The Ngobe Food Pyramid

We all remember our food pyramid from school, right? Of course we do. A balanced diet consists of grains, plenty of fruits and vegetables, some dairy, and the occasional fat and sugar. And regardless of the latest development in nutritionism, we all know it's good to have a varied diet. We feel the days we probably shouldn't have indulged and the days where we could really use some veggies.

So yeah, I'm painting a picture, contextual background for the folks at home... Now let's check out Austin's diet.

Grains, Etc.

When I'm not chowing down on amoebas, I'm usually eating boiled green bananas. After all, you wouldn't want those starches to go waste by turning into those pesky, delicious sugars. Boiled green bananas are sort of like chowing down on a plate of potatoes. Sometimes you get salt. Sometimes. When they want to go crazy, they mash the boiled bananas together into a cake and then serve slices. Except there wasn't anything added to the cake. Cake makes it sound delicious, which is deceiving since it's still... boiled... green... bananas.

OK, so after amoebas and bananas there's daichin, another regional favorite. Daichin is a tuber, like yucca or well, kinda like a potato. Again, sometimes with salt, usually served the preferred a la carte, simple.

We ended the pifa season this month. By the end of two months of all pifa, all the time, I actually came around to tolerating this gem. It basically looks like a red egg growing on a type of palm tree. Instead of getting an egg, you get, well, something like a potato. Boil. Serve hot, sometimes with salt. They also would grind up the pulp into a juice. Mmmmm. Chicha de pifa. Nothing like a potato-based drink to quench that thirst.

Then there's rice. I actually don't eat a lot of rice, which is surprising for Panama. I will say that the rice here is delicious when it's fresh. The process of picking to eating is pretty involved. I've actually been lucky enough to be a part of the rice processing... ahem... process.

Step 1: Collect rice from the finca

Step 2: Dry rice on zinc roofing sheets

Step 3: Store rice or sell to your neighbor, etc.

Step 4: Place approximately 10lbs of rice in your huge wooden bowl

Step 5: Proceed to pound the life out of the rice with your equally huge rice pounding tool. (Think of a log with thin center to serve as a handle. Then you drive the log up and down in the bowl, knocking the rice husks off of the grains.)

Step 5A: Hand rice pounder to your nearest Peace Corps volunteer (PCV) to tire him out while you drink a glass of chicha de pifa.

Step 6: Transfer rice to new bowl. Use your time-perfected technique of flicking the rice in the bowl so that the grains stay in the bowl while the husks fall to the waiting chickens at your feet

Step 7: Hand bowl to your local PCV so that he can spend the next 3 hours picking through the bowl for any rice that still has a husk when all is said and done

This whole process takes a the better part of the day, but it wasn´t like you had anything better to do.

I feel like they´ve got the carb thing down. Let's move on to the rest of the food pyramid.

Fruits/Veggies

No comment. Sigh. Starting a garden.

Dairy

No electricity. Sigh. Going to experiment with making cheese from dehydrated milk, etc. Will report back soon.

Fats/Sugars

Well, the pyramid was looking a little skewed. We better make up for a lack of veggies and dairy in the diet in the fats and sugars domain. Every day replace breakfast with a cup of coffee. Now replace a cup of coffee with some low-quality almost coffee and a ton of sugar. Coffee is prepared by taking coffee grounds, throwing them into a pot of boiling water, then adding colder water and sugar to bring it down to drinkable temperature and acceptable Ngabe sugar levels.

For fats, usually the diet is pretty healthy. Most of the community can't afford to cook with oil. Since November and December were the times for holidays and celebrations, there were a lot of pigs that are no longer with us. And I have to say, for all the pigs that were consumed, there didn't seem to be a lot of meat in the picture. Maybe it's because the fat keeps longer, but I seemed to have received a lot of fried pork fat. Sometimes I was lucky enough to still have hairs on the skin. Either way, I returned the plate, the pork fat untouched. There's just some things I can't do. Trying to integrate, but I couldn't hang.

