figuring out what settling in is all about.

 

Finally settling in more relates to finally realizing how hard life is going to be.  How I’m actually living in a really strange place that is very different from any other place I’ve ever lived before.  I just had the realization that I’ve lived in this country for three months – longer than I’ve ever lived anywhere outside of the United States and as a two year old cries in the other room and as I spy on Panamanians passing outside of my window I wonder what this will all be like after another three months, or another three months after that.  The beautiful thing about being so far outside of where you consider yourself comfortable is that you have no option but to accept what comes your way, and work hard to live within it, the terrible thing about being so uncomfortable is that you have trouble ever realizing what comfort is even like anymore.  You think burying yourself in a book, or listening to your favorite music album is going to make you find comfort again, but the only thing it does is create a divide between the people you are living with or living near.  

 

This week there is no school.  In Panama there are three trimesters with a one week vacation between each, and then a two month-ish summer vacation (end of december – middle of february) and since first trimester just ended I have all week off. I have elected to stay in site for the whole week, to talk to families in the area and work on reading some Roberto Bolaño short stories in spanish, and in general spend some time with my host family, as they are busy people and so am I, it is a good opportunity to work alongside of them, to get to know them on a different level than simply talking to them at meal times and before they go to bed.  It sounds easy to say I’m going to go out and talk to people in my community and play with the kids but in reality, it’s hard. It’s so hard.  I don’t know how to knock on someone’s door and ask them questions and explain my role in this pueblo in Panama, I guess what you have to do is just go and knock on someone’s door and tell them what I’m doing in Panama, but I’ve got all these short stories to translate, and I’ve got this list of classroom activities to show to my teachers, and this, and that, and the other thing, that I could be doing instead of simply talking with my community members.  This, is the struggle of settling in.  This is the reality.  This is one of the times you know what is best for you, but you still struggle to do it.

 

Around here I get to wake up and stretch on my front porch and go for a short run, I usually have tea or coffee and will either fry myself an egg and eat some bread and papayita jam or wait for my host mother to make breakfast (today i woke up late due to shitty malaria dreams and got to eat bananas, mangos, hojaldras, crema and a cup of coffee,) and after that I’ll read and start my day.  Typically I head to school and yell at little kids for running around the classroom and talking too much, I get a lot of hugs and I get laughed at because I sound like a gringo that doesn’t really know that much spanish.  Sometimes I say swear words in my head. I always hug back.  I call students mi amor or mi corazon.  I generally care about them and they make me laugh.  I already have a strange relationship with my teachers, I feel intrusive, and they are sometimes hesitant to use English, so I can’t articulate what I want to say and I can’t understand what they are trying to articulate, and there is nothing worse than not being able to articulate what you want to say, especially since I basically studied being able to articulate words into sentences (even if, at times, I wasn’t that great at it in English).  I’m trying to be self-aware and empathetic. I’m trying to be patient, and adventurous, and extroverted, and I’m trying, and I’m trying, and I’m trying.

 

It’s time to help with laundry, and I think I’ll go play cars with my two year old nephew.  It’s the weekend and it is almost 11 in the morning.  After lunch I’ll pretend I’ve had like two or three cocktails and I’ll go wander around and talk to some people, because now isn’t a time to be shy, and since I’ve always been pretty good at making a fool of myself, I might as well continue with what I’m good at. 

Special thanks to Sarah for sending me an adorable post card, my first piece of mail that has actually arrived to me, thus far.  Shouts to Barron’s 501 Spanish Verbs, SPF 50 sunscreen, text messages and phone calls from other PCV’s, fresh avocados, and my host grandmother who let me scrub pots and pans for like an hour with her when I had a really frustrating moment yesterday afternoon.

 

And finally being able to read poetry:

 

Un sueño dentro de otro sueño.

Y la pesadilla me decía: crecerás.

Dejarás atrás las imágenes del dolor y del laberinto

y olvidarás.

Pero en aquel tiempo crecer hubiera sido un crimen.

Estoy aquí, dije, con los perros románticos

y aquí me voy a quedar.

–Roberto Bolaño

 

Adiós

ljs

14 de mayo de 2013I’m sick of trying

14 de mayo de 2013

I’m sick of trying to think about titles for blog posts.  I’m really trying to not be cliche in a three word title, so I don’t know what I’m going to do from here on out, but I’m going to try and not be as cliche as possible, which, being human, can be different sometimes.  This week has been a week of drastic changes, at one moment I’m getting giggled at from across the room for wearing glasses by sixth grade boys, and the next day when they see how far I can throw a baseball, they are pretty interested in having me in their sandlot-esque saturday morning baseball league.  AS IF I would pass up running around like a crazy person and spitting a bunch at the baseball field.  You know what I’m doing on Saturdays from here on out, that is, after I buy a new baseball glove, because like an idiot I came to central america without one.  

 

I have started reading Tom Sawyer in Spanish, I figured its a good way to practice my language, and project my Mississippi Valley ‘heritage.’  Speaking of which, a lot of my friends are graduating this week, and if any of them are taking a small break from celebrating at Bennett’s/Del’s/Alpine I would like to congratulate them.  I could tell them a bunch of advice that I don’t think would help, so the best thing I can do is be honest and tell them that they’ll maybe be lucky enough to eventually figure it out.  And for Pat Moriearty, Dan DeWitt, and Emma Remer — you’ll get there soon. 

