The One where she has some Freedom

The first night in my house was nothing less of extraordinary! Freedom has never felt so good. I realize now, after living with a host family for nearly 6 months that personal space was something I definitely use to take for granted. It is also something not always understood by other cultures. They ask me “ Why would you want to live alone Meti?” and “Who is going to keep you warm at night? Don’t you get cold at night?” oh and my personal favorite… “What are you going to do when the Brujas (witches) come out at night?” While I have yet to encounter any brujas knocking at my door… I have definitely already faced some challenges!

• My first Solo scorpion encounter : I knew that it was bound to happen.. they are everywhere. But I have managed avoiding a one-on-one encounter until now…. He was a little guy (which I am told is worse) I found him early in the morning underneath ha book that was sitting on my kitchen table. Half asleep, it took me a few seconds to realize the time has finally arrived for me to face, honestly, one of the biggest fears I had about living alone; the scorpions... and of course the bird eating tarantula that has scared me for life…. Notice how I speak of it as if there is only one…In my mind there is, and I left it back in our training site! (refer to September blogs for more detail if you have no idea what I am refering to)
  Anyways, both the scorpion and I sat there motionless for what could have easily been 5 minutes. The only thing I moved was my eyes…. Anxiously searching for something hard to smash it with. Like the good Ngobe that I am becoming, my Machete was close by. As I reached for it, he began to move. He stopped when I returned with my nearly 2 foot long knife (I don’t know what I was thinking). There was another long pause as we both tried to plan our next move. Then I raised my machete high up over my head (which was completely unnecessary, and totally against what I learned in my machete safely training, but that is what my adrenaline was telling me to do) and swong straight down, in an action that should have ended in me saying “high-ya.” Apparently, scorpions are not stupid… all he had to do was take one step either way...which he did. Now, my Machete was wedged ¼ inch deep in my kitchen table which gave the little guy plenty of time to scurry off to a new hiding place. The scorpion won that time, but there have been 3 more incidents since this first one, and those were not so lucky….. I am learning =)
  
  
• My first time burning my trash: Ever since I arrived in panama and found out the only way to dispose of the trash was to burn it, yourself, I was not looking forward to this day.
  

After I had had a few days to get situated, I decided it was time to do something about the loads of trash surrounding my house. So I spent 3 plus hours picking it all up… one cute little boy offered to help me. Together we filled my 5 gallon bucket, more than 10 times!! As I was picking up the trash, I was remembering the Beach Clean Ups that we often did for “Wheelchair Foundation” in college. We would be out on Pismo or Avila Beach roaming for hours and could hardly even find a cigarette bud in the sand. This is a big cultural difference! The Panamanians in general think that Americans are crazy that they would get up and walk clear across a park or beach to throw a little piece of plastic in a bin when you can just drop it right where you are and eventually it will blow away (out of site out of mind).
Well in Buena Esperanza, it seemed as through all that trash had blown directly into my surrounding area. Eventually, I plan on attacking the problem of trash in my community with some education and possibly the making of community trash cans…but I think I made a BIG statement when I burnt everything that we picked up. My “gringo” neighbors across the bay told me it looked like the village was burning down. Here is a photo of all the smoke…. I was so nervous to burn my trash for the first time, I probably should have started with a smaller pile =) I am also learning what can and can’t be burnt and this is helping me becoming a smarter consumer, especially in regards to the packaging that my food comes in…. I have also started a composting bin, so anything that can be composted (and the chickens or starving dogs won’t try to eat) I am in huge favor of!

• My First Meal: Oh, I have got a lot to learn about how to cooking out here. All I can say is after 2 years, I am going to be the best “Camping cook” ever! There are many things I have to think about. The first one being the fact that I lack refrigeration. So, when I go grocery shopping all of the fruits and vegetables that I buy will need to be consumed within the next few days. So when I get back from the island my meals are wonderful for the first few days, and then they dwindle down until I am simply eating plain lentils. Also, I am only cooking for one person, so if I make too much of something, and there is no way to keep it, it will go to waste. Oh and don’t even get me started on the ants… oh the ants!!! If you turn your back on your food for less than 5 min, by the time you return these little bitty ants will have already taken it over. They come from only god knows where. You will be absolutely certain that they are no where insight and then as soon as you become distracted they attack your food! So, when I eat dinner when it is dark out I make sure to continuously examine my food with a flashlight, to insure I am not getting any extra unwanted protein.
  Anyway, the point of this is that I was so overwhelmed by all the conditions regarding cooking for myself that for my first meal in my house I resorted to the boiling of hot water for a nice cup of tea, and a Luna Bar from the states, (thanks mom).
  I am getting better though! And I have even started my herb garden with some fresh Basil and Cilantro that are doing magnificently. I am also planning on having a vegetable garden as well as my own mini Finca (farm) with some banana trees, which are already planted, and possibly some Yuka, beans, plantains and whatever else my community gives me to plant =)

• My First Rainstorm: Oh this was a fun one! We got a huge storm about a week after I moved in to my house. It last 2 days straight! Hard, very hard, winds and constant downpour of rain. Needless to say, I found all the leaks in my roof. Also, my walls have ¼-1/2 inch gaps between the boards so when the wind blew, the rain would come in from there as well….So now my walls have old plastic shower curtains stapled up and I put up two large tarps between where my walls ended and my roof starts (eventually we will put wood there). Basically it was raining inside…I think you get the idea. But the constant sound of the rain pounding on the Zinc roof and the tarps blowing in the wind for 2 days straight, was just enough to make me start going crazy! I was walking around my house with earplugs in. And I couldn’t really go outside, for the fear that a coconut or large branch would fall on me.
  


