I'm Back

After a clearly too long of a hiatus, I've decided to get back in action with the blog writing. As I have been keeping up with my journal while I am in the community, I have found that even though I enjoy the stress release and happiness that writing in it brings, it's very cumbersome and heavy to bring in and out of my site- if you know where I live you understand why carrying as little as possible is key. This is why I am continuing the blog so I can get those thoughts out that I normally leave in my journal. And so for those of you who don't know, allow me to enlighten you on what goes on in my world since I've been gone from blogging...

I live in a very small latino community in the mountains of Panama, technically called Panama Oeste or West Panama. This means I'm still inside of the province that is home to the capital of the country but I am worlds away. No matter where I am going, it will always take me 1 1/2 hours to get to the main highway and this is ONLY if the cars are coming all the way in to my community. When it is the rainy season (we are finally getting over that!) the cars either will go up to a certain point which is where the gravel road stops and conveniently or, rather, inconveniently for me, right where my community begins along with a purely mud road OR it won't come at all and then the walking ensues for 2 hours, through sometimes knee deep mud, crossing through 2 rivers (only when they are low enough) and arriving at the asphalt road. But I love it! What a great exercise to have to walk the 2 hours... only if you don't have to haul a lot of shit.

And when people have come to visit me or I talk to people on the phone, they will ask me questions like, "Why are you still sleeping on an air mattress? Why don't you just buy a real bed?" And then those who are visiting have to walk out with all of their belongings and quickly realize why- it tires you more than you would think. Those hills look small and easy enough to tackle but this is not so when you are full up of 'carga'. So it isn't that I wouldn't love to have a real bed, I just don't want to carry it.

Just ask Parker, my now fiancee (hooray!). He will tell you all about how I warned him about a two hour walk in to the campo of Panama and how he kept reassuring me that he had walked for 12 hours to the top of a mountain in China, smoking unfiltered cigarettes. Ten minutes into the walk that would take us to my house, with all of our carga (my parents loaded him up with stuff) he was ready to turn around. Everything ended up ok (except for me getting amoebas) but it just goes to show that things aren't always as easy as they might seem.

This applies to what I am doing in my community. I think to myself, sure, it will be easy to start home gardens with people and have them be successful because the gardens are close to their houses and so surely they will take care of their little vegetable patches. So not easy. People have asked me why their seeds have died or why they haven't sprouted. So I go through a battery of questions about the general upkeep of the garden and get "No's" for about every answer. This is hard because they figure that if I show them how to do something, it will work always and that they can just leave it like they do with their crops of rice or corn even after I have explained how important it is to keep close watch on their gardens. This is the biggest learning experience for me. That explaining something to someone doesn't necessarily mean they will get it the first time... or maybe even the second or third times.

With that being said, I can finally answer Jennifee's question: Have you learned a whole bunch of stuff about yourself that you didn't know before? (Or something to that effect, right, Jennifee?) The answer now is yes. I can, in fact, be very patient. I do, in fact, speak very good Spanish (more or less), especially when I am getting heated about something. I have learned that I LOVE not stressing myself about things that I cannot control. Like waiting 2 hours in the hot sun for a truck to come- that's ok. What else was I doing anyway and what am I going to do that can't wait a little bit longer? This isn't to say that I don't get frustrated still and that I'm always chill and mellow. It very much annoys me to wait from 8:00 in the morning until 3:00 in the afternoon on a Tuesday for someone to tell me I have a 5:30 doctor appointment on Thursday. Quite irritating.

And so, I will be back to share more of my adventures of campo life. And if there is some burning question that you want answered, diga me.

Until next time...

The Road to El Harino...

... is WICKED bumpy! I will just tell you that first, sorry for my absence, but second, I am really enjoying where I am, even if it is really hard to travel in and out of my community at any given time, especially if there is enough rain that has fallen. It's super slippery and I will tell you that in the first week that I was there, I fell TWICE! I have fallen since then as well but the first week was rough. I don't know why I thought I could go anywhere without my giant rubber boots on, again, especially after the rain! This is quite the site to see: me covered from head to to with giant rubber boots on! I don't know how the people in my community do it, and I know this happens all over the place, but they never seem to get dirty!! NEVER! I have so many clay mud stains on my clothes but they have really clean clothes all the time! Eventually I will learn how to not get filthy... one day.

