Hello all,
I just got back from helping out with a sex ed charla in another Comarca site, Río Santiago. However, this volunteer also has the same Ngabe name as me, so I had to go by Jennifer so as to not cause confusion. The theme of this little lesson was sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV-AIDS. It was good practice for my own charlas that I am planning for the high school in Chichica. I gave the first one in the series, which was about values and why they are important in our lives. They were really shy to participate with about two exceptions, and we haven´t even gotten to the embarrasing stuff yet like reproductive anatomy. But they seemed to enjoy it anyway, and although it took like ten tries to get them to do a successful circle sit on each other´s knees because they were embarrassed to touch each other (go figure in a country that has no personal space) they loved the game. I asked them to write out papers at the end that said one thing they learned or liked, and half of them put the game. I think that after this next month´s charlas I´ll start to see more active participation once they get a little more comfortable, then we´ll get into the dirty stuff.
The women in Río Santiago were also very shy and embarrased about the subject yesterday. However, I am always blown away by the difference between my community and other communities in the comarca, how people are much more simple and have less education and in general less communicative, but they actually speak the language still. I always get thrown off because they will try and talk to me in Ngäbere and I´m not so used to it so it takes me a second to try and figure out what they just said. They do it just to test you sometimes, and if you are actually able to answer then they just start rattling off something and you no longer have any idea what is going on.
Anyway, I had brought my camera but I forgot to actually take any pictures. Sorry. I keep doing that. . .
I had an easy time getting to Río Santiago, but today it wasn´t so easy to get out. Meredith went with me because she was going to Panama City. First you have to hike out for about 45 minutes through a lot of mud to the road, and then we waited for the truck for a couple hours. This was torture due to the fact that we were listening to the most cheesy horrible Christian music radio station at the cooperative, and I think we began going slightly insane. So after two hours of this, we decided to start walking down and at least make some progress towards the highway. It was a good thing we did, because we learned walking down that the truck had a hole the size of a baseball knocked into its oil tank. So we walked another couple hours to get to the highway. Then I had to catch the Tolé bus, which was only another 20 more minutes of waiting and a short 15 minute ride. Now all that remains is getting on the Chiva to Chichica, which fortunately these days is a cinch. I missed an activity this morning, but I didn´t think I would make it anyway. It is ridiculous to plan on having two activities in the same day, or to plan something on a travel day.
Well, I think I will get some nice hot soup after my nice hot walk uphill both ways, because I am hungry! Or maybe something deep fried---there are so many options. And I stink. . . oh well. Good thing I saved myself a bucket of water before I left for a bath. Hey, yesterday was the 24th of July, happy Pioneer Day yesterday. Hope you all ate delicious barbecue food and enjoyed it enough for me as well. But I´ll be back for the next one! Later!
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