• Some Other Randomness Regarding Living in my New Home:
  

1.) My new neighbors taught me how to make a hammock! I told them I wanted to make a really small one, of course they thought it was because I was expecting a baby, but I explained that I wanted to put it in my kitchen to keep my veggies in. Here is a picture of me working on it!

2.) I was pretty much gifted a new, very elaborate, mosquito net for my enormous bed! It is the type of net that little girls dream about having. Obviously it doesn’t really go with the decor of the shack, but it has proven to be my pride and joy. It is a very fine net so it keeps everything out, and I can read peacefully by candlelight, without being swarmed by insects. And I wake up each morning feeling like a little Ngobe Indian Princess… Princess Meti, haha.

3.) There are holes in my floor. Between each board there is about an ¼ inch gap that runs the full length of y house. Also scattered randomly are other random holes between 2-4 inch in diameter. These holes make it really easy to sweep, all you have to do is push everything towards a crack. On the other hand… Each time I accidently drop something I hold my breath that it doesn’t fall all the way through and underneath my house. I have already lost a lot of pens and pencils that way. I guess I will learn to be a little less clumsy =)

4.) The Bucket showering still continues…. However, now that I have discovered the heating of water, I have a whole new appreciation for my bucket bathing, and actually find myself looking forward to it…. Now it I could only remember to wash my right arm =)

I know I will get better at this whole…”living alone in an Indian village” thing. But as many challenges that I may face the plusses definitely outweigh the minuses. I feel so fortunate that each day I get to wake up to the sound of the Howler Monkeys, do yoga to the sunrise with a beautiful view of the bay, and then I can heat up some water and have a nice big cup of Green Tea (Dragon Pearl of course) … I couldn’t think of any better way to start a day!!!_______________________________
On another note:

There are 3 things that I am going to try to make “regulars” on each blog post from now on:

First, one of my “Gringo” neighbors tracks the average rainfall that we get each month. For the year of 2009 we got 159.1 inches of rain in Dolphin Bay!!!! So each month I will let you know what we got. Remember that if there is no rain, there is no water! We are fully dependent on the rain. Fortunately, the Bocas region historically has proven to provide plenty of the life sustaining substance!

Secound, with each blog post I want to add a “Ngobes say the darndest things” section . I continuously find myself shaking my head and giggling to myself, wishing there was someone here to laugh with me. So know I will write it down and share with you =)
Example:
This really could have happened to any Spanish speaking person trying to speak English not jsut a Ngobe…. My second host dad (the teacher) came to check up on me in my new house and he was trying to speak English to me. Now in Spanish Molestar means “to bother.” So he was trying to ask “has anyone bothered you?” But instead he said “has anyone molested you?” I smiled and politely replied “no, no one has molested me.” to which he replies….” Not yet.” haha
I am sure I have had PLENTY of these moments when I practice my Spanish.

Ok, the third thing I want to share with you in each Blog post I will call “Uncle Tim’s words to the not so wise.”
When we were going through some of my uncles things back in November, I grabbed a stack of his books to bring back with me to Panama, knowing that I would have plenty of time to read. When I got back and started looking through them, I found a very thin hand written journal mixed in with the stack of books. The notes on the inside were scribbled in what unmistakably was my Uncle’s writing. The date on the inside cover reads 8/25/92, and the notes, I believe are from either a class that he took or an achievement seminar he attended. So I am not sure if the ideas written are from my Uncle directly… most likely they are from the presenter. But he found the ideas important enough to write down and to keep close by for all these years.
Many of you have told me how inspirational the last e-mail I received from my uncle was, and I agree, so I figured instead of just keeping this speacial journal to myself, I would share his thoughts, little by little, with you.

This is the first thing written:
“Formula for success = ½ dozen things make 80% of the difference- look for the few things that make the most difference, then spend most of your time on the few things, the basics and Fundamentals! Remember that TIME is more valuable than money.”

My Uncle was a very smart man, and we can all learn alot from what is in this journal! I look forward to sharing it with you!
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Lastly, here are some pictures that I have finally been able to upload.

This first link are some random pictures of the Kids around B.E

http://picasaweb.google.com/maguilar317/TheChildrenOfBuenaEsperanza?feat=directlink

This link are more pictures of my house.... you can start to see some progress!!!

http://picasaweb.google.com/maguilar317/MyNewHome?feat=directlink

This link are some more pictures from my New Years eve adventure.

http://picasaweb.google.com/maguilar317/NewYearsEveAdventure?feat=directlink

And finally, this link are just some other randoms from around my site.

http://picasaweb.google.com/maguilar317/RandomsFromBE?feat=directlink


I hope I didn´t overwhelm you all.....Enjoy!!!!

Until next time,
Meti