A triumphant day of fishing on the Carribean
This will be the second time I´ve erased and re-written this entry. Knowing how to sum up an experience like I´ve had during the past 40 odd days (the good and the bad) has been much harder than anticipated! The natural inclination is to take a very serrrrrious tone. The very grandiose "As I cross the threshold into the great unknown...." nonsense can be hard to avoid. The truth is that I´ve very rarely had the chance to even contemplate the varying gravity in my daily activities...I´m usually just trying not to fall off the edge of a cliff or accidentally call someone an "asshole" while speaking a language that is not my own.
For the past month and change, I´ve been living in the community of Bahia Ballena (Whale Bay in English - because prior to the accelerated change in climate over the past 30 years it was a particularly phenomenal spot for wales to congregate). The community is located in the Bocas del Toro region roughly a 30 minute boat ride from the frontier town of Chiriqui Grande. The residents are of the Ngobe Indigenous persuasion and have lived in the area for hundreds of years, however they´ve only recently forming communities around government installed school districts during the past 40-50 years. They´ve historically been subsistent fisherman and fruit tree farmers, but due to an oil spill that took place in 2007, they began to delve more deeply into the world of Coffee production in order to survive. Now, a very modest coffee production provides a very large chunk of the community´s yearly income. So for the next two years I will be primarily working with the coffe farmers - using my Peace Corps training to help them increase production and quality.
I follow-up a phenomenal volunteer, who paved the way wonderfully for my Ag work by teaching business skills and organizing the community´s coffee cooperative into a (much more) well-oiled machine. The only major threat that stands in the way of my community´s success is a beetle infestation in the coffee farms with the power to wipeout entire acres in a few months. This beetle, referred to as La Broca, is extremely resilient, and as of yet there is no silver bullet solution to its eradication. Enter: me! Trial by fire to say the least.
Traditionally speaking, the first three months of a volunteer´s service are the hardest. The primary reason for this is that obtaining knowldege about the community is very difficult to do. You not only have to learn the language (which in my case is Spanish mixed with the local Ngobe dialect and fired off with machine gun speed), but you also have to generally convince the people in your community that you don´t have ulterior motives - namely that you aren´t an American Spy or a government saboteur sent to secretly destroy their crops and kidnap their children. While that may sound ridiculous at first, the Indigenous communities in Panama have every reason to be paranoid about outsider involvement. They´ve experienced a history of persecution and marginalization from their local government as well as outside influences - namely The United Fruit Company.
All things considered, my early interactions with my community seem to indicate that I´ve lucked out in my placement. I´ve been welcomed with open-arms by nearly everyone I´ve come in contact with in the community. Although they tend to be pensive around the random gringo at first, once they realize I´m pretty normal, they ease up. There are the occasional misunderstandings and for me there is a general overriding mental exhaustion at the end of every day that comes with trying to communicate in three languages, but all in all the adjustment has been about as smooth as could be expected.
Since transitioning to Ballena, I´ve continued living with host families and paying a small rent to help with cost of living expenses. The challenges of living with a host family continue to be primarily space-oriented. Whereas my training community host family consisted of seven people living in a confined space, most Ngobe families easily cross into double-digit family members living in the same stilted-thatched roof hut. Another issue thrown into the mix since entering my site (which is more imporverished than my training community) has been around food. Because my community lives in extreme poverty, there is often little more than rice and bananas to go around. While many in the community fish as well, they tend to sell the majority of their catch, only saving the bare minimum for consumption. While my monthly monetary contribution has helped a bit, it is still difficult for anyone to fill their stomach. One of my primary goals during the next two years will be to address the issue of nutrition and better utilizing sustainable practices to help produce a higher quantity and more widely varying fruit & vegetable production. During my time in Ballena, the only fruit or vegetable I´ve consumed while in site is Peach-Palm which tastes like a cross between pumpkin and a lump of coal. The effect it has on one´s stomach is more similar to the latter.
The problem of malnutrition & dehydration is so serious that there is an everpresent problem of infant mortality. My second week on site I was reminded of this when a 1-month old living next door to my host family became sick and passed away in the span of 24 hours. Needless to say this scene was nothing short of heartbreaking, with female family members weeping, and male family members (ever machismo) staring at the ground trying their hardest to hold it together. As my own eyes welled up, I had to quickly slide my sunglasses down and leave the area to compose myself. Unfortunately this scene is an all too common one in Ballena.
