Ferias and More Ferias

November has been a very busy month!! In Panama, November is the month of ferias (holidays). There are so many holidays that not much work happens. I got to spend the most important holidays celebrating with my community. November 3rd is Panama's independence from Colombia and November 4th Panama celebrates its national symbols (the flag, National Anthem, and shield). The preparations begin in earnest on Nov. 2 to get ready for the big celebration on the 3rd. My school had a big activity that included: poetry and songs performed by the kids, recognition of the honor roll students, piñatas, relay races, a climbing competition, and of course lots of food! The day started early in the morning with a community breakfast followed by all the activities. The entire community came together to make the day possible. On Nov. 2, I helped the ladies make Johnny Cakes for hours. Johnny Cakes are fabulous; they are round pieces of bread made with coconut milk to sweeten them slightly. We used dozens of pounds of flour to ensure every student (approximately all 386 of them) could have a Johnny Cake for breakfast. It was a lot of fun and by the end of the day I was covered in flour and basically an expert at rolling out Johnny Cakes (and I got to sample a few, obviously for quality control purposes).

A busy kitchen

The Johnny Cake Master (the lady, not me)

The rancho all decorated

Cooking over the fire

The finished product!

On November 3rd, even more people volunteered to prepare lunch for the entire community; that's well over 500 people. I was able to enjoy all the day's activities! My favorite one was the climbing competition. There was a tall, wooden pole stuck in the ground and greased to make it slippery. The kids had to climb on top of each other's shoulders to try and reach the top first. It was hilarious to watch the kids climbing, slipping, and collapsing while trying to reach the top first. No good celebration is complete without a baile (dance). During the day, they played music and many rounds of musical chairs with the kids. By night, the adults came out to dance in the community's rancho (communal meeting space). The next day was a much more serious affair. The kids gathered to sing the National Anthem in the morning and learned about the importance of the national symbols. I learned a lot and had a lot of fun by participating in all the activities!!

Celebrating Nov. 4th

Celebrating and playing musical chairs

The first ones up, win a prize

Not as easy as it looks

Success!

In addition to all the celebrations, I have been working on my community analysis. I had a few meetings with my community to work on drawing a map and making calendars so that I can learn about Barranquilla. I worked with some of my community counterparts to host a meeting with my community during a visit from my boss from Peace Corps. It was very successful and I was pleasantly surprised at the number of people who showed up for my meeting!! I'm almost done with my community analysis and will soon be working with my community to prioritize our projects.

My community members hard at work

I've been learning a lot in Barranquilla. Most recently, I've started learning to make kras (hand-made purses). I completed my first one and I'm quite proud (even though the ladies in my community like to tell me that it's kind of "cochina"). I definitely have room for improvement, but my community, and the women especially, like to teach me.

I bought this purse

My first kra

I also survived my first hurricane: Hurricane Otto. The week of Thanksgiving, all Volunteers in Panama got a warning that a hurricane was coming to Panama and would cause winds and rain, especially in Bocas (my region). Luckily, my site is not close to the ocean and is protected by mountains, so there was no severe weather. Other communities closer to the ocean had some high winds, but all the Volunteers were fine.

November is nearly over and in December I will be traveling quite a bit. I will have Ngobere language training, a holiday party, and I'll be visiting a few of my friends' communities. I have spent 5 months in Panama and nearly 3 months in Barranquilla. I am working on finding a house of my own to move into and will hopefully be living on my own by the start of 2017!

New to Site

As I sat down to write this blog post, it was a challenge to sum up nearly six weeks living in my community, Barranquilla. As you read, you will see that brevity escaped me, but I tried to add in lots of pictures to make the read more enjoyable! My last post was a while ago; I had just been officially sworn in as a Volunteer and was preparing to move to my site. Now, I have been living in Barranquilla for about six weeks and my life is very different!

What a view!

I am living with a host family until the end of December. There is never a dull moment at the house because I am living with 16 other people. I have my host parents, a host aunt, a host grandma, and 12 host siblings ranging from age 18 to 8 days old. I spend a lot of time hanging out with my host siblings talking, playing cards, and of course being asked hundreds of questions about America and life in the US. Some of the most common questions I get are: how much everything costs (especially my plane ticket from the US to Panama), why I have hair on my arms (the Ngabe do not), how to say things in English, and what the heck those spots are on my face (my freckles). 

