The one with the boat, the wheelchairs the dock and more

Hello hello!

First let me warn you that contrary to how the title of this blog my come across, there was not one such event that included a boat, a dock and a person in a wheelchair all together. I am sorry if this disappoints some of you and I understand you don’t continue reading =)

The Boat:

Check out my new pimped out ride. That’s right, I have decided that once you paint your boat, it goes from being a floating tree trunk, to a “pimped out ride.” I really was never planning on painting my boat, I was never actually rather fond of the natural look. Let me tell you how I was pretty much forced into it.

One day, I came home after a day of grocery shopping on the island to find my boat missing. I knew no one in my community would steel my boat, so I didn’t panic. On my way to my house I asked a few people and they said they knew nothing. As soon as my house was in sight I saw my boat propped up underneath my house. Ok, now how am I going to use my boat when it is all the way up the hill under my house? It was still a mystery as to how it got there. Only after a good full 3 days did I figured out that one of the community elders had instructed to guys to move it. When I spoke with the community elder he expressed his worry about the damage the sun was likely to have on my boat over my two year stint. He then gave me two options:

1.) Leave the boat under my house in the shade and simply carry it down the hill when I want to use it. (The fact that is weighs 200 plus pounds didn’t seem to matter)

2.) Paint it

I started painting the next morning.

My paint supply consisted of half empty cans of 5 different colors so I really didn’t know how it would come together.

Cultural Note: Dientes (teeth) are a traditional Ngobe pattern that they usually stitch onto their traditional dresses.

In an effort to boost the Ngobe pride, which is seriously lacking, I had the idea of putting this diente pattern around the boarder of my boat. I was told by a community member that it would take me 4 months to finish painting, with the idea I had in mind… 2 days later it was ready to go in the water. The 2 days I worked on it, I honestly could have been charging admission, I had a constant audience. No one offered to help, they just wanted to be present. This was the “big event” that week in Buena Esperanza so everyone wanted to watch. Initially I would converse with my audience, but as the hours passed conversation topics grew thin and we would fall into hours of pure silence. In the Ngobe culture, there is no such thing as “awkward silence.” Also, the patience these Indians have is incomparable to any other culture I have seen (the reasons for this are extensive). I could never imagine an American sitting under my house with me the way they were, and spending so much time watching my every stoke with the paintbrush. I guess we all value our time differently.

Here are some photos of the process….. (the camera was brought out once the audience was gone, or else I would have been solicited to take pictures of all of them as well)

Ngobes going Hi-tech:

I have recently introduced a new technology into my community. Something they have never seen before, and therefore had absolutely no knowledge of prior to my introduction of it. It is an MP3 player.

We received a donation of 6 MP3 players for my English students to use. The MP3’s were uploaded with construction and gardening lessons and intended for ESL students. For some reason I was extremely nervous to introduce these MP3’s in the community. So I held on to them for awhile, contemplating the best method of introduction. Finally I decided that I had waited long enough, and it wasn’t fair for me to be holding on to something, that was going to help them learn!

So I handed them out in my English class, and attempted to give them instructions on how to navigate it. Once they had the MP3 in their hands it proved to be very challenging to hold their attention. So, I sent them off with there MP3 and an instruction booklet and told them to come by my house if they had questions on how to use it. To my surprise they all did very well learning how to use the MP3s. The next day, a few of the guys stopped by my house with the dead battery, they said they were so excited about it that they were up all night listening and learning. I asked them what they learned how to say. One of them answered ¨give me the rake¨ another said ¨help me with the ladder please.¨Ha ha

They absolutely love this way of learning, and as my English Class draws to an end, it will be a great way for them to continue learning, without me having to teach a class (that is the best part).

Change is universal

My First family came by the other day to tell me that they had just finished rearranging their house, and they invited me to come see it. They seemed so excited about this, so in an effort to humor them, I promised I would come see it soon. I ended up putting it off for a few days, but eventually it came up on my to-do list, “visit Palacio’s to see rearrangement.¨ So, without any expectations I made my way over to their house while wondering how they could have possibly rearranged their house when they hardly had any furniture to speak of. As I entered the house, I was reminded, yet again, of another cultural difference between the Ngobes and myself.

