guys splitting the bamboo with axes and machetes. The other pictures are of the guys starting on the floor. We were building an addition off of one of the sides of the main floor that I would later close off into a room. As you can see in the other pictures, My house was completely open(without walls) before the room. The open houses are traditional Embera design, and usually the houses stay fairly cool during the hot days.

Here we are tying poles together to burn a huge termite nest that was hanging close to my house. I have lots of termites and ants close to my house, and they bite. The next picture is of the nest burning. Burrrrrrn........

Here we started on the roof.

And as the sun was setting we were just finishing up the roof. There were a few of us that were there all day since early in the morning to cut the bamboo. Now my house looks like it has a mullet.

A couple days later a couple of us men got together to put up the back walls of the room. Here is a picture of the room to date with my bamboo walls. We still need to put on the front wall and door along with a stack of other projects I still need to do to the house.

There is my water line I put in in the background of the previous picture. It's about 7 and a half feet tall and the rocks for the floor I carried from way down by the river. One of the projects I'll be doing is placing a wall around a couple sides. Also I want to run a faucet in my house. It's not traditional here but it would be a big time saver. So that's the story of my house so far. It's been a ton of work, but it feels good to finally be in my house. This entry was getting kind of long with the pictures so I'll be writing a second one on what else has been going on here in the past 3 months. I'll post one last picture of a hike I went on with a buddy from the community yesterday. We went way upstream this smaller river I live by. Its not real big so no one travels up it in boat, especially this time of year. This picture isn't of the river, but this whole area is full of water for part of the year.

Lately.....

2008-02-24T12:40:00.013-06:00

Well, here we go. On Valentines day we finally went to cut the main posts for what will be my house. We traveled up river and stopped on the side of the river where my host dad´s brother had spotted a fallen tree that was hard wood. The hike up to it was almost straight up. We carry our supplies up and down for two days while we cut the main columns for my house. Here is a pic of my host dad making a kind of scafolding out of tree branches and vines to cut the trees because the slope was steep. There is also a pic of the guys that came to help cut trees. And one of the river early in the morning as we traveled up stream to work for the day. We saw one smaller alligator and the dogs weren´t too impressed.

Also, before we left to cut trees, I almost stepped on this snake on the trail between my community and the next. I just wanted to passed it but it wouldn´t move so I ended it. I didn´t know what kind it was until I brought it back to my community where they told me,´its a boa. It eats rats. why did you kill it?´Sounds like an honest question for those of you at home, but when you don´t know what kind of snake it is, and it wasn´t like any boa I´d seen before, you don´t take chances. And I was a little upset at it for ruining a perfectly good pair of my shorts.....

So we spent two days cutting down 2 trees for my house. They were both already dead, and the second one was this huge tree that was still standing. I´ll put a pic below. When they cut it you could hear it crack so loud it sounded like a gun firing. Then when it finally fell the whole ground shook.

Also, turns out many of the trees in the primary rain forest have spines, and some of them contain posion that stings. A lot. So when you´re climbing that steep terrain lugging your equipment and you reach up to grab the sapling dangling in front of you, look at it first. Not to mention EVERYTHING stings or bites up there. You look forward to the bites, because you realize it could have been somethings that stings. I´ll also include a pic of the scorpion I saw while we were cutting trees.

I´ve been clearing my little hill with a machete every day. Here are a few pics, one is the top of the hill with the 4 holes I dug for the corner posts and some of the poles we had carried up. Also there are a couple pics of the trail I made down to the river so we can haul the poles up.

You can see the water. Me and a couple of buddies have seen a lot of fish there, so we try and throw spears we make at them. We get close, but close doesn´t fill your belly. Also, I´m going to include a pic of a cute little girl in my community. She is almost walking.

sorry

2008-01-24T13:23:00.000-06:00

No time to update, but wanted to say that i made a couple small changes to my address in the contact info. Make sure to take note before you send anything. I have been ´clearing´some land for my house. I also had to dispatch of a snake that desided the spot for my future home would be a great place to play while I was carrying my machete. Take Care All.

