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 30th
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 |
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!!