The Chiva

When we leave site we hike for 2 hours. It is about 45 minutes to the next town where we cross the river on foot. That part of the walk is hilly. About 15 minutes after the river you start to climb the mountain. It takes about 30 minutes to get to the top. From the top of the mountain there is an amazing view. On a clear day you can see the Carribean and the Pacific. On a clear night you can see the lights of Colo'n and they say you can see the lights of ships moving through the canal. On the other side they say you can see the lights of the Azuero (a peninsula to the south). The 3rd picture is one of the views from the top of the mountain. I think this was taken when we were hiking back in. Do you think we made it back before dark? Do you think we had our flashlights with us? .... No and no. It takes about 30 minutes to get down the mountain to the store where we catch our chiva. A few of our chivas are big and blue and from the back they are kind of pumpkin shaped. The first picture shows our chiva and our store. We usually hike out in knee high rubber boots and they let us leave them in a storage room at the tienda and pick them up on the way back through. The chiva ride can be anywhere from 1 to 2 hours. The road winds through the mountains and there are some amazing views. It takes longer when there are more people to pick up. There are chiva stops along the way but it also picks up people between stops if he sees them in time. The chiva arrives in our regional capital Penonome' which has hotels, restaurants, and internet. It is about a 2 and a half hour bus ride to the city (Panama City) which is huge and has everything you can imagine.

And that is the story of the chiva. I think chiva litterally means some kind of goat like animal but that is the word they use for some of the public transportation. There are buses and then their are chivas. A chiva can be a truck, a van, a small bus, or a flatbed truck with the back closed in, etc. And there is always room for one more person in the chiva...

This post was inspired by an e-mail from my favorite Frenchman in the world, Nicolas, and by a comment from Stephanie. Thanks for keeping up with us! And thanks to everyone who has commented or e-mailed about the blog. I finished my sentence on the pig post if you want to check that out.

The Shower

The first picture is our shower. We are going to put a shower curtain over the open space. We are connected to the aqueduct but we do not have a water heater. We also have 2 shower bags that hold about 4 gallons each(thanks to both sets of parents!). We will fill them up and put them on the roof of the shower and then after a few hours of sun we can take warm showers if we want to. Lee will probably use these everytime because he really misses warm water. I don´t mind though. I am usually hot from working or hiking when I shower anyway so the cool water is refreshing. It is kind of rough sometimes when I don´t get a chance to shower until after dark though. As evening sets in the wind usually picks up a little and it can get pretty cool sometimes. The yellow thing in the background of this picture is my semillero. I chopped up some bamboo (yes, with my machete) to make little walls and I have a mixture of ash, soil, and river sand in there. I am going to plant the seeds in it when we move up there. We now have the cement poured for the floor in there and the sink is installed too.

The second picture shows how they mix the cement. We bought the cement and brought it in. The pile of rocks came from where they tore the old school down. The bags are the sand we bought from the hardware store. They usually go down to the river and haul up bags of rock and sand but that is hard work so we figured we would save them a little trouble.

Project Leadership and Management (PLM)

Today was the last day of our 3rd in service training. It was Tuesday throughThursday. We each brought someone from our site who we work with currently or plan to work with in the future. I brought Feliciano and Lee brought Teofilo. They were awesome! We all tried to speak only in Spanish the whole time because most of the people we brought from our communities only speak Spanish. That was kind of hard because we usually speak English with other volunteers but it would have been kind of inconsiderate. It was good practice anyway.

The people in the first picture are Feliciano, me, Steph, her work counterpart, and Teofilo. This was Feliciano and Teofilo´s first trip to the beach in the day time. There first trip ever to the beach was when they came to the same training facility in July to meet us and take us to visit our site for the first time. After a day of training a group of us walked down to the beach (about a mile away). The moon was really bright so that was beautiful. I´m glad they got to see it in the daylight this time though.

The next picture is from one of the dinamicas. We usually start each class-like session with a game or an activity where you have to move around and interact. This one is called Juana Chichi. Notice Lee being squished between Nate and Teofilo.

The 3rd picture is the view from the balcony of Noriega´s beach house. The U.S. bombed it in 1989 when they were after him. They finally caught up with him at the Vatican and he ended up in prison in Miami. He was released this past fall (it was a pretty hot topic here in Panama for a while). There was a lot of speculation about where he might be going. He ended up in prison in France. Anyway, the house is a mess and there is a lot of broken glass and rubble but you can tell it was beautiful in its day.

Making things for horses

Just about everyone in our site has horses. The other day our host family made a couple of the blanket things that go under the sadle. Here are pictures. They had that grass drying for a few days. Then they built that frame and were able to make 2 or 3 blankets that morning. Rigoberto, the oldest son (16 or 17) is on the left and Severiano (the dad) is on the right. When he saw that we had the camera he ran and grabbed his hat. He has awesome hair that is permanently in a doo wop loop, like he should be wearing a pastel suit and be leaning into the microphone singing Earth Angel.

Speaking of that, they asked us to help with the microphone (battery powered) that the church bought a few weeks ago. For some reason the instructions were only in English. Has anyone out there ever gotten instructions for anything electronic in fewer than 5 languages? So we helped them. I think I was the first to talk into it to see if it was working. I was excited that it worked so I held it up to Chana to say something into it, then Lee, Roge, Rigo, Mariella, and finally Severiano. Everyone pretty much said buenos dias, buenos buenos, or some version of that. When I held it up to Severiano, he switched into professional radio personality and said, ¨Good evening everyone. The problem has been resolved and the microphone is now working.¨ It was priceless. The instructions to there generator are also only in English. We are going to get the booklet sometime and translate it for them so they will have it when they need it whether we are there or not.

Ñame

This is a picture of Lee´s soup. They use a lot of root crops in their lunch soups. This one has ñame, plantains, yuca, and otoe. The ñame is what makes it purple. The second picture is Chana (Feliciana) holding up 2 little ñames that look like fists with a big hunk of...otoe, maybe... I forgot what the big one is. She wanted the picture to include the pig planter that she made at school when they were learning about reuse and recycling.

T-bone harvesting coffee

This is one of our work partners, Teofilo, harvesting coffee with his wife Felipa. They sew sacks together and put them on the ground under where they are going to harvest. They make a hook in the end of a stick to pull the branches down. Then they pull the coffee off and it falls on the mat.

We call Teofilo T-bone because sometimes we speak English when we are around him and I don´t want him to hear his name thrown into the middle of a conversation in a foreign language.

Quincha

Here are some pictures of quincha day. Valerio taught us how to do it. You have to find the right dirt and pick out all of the rocks, dig your hole, add water, and then crumble the dirt up(as demonstrated by Lee above) and add it until it is the right consistency, while you are mixing it with your bare feet(as demonstrated by Valerio and them me!). Then you add in a certain type of grass and make brick like forms. Then you make your walls. Notice Lee working side by side with a Panamanian. Clemente is almost as tall as Lee when he stands on the bench. Clemente is the actual owner of the house and he has been so nice and helpful. His children and their spouses have helped a lot too. Sorry about the sideways picture. I still haven´t completely figured out what I am doing with this.