Some pictures from Here

2008-01-02T13:54:00.000-06:00

I am just going to do a quick update with some pictures. I know its been awhile, but it has been a while for me to use a computer. It will probly be a while until I can come back too. The weather here is beautiful and a lot of the rain has slowed down now. For New Years eve my community went to Deborahs community for a huge bash. It was a lot of fun. Lots of typico dancing, which Im not a huge fan of. Here is another picture of our port, but now since the water is much higher, I wanted to show you a picture of the sign that fell less than a foot from me when a boat ran into it. I almost died.

Here is a pic of the sunset at the port. Biyakirua (beautiful).

Here is a pic of a sunset from my host dads house. I will be building a house across from his and be able to share the view.

Here is a picture of me (full body paint) and one of the younger kids from my community. This picture is a few weeks old, and I recently got painted again. They give me a different design everytime and my host mom takes about an hour to paint me.

Another one with naked baby.

Here is the spot where the pyragua (dugout canoe) was sitting the past few months while the community worked on it. They launched it early one morning before I got there, but I took a few pictures of it in the water and the maiden voyage.

So pictures stopped uploading, one of the great things about Panamanian internet is it never works, and when it does, the computer doesnt. Hope this tides you all over until next time. Hopefully we will start to build a house soon for me. Take Care.

Quick update from site

2007-12-01T09:45:00.000-06:00

I´ve been trying to square away some arrangements for my work within the community. In the mean time, I have been starting some classes in English to some eager students of all ages. Also, I am eating at every house for a day. The results have mixed. Part of the reason is because I hate to take food from the community I am trying to help, but they are so generous. They are excited when I come over to eat and can have short conversations in Emberá with them. I have gotten some amazing food shared with me in the process. I ate Iguana a few days ago. It wasn´t at the house I was supposed to eat at for the day, but the community decided it was something I had to try. It was very delicious. The community had two of them.
The next day I had the opportunity to eat fresh water turtle, chibigi in Emberá. It was also delicious had it not been for the eggs that were in it when they cleaned it being cooked and served with the meat. They were ok.

Here is a pic of the trail between the community I live and Deborah lives. It is beautiful. I was on my way over for an inaguaration of a project from the former volunteers at her site. The Ambassador to the United States was there along with the Country Director for Peace Corps Panamá and Director of USAID. It was fun. Here is the view from the hammock at Deborah´s house.

Afterwards, we tried to spear fish, but the water was a little cloudy. The community assured us that it will be more clear in 3 days if it doesn´t rain. Then they said you can see all kinds of fish. It should stay that way for most of December, so I look forward to diving for fish a lot.

The english classes I´ve been having for my community have been a self-esteem booster. They are very excited about them, although about half of them end up doing something else. The select few who are serious about learning english are picking up a lot and it encourages more to come to at least see what the Emberá Toro (white person, my nickname) has to say. I, however, have learned far more from these classes than they have. When they ask questions, they ask in Emberá and someone translates to spanish for me, then the response is discussed in Emberá after I say it in spanish. Learning their language is going to be far more important than I had ever imagined. I am well on my way though. Nu´ Diapida.

Dia de Gracias

2007-11-26T09:10:00.000-06:00

I finally got a little bit of internet time. First of all, I want to look into the 100 dollar laptops that can be used for children in remote parts of the world but I don´t have much computer time. They are made to be used to teach children about computers that usually wouldn´t have access to computers. It is through the One Laptop per Child (OLPC). If someone could get the ball rolling on that for me, I would appreciate it along with so many of my fellow volunteers. E-mail me some information maybe so I can get a couple for the kids in my community.

Now, for all concerned, I did have a chance to celebrate Thanksgiving. Since we are East of the Canal, we had not planned on going to the Party that some of the volunteers were setting up. It is really far away and we didn´t think we could make it. Finally, the East siders realized nothing was going on in the city for turkey day, so at the last minute we thought we might as well see everyone from our group. To do that, Deborah (my closest volunteer) and I had to take a boat to the port at 1 pm. We then caught a bus to the bus terminal in Panamá City where we had to wait for the midnight bus. That bus took us on a 6 hour trip to David were we grabbed another little bus for 2 hours up into the mountains to the resort of Los Quetzales. It was beautiful up there. We arrived at 7 in the morning of Thanksgiving. Here is a picture of the main lodge and some of our friends playing football. Too bad the view was horrible (just kidding).
We were able to catch breakfast and hang out with our buddies. It was nice to catch up and just relax for a day, even though we didn´t sleep at all on the cramped bus. Even though we missed being with family for a holiday we are usually with family, we were able to share food with our new extended family of volunteers. The resort let us take over the kitchen for the day and some volunteers made us a feast. There was so much food and we were all so very full. It was an amazing day. Here is a pic of a bunch of people from my group just relaxing with some conversation (in English!).

