Hearts in Every Sense of the Word

I thought about writing a really descriptive dramatic post but I'm going to save you the drama and just lay it down. So my neighbors are back. If you have been reading any of my other posts you will know about the history of Clari. In short, she lost a baby last year when she was going into labor and the doctor was too busy with another patient. It is common here. So then about 3 months ago Clari starts getting bloated and her lungs fill up with fluid and she can barely walk or sleep. Well, after months of trying to figure out what the hell is going on with her via the Floating Doctors, it has all come to light pretty much today. It seems that she must have gotten an internal infection as a kid and it is now causing heart failure. It seems that she needs heart valve replacements. So there is that. We found that out today and she goes to David again sometime this week hopefully to take a bunch of tests and make sure that is what it is.

So, last night was Clari's first night back along with the rest of her family and I walk in to say hi and all that and I start talking with them about random things and notice that there is this random little girl sitting quietly watching TV. I've never seen her before. Come to find out, about a month ago, Clari's uncle had gotten drunk, fallen off a balcony and died leaving his kids behind. The mother abandoned the family years ago. So the kids got split up between the family members and Clari and Beli got the little girl they always wanted in Jovana. Here is the part that I was going to make dramatic; she is an adorable 6 year old and is constantly smiling. She is sweet, soft spoken and doesn't seem to affected one bit by the fact that her mom abandoned her, her dad just died, and she was forced away from her brothers and sisters to live with a new family. I've never seen anything like it and it really does warm my heart knowing that there are some of us that are able to keep giving love in this world even though it has done everything but give love to them. Of course its going to be hard for Beli and Clari to take care of the 3 kids now especially when Clari will need to go to the doctor and all that, but she is in good hands or least better hands than most other families in the community.

Jobs

I've been offered two jobs in the last week for some odd reason. Good ones too. I guess good work does not go unnoticed and the fact that my service has been so successful thus far is really showing I'm a valuable asset. I still have 7 months here and I don't plan on leaving early. There is just too much I want to do here and I really do believe that more small push in the right direction can get the artisan group to a new level of income.

Cacao

I now get someone asking me for cacao or our products to be shipped to the states about once a month. Some of these people read the articles I've put together or have done the tour. It is crazy. Of course the group is not ready to handle anything like that at this point and probably wont be for some time, but it is interesting and has got me thinking about the possibilities of bringing the chocolate products into the states when I'm done here. It would give me a chance to continue to help the community as well as maybe provide myself enough income to not be poor anymore.

Engineers

One of the tech people that will be part of the Engineers Without Borders group that will be coming here later in the year came to do a preliminary diagnostic on the river to see if it would be good for hydro electric. Alex was his name and he was great. The people from the artisan group showed up in good fashion too and there were about 5 of us that went all up and down the river looking at different locations. My favorite part was when I had to do depth calculations in the river in my clothes. Alex also looked at the spots we would like to build the office, restaurant, and the grinder room and we talked about what we could do to fix the water system here. Unfortunately we discovered that the river would not be a good place to do the hyrdo system as it has rocky cliffs, swells up to more than 30 times its size sometimes, and is a little far from the artisan house. So its back to solar power for our power needs. I was able to get a quote for a solar system that was reasonable and it looks like we would have enough money for it too. Another big problem that we ran into is that the person that was supposed to build the grinder has apparently skipped town and isn't coming back. I found that out after I got the door slammed on my face when I went to his house. I don't think the rest of the family is too excited about his departure.

My Health and Other Stuff

I haven't been sick with water born illnesses in awhile and its nice. I am pretty tired most times but that is normal for me when its a billion degrees outside.

I have started teaching English solely on the computer with Rosetta Stone and the students love it. We used the funds we got from the chocolate fund raiser in Boquete to buy the solar panel and all that and now we have it all set up. I have to pull them off of the computer sometimes because they just want to keep going on it. They now know how to start the computer and the program too so pretty soon they will be able to do it themselves. Good stuff.