I have also figured out how to walk up and down the giant hills without getting too much out of breath so that is a plus! Sadly, it's just walking really slow and trying not to look down- even though I should really do that to make sure I don't trip over a rock! HA! But I have something to say about that too! If you are somewhere really high, like say on a roller coaster or somewhere scary and someone tells you 'Don't look down!', you automatically do it anyway and you are instantly mad at yourself for doing it. Here, I like to say, don't look up! Two reasons are because if you do, you can easily trip over a rock, step on a snake, or step into a giant hole created by rain runoff or 2.) you will that the giant hill you are a about to climb is extremely steep and you can't see the top from where you are standing and you sort of feel a little dejected ;) It's much easier and almost faster to climb the hills if you don't know what it looks like. Just follow the person in front of you and it won't be so bad... unless they walk really fast, then you're screwed! HAHA!

Sometimes I feel like I'm in Jurassic Park though... and I know I'm not the only person who feels like that either! You'll be walking to go visit someone but the path to get through to their house is like this foot wide space with jungle on either side with crazy noise making birds all of the place. There is one that they call a Fudodo but that isn't the real name but it makes the craziest noises EVER!! I can't even describe what it's like but just think Jurassic Park. I also feel this way when there is thunder off in the distance... it's like that scene where they hear this loud ass noise and the ground shakes the mud puddle and they know it's the T-Rex coming... it only sounds like that but it's still crazy!

All kidding aside, I really do like my community and the people there are so nice! Every time I go to someone's, they fill me up with food, coffee, or things to take home with me! They are really excited to have me there and they really are looking forward to starting projects or revamping the ones they already have going. I think this is going to be a great 2 years!

Posts

So I think that there will be MUCH more posts of more value when I actually move into my site in a couple of weeks! and there will be more awesome pictures, tambien! Sorry about the suckiness lately but more will be coming SOON! I promise!

Until next time...

SITE ANNOUNCEMENT!

Today I found out where I will be living for the next two years!!!!! I am living on the border of 2 provinces even though I am only officially in one! I will be in the Panama Oeste region, right on the border of the Cocle province! SO AWESOME!!! I am actually really close to Panama city as well, about 2.5 or 3 hours! I am just so exited/anxious/nervous about the whole thing but I know it will be fine. Just have to keep working on that Spanish!

We had a really great time at our coffee training week in Boquete. The climate was just amazing compared to the climate everywhere else I have been here. It hovered around 70 degrees the entire time we were there and even though the sun didn't shine a whole lot, being in the cool environment was really great! I learned so much about coffee that I never thought I could possibly learn or that shit that ever existed.

There isnt't a whole lot going on at the moment. Nothing super exciting anyway. Except that I went to a beach on Saturday because we had the day off and it was a really nice beach that had kind of black sand (a little bit weird to find mucky black shit in my bathing suit!). But, it was a fun time and we basically just slept on the second floor of this giant cabana/restaurant type place owned by some Germans. I tried to speak the Deutsch to them but since Spanish has infiltrated my brain, I was not able to get a whole lot out except that it was my birthday and I spoke a little bit of Deutsch. Oh well.

Also, my host family had a small party for me on Monday for my birthday. It was nice because they wanted to make tacos (not a common food here in Panama) and so even though we had to do all of the preparations, it was still really cute because they had all the stuff we needed. AND they bought me these really cute DANGLY earrings (good because I lost one of mine!) and I got a bracelet from 2 of my friends here. All around a pretty decent birthday. I'm sure that next year it will be different as I will be allowed to actually have a couple o' drinks!

Anywho, I forgot my camera this time so I can't post any sweet pics of the coffee awesomeness that was last week but I will get them up soon!

Until next time...

COFFEE... mmm

Ok, so here's the latest... I will be working in a COFFEE site!!!! I am very, very excited because you probably didn't know this, but Panama has some of the most expensive coffee in the world and it's very rico! And they supply coffee to some V.I.P.'s that I am probably not supposed to mention, so I won't. Anyway, I am currently in a place called Boquete and, if you can believe it, it's actually kind of chilly here!!! I know, not what you think of when you think of Panama or if you have talked to me on the phone or read other stuff, you know it's like SWODY all of the time. But here it is very cool and it stays pretty cloudy most of the time but those are like prime growing conditions for coffee which is why this place has sold coffee for over $100 a pound, and no, I'm not exaggerating.

Anywho, the place where I will be working- I find out exactly where next week- is not going to be like this so much. I will be working on a much smaller scale of farming but the community will be selling to buyers here in Panama. More to come when I figure out everything!

