New experiences

 

October 4, 2014

One month in site

 

A list of new experiences thus far:

Moldy clothes.

Washing all my clothes by hand in a bucket.

Taking days for your clothes to dry.

Eating sardines for breakfast.

Having sore muscles in places I didn’t know I had muscles.

Rarely seeing yourself in a mirror.

Not being able to contact anyone outside of the community.

Reading about the U.S. news as international news in a Panamanian paper. In Spanish. (Ebola anyone?)

Being at least a head taller than almost everyone in my community.

Considering sleeping until 8am; “sleeping-in.”

Rarely being able to sleep past 6am.

Being itchy all the time. (my legs are torn up with bug bites and poison ivy)

Seeing starving animals and knowing there is nothing you can do about it.

Seeing animals being treated differently. (cats and dogs are not “house pets” here)

Hiking through the jungle for hours nearly every day.

Seeing conversations take place where the two people never look each other in the eye.

Hiking for an hour, piling in the back of a pickup truck with 20 plus other people to drive an hour to another community for a school cultural event. Arriving to said cultural event sopping wet because it rained the entire drive there.

Being the only white person in a crowd of people as well as clearly being the tallest person.

Eating a LOT of rice.

Having conversations in your head with all the things you need to tell certain people and then forgetting to actually tell them because you thought you already did.

School cultural event

My host sister

A view driving to my site

 

See that mountain range right-center in the clouds? That's my site

 

Host family's house

Host family's kitchen

Where I dry my clothes

My alarm clock...

Who ever said cats and dogs don't like each other?

Hiking in to my site

It can get a bit muddy

And wet

Did I mention hilly?  

Harvesting balo for compost

So many beautiful orchids grow here!

The school

October 15, 2014
Yesterday I had to go to a meeting with the ministry of agriculture and left my site at about 5:30. I thought I would be able to catch a chiva at 6:30 from my stop. There was no chiva. I then had to hike an additional two hours to another community to get one. My legs are sore. I have several blisters on my feet. I have to hike back into my site today. A bit of craziness, but the view walking on the road as the sun was coming up was worth it!!