¡Barranquilla!

A couple weeks ago, I found out where my site will be for the next two years! The previous 5 weeks of training all led up to this point. I will be living and working in a community called Barranquilla for the next two years. It is in Ñökribo, which means the part of the Comarca Ngäbe Bugle that is in Bocas del Toro Province. It is a community of about 60 houses and 500 people and is three hours away from the closest large city. Just a few days after getting my site announcement, I spent a week visiting Barranquilla.

On an early Monday morning at the Peace Corps Office, I met my community guide and host dad, Victorino. Each trainee had a guide come to Panama City to pick them up and take us back to our sites. After a long day of icebreakers and sessions, the group going to Bocas headed for our sites. To get to Barranquilla, I take an 8-hour bus from Panama City to David. We got there at 3:30am and luckily spent a few hours sleeping before continuing the journey. Then I take a smaller bus for two hours and finally a chiva (local transport) for an hour to my site.

Me with my guide and host dad

Once I arrived in site, I met the rest of my host family. I will be the 12^th person living in the house! It took me nearly all week to work out everyone’s names and ages, but I finally did it! I live with my host parents, my host mom’s sister, a host grandma, and 7 kids ages 1 to 13. The entire family was really nice and welcoming. I didn’t have a very busy agenda for the week, so I spent a lot of time getting to know my host family. My host siblings learn English in school, so at night we did language lessons; I taught them English and they taught me Ngäbere. Ngäbere is the local indigenous language that is spoken throughout much of the Comarca and in Barranquilla. A lot of community members, especially the older ones, really enjoyed yelling Ngäbere at me, and then laughing at my clueless stares.

I was able to introduce myself to all of the teachers and every class at the school! One of the teachers even took me to the river one afternoon and we walked up the entire river. A highlight of the week was my “naming baptism.” Typically, volunteers in indigenous sites receive Ngobe names from their communities that they use during service. We had a town meeting where I introduced myself and explained a little bit about Peace Corps and my role as a Volunteer. Then, the community discussed what to name me and a few minutes later I had a Ngobe name: Buchi Yokibo! Buchi in Ngäbere literally means small guava and Yokibo is named after a nearby river.

One of my host sisters

Barranquilla is surrounded by mountains and the views are just amazing! I am really lucky because there are not too many bugs (like mosquitos) in my site and I have not yet seen any scorpions or snakes. It was a great week to spend in site and start getting to know the community and my host family!

Once I was back in my training community near Panama City, we started another week of training. This week has been great because I started Ngäbere classes. I get a few classes to start learning the basics of the language and then will have follow-up classes after I go to my site. It’s very challenging to learn as much of a new language as possible in just 5 classes, but it will be very helpful once I’m in site. Training is quickly coming to an end; on September 14^th I will swear in as a Volunteer and then head back to Barranquilla for good. During the first 3 months in site, I will live with my host family and focus on analyzing the community. After 3 months, I will move into my own house and begin working on projects with the community. I can’t believe how quickly training has gone and am excited to get back to Barranquilla!