8.26.2008

Vertigo

Waking up and being cold even though its 78 degrees outside. 5am rooster roll. downpours you can set your watch by. shyness. forever blabbering in the present tense. sugar with a little bit of coffee. roasting and grinding coffee. talking about the weather and doing nothing about it. ferocious saggy nippled dogs. washing everything by hand. bucket showers next to the latrine. vegtable oil drenched food. rice and beans. more rice and beans. beans with rice. rescuing drying bean stalks at 3 o'clock everyday. climbing a mountain with a 78 year old man to harvest corn. baskets full of corn. shucking. maiz nuevo. bollos. talk of the town. upside down tomatoes. the odor of burning trash at dusk. bugs that bite. foot-long shrimp. filtering all of my water. warm drinking water. mud. never present transportation. undereducated masses. massive misperceptions. moving giant rocks with tree trunks. climbing mountains. riding through mountains on horseback. long rides in vans with more than 23 people on board. where the road ends, the ride begins. riding in the back of a truck over the mountain ridge. seeing the pacific ocean from the top of the mountain ridge. no lights in the valley at night. blankets of fog seen approaching from 20 miles away, over the black mountain. walking. waving. bingo bingo bingo, I never win at bingo. content. hammock. reading. finishing that 600 page book. finishing that 900 page book. Panama is actually only panama city. everything else is refered to as the country or the interior. kids with limitless energy. talking to the school director for hours. kindergarten teach has vertigo. everyone has something to teach. everyone has food to give. leaving. arriving. moving into a new house. schedule full. stomach full. mind full. chava full. van full. backpack full.

8.22.2008

Caballero

Shitken

A funny thing happened yesterday. I was looking after my worm box while talking to a 78 year old man who was roasting his coffee beans about how to make a chocolatey drink from the seeds of ocra. When all of a sudden a shriek came from behind the house. Irene, my Panamanien sister, came running up to the house, in a hurry. She spoke some form of unrecognizable Spanish to her mother. I recognized the words pollo(chicken) and servicio(latrine). After hearing these two words spoken in such an excited and half-laughing manner, I knew that something hilarious was about to take place. A few moments later all the little kids were running to the pit latrine where the shreik originated. I too am consumed with fascination and proceed to the latrine to investigate the matter further. What I find upon arrrival is something you could never imagine happening in Atlanta. A chicken, which they affectionately call "pollo de patio" or free-range chicken, had mistakenly fallen into the pit latrine while trying to cosey up on the roof for the evening. This poor pollo was stuck in a shit hole of misery and, as fate would have it, this bird couldn't fly its way out. I arrive at the latrine and Doris, my Panamanian mother, has what looks like a fishing pole with a rope attatched to it. I look at her and she says, "We are going fishing for chicken." I ask in return, "do you need any worms." We laugh. She steps into the foul smelling shack of tin and timber with a fishing pole and a flashlight. She drops the line into the pit and slides the make-shift noose around the chickens neck and yanks it out of the fecal depository. I snapped a picture seconds later. This once white chicken was noticably brown and fowl smelling (no pun intended). After the heroic rescue, the chicken just stood there with its head towards the ground, until Doris kicked it, the chicken flapped its wings and ran away as a cloud of shit sprayed over a few little kids standing near the freed shitken. I exclaimed a few moments later that I am, for the foreseeable future, on a new diet that consists of everything but pollo de patio.

8.11.2008


A gorgeous sunset over Panama City.
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Dart frog. A killer fungus is attacking central america. It has killed a majority of the rare frog species around my site. Que triste!
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Kayla and I on a random suspension bridge over the Rio Grande, Panama.
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A tree fell in the jungle.

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8.07.2008

Running up and slipping down

This past Sunday afternoon in the Eye of the Water began quickly, with a plate of fried bread and a cup of sweet coffee at 6am. At around 6:20 I was hiking up a mountain that overlooks my pueblo on my way to a farm to harvest beans. I all but ran up the steep slope of the mountain as I was eager to catch a long glimpse of my pueblo from the summit. The family I was with walks slowly, as they know that after the summit there is an arduous 3 mile walk to the farm, which requires as much energy as the climbing of the mountain. I finally make it to the summit after 20 minutes, where I can rest my bones against the white concrete cross placed there by catholic missionaries many decades ago. After catching my breath, I lose my breath taking in the tremendous view. At this vantage point, my pueblo looks inferior to the immense natural landscape engulfing my vision. I see razor sharp mountain peaks, 500 foot stone monoliths etched out of large mountains by millenia of eroding wind and water, two rivers 15 to 30 meters wide winding their way from some unknown natural spring to the blue horizon, dense primary jungles, and the sky whose bluish hues stand in stark contrast to the lush tropical greens at the jagged ridgline. I can see the pacific ocean between the peaks in the distance. The town looks small, and it is, a scattering of tin roofs or palm leaf thatch roofs (penca) dot the mountain side. The school is by far the most imposing structure with its painted blue roof and acre of cleared land. I can see the white cross of the church and the mud/gravel road that winds past it. Some people are milling about, probably on their way to the farm. After about 10 minutes of solitude, my family winds the last turn on the trail and waves me onward.

We cross over the ridge and begin our descent to their farm. The trail is good at first, wide and lined with trees. To my left and to my right are beautiful farms of corn, rice, and yucca. We descend into a valley following a stream bed. The vegitation begins to suffocate the stream as the incline steepens and the water speeds up. At this point, I am walking slowly in my army hiking boots. Margret and Cancha, shoeless, are skipping and hopping ahead with ease and while talking. The rocks are indeed slippery and as I fall a riotus laughter erupts from the two women in front of me. Well, they end up laughing all the way to their farm, as I fall about every 4 to 5 steps into a creek bed. No injuries to my body, just to my ego. I think next time I will go shoeless.

We picked beans for about two hours then headed back town on the much wider and more traveled path.