We jumped on a bus at 6:30 pm that same day and made another sleepless bus ride back to our site. We arrived at my site at about 8 in the morning only to fall asleep shortly after.

Here is a pic from the Tourist house my community is building. The old one was toar down with the heave of the rope and half the community at the other end. The said once they finish this one we can start on my house. After the next full moon of course.

Here are a few people from my community waiting for a boat of tourists. The older guy on the left cracks me up. I usually can´t understand him, but he is hilarious. And when my host dad was very sick and I was worried, he said something to me, most of which I didn´t understand, that was very heartfelt. He saw that I was shaken up from the whole incident and tried to explain things there.

And last, I´ll put a picture of the port we leave out of in boats to get to our community. Beautiful isn´t it?

Quick Message

2007-11-22T08:52:00.000-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving to all that read this! We made it to a mountain retreat on the other side of the country after a long sleepless night of travel. We need to leave tonight so we won't get much sleep the last day and next day, but we're running strong. I added some comments to photos on Picasa, so if you needed some explanations, there are a few now. working on more.... Most of the volunteers in Panama are here now.

I miss the traditional Thanksgiving with lots of food and family. We are very thankful for the family of volunteers who made it here, our health (on again off again), and the food we will have a chance to eat prepared in the borrowed kitchen on the lodge. I just wanted to wish everyone a Thanksgiving and let you know I am Thankful for the friends and family I have the chance to miss these holidays.

How do you eat Spaghetti on Rice with a spoon?

2007-11-08T11:49:00.001-06:00

Hey, sorry it´s taken so long to update, and unfortunately this will be a short one. I´ve been at my site as a Volunteer for a week and a half now. I just wanted to let people know I added more pictures (about as many as I had before) to the Picasa album, so for those of you with access you should check them out. If you don´t have access and want to be invited just send me an e-mail with your e-mail address included in the e-mail. Unfortunately, I don´t know how to get or reply to the e-mail addresses from comments to this blog, so you will probly need to send me a personal e-mail from your e-mail (not a comment) at jacob.wieland@gmail.com. or you can send a comment with your e-mail address included, but that will be posted on this site. You can also leave comments on the photos, although I am able to check those less frequently. I´m doing great, haven´t been real sick since I´ve been to my site! Also, I´ll be in the city next week and the week after and hopefully have more time to respond to e-mails and update a longer entry in my blog. Hope all is well in the states and I hope everyone enjoys the leaves changing and the snow, because we can´t. I miss the snow believe it or not. Also, I have a cell phone, and can receive calls for free, although you should probly use a calling card if you´re gonna try. Just send me an e-mail for that number.

I will start building my house soon. I´m told we´re waiting for the next full moon to head up river into the wild National Park to cut the trees. It will be a 3-4 day camping trip and a lot of hard work I´m told. Once I have a house I can entertain guests, so you´re all be welcome to stay. Just e-mail me to let me know and we can set something up in Panama.

Oh yeah, you don´t eat spaghetti on rice with a spoon, you use your hands.

Site Visit!

2007-10-17T17:03:00.000-05:00

This past week I was in my future site. We first had a quick introduction for 2 days with the people that would be taking us to our site. Immediately, mine began to introduce me as his son. He said that he will be my dad in Panama while I am here and he will take care of me like his son. He was very outgoing and talked to me a lot. I felt very comfortable with him from the beginning. We took a bus (a few buses) to get to the site. We then needed a boat (which was his) for about 10-15 minutes to get to the community that I will be living in for the next two years. The people there are indigenous and are a group called the Embora. The immediately took to calling me 'djaba' (cha-ba) which literally means brother but they also use it as amigo. The help me with my bags (which were very heavy) up to my dad-in-Panama's house. They live in their traditional grass huts that are raised up on stilts. Here is a picture of the house I stayed at and where I'll be staying when I first get back

Here is a picture of the inside.

