Hey guys, whazup?
This last couple of weeks has featured several activities. There was a meeting with the tourism group, but many people that were supposed to come did not show up (surprise surprise). So we are going to have another one this Wed., but if this one fails too then I think we will have to scrap this project due to lack of interest.
I have also continued with English classes, with ever declining attendance. There are now only two of the original students that attend, with a couple ever-present one-and-only-one-timers. I still get people all the time asking when is class and telling me that they want to come, but they never do. Oh well.
Last Thursday they had a party at the school to crown the new elementary school queen, as in beauty queen, and I think I was the only one to find the whole situation awkward. They have these little five to ten year old girls prancing around in heavy makeup and swiveling their hips provocatively and framing their faces with their hands. But I guess its kind of a normal thing here, considering that men even catcall the girls walking to school in their uniforms and girls start dressing provocatively at about age 8, but it still disgusts me a little. Anyway, I made an appearance at the school and bought a plate of expensive food (imagine $1.75 being expensive, how funny) so I would have the energy to walk to Cerro Ñame at Klaus´s site.
Klaus asked me a week ago if I could help out with a mini seminar about agriculture business at his site for a group of coffee producers. It was raining slowly all day long, which makes things extra muddy because when it rains hard all the mud gets washed away and it´s much easier to get places. So I took the car to the entrance of Cerro Ñame, which cut an hour out of my walk and having to go up and down several pretty steep hills. It is another 40 minutes walk to get to his house, and I talked with the neighbors while I waited for Klaus to get back from Cerro Cacicón where he was working with the school garden.
I love to have opportunities to practice Ngabere with people and wear nagwas without having people look at me funny, and it´s fun when I actually understand what people are saying to me. It´s also fun when people use my Ngabe name Mechi, because they don´t in Chichica. They all remembered me and I played games and sang songs with the kids. I wish that my bratty neighbors were good kids like these ones. The difference between Chichica and everywhere else in the Comarca is striking, and Ngabes are so funny. They will come up to the house and say hi, standing by the window and staring in. After a short conversation they will just stand there for another 15 minutes without saying another word, and then suddenly say ja tuaita (see you later) and leave. They especially like to watch when gringos get together, like it´s a movie or something. We must be very entertaining because it´s a neighborhood event. Klaus´s house is a lot smaller and more primative than mine, with a dirt floor and penca (palm leaves) for a roof. But he has a loft that he sleeps in, which is cool!
So the time for the charla actually arrived, but the farmers did not. Actually 2 arrived an hour late, and there were about 4 more that trickled in during the next two hours of the charla (there are about 30 members in the group). Isn´t it fun trying to get people to come to meetings?! They want to become a cooperative but at this point it is looking pretty grim for their group, due to lack of organization and attendance. I´m glad I´m not the only one that has to deal with this. So we gave the charla anyway, but in a briefer version with fewer activities because it would have been a waste of time and energy without the majority of the group there, but we wanted something to come out of it anyway.
So we had an afternoon free. I could have gone home at this point but it was easier just to hike back to Klaus´s house and spend the night. So we hung out with the neighbor kids some more and we made popcorn. I taught them some English words and they taught me Ngabere. I had brought my last chocolate bar that Aunt Debbie gave me, so I split it with Klaus for dessert after our campo dinner of rice, beans, yucca, and sardines.
The next morning he invited me to help teach his English class that he gives in Cerro Mosquito, which is on the way back to my house. So we hiked back down and gave the class, and I headed back over to Chichica. I decided to walk the whole way just for kicks, even though it was pretty hot yesterday. At least it wasn´t raining though. People kept asking me why I didn´t take the car, and I just told them that I preferred walking, which in general I do. I got back to Chichica and went immediately to the first store and bought a duro, which is frozen punch or fruit juice in a little plastic bag. Yay for refrigeration!
Then I saw that Reicilia was home so I went to talk to her. She is one of my favorite people in Chichica, and she speaks Ngabere so I practice with her. She told me ma blite ngabere jodro kuin, I am learning fast and she is impressed with how fast I can say stuff, especially when I teach her things in English and she struggles to pronounce it. I personally don´t feel like I´ve learned a whole lot for having been here a year, but it is nice to hear stuff like that. She also told me, "You know, I think I´m going to miss you when you leave." That made me feel happy too. Then she asked me in Ngabere if I was hungry and I said, Jan, mro nibi tie so she fed me chicken, rice, and avocado, and sent me home with some tomatoes.
I got home all wet and sticky so I took a bath and laid down in my hammock, and the next thing I know is the girl scouts have shown up for "class." So I threw together quickly an activity where they divide up into groups and have to build the tallest tower out of straws and tape in 20 minutes. You would think that this would be an easy activity, but teamwork and creativity are something that they have no skills in a lot of the time. So after 20 minutes they had built a cube out of 12 straws. I then gave them 10 more minutes to make it into an actual tower, telling them for the 15th time that they have to all do something to contribute and can´t argue the whole time if they want to accomplish anything. So in the end they came up with a tower about 3 feet tall. Definitely need to work on those teamwork skills some more. I then gave them each 10 letters from the Bananagrams game and told them to find as many words as they could with those letters, and this was really hard for them too. But it is good practice for them to do puzzles and stuff to get them to actually think about stuff, especially where language is concerned because a lot of them don´t read or write well. I can find and spell words in Spanish a lot better than most of these kids here, and it isn´t even my first language. Then they wanted to play Scrabble, so I played a shortened version with them where they got 6 turns to make words, because it would have been a really long game if we used up all the tiles. Again, this was good because you have to follow the rules and think hard, which they need to learn.
Anyway, this was pretty much my last few days this week. Ja tuaita mare!
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