My heart has been acting up. I'm not sure why but I've had a little bit of chest pain and sometimes trouble sleeping because of it. I can't even touch coffee right now and when I do it feels like my heart is going to blow out of my chest. I'm coming to the reality that I will have to have another surgery and that I might have to get it checked out while I'm here. I've been waiting on this just in case the Peace Corps wants to kick me out because of it. If I have to get another surgery or there is any concern they would send me home for sure to get it done and I'm sure I would not be allowed to come back. I still have too much work to be done here so I'm going to wait on that until I'm positive that things are going as good as they can go here.

I'm helping the Mirna in my community put together her presentation for the Women of Chocolate conference in Guatemala still. I got all the wording down good and it pretty much just needs the slides to be put together. She still doesn't understand the information or how the slides work but I'm sick of explaining the same thing 10 times. I told her to practice and get back to me.

I don't know if I mentioned this before but I met a lady in my community that lost half of her children to sickness. Half. She started with 10 and has five now. She laughed and said they were “gifted back” to the sky. She is a pretty happy lady and the only one in my community with a gold tooth. I spent an evening once playing dominoes with her kids while it was pouring down rain. Can you imagine someone in the states loosing half of their kids and joking about it or even being able to function. It sometimes amazes me how much emotional strength these people have. There is something to be said that they have no choice so being tough mentally is a coping mechanism. But still....  

Pifa Spikes and Dragon Tattoos

I've been in site for almost a month straight now and it's not as easy as it sounds let me tell you. Of course nothing is easy when you live in the jungle. Speaking of jungle the government has decided to extend our road to the next community which is about an 40 min hike from here. That's actually part of the reason that it has been so crummy these last couple weeks. Well that and I made a fried hotdog sandwich after not eating meat for two weeks and nearly threw it up shortly after. Back to the road. The noise is ridiculous and the tractors don't seem to be trying to save any of the forest that's for sure. It is just non stop noise and that combined with the recent heat and being sick is really trying my nerves. I also fell and put my entire hand into a Pifa tree which is the tree with all the spikes coming out of it. So I've been pulling barbs out of my hand for the last three days and dousing my hand in alcohol. One of the barbs went so deep I'm pretty sure it was half way through my hand. 

On top of all that I decided to read the book The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo which is a good book but not the best pick me up book that's for sure.

So the good stuff: Well, I've had the chance to go to more meeting here which is always good. I've also been able to give english classes every day and have started helping the artisan women with her power point presentation. In other news, when I decided to give the spine tree a high five a local medicine man put a mixture of medicinal plants and boa constrictor fat on my hand and I swear to god that it smelled felt and looked exactly like Icy Hot. Pretty crazy. I guess now we know what plant it comes from. The road is also a good thing too even though its tearing down some jungle. People up that way will be able to bring their cacao to market easier and the older people that live up that way will have easier access to the road and to the hospital. So not everything is bad. I'm also getting pretty excited to spend the weekend surfing on the island. Or I hope to at least. I know that it is going to be crazy out there this weekend as it the beginning of Carnival.

Other noteworthy stuff: I shaved all my hair off and took a razor to my face for the 4^th time in my life. I had to. It is too damn hot down here. I'm looking forward to the Twins plus Sonja to come visit me next month and I'm secretly planning a trip to Jamaica that is not a secret anymore I guess. I think that will happen in May. Until the next time. Peace.  

Trapped

It has been a trying past 10 days to say the least. The weather has been unhinged in a constant battle between blasting rays of sunlight and fierce unrelenting downpours that seem to come from nowhere, for 4 of those days I had a bout of Giardia that left me more than hopeless as I spent my days either clenching my stomach rolled up in a ball on my wood floor or running to the latrine to relieve what seemed to be my burning intestines, and Clari, my neighbor with the heart condition couldn't make her appointment and still has trouble breathing. This seems like a lot of stuff going on. That's because it is. But all of these things were suddenly made much worse by strikes and protests going on. Without getting into too much detail or taking sides, the natives here are protesting the governments decision to put a huge mine and hydroelectric dam on their land which would have large ecological effects. So to protest this the natives here, which make up a quarter million people, blocked all the roads going pretty much anywhere using trees, tires, and whatever else they could put.

