Edited on March 27, 2020
(Edited to include additional information not previously written)
Note: Happy New Years! This is the last post I had planned since my last update in November.
I was assigned to visit a volunteer named Forrest in the Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé (CNB). Given that the Fourth of July also marked G83's first year in country, fewer volunteers were willing to host trainees than usual as they had celebrations planned with each other. As a result, many trainees were paired together for their visit assuming the volunteer had the space. Even a couple of G81 volunteers hosted trainees due to the lack of available G83ers. Anyways, I was on my own.
After a 6 hour or so bus ride on the interamericana, I arrived to the volunteer's "entrada" or gateway community from which volunteers access and depart their sites as well as purchase standard supplies. We stopped by a vegetable stand to purchase... vegetables, then hopped on a chiva to his site.
Being situated on the first line of hills in the CNB, one can see the flatland running all the way to the Pacific Ocean. From certain areas of the site, one can see many of the other hills of the comarca. We spent the first day visiting a couple of his neighbors. They were usually too shy to talk to me directly but I didn't mind it too much. We then hiked over to the site of a SAS volunteer named Miranda who was close to finishing her service. The Peace Corps office had given me a bag full of locks to provide Miranda with as new Peace Corps regulations were coming into effect that required two slide locks per door and window rather than one. Since her service was nearing its conclusion, the locks were really for her follow-up. When we arrived she wasn't home. We checked with some of her community members to make sure she wasn't elsewhere in her site and they assured us she was probably just sleeping. Forrest concluded that she was, actually, out of the community and we departed back towards his site.
A view of the Pacific from the Comarca (July 4, 2019)
Once we reached the edge of his community again, we stopped by the house of one of the community elders who had the only cacao trees in town. He invited us to sit down as he poured a batch of unsweetened cacao drink he had prepared earlier into two tatumas. Forrest and I were sure to ask for seconds and the elder confirmed to me the importance of cacao in Ngäbe culture. As this was the man responsible for granting Forrest the indigenous name he is known by in his community, Ili, he requested that the man provide me one as well. After pondering for a moment he came up with the name Tikäni (pronounced tee-gaw-nee). From there I'd introduce myself to others by saying "Ti kä Claudio suliare aune Tikäni ngäbere" (My name is Claudio in Spanish and Tikäni in Ngäbere).
I asked what meaning, if any, the name had. He only shrugged and said "El era alguien alto". Forrest told me that names often have no particular meaning and are recycled in the community. Often, the most popular names are from those who were considered tall, strong and/or hardworking. One of my Ngäbere instructors in the future however would inform me that Tikäni could be translated to mean "mi hijo".
Darkness rolled in as we arrived back to Forrest's home. The lack of electrical lighting revealed a vast array of stars I hadn't seen in years. Forrest lived within a cooperative in a shack the size of a regular room. The main cooperative building held the kitchen, bathroom (for showers), living area, computer space, and store. A ventilated latrine near capacity and infested with roaches was located nearby. Fortunately, I was constipated at the time so I didn't have need to use the latrine. I did sit down one night to see if anything would come out though, and kept my flashlight trained down the hole to keep the roaches from surfacing.
The electricity of the co-op was generated by rooftop solar panels that effectively powered the computers and Wi-Fi. The Panamanian government had a project underway to bring electricity to the community and install street lights, but at the time of my visit the project had yet to be completed. Since the lights within the co-op building were all non-functional, dinner had to be cooked with the aid of a headlamp. The first night we had chow-mien with an assortment of veggies and I learned that Forrest was the son of a certified cook, so I was in good hands with my meals. After a cold bucket shower, I retired to the cot he had prepared for me. Being in the mountains it was cool enough that a fan wasn't necessary for a comfortable night's sleep. Forrest warned me that volunteers who had visited him complained about it being too cold (!), but I assume it's because they had become more well adjusted to the heat and humidity.
One example of breakfast (July 7, 2019)
July 5th, we cut up and fried some green bananas to make patacones for breakfast. Boiled green bananas taste just like potatoes, as such it makes sense that fried they taste like french fries. We then proceeded to the casa comunal where Forrest had a soap-making charla planned. Three people eventually showed up which was okay since Forrest wanted interested people there to potentially start a business selling soap. He had purchased aromatic oils to add to the soap for fragrance but what happened next was either a disaster or a scientific invention. The mixture heated and began to solidify. Unusual since one is supposed to wait at least a couple of days before this happens. With the help of Monchi, Forrest's super-animated counterpart, we collected the mushy soap mixture and placed them into the molds for storage. An update from Forrest a month later revealed that the soap worked and was popular for clothes washing, but that the anomalous reaction never re-occurred in future batches.
A bar of soap (July 5, 2019)
Later that day we visited a Seventh-Day Adventist church that was under renovation and where a mission group was present for the week. A dentist was among the mission group and he had acquired permission from the school to examine the teeth of the children there to identify which children needed to go to the Centro de Salud as well as to pass out toothpaste and toothbrushes. As such, he requested that Forrest help translate as the mission group was lacking in available individuals with strong Spanish comprehension. We were provided lunch for our efforts which included a good mix of vegetables.
The rest of the day was spent enjoying the Wi-Fi in the cooperative's kitchen area and relaxing. As a heads up for service, he told me that today was unusually busy as he usually only does one thing a day. Come night time, we went over to his host family's home to watch one of the movies he had downloaded on his iPad. They decided they wanted to watch Fury and I recall them being impressed by the knowledge of the bible the characters possessed. During this film, his family offered me a boiled starchy fruit known as pifá (Bactris gasipaes). Once I had finished those, they followed up with chicha de pifá. In Ngäbere, the fruit is known as däbä. My PST host-mom would tell me that pifá was her favorite fruit, but that it was largely unavailable. Once I had gotten to site, I was informed that the tree's flowers had recently been plagued, leaving the region without pifá.
July 6th, we decided to take a hike up the nearby hill to see the top, but I was forewarned that there were no great views due to all the trees. Regardless, the CNB offers many a great view everywhere you go. We began the climb as a storm approached and we could see the rain coming right for us, but we continued regardless. Forrest, and by extension I, got lost trying to find where the trail disappeared to. After some futile bushwhacking and the arrival of lightning, we decided it was best to head back down. We returned to the cooperative completely soaked. We changed out of our wet clothes, pressed some coffee, and let the rain and day pass.
July 7th came in no time at all. After breakfast, I gathered my mostly-dry clothes and other belongings and waited at the chiva stop. I met Miranda who had since returned from, wherever she was, and who was headed out with me to the SAS training community to assist with one of the technical sessions there. She was somewhat upset that her community assumed she slept most of the time given the amount of work she does, but saw the humor in it all the same. Forrest accompanied us on the chiva down to the interamericana as he needed to head back to his entrada to buy more food. Miranda and I lucked upon a bus headed towards Panama within a few minutes of waiting by the highway and we were off. I arrived to the entrada of the WASH training community and parted ways with Miranda.
I arrived to my host family's house and felt as if I had just arrived home after a trip. I greeted my host family and sat down as if I had never left. "Me extrañaste?" My host mom asked. "No tanto", I replied,"Na'mas era algunos días". She then threatened to pour the cubo of water she was holding in her hand over my head. "Y aquí yo le extrañé" she told Mama Rita. It was nice being home.
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