Lately.....

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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.