So in conclusion, I'm going to be working with the community on ideas about nutrition. I'd like to expose them to some ideas about vitamins and links to child development and our immune systems. And for any of the concerned friends/family out there, I'll start cooking for myself in a few weeks. Until then, hand me that plate of bananas and hold the salt.

My Camera is Fixed!

A Few Site Photos

My camera died, so there isn't much to share. I'm working on the camera situation.

General Debriefing

OK. So I just spent the past month in site. Here's a list of key points:

• Lost 25 pounds
• Got amoebas (see point about losing weight)
• Almost finished building my house (see point about losing weight)
• Subsisted off of rice and boiled green bananas (see point about losing weight)
• Built a bridge crossing for an aqueduct on Thanksgiving
• Gave a speech on Mother's Day to a group of 50 Ngabe mothers (December 12th is Mother's Day here)
• Got a wicked spider bite
• Hauled wood two hours through the jungle (hardest work I've ever done, ever)
• Hauled wood every day for two weeks from the mountains behind the community (hard, but after the two hour haul, seemed somewhat manageable)
• Cut penca (thatch for the roof of my house)
• Helped hang a pig before they slaughtered it for Mother's Day (donating to PETA at some point)
• Watched a pig getting slaughtered
• Watched a cow getting slaughtered (same day)
• Watched a chicken getting slaughtered (same day)
• My camera died from the humidity

So yeah, things have been interesting. My health has seen better days. I'm hanging out this week, popping pills in David (2nd largest city in Panama) until all the fauna inside of me decides to leave. That aside, things are going well. My house is almost done, which means I'll be able to cook for myself shortly, which means that my health will get a lot better, and stay better.

Since I don't get to post that often (I figure I'll leave site every 3-4 weeks), I'm going to post a few blogs this go around. Feel free to cruise through the new stuff posted below this blog.

Teaching English

Teaching English... I had an interview with my APCD (boss) during training about teaching English. I basically stated I didn't want to do it, that I didn't think it was appropriate, that it wasn't why I was here, and could only see myself doing it as a trading card for having the community work on other things that I wanted to work on. In only six weeks, I've come to realize a lot about development work, paternalism, and how much I've changed.

I teach English 2-3 times a week, depending on what's going on with work days, holidays, etc. Why the change of heart?

1. There are people in the community that are excited about learning English. Who am I to deprive them of that?
2. Many of the men work for months at a time outside of the community because there are no jobs/economy to speak of nearby. If English gives them a leg up in getting a job, that will help bring money into the community. At this stage in development, money = better health (better food/nutrition, money for medicine and soap)
3. Eventually that road will open up and 10-15 years from now there could be tourists. It really is a beautiful place, just super remote. Having a few community members that can speak some English could help bring tourist dollars into the community. See point 2 about money
4. Learning is empowerment. Development work out here is a constant struggle against fatalism. If learning English empowers someone, making them feel they can take on other projects, that they aren't just the ignored lower class, cast aside by colonial powers and now by their own government, then I've done one of the best things I could have hoped to have accomplished in my two years.

I think I was coming at things from the wrong direction. I didn't want to teach English because I thought I would be watering down their own culture, like a second wave of colonialism washing down over them. But I see that learning English can live alongside an embracing of their culture.

This ties into development work in general. (Author's Note: I think I'll be writing many posts on this topic because it's controversial and fascinating.) I came to Panama with this idea that development work is important, but that I didn't want to bulldoze over cultures for the sake of a higher standard of living. After all, the US takes more than its fair share of natural resources. I would hate to see indigenous people going down this path that would eventually lead to losing their way of life coupled with a huge carbon footprint.

So here's where I'm at now in my evolving take on development. I want to help raise the standard of living. The children are sick with diarrhea, infections, have worms and amoebas. The adults fare better, but have some of the same issues. They deserve better. Everyone deserves good health. They deserve education. Knowledge really is power. With education, they will be able to work within the government's development plans for the region. And so I'm going to focus on that while I'm here. And while I worry that eventually there will be a Pottery Barn and McDonalds a chiva ride away, that's a long, long way off. In the meantime, I want to help improve access to better health and the empowerment that comes from knowledge.

Two years. Here goes nothing...