My host family house 

They seriously love playing cards

No really, they take pics with the cards

Everyone is genuinely curious and I've had some interesting conversations with my community. One night, we got on the topic of astronomy and I (having taken a very advanced semester of Astronomy 100 in college) felt pretty confident in answering their questions. I learned very quickly that not only was my knowledge a little spotty almost two years after taking that class, but my vocabulary to explain the basics of the solar system in Spanish was also surprisingly limited. It all worked out because we moved on to other topics ranging from food to geography to when I'm going to get married and have children. My love life is a favorite topic in my community because many people are surprised to find out that I am 22, unmarried, and have no children. Usually, by age 22 women in my site would have had a man and probably a couple children.  

One highlight early on was the morning I learned how to process cacao. My host family has a farm where they grow a ton of different things: Banana, plantain, pifa, coffee, cacao, and dashin just to name a few of the major crops. Most of the food is for my family to eat, but they do grow coffee to sell. We harvested some cacao from their farm and broke open the pods. Inside, the cacao looks a lot like an almond and is surrounded by a white fruit that you eat. Then the cacao dries out and ferments for a few days. In the morning, we roasted the cacao over our fire and then had to peel the shells off the very hot cacao pods. Then we ground up the cacao and it was ready to use. We used it to make chocolate, oatmeal, and peanut butter cookies. They were a huge hit with the whole family!!

Pifa trees

Toasting the cacao

A cacao pod

All toasted!

Everybody helping mix up the cookies

My community has two sections: Barranquilla 1 (where I live) and Barranquilla 2 (about a 40 minute walk from where I live). There is a large school near my house that goes up until 9th grade. In my first few months living in Barranquilla I have to get to know the community members, learn about my site, and do an analysis to decide what projects we will work on in my two years. I spend a typical day visiting people's houses to get to know them and explain about the Peace Corps and what I'm doing. I also attend lots of community meetings about everything from the water system to school activities.

















I was able to visit my water source, a stream about 30 minutes from my community, and check out the water system. I definitely learned a lot about some of the issues we have with the system just from checking out the water source (and still have a lot to figure out).

Some community members after working hard to
 clean up the water source

I have been able to visit a few other Volunteers in their sites already. My closest neighbor is just a one hour walk from my site, so we see each other often. I even went to visit her for her birthday last week! I also attended another neighbor's school anniversary activity. It was a lot of fun to check out a bigger and more developed community.

The celebration was Hawaiian themed 

Bonus: I learned how to make balloon animals
for the kids

One day was particularly eventful. I happened to be visiting a neighboring Volunteer and when I returned home, the house was very quiet; it was much quieter than usual. I put my stuff down and was playing with my youngest host siblings (ages 1 and 1.5), when I heard crying. Crying is a very frequent event at my house and all over my community, so I didn't pay very much attention to it. Then I realized that I was looking at the usual criers of my house and both were silent. It dawned on my that my host mom must have had her baby while I was gone! My host mom was very pregnant when I got to Barranquilla, but when I asked when she was due, the response was very typical: "soon." Times, dates, and locations are details that usually get a vague answer something like, "soon" or "over there." So, I was never quite sure when this new baby was going to be born. It turns out that October 20th suited the baby just fine. My new baby host sister was just a few hours old when I met her and she is adorable (of course, I am totally biased). She doesn't have a name yet, but as the family discussed potential options, I suggested a nice middle name might be Emily. We'll see if they go for it or not! Needless to say, it's been a crazy week with a brand new baby in the house; she brings our total count up to 17 people in the house.

My youngest host sister the day she was born

I am now gearing up for a visit from one of my Peace Corps program managers to see how I'm doing and to observe one of my community meetings. I am primarily working on parts of my community analysis, continuing to get to know the community, and attending meetings. At the end of December, I will be moving into my own house!! This is really exciting because, although I love my host family, I will be able to cook for myself. Right now, I eat with my host family, so my diet largely consists of rice and buchu (a small, green banana that is boiled). My family, and many others in the community, cook on a fugón, or an open fire. I certainly have not mastered the art of cooking over the open flame, but those cookies we made turned out great despite the lack of temperature control. 

I have really enjoyed my first weeks in Barranquilla, and despite the many challenges, am excited to keep working with some very amazing, dedicated people!! Comment with any questions you have and I'll do my best to keep updating the blog as often as possible.

And now enjoy several pictures of my host siblings and neighbors:      

With Máximo (1 yr old host brother)

Irinelda (13 yr old host sister)