Bailes y paseos

ME


River Trip Front to back: Negra, Yurisbeth, and Felipita


The Guías Scout: Lito, Orlando, Deivis, Elwin


Walking to the river

Loli chopping veggies for "la cosa que hicimos en antes," her favorite which consists of sauted onions, peppers, garlic, and parmesan cheese to top whatever food we happen to be preparing


Moon rising as seen from my porch

Hey all, well this week has been somewhat crazy, but quite social. On Saturday I went to the river with my Scouts for an end-of-summer fun trip. It was fun and the water was great, but it was sooooo hooooot walking back up the mountain in the 1:00 sun. In spite of putting on sunscreen several times I still ended up a bit sunburnt. The kids had a blast, and I tried to make the trip somewhat educational by teaching the girls to swim and giving them a notebook to keep a journal. Who knows if they will actually do it, but if they don´t then I tried. They have not done any merit badge projects to speak of, so I have my doubts that that part will work out. I will, however, have to make a special award for Lito, because his cousin Negra jumped in the deep part without knowing how to swim and he jumped in and saved her. So he deserves a special medal or something. I have been trying to upload a video but it isn´t working, and the pictures don´t seem to be doing any better. So if there is nothing to see again, my appologies but I can´t do anything about it right now.

Later that day, after getting back and cleaning up, I had a visitor. That night was the long-awaited dance that the neighbors had been preparing for for about 2 months, and they had invited Klaus, the volunteer from Cerro Ñame, to come and participate. So he came and stayed at my house as we checked out our first real campo baile. Up until then I had generally avoided the dances because where there is dancing there is mucho alcohol and where there is mucho alcohol there are lots of drunks that love nothing better than to talk to gringas. So as much as I love to be the center of attention, I prefer to leave early in those situations because they are all quite repetative. And so it went this time, only it was unavoidable that I had to be there because they were my neighbors. So I got there and ate some soup and empanadas and drank a couple sodas, and listened as the drunk people kept telling me how beautiful I am and asking me to dance with them. It was actually better this time because Klaus was there and there was a lot of assumption that he was my boyfriend (Meri mäkwe? Ñagare. Translated, is that your woman? No.) There was this one old guy whose house I had visited a while back, and back then he didn´t say two words to me but that night he was all graciousness. It was pretty funny. As soon as Klaus got up to go somewhere, the old guy came over and got about 3 inches from my face and proceeded to tell me that I am always welcome at his home and how I came to his house that one day and if I come again he´ll give me beans and bananas and all sorts of stuff because even though he only went to first grade he knows about this world and here in Chichica we breath pure air, not like in the city. And then proceeded to repeat, repeat, repeat, and when Klaus came back he did the same thing to him.

I tried my best to avoid dancing that night, number one because I don´t really know how to dance and number two, I don´t like dancing with drunks because they are about ready to topple over. But after kind of avoiding the subject all night with this one guy I finally said yes and did my time and contributed to the cause. After that Klaus and I decided to turn in because we were both tired and didn´t really have the urge to hang out any longer, so we left early around 11:00. The party, however, lasted well into the next day. The musicians stopped around dawn, and there were still people drinking around 10:00 in the morning, until as Klaus and I left the area to go visit some people, there were about 15 people strewn along the trail where they dropped and were baking in the sun.

Well, after that I went to work promoting my leadership workshop. I visited people in Chichica, Cerro Algodón, and Tijera, and I would like to head on over to Porto Rica and Cerro Cruz this next week sometime. The schools have come to a chugging start, I don´t think any actual teaching was going on this week but the teachers have come back and are asking for English classes again. I just hope that they will actually decide to attend this time if we do have a class. My nakwa is taking forever to get made, I bought the cloth back in November thereabouts and it still isn´t done. This is getting ridiculous even for Panama. You would think they would want the $10 that I will be paying when it is finished.

I just went shopping and bought $50 of "luxury" food items, like honey, olive oil, Jif peanut butter (you can get crappy stuff in Tolé but I am in the mood for quality at the moment), pita bread, corn flakes, coconut milk and flakes, prunes, sweetened condensed milk, pickles, and a snickers bar. Yes, these are pure luxury for me, and I may have gone a little crazy but I will enjoy them. I wanted to buy chocolate chips too, but at $4 a bag I just couldn´t justify it. At least the $7 jar of peanut butter is nutritious if expensive. I bought the cheapest cereal which they had, which only cost a dollar because cereal is really expensive but the people sure love their "cornflake". All cereal is cornflake, no matter what it is, but I actually got cornflakes. I need to pick up some veggies on my way back, I haven´t had some decent veggies in a long time.

I need to find and prepare a spot to grow a garden, if I ever find time for it. I am despairing of having any extra time that I don´t have to rob from all these projects that just seem to keep popping up. I feel bad because this week I kind of blew off what remained of my previous english class because I had so much to do. They asked me to keep having classes once school started, but I went on Monday and one girl had shown up, and I didn´t show up the rest of the week. I am tired of them wanting me to be there but they don´t show up. So I figured I would make a better use of my time if I just went visiting people. I think the key to any success I will potentially have here will be making friends with the people first and only then will anything maybe happen. Maybe. Well, only half of my pictures have made it and there is no time to wait around all day for the rest to decide that they want to post, so I guess check back later on this post to see if I can get them to work somewhere else. I will probably be back in about 5 days to do more stuff for the workshop and also to see the fair in Tolé, and possibly get my kitty. Later! TTFN Jenny