Culture Week in the Comarca Ngobe Bugle

Hey guys, I survived my first week in the Comarca! It was actually pretty awesome. After spending Saturday in Santiago recharging after tech week, I waited three hours for my bus to leave for San Felix, where I met up with the rest of the Comarca crew. Then we waited around a while for a chiva (a truck like a land rover or something that drives on the rough roads, and somehow they manage to cram an impossible number of people in them). After being jostled around in our cramped position for about an hour or so we arrived in Hato Chamí. My host family lives in the artisan house, which was actually a really nice building because it was made of concrete and had a zinc roof, while the rest of the buildings around are made of wood or zinc and have dirt floors. I slept on a table the whole time, which was really uncomfortable once again, but I feel bad for complaining about my uncomfortable bed last week because I think that they normally sleep on the table because they brought in boards to sleep on after I got there. I spread out my yoga mat on the table and my host mom said I would sleep like a baby. Yeah, a baby that needs to eat and be changed about 15 times a night. But it was better than what they had, which was those boards with a sheet. But I still didn´t sleep well again this last week, so although I did pretty well considering the circumstances I was pretty tired by the time I got back to Santa Clara yesterday.

Anyway, the whole week was pretty laid back yet informative, which is just how I like it. We learned a lot about Ngobe culture and had three language sessions. Actually, I only had 2.2 language sessions because of . . . . .my only source of frustration this whole week. Ok, so one of the Spanish instructors, from what I gather, she was there this week just for me. Now this might have been a good thing if she was a good teacher, but I don´t feel like she helped me out at all, and it detracted from my Ngobe lessons. First of all, I felt singled out as the worst speaker of the group, which even if it is true doesn´t exactly boost my confidence in myself. Also, nobody told me that she was going to be there for me alone, although it was obvious that this was the case. So that first day she came up to me and told me that she would be having classes with me for part of the language sessions, and the other half would be Ngabere. So I get in there and she tells me that she spoke with my teacher and told me what I needed to work on, which is fine. But then she talks most of the time, and it´s pretty hard to learn to speak when you can´t even get a word in. I really didn´t learn anything or even practice that much. Then I went out for the last 20 minutes or so of the other class, and I was so confused that I was trying not to cry because everyone had learned the names of animals and parts of trees and all sorts of stuff and I had no idea what was going on. I still am behind on what they learned that day. They kind of did a quick

recap for me when they saw I was lost, but it wasn´t the same. So that night I talked to the spanish teacher and kind of insinuated that I was really lost that day in the other class and got her to suggest that maybe it would be better if we practiced Spanish after the other class. That made me feel a lot better. But after Rolando (the Ngobere teacher, who is super awesome) left after three days, the Spanish teacher took over again, and once again made me feel singled out and uncomfortable. She started assigning basic grammar points to ¨reinforce¨ them and was having everyone present one of them to the others. . . everyone except me. She took me aside and told me that we were going to practice reflexive verbs (which isn´t really something that I have problems with in the first place) and that I wasn´t going to present anything. I just had to listen to what everyone else presented to learn, and she didn´t want to make me uncomfortable by having to present. This really pissed me off, because first of all, I am already extremely familiar with all the grammar points that we were discussing, and even though my grammar does tend to go out the window while speaking, I understand the difference between preterite and imperfect past tense and I understand the difference between ser and estar and all this other really basic stuff. Even though I sometimes screw them up while speaking, I usually automatically correct myself right after it came out because I know it is wrong. I felt like I was being underestimated, and at the same time, denied a chance to practice speaking by doing a presentation. Once again I was really mad at her, and also kind of frustrated with myself because it made me wonder if I really do speak that poorly. But I don´t think I do, because I am at the passing level of spanish and I think I actually am higher than what I can demonstrate in those stupid interviews. Plus everyone who has had this teacher has had the same story, that she is a horrible teacher. So I´m trying not to let it get me down too much. Ok, that is my vent session for this week, on to more positive parts.

So anyway, as I mentioned earlier, everything was pretty chill yet informative. We had a lot of informal discussions about how things work in the Comarca and working with different agencies and stuff. We had a little scavenger hunt through Chami to get to know the town. We also hiked to another village about an hour away to see what the volunteer who lives there has been doing. We worked a little in his garden and hiked over to the river, which was nice and cool. I had brought my swimsuit but I didn´t feel like swimming so I just waded around a bit which was just as effective for cooling off. It is so funny, you feel like you are an animal in a zoo the way everyone stares at you everywhere you go. But at least the Ngobe men don´t throw out the catcalls everywhere you go like the Latino men do.

The meals were pretty basic, and I am pretty sure I will need to have secret food stashes while living with my host family for three months. For breakfast I would get boiled yuca (which is a starchy root that I really like when it is fried, but not boiled), or boiled green bananas which are not exceptionally tasty, or a roll with a mug of crema (which is cooked cereal that can be made out of corn or yuca or whatever, sometimes ok and sometimes really nasty, and they don´t use milk in it in the comarca). For dinner I always got beans and rice, but the first night I also got two bites of chicken, and one night I got rice and a scrambled egg. For lunch we ate in restaurants in order to get more nutrients, where they serve meat and sometimes a salad of coleslaw. Yep, I definitely will need my multivitamins and secret food stashes. Also, I think I will offer to buy some food and pick out some things that are more nutritious.

My host family was really shy, which is pretty common for Ngobes. It was just my mom and her 14 year old daughter and 3 year old son. I´m not really sure about the husband situation, I asked if she had a husband and she said there had been problems and that was all, so I didn´t push her for info. They usually are pretty roundabout anyway when speaking. I tried asking the daughter about school and what they study and she said everything. So I asked if she studied history, and she said yes. When I asked what she was learning about in hister, she answered the past. When I asked about what in the past, she said everything in the past. So at that point I gave up that topic. But it was fun teaching each other our respective languages. They would teach me Ngobe words and I would teach them English words. The daughter was especially interested in learning how to say hombre bonito and te quiero in English, and I´m pretty sure I was witness to some hanky panky one foggy night while the mother was out. Some kid left his backpack in the house and came back to get it after dark, and right after he left she ran off saying Yo vengo ahorita (I´ll be right back) and fifteen minutes later she came back and asked if her mom was back yet.

We also got to see a demonstration of how they make chakaras, which are bags made out of plant fibers, and they take a ton of work for what people pay for them. A couple of my pictures are of the ladies demonstrating how to die the fibers. Eventually I would like to make chakaras and acquire a few nagwas, which are the traditional women´s dress and are pretty much brightly colored mumuus. But they look pretty comfortable.

We also visited a sugar cane mill where they feed the cane through a press and squeeze out the juice, and then cook the juice down to a syrup. They let us taste some, which was pretty good. It tastes like molasses only not as thick or strong. But then when we said that we liked it they poured us glasses of the stuff to drink! So we found ourselves chugging almost a cup of molasses and afterwards I felt pretty strange because of all that sugar and my teeth were practically rotting in my mouth. It was pretty funny.

After we left to return to Santa Clara we spent the night in Santiago. We went and watched Terminator 4, and then that night for whatever reason I threw up a couple times. I´m not sure if it was comarca bugs or Santiago bugs, but they pestered my sleep again that night while I had an actual bed. At least I also had an actual toilet to, not a latrine 100 feet away. The next day my stomach was a little roly poly, but nothing else came of it and now I feel better. Anyway, I gotta go now, almost time to catch the bus. Until next weekend. . .