Borderless Engineers

A couple weeks ago, the Pueblo Naso (literally the Naso Village, the indigenous community in which I work) received an international visit. Half a dozen team members from the Austin, Texas chapter of Engineers Without Borders came for the group`s second visit to the town of Sieykin to continue work on an aqueduct project. Not knowing whether I would be of much use, but wanting to learn more about their project and to see more of the Naso community, I requested permission to pay the group a visit.

I woke up nervous and hours too early the morning of the hike across the mountains from my community to Sieykin. With my ever-wonderful neighbor Jorge guiding and rain threatening, we departed at six a.m. and spent the next three hours sloshing, climbing, sliding, and chatting our way along gentle rivers and eventually up a mountain nick named pela diente,` tooth peeler`. Elda, a farmer with whom I work, explained that mid-climb up the steep tooth peeler, nose breathing gives way to all out panting which in affect reveals one`s pearly whites. Apparently Jorge and I kept too easy of a pace amidst our chatter and picnicking on boiled eggs so that my teeth didn`t honor the mountain`s legacy.

Once in Sieykin, I found my use pasear-ing: visiting folks in their houses, making small talk, and secretly hoping that they would offer some delicious food or drink. Of course the visiting`s purpose was to discuss the team`s project and to collect census and baseline health data, but my participation was mostly limited to small talk. I butchered the Naso language for their amusement, and expanded my knowledge of the tribe`s very intertwined family trees.

Meanwhile, the brave souls of the group went with community guides in search of an adequate water source. As the days of searching through the unforgiving muddy mountainous jungle terrain, this illusive water source soon became known as the “ojo de oro”, the spring of gold. The team collected and analyzed water sources and surveyed possible aqueduct routes and returned battle scarred, mud covered, and inexcusably happy at the end of the day. A great group with a well-executed project. I am looking forward to their next visit, implementation, in May or June 2010.

EWB Austin members making sense of their data

In search of the ojo de oro

Jorge atop pela diente

Feliciano Feliz

I recently have found myself in an unlikely game of courtship. My would-be suitor is Feliciano Feliz. His happy name owes to the fact that he has five girlfriends. Despite his polygymous behavior, Feliciano is pretty progressive. He is not racist. He has brown girlfriends, white girlfriends, and even spotted ones. And he is pretty open minded about what defines female attractiveness. He even has a bearded girlfriend. I have also discoved that Mr. Feliz is not much of a specie-ist either. He and his five girlfriends are goats. In recent visits, I have found myself the recipient of what I can only deduce as overt attempts to seduce me into joining his concubine.

Because the soil in my patio lacks fertility, I often visit Feliciano and his women folk to collect the droppings that fall from their evelated throne to use as fertilizer in my garden beds. I trudge up the hill to their palace in my boots with shovel and buckets in hand. Upon my arrival Señor Feliz comes down to greet me. He stalks, circles, and sniffs my wares. The stalking continues. When he is satisfied that his presence is known to me, he goes about spreading his royal mustiness. Feliciano rears to show his magnificent height. Then he settles his front hooves back on the earth and closes in. I pause from my manure shoveling and politely confront him with my shovel. He backs off a bit, and I take the opportunity to inhale. Assuming that I am just playing hard to get, Feliciano takes an alluring drink of his own urine. I finish filling my buckets and return down the hill with Feliciano trailing. I close the gate on Feliciano and continue down to my house. He calls after me with his best come hither grunts, apparently unwilling to admit defeat. He knows I will back.

Last weekend I stole time away from my farmers and their gardens, to go with some friends from Changuinola to go visit one of their friends in Costa Rica. I enjoyed the luxuries of cool mountain air, warm water, and private transportation. I traded in my one-utinsil-serves-all soup spoon philosophy for place settings which included two pieces of dessert silverware and enough food that required their useage. It was exciting.

coffee farm sidewalk

Costa Rican travel buddies and host Andrey

considering taking up residence under the very large leaves

at an ellusive valcano crater on a very foggy morning

a Costa Rican breakast with Mario and Denisse

my first bell pepper harvest... a sorry case for soil improvement

the garden of my ag promoter Jose with his family amidst the cucumbers

Cuko starring in a battle with a lizard

Comings and Goings

Whenever I am hiking about in my community and I am spotted by someone, I can expect the same series of questions: where are you going, where are you coming from, and when will you return. Beyond me first phrase, “Rain is coming,” those were the first sentences I learned in Naso. Likewise, per my students’ requests, they formed the material covered in my first English class. As a result, I now get to talk about my comings and goings in three distinct languages.