This was all made worse when the government decided to use riot police and bulldozers, and then shut off cell phone signal instead of sitting down and talking with the locals. This led to nation wide protests as dead bodies were then posted on the internet which then led to the government sitting down with them today. What is still going on here is the blockage of all roads which has left our tour and all chocolate sales crippled as well as trying to get anywhere. There have been people stuck on Bocas island for almost two weeks now (I would have swam home by then), and there is no more power or gasonline in Almirante or Bocas island which makes it hard to use a motorized boat to back and forth.

In the meantime, I got extremely sick and Clari missed her appointment because everything was blocked.

Staying in site for extended periods of time is something I usually do not do. For the most part I try to get to at least Almirante once a week to buy what I call vegetables and the locals call small trees that don't taste good. All this time in site has enabled me to attend more meetings and give my english classes every day. I've also started to work with Mirna for her power point presentation which is as ridiculous as I thought it would be. My favorite parts of the time with her are the times that I ask a question about something that should be an easy answer and she stares at me and says “how am I supposed to know that”? Most of this is because from a very young age here the people are taught in the schools that imagination, creativity, and critical thinking aren't important. Most of this is done by lazy teachers who like to teach class by writing something on the board and telling the kids to copy it. I can't tell you (its because I don't remember) how many times I've had to yell at people to pay to attention to what the hell I was saying instead of trying to copy every syllable of every word I put on the board. Hence the surprised blank stares when I ask someone to think in a different way and the terribly mundane artisan goods we have here.

Mirna is going to need more than a lot of work to get to the point where she is going to feel comfortable presenting in front of a bunch of strangers. Especially using a computer, which she has only seen a couple times and never used up until this point. She also has been charged with the duty of bringing back all the information she learns from the other chocolate producing ladies in the other countries that she goes to which will either be as easy as copying their power point presentations or as hard as copying their power point presentations. In either case it will be a great experience and she is learning a lot.

As for my English students, much progress has been seen. Especially in Lenny, the gay outcast of community who has made more improvement than I though possible. I really thought he would drop out as I have been tough on all of my 2 students about studying and regularly scold them for not doing so. Lately I've been trying more carrots than sticks. I really thought that there was no way this kid was ever going to be a guide. I've changed my mind. Ceni who is Samuel's daughter has a great base for English as she took a year of it in school but she misses a lot of classes. And then there are the random people that show up to class that heard from someone else that I was giving English class. They usually last one day after they realize that we are past the basics. I usually give them a lot of homework to see how serious they are about studying and they usually don't come back.

I've actually found that to be a good strategy down here. To make things just a little hard that is. I've found that you can gauge how serious is about a project or learning something or even doing a basic task by challenging them just a little. Many people here were asking me about water tanks for their house and after I told them they could make their own for only $40 (which they have) how many people showed up to the workshop I put on. One. And he showed up almost every day to do the work and to learn. I don't have people asking me anymore.

Other news: I looked in the mirror the other day and realized that being sick for 4 days and not shaving for 2 weeks is a good way to save money on a Halloween mask. I looked haggard to say the least and my protruding amebic belly didn't make me look any better. Now that I've had a solid bowel movement I'm starting to get back to normal. I also shaved and started doing pull ups every day. It is amazing how different someone can look when they loose a little bit of weight from their face.

The Engineers Without Boarders Panama Chapter is now planning on sending a specialist to take a look at our hdro electric possibilities and possibly bring a generator and some community water filters. If they can deliver on half of what we are talking about then we would be in great shape. The idea for the generator is to provide enough power for now to possibly get the machine and start using while we figure out a long term solution.

This month I have promised myself to start surfing again in the island, not go to Panama City, and not get sick again. We shall see....