Two Year Plan

When I get back to the community, I'm going to have a big meeting to discuss what I'd like to accomplish over the next two years. A lot will come down to what the community wants to rally behind.

Regardless of the projects, I want to also concentrate on community organization. Here's why: There's a larger community/city a few hours away called Kankintu. For whatever reason, the Panamanian government has decided that Kankintu should get a disproportionate amount of attention for social programs, infrastructure improvements, etc. I think it's because the community is organized and, in that sense, easy to work with. So then there's my community. They're fairly organized, small, and the government is cutting a road behind the community. Once that road opens up, things are going to change. I want to make sure the community is ready for those changes. I want them to be organized so that when the government can start working with the community, they see my community as another Kankintu.

So I see myself forming committees. It's a good way to teach the soft skills like organization, working in groups, planning, etc.

OK, now for the actual projects:

• Finishing touches on my community's aqueduct
• Settling tank
• Moving some of the pipes
• Painting some pipes for UV protection
• Building a few more tap stands
• Sometimes there's air blocks up near the source - air valves or redoing pipe support system
• Using a GPS, map out the watershed and register with the Panamanian government
• Finish the aqueduct in the neighboring community where there's another Peace Corps volunteer (Jon)
• Potentially help a third community with a water system
• Implement a health promoter training program where community members are trained on nutrition, hygiene, correct medicine usage, and basic first aid. Community members then train other community members
• Show my community how to start a garden (my garden is almost ready)
• Show my community new stove designs that uses less wood and reduces smoke (I see my home being somewhat of a demonstration grounds for ideas for the community. I already got a lot of people passing by asking what I was up to when I was working on the garden and composting bin)

I think if I can tackle that list in the two years I'm here, I'll feel pretty f-ing good about my time here.

River Living

I'm two weeks into my two year journey. My body is riddled by bug bites and one of my toes on my right foot needs some R&R. All in all, things are going swimmingly.

I and another nearby volunteer, Jon, have hit the ground running. We've spent the last two weeks picking the brains of two amazing volunteers (Matt and Alicia) who are closing out their service in the region. We've been in full swing building valve boxes and bridges to try to bring the aqueducts in my community and Jon's community to a close. Jon's site is just getting started while I'm closing out the punch list on mine. Usually volunteers take months to get to the point where Jon and I are. We've been lucky enough to be involved with water committee meetings, shoveling concrete, sweating hombro a hombro with our community counterparts.

In other news, I've been working with the community on my new digs. It's been an interesting process buying the trees for my home (don't worry, I'll be doing a reforestation project later in my service), sending cash with the boat drivers to pick up gasoline for the chainsaw guy, etc. (Quick side note: There aren´t any mills around to buy lumber. Instead there are guys that cut perfect boards freehand with chainsaws. I know. Unbelievable.) The community wants to build my house by the end of the year. I´m not going to complain. When I get back to site, I'll be swinging hammers, cutting boards, and laying penca (thatch roofing material). One other key aspect of home construction is the junta. I´ll be paying labor through food. That means buying rice, beans, and chicken for the workers. The women in the community will then cook up a big feast while the men build the home. (Quick side note: Gender roles are firmly ingrained in the culture. Everyone gets a kick out of me doing my own laundry.)

The other day I had the pleasure of going out to the finca (family farm). Fincas usually consist of starchy foods that either grow on trees or in the ground. The tree variety includes bananas and plantains, both of which they boil green before maturing. When a banana becomes mature accidentally, they feed it to the pigs/Austin. They also have pifa. Pifa is sort of like a red potato that grows on palm trees. They eat it after boiling and also grind it up to make a chicha (juice type drink). When I first got to my site, I discovered that chicha de pifa may be one of the grossest things in the world. I've since controlled my gag reflexes and, after mild to heavy dehydration, would gladly down a glass.