The three logs are a fire place in the house on stilts where they traditionally cook food. The 96 year old grandma in my house still cooks almost all of her meals on it. Impressive. The thing about the house I live in is that there is that kitchen area you see in the pic, and then the living area where I was standing to take it. Thats it, no rooms. We would roll out our mats every night and hang up the mosquito nets before bed, then in the morning take them down again. I had zero privacy, especially since the father of the house sells gasoline out of 5 gallon tanks in the latrine. Every time I would sit down, someone was outside waiting to buy gas. So, I am going to have to build my own traditional hut, which I'm very excited for. The whole community is very excited as well. They told me on numerous occasions, including once from the Noko (chief) of the community that I could put my house where ever I want and they will help me to build a casa grande. I told him I don't need a large house, but I appreciate the enthusiasm. I already have a site picked out and have the Noko going to talk to the Gov. agency so I can deforest a little bit to make my house. Since we live in the middle of a National Park, we'll need permission first. My dad here said that since I'm now his son (which he symbolized by giving me a bead necklace with a large boar tusk on it), I can use his house as if it were mine for now and take his boat if I need it. Here is a picture of his boat on the right, and a canoe similar to the one he will help me build someday. These will be my main mode of transportation for the next two years since I will be working in various communities on the river and lake.

Here are a couple of pictures I took when we went upstream to visit other communities. The river is beautiful and we saw river otters along with various beautiful birds and plants. I was also told that there were crocodiles, some people say they are too small to bother humans, and others said we're crazy to go in the river. I guess I'll find out more the longer I'm here, although I have not heard of any injuries.

My site is home to a lot of tourism. A lot. Here are a couple pictures of the beautiful baskets and wood (coco bola) and tagua nut carvings along with other jewelry they sell.
They walk a tight rope with tourism. The more they get, the more culture they lose. It will be sad to watch over the next two years because they have a beautiful culture. Here is a picture I took of footprints and one boot print, I thought it was significant.
Here is a picture of the waterfall that they take tourists to. So if you come, you can see it too. Deborah is on the left and my dad's real son (friction.....) is the guy there. We went there one day and just got to hang out. Since tourists come everyday, I will be able to hitch a ride on a boat there when every I want.
Here is a picture of a guy we were with spear fishing at the waterfall. I got to try and it was so fun. It is very difficult, but I'll get better with practice.
Here is another picture of the boat we took to the waterfall. Deborah is hilarious and lives about a 10 minute walk (not hike) from my house. This is unusual for Peace Corps to put volunteers to close to each other, but she is in the Community Economic Development and has her work cut out for her at all the communities on the river with Tourism.
The tourists I talked to were from all over the world, France, Spain, the States, Japan, and Argentina. Here are a couple of pics of my community welcoming the visitors. Also there is a pic of the women making baskets and a couple of the dancing they do with/for the visitors to the music they make.
We took a boat my dad was driving in the dark one night. This is especially scary because of the very shallow spots we often hit the propeller on and have to get out and push. I was braced to hit something, be he navigated the river like a champ. Also one day we went across the lake to get some palms. We loaded the dug-out tree boat FULL of palms and killed one scorpion while we were doing it. I got in the boat for the 45 minute ride back to our community and had to sit on the pile of palms. When we started to unload it we killed 3 more scorpions right were I was sitting. I guess they won't kill an adult, but they hurt like hell. I just didn't want to be stung on the parts that just happened to be on the palms...... Anyways, once we were done I found out the palms will be for the roof of my future home, so I was excited.

That night it was dark so I decided I wouldn't need my swimming trunks to bathe at the tap that night. It was beautiful; as I took my shower, I watched shooting starts streak by, lightning in the distance along with the occasional rumble of thunder. And no one came by.

