The Witch Tiger of Cerro Plata

Paisana de la montaña, a rare native bird species. This guy keeps visiting our yard and fighting with the chickens, and he has no fear of me either when I try to get him out of my house!


Part of my word wall. When I am listening to music and something in a particular lyric strikes me, I write it down on my wall


The gringa spectacle! Katie, Diedra, and Jessica on our way to the birthday party in El Retiro


I was unable to get some good pictures of this event, so here we have some blind art of "smoking" the birthday baby

Uuuufff what a month! I have been in site for a few weeks without leaving, which as become unusual. I like not having to travel, but my supplies were running low and I missed being with Mile. So here I am in the fiery inferno of David once again!

Well, after I got back from regional meeting I got some kind of cold. I assume it was from the stupid act of eating while typing my last blog, all the while thinking that it wasn´t a good idea. Well, it wasn´t because it caused me to lose my voice for three days! The cold attacked my vocal cords and gave me laryngitis. I tried to teach my english class one day and more or less was able to have the adult´s class because there were only two of them, but I had to tell the kids sorry but I couldn´t have class that day. And they haven´t shown up again since! Así es la vida acá. Anyway, it is funny how much I felt like calling my mom when I was unable to communicate by phone, it made me feel lonely and cut off. Thank goodness for text messages, they saved my butt with all the work-related communication I had to do. Eventually my voice cleared up, and although I tried to rest it a lot people still kept wanting me to talk to them although I was obviously compromised. This included the two Peace Corps trainees, Katie and Deidre, that came to visit me for the weekend in order to see how a volunteer lives. Of course it was part of my job to answer the thousand questions that they had.

We went to the river with some of the scout kids, but only 4 were able to go because their parents wouldnt let the others apparently. It was fun, I played water tag and jumped off the big rock with the boys, and with Loli (who was the only girl that came) we played with the current on the small rocks and climbed up a big rock. It was really hot though and Diedre got a bad sunburn that prevented her from going to the tourism meeting. That was a painful event in itself. Half of us thought that the meeting was at 9, but someone had invited the guy from IMA, Victor, for 1. So we waited around for hours, and of course Victor arrived late so we didnt get out of there until like 4. Long day! Katie was flabberghasted about how inefficient the whole process is and couldnt understand how after a year of meeting fairly regularly that nothing at all has been accomplished, so I got to explain to her that it just how it is here, how the people think and act because they are trained that way from birth. She told me that I must have the patience of an angel to have to put up with it, which is partly true because it has forced my patience to develop to an entirely new level!

We also went to a birthday party that I had been invited to. The highlight was the ritual that the people from the area do to the birthday boy or girl. They hold them over a pot full of smoking coals and smoke them. Then they put some money in the hat and are given a shot of seco, a local alcohol. I smoked the baby, put a dollar in the hat, and gifted my shot to the guy who was pouring, who was the grandfather of the baby. He was already really quite drunk, and choked on the drink. I thought, great, I killed him! But he was ok, and shortly after that he passed out. Anyway, I was surprised that the only time the baby cried or looked very uncomfortable during being held in smoke for twenty minutes was when they conked his head on the seco bottle! It scares me when the drunk guys hold people over those coals, I would not trust them with me!

The trainees popped a hole in my air mattress, but luckily Jess had a patch kit and was able to fix it when she and Dave came to stay at my house. That was a very weird night. I was preparing some cacao to drink after dark when Dave asked whose was the big dog¿ There arent any big dogs around my house, so I looked out the door just in time to see something that I couldnt really see well dragging my neightbors dog pancha down the hill. She was struggling to go forward, and the only sound she made was a short whine, and then she disappeared into the darkness. We were all like, what was THAT, could it be a tiger¿ (everyone around here calls all big cats tigres, even though of course there are no actual tigers in panama) So Dave went down closer to see what he could see, and I passed him the machete (which isnt really that sharp, its all for show). He called over my neighbor Lito thinking that he was bigger, and was disappointed to see that Lito is only 13. I also went up to tell my neighbors that a tiger or something had taken pancha, and they just laughed at me. I thought, oh great, thats typical, just dont care that your dog is getting eaten! So I went back down, listening to them make fun of me, and Dave called back up, "Whoa, thats a tigre, its big! He is standing over the dog. Yep, pancha is gone!" So he came back up and I was stunned and beginning to accept the death of my dog (for even though she technically wasnt mine, she considered herself to be my dog). To make matters worse, we no longer wanted to go outside to pee, a necessary evil. I sat down to drink my cacao saying, wow that was weird, poor pancha. . . pancha¿! The dog had appeared at the door again, apparently unharmed! Now I was really spooked. What had that been that we saw¿ Was it a witch¿ (everyone around here keeps trying to convince me of the reality of the brujas around here) The mystery went on until morning, when I went outside to pee and found pancha stuck to another male dog (named Randy, funny enough), backside to backside! He couldnt get himself out. So I just started to laugh because that explained everything, why pancha wasnt making any noise but was being drug against her will down the hill, and returned unharmed. There was nothing left to do but laugh at ourselves for being ignorant gringos, and making fun of Dave for saying that it was a tiger! I was kind of embarrassed to talk to my neighbors after that... So that is the story of the tigre brujo.

And now, I am in David just hanging out with Mile and his family. I heard that a bunch of peace corps volunteers were going to be at the casino watching the super bowl so we went down there to watch halftime and the second half, and ate some superbowl nachos even! Green Bay won, I could hear Dad from here! Yesterday I went shopping and worked on the computer while Mile went to a seminar at the university, and he will be there again today this afternoon. I also just finished writing my trimester report, but I cant send it because the file wont attach to the email. I hate computers sometimes! So it is already days late, and will be later still until I can figure it out. And I am dying of heat, maybe I will cut this pineapple that I brought... mmmm, I heart pineapple! Well, gotta go, fruit is calling me. Chao!