Ground variety of finca fare includes, yucca, ñame, and daichin. We also harvested cacao. Unfortunately, all the cacao seeds where going to be sold so I´m going to have to find another family for my cacao fix. After we had harvested an unbelievable amount of food, we divied up the mochilas (rope sacks) and headed the 45 minutes back to the community. I'm not sure if it was an initiation ritual or what, but I ended up with the biggest sack by far. They also carry the mochilas so that the handle is strapped on your head and the weight falls in some weird geometry that is sure to hurt your head, neck, and back. Needless to say, the 45 minutes back to site where fun. When I got back to the community, I was greeted by cheers from the women in town, who are the ones that normally bear that burden. It was a great way to build confianza with that demographic. The grandmothers in the community nodded their head in approval and spoke amongst themselves in Ngabere. I think I'm in.

We took a few days off from aqueduct design and construction to celebrate Panama's independence day. We had great food and activities with the kids. Kids had sack races and balanced lemons on spoons. It felt as if I were in a weird dream about July 4th, but there were palm trees and I didn´t really know anyone.

Other excitement included some flooding. Don't worry, these folks have it down. They´ve been living along this river for a long, long time. There are different trails to take and somehow they have something that resembles an emergency action plan that must have organically evolved over time. I feel extremely safe, am living well above flood level, and have some cool videos of raging water. I missed capturing an entire tree floating down the river and my camera couldn't pick up the sound of boulders clanking under the water. Let´s just say the river is mighty powerful and watching it roar was a lot like going to the Saturday night movies (drive-in movies, in a convertible, in a torrential downpour).

Yesterday, we hiked to Bisira to meet with a doctor that wants to work with my community. It was a long hike to find out she wasn´t there that day. But it was also good to know the trail. There are communities along the trail where I can potentially do well projects to provide clean water. It's an interesting prospect that I'm going to explore over the next year, with hopes of construction sometime next year. We got to meet the host family of Matt and Alicia. They were some of the nicest people. We also had an amazing dinner. Simple fried dough and pork. Doesn't sound incredible, but it was.

To be honest, the first few days were kind of rough. I wasn't sure if I had made the right decision. Two years. That's a long time to be away from friends, family, things that I'm nominally good at. But then things have started to pick up. Kids call my name from their houses. "Oti, Oti." It's a great feeling working with community members building bridges, figuratively and literally. I'm going to miss everyone and everything back home, but am looking forward to making a new home here in this strange, new place.

So this post was somewhat scattered, much like my thoughts. Overall, I'm really excited about what the next two years will mean. I'll be helping form water committees and build aqueducts, both of which will help provide clean water for years to come. The capacity building side is important, so I'll be working with community members on aqueduct maintenance and collecting dues to ensure they have funds for the future. I hope that my community can serve as a model for other communities along the river, where community members help train other communities. That's the goal at least. We'll see how the next two years play out. If I do end up being successful, whatever that means, it will be in large part due to the role previous volunteers have played in the region, especially the work of Matt and Alicia.

Site Photos

It´s Official

That's right. I'm officially a Peace Corps Volunteer. Over the next two years, I'll be working with rural indigenous communities on access to clean water and sanitation systems. I'll also have some secondary projects related to composting, health and nutrition, and whatever else the community shows interest in.

The blur of activities that was training has winded down. I will no longer be posting pictures of travels to different regions and different training opportunities. Instead, I'll be examining both the community that I'll be calling home for the next two years as well as myself. We'll kick off this transition in the blog with a brief window into the whirlwind going on upstairs.

Even after ten full weeks, I haven't fully processed what the next two years will mean. I know this because I feel emotionally drained. Traveling today has been hard for myself and the other volunteers heading out to the same side of the country. It's finally here. It's finally real. And two years is a long time. There are lives back at home. Loved ones. Friends. Family. The culture back home is ours. It's easy and inviting. Instead, we're traveling by bus, by boat, by dug out canoe, to our respective sites. We're going to places we don't know, places we don't understand, unsure if we're even going to "help" or what that even means.

This is what I signed up for. I signed up to help. I signed up for the adventure. I signed up for the growth that comes from future struggles. I hope I get those things from this experience. But even those thoughts are academic in nature. I'm sure what I'll really walk away with is something I have yet to comprehend, something that I won't understand until I'm closing out my service. And so I plan to throw myself into this strange new place and we shall see what we shall see.

Site Visit Photos