In other news, there was a GIANT tarantula in my house last week. It tried to sneak in through the roof because it was raining and apparently they don't enjoy getting wet. They are also very docile creatures I have heard but let's face, I'm not trying to hang out with one and let it crawl on me for fun. NO THANKS! Here is a picture of my furry little friend. Needless to say, I had trouble sleeping that night and I most definitely put up my mosquito net the next!


But, here is also a picture of when I fell and scraped my leg walking to the waterfall, also pictured. I want to put these on FB but it is giving me trouble at the moment. Anywho, enjoy these ones.




I will be returning to my host family on Sunday, my b-day, and they are having a party for me. How sweet! Also, I am at the Spanish level that I need to be at to stay so that is great! Only a month of learning and I am good enough but certainly nowhere near where I want to be!

I leave you with a picture of the river near where I am at... I don't know the name but there was a hot springs next to it that was AMAZING!



Until next time...

What a trip it has been

So, this past weekend I went to a current Volunteer site to see what life was like for a volunteer. I can say two things about the trip: I had a good time seeing everything and how it went and it was very sad. I was supposed to go alone but one of the volunteers got sick so the girl that was supposed to go see her came with me instead. We took a big coach bus from the terminal in Panama (Panama City to you folks) and everyone was saying how those are so nice because they have air and comfortable seats unlike the city buses that are old yellow school buses. I have to disagree that it was infinitely better. The air was a hole above my head and the sun was so hot through the window that what little air that came out did nothing for me. However, my ass was nicely comforted.
Anywho, we rode the bus for about 4 hours or so, occasionally stopping on the side of the road for the folks who decided they didn´t want to backtrack by going to the city first. Then, we got to our meeting point in a very little town off the side of the Interamericana (the big road that goes through Central America). We ended up meeting out volunteer there because she was in town but then we had to take what they call a "chiva" to actually get to her site. Imagine a pick-up truck, about medium sized, with a type of covered seating area in the bed of the truck. There were bars overhead to hang on-hang on for dear life! We basically went straight up the mountain side, with a couple of dips, on a "road" that had been extremely eroded after the rain. It was quite the experience and not so kind on my ass :) Once we got to her site, it was only a 10 minute walk to her house.
We did not have electricity and the water was from a "pluma" in front of her house that was not super reliable. It was kind of like glorified camping. I really enjoyed it. She had a mud house that everyone came together to build, they call it a ´junta´ where people from the community and other volunteers come together to have a big mud making party to build your house. It was really cool. We helped give a "charla" (or talk/seminar) on Lombricultura, or worms. It was fun and the people seemed a little bit interested. We helped begin the painting of a world map on the school wall, we helped with a 5 hour finance meeting for the women´s group- that was definitely a cultural experience for sure!! We saw some rice and fish tanks but since water is scarce right now and the rainy season hasn´t really started, they weren´t full or planted. We also saw some other plants as well. We did a lot of what they call "pasearing" which is basically walking around to people´s houses to sit and visit and drink coffee- lots of it :). We also tried baking in a mud oven which did not really work out well, even the little kids who are hungry did not want to eat our baked goods but they did anyway and it took them a long time to do so. Kind of funny!
We came back yesterday afternoon and hung out at the mall for a little bit. It was nice to be in air conditioning and have some delicious ice cream. This week is another busy week of training and language classes, which I am getting better at, slowly but surely. Anyway, hope everyone is doing well. Leave me a comment or shoot me an email! I'd love to get an update on everyone! My email is hkellermeier@gmail.com! The internet is hit or miss sometimes but if you go to the right place, it's pretty reliable. Anyway, that's all for now.
Until next time...

Here, in Panama

So I have been here almost two weeks, on Tuesday it will be 2 weeks. I really like it here and the people are very nice. They like the gringos! It is very hot and humid here and since the hills here are so large, I sweat a lot. Also, there isn't central A/C or a fan in my room and the toilet is a latrine (hole in the ground type thing but with a nice toilet seat on top :)). I know it's gross but this is my blog :) The food here tastes really good and it's not all rice and beans. My host mom really enjoys other things, pasta for example is a favorite, and so she doesn't like eating rice everyday. Next weekend I will be traveling to the site of a current volunteer to kind of get an idea of what is going on and what she does there. I am very excited but the trip there will take me probably 6 or so hours. I am excited because I will be going most of the trip by myself so I will be able to at least navigate where I'm going even if my Spanish isn't up to par. Anyway, I will try to update again after my trip so you can know what it's like in the Panamanian interior!
Until next time...
Heather


This post is purely my opinion and does not in any way represent the views of the Peace Corps or the U.S. Government.