All in all, my site feels very much like a beach resort. I ate very well, even if a lot was fried. I had the most delicious smoked pork I've ever had, even if I had my Peace Corps taste buds on. You see, I noticed our training group is getting to the hungry point, where food is food. Its been, as weird as it sounds, a very liberating experience for me. Before I would have scoffed at fried plantains and rice, but now its a meal that will give me energy and fill my stomach till the next. I did eat very well considering other places we've been (days of boiled green bananas). It may be hard to understand in a place where you have the option of Burger King or Wendy's, but here when you eat what the people you work and live with eat, you gain a lot of respect. If you don't, they get a sense that you are too ye-ye for them and that you are better than them. But I've liked the food. So next time you get a burger with tomatoes on it even though you asked for no tomatoes, just try and eat it, at least once, because not everyone has the option.

The World Has Turn and Left Me Here

2007-10-01T17:47:00.000-05:00

I was just looking at the news from the States on the puter when I decided I should write a quick note on here. Since we´ve been here, it seems like very little news gets through, or when it does, it´s 3 weeks after the fact. Even the news I read now, online and live, seemed somewhat insignificant. We´re away from the war in Iraq and Afganistan here. A few people in my group have been trying to keep up with the elections, but I personally can´t stand turning on the tv and seeing that one canidate made a comment that pissed a lot of people off and that it may or may not have been taken out of context. I´ve only been here what, a month and a half, and I can already see how tough a person´s will has to be in order to make it in the Peace Corps.

I have to hand it to the volunteers who we´ve visited, who have been in country, and to all of the Volunteers who serve and have served all over the world. The host communities we´ve been at have shared with us some amazing stories as to how the Peace Corps has brought new opportunities and people into their lives.

I´m still in training. At the end of October we will be sworn in as official Peace Corps Volunteers (PVCs). Next week we travel with a person from our communities to the sites we wil be living in for 2 years. This will be the first time I will have to be on my own with people who don´t speak English for a whole week. I´m a little scared, but excited. I want to hear what they have to say about my aspirations to learn their native language, carve a boat from a tree, learn some of the crafts they do like basket making and wood carving, and how they feel about me wanting to build my own house, with their help of course. I´m excited to try and work on integration into the community and make some new friends while I get to know everyone and their culture.

I truely believe this will be the ´toughest job I´ll ever love´. We´ve lost a few people during training already, and I can see why. Some had obligations at home and for some it just wasn´t for them. I wish them all luck in their lives. I´ve already had a taste of the dificulties faced (being sick ALOT) and the triumphs accomplished. I wish everyone could know what its like to be a Peace Corps Volunteer.

Culture Week

2007-09-29T12:23:00.000-05:00

Just got back from two weeks of being out. This past week was culture week and the small group of us that have sites east of the Canal went out to the Darien to learn about Wounaan and Embera Culture. After a long school bus ride and a couple of Police checkpoints, we arrived at the site of another volunteer. Since I will be with a comunittee that is Embera, I stayed with a family that is Embera. They had a pet monkey, but he bites.

Also in this picture you can see some of my body paint. They painted ou

r bodies to share some of their culture with us. Since my camera is dead right now, I couldn´t take a picture of my face, which is alway painted. The paint lasts for a few weeks, and only us two brave souls got it on our face. They gave me a goatee, which I think was more of a joke because I heard it is not a traditional patern they paint. Now I´m sitting is an internet cafe, in a really busy mall in Panama city,that is surounded by windows with a goatee painted on my face and my arms painted. People stare enough at the huge Gringo, let alone with tribal paint on him. Heres a picture of me and Debrah flying toward the end of the Panam in the back of a pickup while it was raining on our way to see the take (toma) for the water system of the town we stayed in.

We had to do a little rock climbing to see the actual toma, here we are on top of the rocks with Joanna on the far left, Me in the middle, and Deborah to the right of me.

Sorry it is hard to see, we were in middle of the rain forest which was one of the coolest hike I´ve been on since volunteer visit. Here is some pictures of this cute girl that hung around the volunteer´s house we were at. I have a couple that I think turned out well.

It was funny because I was telling the kids (of which at any given time there were a million around us) That i was so tall because I ate kids. They liked that. They also had a river we swam in that had one hell of a current. We got carried a little further downstream that we wanted. And then when we got out we saw a turd float by. Gross. But that´s the reality here, the native people would rather go in the river cause it washes away clean, but they don´t realize the consequences downstream. We´re here to educate too.