Initially I was bothered by such an invasion of privacy. Was it necessary that I be accountable to every member of the community at all times? But eventually I caught on, and I have joined in keeping loving tabs on my neighbors’ whereabouts.

Once the traditional line-up of questions is exhausted, the conversation turns to my ‘family’ (my cat). Cuko’s name is evidently much easier than my own. When I present a mug of sickly sweet watered-down coffee (the locally preferred cup-of-joe), visitors will thank me, ‘Gisel, Janay, Janny, etc.,’ and, when the pet in question is not in sight, ask for Cuko by name.

So a few days ago, in accordance with my recent push to expand my pitiful Naso language skills, I tried responding with the best Naso I could muster: “Bor micho plï ära” (My cat hunger much).” Deep belly laughter exploded from my neighbor. I suspect something in the syntax went terribly wrong.

My neighbor may suspect that Gisel’s cat’s days may be numbered.

Almonds how I knew them before Panama (left), almonds how I know them now (right).

The ones on the right are (much) tastier.

Morning glory of the beach?

Man in canoe on the San San River

Pictures!

Rebecca with the first harvest

wild cacao relative (i think)

study session with my 'sisters'

San San Pond Sak, turtle nesting grounds

San San Pond Sak

Preparing balsa bark as a compost bin

trellis making

cacao pruning debate

baby cacao trees

Transplanted

I dropped off a couple specimens at a lab today. I passed the goods through the little window and the exchange with the receptionist went something like this:
— ¿Tu nombre?
— Janell-- her eyebrows raise-- J-a-n-e-double l, Henry.
— ¿Fecha de nacimiento?
— El 30 de mayo del 1995.
Eyebrows shoot even higher. I think. I laugh a little. I tell her I look mature for my age. I feel like an idiot. She laughs. I correct myself.

I am loosing my mind amidst all the urban stimuli of Panama City. My ankle sprain has proven persistent enough to warrant physical therapy. So here I am, finally learning to navigate the congested heart of this country (with much trial and error). I am meeting a different class of Panamanian, the well-groomed and well-spoken urban dweller. I am poorly dressed (in well-worn and stained clothes) and crude-mannered among Latinos (forgetting greetings and farewells, pulling off shoes to unveil blackened soles at physical therapy), but I am trying to redeem my redneck ways, promising to send cocoa seeds to the orthopedist and physical therapist.

Back in Bocas, cacao farmer field days continue. We have graduated from tree nurseries (one of my farmers, Dionildo, has planted over a thousand trees!), and are tackling pruning. It is a mostly new practice for my farmers and one that, if realized at all, is traditionally done with a machete, the all-purpose campo tool. Thus pruning shears and pole pruners had their debut in the community. It was love at first use for my farmers, who promptly asked me where they could buy them and how much they cost. My response disappointed some. Since $15 requires a savings plan for most in my community, we are working with a lending system.

My tomatoes, green beans, and zinnias (thanks, Janet) have become the envy of my neighbors, and the okra and watermelons are something of a curiosity in the community. Last Saturday I tried cashing in on this interest by hosting an open house/work day. I subjected the farmers that turned out (all six of them) to a day of discussing and constructing raised beds and trellises and making compost. Their creativity ran loose; one group used balsa tree bark as a container for their compost and another utilized my fence as part of their trellis design. They tasted okra for the first time, learned how to tell when a watermelon is ripe, and received a party favor: seeds. I, in turn, was introduced to two local plants to use in my epic battle with flea beetles.

Pictures to come when I locate an SD card reader.