Some Months are More Challenging Than Others: Part 1

I promised some good stories this month, after I nearly missed the entire month of October with my blog and suddenly I find myself at the end of November with my promise as of yet unfulfilled. So here’s a basic play by play of November, broken into 4 parts for your reading convenience!

I wrote my last blog post at noon on Halloween, caught the bus to the terminal, and got to Meteti around 9pm and stayed at Aja, another PCV’s house. The next morning I slept in late, until 8am, then rolled out of bed and dumped some cold water on my head. I spent the day running a couple errands and laying around Aja’s house. At lunch I graduated to tomato soup and grilled cheese. Ben showed up, and eventually Danielle did too. Late afternoon we set about making pumpkin bread with the limited supplies Meteti could provide us, and baked it on a gas stove. (Macguyver an oven by putting a little pot inside a big pot with a lid on it!) That night was Ben’s turn to cook family dinner, and he made veggie crepes. Followed by more pumpkin bread.

See, most of us don’t own tables. We normally eat alone in our huts, sitting on the floor, in a hammock, or if you’re fancy, on an upside down bucket. Sitting down around a table to share a meal with others is not a regular occurrence. So a few Darien Volunteers and I established family dinners, a more or less monthly event, as an excuse to see each other and sit down to eat good food. I cooked for the first family dinner in October (stewed tomato sauce with roasted chicken).

I went home on the Saturday the 2^nd to clean my house from my unexpected trip to the city. The previous Saturday I had started getting sick- stomachaches, nausea, frequent visits to my latrine that is OH SO FAR AWAY, and Monday a slight fever had set in. So Tuesday I caught ride to the city with someone from the Peace Corps staff and the med office kept me in the city for a few nights. My lab results all came back negative, so they gave me probiotics and told me I must have had a virus and sent me home- although I wasn’t really feeling any better. But my fever was gone so on the bus I went. My house was very messy from its abandonment and my dirty laundry pile was pretty high. I cleaned house, washed laundry, and went to bed really early that night.

At 2am, the drums started going off, and the women of my community got up to start cooking the big community pig roast to celebrate Independence Day. I told them I would help, but you know me. Waking up at 2am is not my thing. I kept sleeping. I got up at 7, dressed up in my most Panamanian and Embera clothes, and headed to the convocation at the community meeting hall. I was introduced and seated at the head table, and kids from each grade in the school did songs, poems, and speeches about patriotism and the history of Panama. They even surprise asked me to speak. I think I said something about congrats and good job to all the kids. After that there was a parade of the band around the soccer field and we all ran home to get our plates to eat pig. I ate with my host family so the boys and I raced to see who could finish their rice first. I went home to relax for a bit then came back to the basketball court to watch the games. There was an apple bobbing contest, lime on a spoon races, sack races, and speed races. I ran in the women’s speed race and was winning, but my paruma (skirt!) fell off. Completely. In front of my whole town. They got a good laugh out of it. Oh well. I was really tired from all the event s of the day so I skipped out at 4 and went home.

The games continued on the 4^th (Flag Day) with a volleyball tournament. I was still really tired and wanted some time to myself so I spent the day in my hammock. The 5^th I went back to Meteti quickly to pay the hardware store for the latrine materials and to confirm delivery. Getting home that afternoon I checked in with the latrine owners to be sure that we were ready for materials delivery the next morning. I made dinner early, washed dishes, bathed in rainwater, and had tucked into my mosquito net by 7pm. It was already dark, so why not go to bed?