Still training

2007-09-22T16:44:00.000-05:00

We´re in week 6 of training now. I just found a computer in Santiago after we spent last week in Cerro Inglesias. It´s an indigenous communittee up in the mountains. The Environmetal Health Aspirantes went there and we each stayed with a host family. I stayed in a house with a thatched roof. It was all pretty much one room and there were a few kids. I found out that one of the sons gave up his bed so I could stay there. Here is a pic and you can see my ye-ye bed on the right under the mosquito net.

I showed up to the site with a fever and threw up a couple times. I can not stay healthy. The first night I was trying to tell the host family I just need rest by saying ´necessito desayuno.´ They looked at me funny so I says ´necessito desayuno´again. They said in the morning. I was really confused until the next day I learned desayuno was breakfast. They thought I really wanted some breakfast.

While I was there I ate mostly boiled bananas and rice. We saw a lot of kids with the fat stomachs and it was kind of sad. But I realized that we were just these goofy gringos that had a lot of weird stuff. I mean, they had been living this way their whole lives and I even saw things like the mom chewing out one kid for a bad grade. This is their life. Outside of their house was this insane view, and they had no idea how beautiful it was.

You can see the Pacific ocean with some islands toward the back. Here is another picture of the daughter of the house holding the parrot they had that would not shut up, even at night. She also seemed to do a lot of the cooking there. In the forground is a cup with a ´c´on it that was the most amazing cup of hot cocoa that I have ever had. They take the beans right off a tree there.

They always fed me first and way more than they would eat. They were very generous and the children were all very curious of the USA.

I also found out a couple weeks ago where I will be spending the next two years of my life. My site is in the Colon province. The city of Colon is the port city on the Panama Canal on the Carribean side. I will be in between there and Panama City in the beautiful Chagres National Parque. My communitte is Indeginous and they are called the Embera. I´ll write more about my site later, for last here is a picture of the day that we had our site announcements. It was a day full of anticipation and excitement. The guy talking on the mic is Country Director Peter.

You can see the map of Panama in the background where they would announce our sites one by one and put our pictures on the map at our sites.

Volunteer Visit Part Two: Actual Visit

2007-09-09T16:55:00.000-05:00

So here is what happened after the whole traveling incident at Hato Chami. We hiked into the volunteer's site which was about an hour hike down the mountain. We finally reached his village and even though I had looked up tons of blogs and stuff on Peace Corps Panama, I still did not realize people were living like that. Everyone was very friendly and stopped by his house to see the new gringo that came to town. Speaking of his house, I heard rumors that it was awesome, but it was awesome. He had built it himself and he says it took 5 months. Here is a pic:

Heres a pic of his porch with saweet hammock:

Sorry it's on its side. Here's a view from the hammock:

We hung out there for a couple of days and just talked about what its like to live there and how the Ngobe people are. He lives in an indigenous site in the middle of the Camarca. One day two guys came rolling by carrying something so we asked them to come show us.

They were both two huge eckis. I don't know how to spell it, but we've been warned they are some of the most dangerous snakes here and that they are aggressive, meaning they might actually chase you. Anyways, we took the same trail they came off of the next day. That hike was crazy. It was up and down the mountains, I do not have any pics from the hike because everytime we stopped, I had to catch my breath. We needed to try and catch the next Chiva or we might have had to wait for hours to see another. I was in awe of the stamina the other two volunteers with me showed on the hike. The one I went to see was pointing out the place they had gotten the wood and grass for his hut about 3/4 of the way through. I couldn't believe they took the same route we did carrying so much weight. I thought I almost died and toward the end the one I went to visit took off RUNNING saying he thought he heard the chiva and just keep on that trail. I couldn 't believe it. We eventually made it to the end of the trail and waited for about a half hour for the next chiva. This pic is from on the chiva but it shows the mountains and how little access they actually have: Here is me and one of Rob on the Chiva: We finished the weekend by meeting other volunteers and thier aspirantes at the beach. Here are a couple pics from the party that night, you can tell we don't get to do this much, but it was awesome.