It is common for PC Volunteers to be given nicknames in their communities because often times anglosized names are difficult for the Ngobe to pronounce. Immediately upon arriving in Ballena, my "community guide" Humberto christened me Üli. Now, whenever I walk through the town I am serenaded with shouts of " ÜLI!!!!!!!!!!!" from every kid within eyesight. Their greetings are often accompanied by giant grins and frantic waving, which only subsides when I turn and wave as well. This never gets old.
While I´m always very tempted to take pictures of the people and the scenes that surround me daily, any appearance of my camera causes a hysteria on par with Beatlemania circa 1964. Many of my fellow community members have never owned a single picture of themselves, and the appearance of a camera in Ballena is about as rare as the gringo that holds it. Because of this the sum total of the pictures I´ve taken during the last month can be counted on one hand. I am still trying and figure the best way to manage this situation.
While there is a lot of downtime spent studying in a hammock, more days than not, I work with my fellow community members in the finca. My work primarily consists of "choppeando," which in other words is clearing an area of brush so that it can be used for planting new crops. Despite being more experienced with a machete than the average gringo (thanks to my time working in Ecuador), this is a constantly pride swallowing experience. Every Ngobe farmer operating a machete, conjures up images of a Samurai slicing and dicing through enemies without breaking a sweat. When I attack brush on the other hand I look more like a bulldog trying to hump a house cat. This accomplishes two things...many minor injuries for me, and much needed comic-relief for my Ngobe brothers who never get tired of enjoying my bumbling misfortunes and regaling the rest of the community with "what Üli did in the finca today." However, I tend to improve my technique with each day, mostly because I´m determined to stop making a fool out of myself.
In the finca (from left to right) Chimira, Bonilla, Humberto, and Manuel
Because the soil quality is comparable to asphalt near the community, getting to the farms with soil fertile enough to sow requires an (minumum) hour long hike into the hills. Some days, this hike is the hardest part of my day. Straight uphill, at times without a trail, in 90 degree heat. What´s even more difficult is hiking BACK at the end of the day. For me at least, it is much more difficult going straight downhill on balance beam thin trails, with tumbling dropoffs on each side, that are steeped in mud that can be as slick as ice, while in other places taking on an ankle-deep quicksand quality. To add an extra degree of difficulty, you usually have your hands full carrying something that weighs upwards of 100 pounds (i.e. palm-thatch for a roof, a giant log, or a sack full of coffee cherries). I often return battered and cut, with my boots filled to the ankle in sweat. I then bathe in a stream after nursing any open wounds with alcohol to prevent infection - depending on the size and depth of the wound this can be a blindingly painful exercise...pleasing only to the most hardcore of masochists.
The absolute best days are when I get to go fishing. Because fishing poles are a luxury around these parts, we use a fishing line attached to the end of an empty plastic bottle. The line does have a leader and a hook, and we generally use sardines as bait. During my first experience with this method of fishing I managed to catch seven fish (which were promptly used to feed my entire host family), including a 20-inch mackarel (pictured above).
At the end of the day, I collapse into a hammock. My mind either becomes absorbed in whatever book I´m currently reading. When unoccupied my thoughts tend to wander to the past and my home in Chicago, or to the future and the goals I hope to accomplish in the next two years. I also think a great deal about my fellow volunteers and wonder how their time in site is evolving.
This entire experience is still very difficult to define and comprehend, and as clichéd as it sounds, the only way to attack it is one day at a time. What will my impact be? When are things going to speed up? Will I ever speak the local language without draining myself mentally? Asking these questions are important, but I´ve also found them to be dangerous. If I get too wrapped up in how foreign, isolated, and generally enormous the two years of Peace Corps service can be, I can fall into a downward spiral of anxiety. I´ve found it´s best to try and live in the moment and not bite off the entire chunk of responsibility at once...of course this is always easier said than done. There are little moments with my community that make this experience worthwhile every single day, and we´re only beginning our time together...
Alexi holding his best catch after our day out fishing
