Saturday, September 19, 2009

Buenas! I hope everyone at home is happy and well!

I arrived in David, in the western part of the country, a couple of hours ago after spending a week in the province of Colon for culture week. I was in Colon at an Embera site with 4 other aspirantes and 2 volunteers. Before I left, my APCD told me, half-kidding (or so I thought) "enjoy your week vacation!" Well, he wasn´t kidding. I bathed in a waterfall everyday, I ate patacones and fried fish, I had my body painted in the traditional style (pictures soon to come, I promise!), I sat around and talked to my home stay family and then community members as well as the other volunteers--it was pretty wonderful. We had a pretty wonderful time.

The body painting is called jagua, and the next time I get a chance, I will absolutely post pictures of it. It´s beautiful, and they paint it in patterns all over their bodies for ceremonies and celebrations. And for tourists. A lot of what this particular community does now is for their ecotourism. But, they did jagua this week because they were having a big presentation on Friday and they were all dressing in the traditional dress. So I got painted all over my upper body! The jagua comes out dark blue on my skin, black on theirs. It lasts 8 days, or so. It´s beautiful, and I promise anyone that comes down a little paint action at my site!

This week I´ll be in the Ngabe-Buble Comarca (reservation) for tech week. Tech week will not be relaxing, but it will be informative. It´ll be the first time that I´ll actually get to do hands on stuff, which is what I´m really looking forward to. We get to build latrines and look at how to fix aquaducts. It`ll be great for me, because I don`t have any idea what that requires! I`ll report back afterwards.

Things are good otherwise. Training is flying by! I`ll be sworn in as a volunteer in just under 5 weeks, which is nuts! I feel like I just got here! Soon enough I`ll be reporting from my site in the Darien. Wish me luck!

Friday, September 4, 2009

New Pictures!

I've added some photos from my trip up to the Comarca to visit another volunteer, Danny M. There are some of the general vistas (which were gorgeous!), some off Danny's house in the Comarca, and a couple of his community members. As well as one of a scorpion that I found in Danny's house. I couldn't kill it. I was afraid that it would fall of the wall and sting me. I waited for Danny to come home to do the honors.

Since you guys probably don't know, the Comarca is like a reservation in the U.S. It's where many people of the indigeneous Ngabe tribe live, and it's a semi-autonomous state. The Ngabe kids love having their photos taken, but the Ngabe smile is pretty much just a straight face, so if you see a lot of photos in the future of people that seem really unhappy, they're smiling inside. I will find out on Wednesday what my site assignment will be (or where I'll be spending the next 2 years), so I will try and update again next week. Chances are pretty good that I'll be at a Ngabe site, but you never know!

I've added my address down here during training to the column on the side. If you feel so inclined, send me a letter! There's also a photo of me smiling at all you folks back home that are reading this. I miss you all, but I'm having a blast!