The idea of rearranging a house is not a foreign concept to me. My Dad use to rearrange our house constantly while I was in high school. These subtle changes keep thing new, different, exciting. However, the Ngobes take rearranging to a whole new level. While we Americans rearrange our “stuff,¨ wall hangings, furniture, etc. The Ngobes rearrange their actual walls. I was surprised to see that they had taken down the entire interior structure and re-organized the walls. The invented 3 new rooms and moved the kitchen from one side of the house to the other. This was indeed something to be excited about!

This made me think. First of all how narcissistic it was of me to assume that the way Americans do things are the way things are done everywhere. But more importantly, is showed me that even if the way in which one “rearranges” differs culture to culture, the underlying premise is the same. That is change. Be it big or small, it seems to be in human nature to thrive change. And even in a place like Buena Esperanza where things have been relatively the same for three generations, rearranging your house will easily satisfy that need for change. ….. Plus, it helps that there is no indoor plumbing or electrical wiring to worry about.

The Robbery

Here is a picture of our community dock (or lack thereof). It went from being there to NOT literally overnight. I asked a community member what had happened and she told me “it was robed,”

Excuse me? What so you mean someone robed our dock!?! How does that even happen???

Apparently what happened was the word spread that we were planning on rebuilding the dock so different families within the community decided they would whatever wood was still good to use for their own home improvement projects.

Unfortunately, forwarding thinking is not taught in the schools here. So without even thinking about it, they all raped the dock of the wood (or robbed it) before we had all the other supplies together to rebuild the new dock. So it has been like this for nearly 2 weeks now, and God only knows how long it will remain so. And it was extremely bad timing because the government has just sent a contractor with 5 construction works to our community to build a new cement classroom (they have been waiting for this for a long time). However, the nonexistent dock makes it awfully difficult to receive all the supplies! Plus it sure does not help with my already existing transportation issues. Humph

The Wheelchairs

For all of you that supported me either financially or emotionally during my senior project last year, thank you!! And I have great news! The second half of the distribution is finally happening here in Panama!!!! Hooray!!!

For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about here is the brief. In order to graduate, Cal Poly (the school I went to ) requires each student to complete a senior project. I chose to be apart of a student run non-profit organization called “Cal Poly WheelChair Foundation.” We were a team of 26. Each of us with our assigned roles. I acted in a duo as “Community Relations”, with my better half being Miss Elizabeth Tracy.

Anyway, we put Cal Poly’s “learn by doing” philosophy and adapted it to “learn by doing good.” We spent a full year creating awareness of the needs of wheelchairs around the world. Our chosen destination for the Wheelchairs was Oaxaca, Mexico. Our efforts really paid off, because when all was said and done we had raised enough money to send 840 wheelchairs to Mexico and we still had some money left over. By this time, I had already known I was coming to Panama with Peace Corps, so it was proposed that we use the extra money to send a half of a container here!

Now, the Panama distribution is finally happening, the second week in June! So excited!

Of course I will do a follow up Blog to let you know how it all goes!

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for all of you who supported our team last year. Unfortunately the Cal Poly wheelchair foundation is no longer in existence, but the national Wheelchair foundation is. Here is a link to their website if you are interested in learning more about their efforts.

http://www.wheelchairfoundation.org/

Rope Jumping

I have launched a jump roping epidemic with the children in Buena Esperanza. I was thinking how jumping rope is such an easy, fun and cheep toy with endless possibilities, you can always learn a new trick with the same rope. So, I thought it would be something the kids would enjoy. Turns out I was right!

Here is a video of my best buddy Osias jumping with his homemade rope.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJdWJfcHaYA

If you haven’t jumped rope in awhile, I highly suggest it! It will fool you into thinking you have pigtails in your hair and braces on your teeth. You will only be reminded of your actually age after about 10 jumps when you can hardly breath.

Until next time!!

Peace from Panama,

Meti