I'll leave you with some of the beautiful pictures I took there:

Volunteer Visit Part One: Diarrea

2007-09-07T16:49:00.000-05:00

I know the poop stories are probly getting old, but I don´t have time to upload my pics on these slow puters, so I´ll START the volunteer visit with the story on how I got there.

I left the bus terminal with a bunch of Aspirantes that were headed for David, the major hub city in the Western part of Panama. Three of us were to stay the night in a hotel in Santiago (HOT shower and TV!!) and then get up early to make the last 1 1/2 bus ride to San Felix where we would jump on chiva (a pickup truck taxi where you just cram in the back) and just jump off at the places where these maps that the volunteers prepared told us to. I mean they stop and you pay, but you get the picture. The night in the hotel was wonderful and I was so happy to have running water and watch Southpark in Spanish. The next day we arrived in San Felix and I decided I needed to poop. I asked where the bathroom was and finally found it. It was a really dirty old toilet and no toilet paper. Since the map says I only had a one hour chiva ride (if the roads are good), I decided to wait. One of the Volunteers met us at the chiva station and he found out our chiva didn´t leave for another 1 1/2 hours so we went to the local restaurant and ate.

Me and one other Aspirante jumped on the chiva and I immediately regretted it. My stomach started boiling. What made it worse was the fact that this winding mountain road was really bumpy and hot so I was just sweating. Forty minutes of hell later we finally dropped off the other volunteer. I asked the Pavo (chiva helper) how much longer to Hato Chami, where I would meet my volunteer. He said about 20 minutes. By that time I was just about to jump off and tell him to wait for me.

The other riders that were still on were asking me if I was ok cause I was just dripping with sweat trying not to poop myself. About 10 minutes after we dropped the other aspirante off I decided it was time. I needed to go. As soon as I told the driver Estoy enfermo (I am sick!) and was gonna say stop, I hear the voice of the volunteer telling him to stop. I did a quick swim move out of the truck and took off for the nearest latrine, not really knowing where it was. I was asking the volunteer at the same time as asking if he would pay the pavo. He did while informing me where the latrine was and that it was locked. Also, I would need TP. So he ran into the ´restaurant´(a shack with two tables) to get the key and then buy some toilet paper. I finally made it without any accidents. And then 6 times more while we waited for the rain to let up before hiking into his site.

Lesson of the story - when in Panama, ALLWAYS carry toilet paper

I promise the next post with involve pics and a cleaner story about my volunteer visit.

Jacobo Enfermo

2007-09-06T09:37:00.001-05:00

We just got back from our volunteer visits this weekend. I went to visit a volunteer in the middle of the Camarca. I have a lot of pictures, but I did not bring my camera here, so I will have to tell that story at a later date.

Currently, I've been told, there are 4 Jacobs in PC Panama, so I am, of course, Jacobo Guapo. I told my host family this and they loved it. Well, due to a diet of mainly rice and a little chicken and Tortillas (corn cakes) I have had a lot of problems staying regular. I took it upon myself to by some laxitives last week when we were in Panama City. I was almost positive the lady said take 3 at night, then one in the morning. That also made sense because they came in packs of 4. A few nights later I decided to take them. Three at night. I woke up in the morning and still could not take a dump so I took the last one. That morning was HORRIBLE! My Spanish teacher came to see what was happening and between her and my host family, no one could understand what was happening to me. I kept trying to go, but nothing came. I was sweating so bad that eventually I had to change cause I was soaked.

I had the worst time trying to explain that the problem was that I couldn't go. My family thought I needed to see a doctor because they thought I had pooped like 20 times in the morning. My dad, whom I have trouble understanding in the first place, gave me a cup of water with powder in it and told me my spanish teacher had to go, but she said to take it. I drank it down then asked him what it was. He handed me the package, it was electrolyte tablets from my med kit. That was a good idea cause I had been sweating so much and they thought I had explosive diarrea. Well, I threw up immediatly after talking to him just as my host mom was walking up. She had bought me some gatorade which helped a lot. At about 11:30 am the plug gave and everything was good. My family still thinks I took about 40 poops that day and now I am no longer Jacobo Guapo, but Jacobo Travesuro (mishcievious) because they don't know that the pills eventually worked, although rather violently. They took the rest from me and told me that the package said to only take 2 in 24 hours.