Happy Birthday to Me

"Running water"
















As of last Thursday I am now 27, or as they say in Spanish, I have 27 years. My birthday went pretty well, and the whole week was really busy as usual. My tourism group threw me a birthday lunch, complete with birthday cake. In Panamanian style everyone had to say a few words, and they said that they knew that I was far away from my family for my birthday so they wanted me to know that they appreciated the fact that I was there. It was so touching I started to cry when I got to my turn to say mis palabras, and I told them how much I appreciated them for being there for me. Then on Wed. there was a celebration for the foundation of the district of Muna, so there was a parade and everything. The ceremony was pretty boring, I am beginning to think that they have one ceremony for every celebration that they ever do because I´ve been to three now and they were all exactly the same. Then I had to spend a lot of money to buy food and stuff for my birthday party. We made a huge huge pot of arroz con pollo. There was so much that I had to give everyone seconds, even though about 40 people showed up. They liked the games I had: the one where you tie a balloon to your ankle and try to pop everyone else´s balloons, and the last person with a balloon wins; my pumpkin piñata, which kept falling down but nobody broke it so I just dumped the candy out on top of a squirming pile of kids; and a soda chugging contest, which they apparently can´t do well because it was only 1 liter of coke and the first set of boys gave up after a half liter, so I handed them over to the next volunteers. I gave out huge granny smith apples for prizes. You should see the way peoples´eyes light up when they talk about apples here, you would think they were made of gold or something. Personally I prefer pineapple, which you can buy a pineapple for the same price as an apple here. Mmmmm, piña. Anyway, I have some pictures but the kids ran out my batteries looking at pictures and apparently I have lost my charger. I have been looking for a charger today but they say that it is hard to find. I went to all the camera stores I´ve seen, and I bought a universal charger but I´m not quite sure that it is going to work. Curses! First my iPod, then my camera. So anyway, until I can find a way to charge the battery more pictures will have to wait. I´ve also been looking for a photo store to make a disk of all the pictures I already have, so I can post those that way. Then the day after my birthday, my project leader Pablo made his 4 month visit. I can´t believe I´ve been here in Chichica for four months, it has gone by really fast. Anyway, I guess it went ok, not extremely great and not bad. I suggested that we have the technical training week in Chichica for the next tourism Peace Corps volunteers, so maybe next May I´ll have seventeen gringos running around Chichica. I had to arrange a special English class so Pablo could watch me teach, and my tourism group gave me a nakwa, the dress that the women wear. It is sleeveless though, and it is white with red and blue zigzags. It is also really comfortable, maybe I will convert to wearing nakwas all the time. Then the day after that, I had my little Halloween English class for the kids. Only a few kids brought costumes, and those were my neighbors because I was there to talk them into coming up with something. That morning they all said that they weren´t going to wear a costume, even though they had been planning what to do for a week, so I started improvising my own costume so they would want to wear one. Incedentally, I turned out to be a gypsy: my skirt was my blanket, with a bandana on my head, my sequin shirt, and all the jewelry I own. So anyway, I showed up to start decorating, and one by one kids started to show up without costumes, so I gave them some construction paper and crepe paper to make masks at least, although only about half of these actually made masks. So anyway, we practiced Halloween vocabulary, practiced trick or treating, and played apple walk, where all of them had to walk around a circle of desks and when I blew my whistle they had to sit down. The last person left won the apple. Then yesterday I had a mountain of laundry to do, so I spent all morning at the stream scrubbing. My arms are ripped from carrying water and wet clothes, and my legs are ripped from walking up and down hills all day. Then a couple professors came and played bingo and dominoes with me and my neighbors. The night before I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn´t go back to sleep, so I experiemented with making candy without cooking, with the limited ingredients that I possess. I ended up with some kind of chocolate ball made of powdered sugar, cocoa powder, powdered milk, oatmeal, and peanut butter. It actually is kind of tasty, although I don´t care much for the powdered sugar here and it would have been improved with the addition of butter, vanilla, and a pinch of salt. I have vanilla but I forgot to add it, and I don´t have salt because I spent all my money on my birthday party. I actually had some money left but not much, and I bought my rice for the party on credit so maybe people would realize that I´m not a money tree. So I couldn´t buy anything else until today. And today I came to David. It is raining right now of course. I bought myself a straw hat and a couple new outfits, because I actually have some extra money now that I have a house and kitchen supplies. I still have all my clothes and they are holding up better than I thought they would with the scrubbing they get, but I was tired of all my jeans that are so baggy that you can pull them off without unbuttoning them, even though I have already taken them in a couple inches. It´s not that I am too skinny, I think that everything is stretching out from the washing, which normally they would shrink over time from the dryer. I also plan on buying a hammock or materials to make a hammock. I would like to learn how to make them, so I am leaning towards that. I have the perfect porch for a hammock, it is crying for one so I must satisfy my porch. Also, yesterday Tía Lipa gave me a chicken for my birthday. I don´t know what to do with it really, so we put it in the henhouse with some food and water. Hopefully it will lay me some eggs so I don´t have to pay for eggs anymore, and later on I can kill it for some sancocho, chicken soup. That´s pretty much the only thing that gallinas de patio are good for, they are so tough that you have to boil them for a long time before you can even tear the meat off. Anyways, I think that is all for now. Thanks for all the birthday wishes from everyone, it was nice to hear from you all. And now on with November, which promises to be crazy busy as well, what with all the Panamanian holidays and fairs that I have to attend, and a week of training and thanksgiving and Ngabere language lessons and visits to Cerro Cruz and Peña Blanca and English classes. I have decided that I am always going to have a lot going on, hopefully I will have time to have myself a lazy Peace Corps day once in a while.