Majé

So the other day, I was hiking through a jungle stream after a long morning of harvesting rice with my friends Pedro and Yuni, (Indigenous fishermen who rent a small farm to subsidize their income). Rain was pouring down through the rainforest canopy, as they pointed out a neon green and black frog that their ancestors had used for poison darts. This led into a conversation about the many natural remedies available in the rainforest. It was at this moment, that I realized I wasn´t in Iowa anymore. I am a Peace Corps volunteer in rural panama

This feeling snuck up on me... After all the preparation that went into the application process. The doctor´s visits, the signitures, and proof of signitures, the goodbyes, the hellos, and nice to meet you´s in staging, he apprehention of whether I could learn a new language, meeting host families, and sitting through lectures, and not to mention all the run on sentences.

Everything leading up to this has happened in a way that made it feel as if being a Volunteer was still some lofty idea that I was considering, and didn´t seem real until this hike through the jungle. I still have just a week left of training, before I head back to my jungle hideaway to build treeforts, eat fish from the river, and learn dirty words in a language that less than 30,000 people in the world speak.

Mushy sentiments aside, Majé, the community I´ll be living in, is a beautiful place to live (or visit if you get the chance). As mentioned before, it´s the best primary rainforest I´ve been able to see in panama. There´s mountains, rivers, jungle, and caves all close enough to keep any outdoorsperson busy. The people are very hardworking, friendly, and motivated.

If you´ve been keeping up with my blog you´re probably wondering when I´ll have a chance to do work. Well soon, very soon, as there is a lot of work to do in the community. The aqueduct is new (1-2 months old), andlooks very well built, but the real test will come in march during thedry season. Trash is a huge problem for a community an hours boat ridefrom the nearest garbage can. Many people burn their trash, and the rest throw it in a creek. Neither option is ideal, but if nothing else I will become very aware of everything I consume as a person living here.

Also, few in the community have access to latrines. The watertable is very high, and a traditional pit latrine would be floodedright now. This sounds like the perfect opportunity for a composting latrine that Peace Corps has been endorsing in Panama. The onlyproblem is the composting latrines Peace Corps has been buildinrequire cement blocks, rebar, and concrete, not exactly materials thatare cheap or easy to get to the community that is on the opposite side of the world`s largest man made lake. This provides a great opportunity to redesign composting latrines in a manner that uses locally available resources.

The other work that I am really excited about, but a little overwelmed by is working with the local women`s artisan group to find a market to sell their work. I was really impressed by the baskets thewomen made, I may just be bragging, but I thought they were the bestbaskets I`ve seen in panama. Also, I was shown a large marlin and dolphin jumping from the water carved out of cocobolo, one of theworld`s most exotic woods, (which I`m told my house will be built outof). It`s gorgeus, and I can picture some sports bar paying well over 1000 dollars for it, but here it sits in the middle of the jungle. I brought up the possiblity of selling artisan work on the internet,which was hard, because my Embera dictionary didn`t have a word for upload, and the man interpreting the meeting didn`t seem to know either. But after explaining that it`s potentially a way to sell their work directly to people around the world for top dollar, they seemed pretty excited.

All these possibilities, I´m very excited about, and can´t wait to get started. I appreciate you staying with this post for long enough to get to this point, I know it´s been a little long, but I´m not sure when the next chance I´ll get to update will be. So hope it keeps you going for awhile, and if not, I have a monkey video to watch...