Just a Few Weeks Left

 I know this post is long overdue, but computer problems have set me back a little. After my bout with parasites and spending time in the City, I really leaned into that site life (I spent 5 uninterrupted weeks in the campo). June and July started off with lots of school activities. There was a two-day event in Pueblo Mesa (Jamie’s, my site neighbor, community) celebrating Ngäbe culture with presentations of poetry, readings, and traditional dances. The free lunch helped make up for the long hours of listening to kids recite the same poetry in Ngäbere (of which I could only understand every fifth word). Luckily there was a break in the rain and we had a couple beautiful days. I’m not sure why I don’t remember this time of year being so rainy, but it feels like I sometimes would go weeks without seeing the sun or being able to walk around without my big rubber boots on.

Enjoying the sun

 

In Barranquilla, I helped out our English teacher with a weeklong English activity. It was great! My job was basically to judge small Ngäbe children on their ability to speak, present, and sing in English. Don’t worry, I adjusted my standards and was very generous with my scoring. This activity was followed by Día del niño (Children’s Day) and the celebration was insane. A government organization came in and set up bounce houses, sno cones, cotton candy, face painting, and all kinds of kid activities. The kids were so overwhelmed with all the things they had never seen before! To round out the celebrations, my school threw a party to celebrate the 30^th anniversary of Barranquilla’s school. We had the requisite songs and presentations from each class, then had lunch and the kids participated in relay races. It was one of my favorite school activities thus far, and the last one I’ll participate in.

My WASH work has actually (surprisingly) been keeping me quite busy lately. I worked with my site neighbor to do a two-day seminar for our Water Committees. We trained the groups on technical aqueduct maintenance, group management and organization, and preventing water contamination. Despite some spotty attendance from my gente, we were able to train both Committees! The seminar was very successful and resulted in interest to install a chlorinator (device that adds chlorine to the water to kill parasite causing microbes) and a filter (to get rid of the mud, leaves, rocks, etc.) in the aqueducts. Jamie and I went on a crazy road trip with some gente. We drove with the Representative to San Felix (3 hours away) to solicit help from a government agency. After waiting 4 hours for the river to go down, we were able to cross and left on our adventure. We spent a few hours running around and were able to get the project! On the way back, we got to the river (you can practically see Jamie’s house from there) and had to cross on foot because the car couldn’t. We arrived home soaking wet up to our belly buttons, but happy to be at the end of a long, but productive day.

Water Committee Seminars

Making plubos for water storage

Chlorinator installation

A month after our road trip, we installed the chlorinator and filter into the aqueduct! It took a full day’s work, but now the community will have clean water coming right out of their taps. In about a week, we will be installing the same project in Barranquilla! These improvements should drastically reduce the number of cases of water bourn illnesses like parasites, worms, and viral infections.

My last big undertaking in Barranquilla was painting a World Map at my school. I got help from a bunch of PCVs and we traced and painted a huge world map onto the outside of my school. It was a lot of fun to do and has already really helped my gente understand their physical place in the world. 

As of this post, I only have a few weeks left in Panama. I have been making the despedida (goodbye party) circuit and celebrating with my friends as they leave their communities. Aside from the aqueduct project, my remaining time in Barranquilla will be spent hanging out with my gente and enjoying the time I have left. It’s hard to believe how quickly 26 months have already gone by! I’m very excited to be returning to the states soon, even though it will be incredibly difficult to leave my community after forming such strong relationships with my gente. See everyone stateside very soon!!