 

This past weekend I went for a long, what should I call it, walk.  I traveled a few cities over, pasearing (talking to people as I walked) and getting to know the landscapes of my surrounding communities.  I basically walked for five or six hours, talking to coffee farmers as I wandered on gravel roads – at times on foot in Panama and the other in Costa Rica, looking at the Parque Internacional and coffee farms in the distance.  It was a beautiful walk, and I got plenty of practice speaking and met a lot of families of students that I wouldn’t see if I simply stayed in Sereno.  

 

The falta energía is still in full effect, we didn’t have electricity for the entire day because the strong breeze knocked over some trees onto power lines (or something like that) in a city nearby but at this hour we have light and water again so all is back and well, not like my life is actually that difficult even when there isn’t light or water.  

 

Little by little I feel like I’m integrating more and more.  I’m getting, what I guess you could call comfortable, which on one level is a good thing, but I can’t forget that I have much to do here.  I want to start working with ANAM here, which is the authority of the natural environment.  They are apparently doing some reforestation projects in my area, and I would like to get involved with that and a woman who works in Rio Sereno for my host family has invited me to David whenever I want to stay with her family, help reforesting a plot of land, and most likely getting my ass handed to me in fútbol.  I mean, I’m obviously going to go, just when I’m not quite sure yet.

 

Whenever I’ve read anything about Peace Corps people always talk about how they’ve changed, how they’ve learned a new language and experienced new culture and all sorts of personal growth things that, inevitably, we can make cliches out of, and we already know how I feel about that, so I’ll leave you with a concrete example of how I have changed so far since I’ve lived in Panamá.  Today I came back from school and before I grabbed my book to go read on the front porch and yell English words at my students as they walked by with ice cream cones or duro (frozen fruit popsicle things) I made a cup of black coffee and after I tasted it I immediately put two spoonfuls of sugar and a little cream in my coffee cup.  Somebody send help, I’m embarrassed. 

 

This weekend I’m going walking in the forest with some volunteers. I’ll be sure to take photos, especially if I see quetzals/toucans/macaws and other super rad ass tropical things.

 

Many x’s and o’s

ocho de mayo

So today there is no school, and tomorrow there is no school, and Friday there is no school as well because all of Panama is kind of freaking out because it is supposed to be the rainy season but it hasn’t been raining (because obviously, climate change doesn’t exist and god just hasn’t been crying a lot so it hasn’t been raining here, if you’re down with religious cliches about god and raindrops) and because their is a lack of rain there is a lack of energy coming from the hydroelectric ducts that much of the country gets its energy from. So, the government decided to close all public works for three days to try to weather the storm (or lack of storm, whichever way you look at it).  So, I don’t have much to do, we are supposed to go to the city Friday and meet the ministry of education and the main environmental organization in the country as well, but it seems they might be closed, so I’ve been writing my introduction letters to the agency members I am going to meet, as well as trying to figure out what to do with myself. In college I usually had lot to do and basically decided not to do any of it, and now I don’t really have much to do, and I don’t really know what to do with myself.  So after my host-mother proofread my letters (she’s such a sweetheart) and we made corrections together I (direct translation) investigated about a nearby (an hour bus ride) pueblo named Piedra Candela which is up in the mountains and is supposed to be very beautiful.  From Piedra Candela it is about an hour walk to the entrada to the National Park that is nearby, and I want to go there tomorrow, but my host mother made it pretty clear I need to gather some more information about the area before I simply vaga (wander) over to Piedra Candela not knowing when the buses travel from Candela – Sereno, or anything about the National Park.  I’ve tried to tell her not to worry, but she kind of gives me that look over her glasses that says, stop being a crazy ass gringo.  So I think tomorrow I am going to head to Candela but instead of finding the entrada to the National Park I am going to get to Candela, ask questions to the citizens of the community and the police (I didn’t really go into my lack of trust of policeman, especially central american policeman) to discuss about the transportation, the national park, and all sorts of other questions a crazy gringo asks panamanians about. So tomorrow I will head to Candela and she told me there is a carretera that I can walk on that goes through the forests and hills that is like a two hour walk that connects Candela to Santa Clara and from Santa Clara it is very easy to pick up a bus that goes directly to the terminal in Rio Sereno.  I guess my host mother realizes I’m getting a little ahead of myself, that I want to run and frolic in the forests and get bit by snakes and touch poisonous neon blue frogs, but she seems to think I’m not quite ready for that yet, which, is probably for the best.  I’ve tried explaining to her that the best way to find new and exciting things is to get lost a little bit, but she would prefer, at this point in time, whilst living with her, that I refrain from getting lost, or at least, getting lost and telling her about it.  Here’s to accidentally not telling the truth because you can’t speak the language.  Boom. 

 

No, but for real and in all seriousness, I’m going to begin adventuring a little bit more, but with safety and security otherwise the safety and security peace corps boss will hunt me down and rip my tongue out, or something equally horrible.  

 

Notable Río Sereno life things:

• My host grandfather and I have the same birthday – July 14, and the day I will be turning 25, he will be turning 92.  We’re going to have a serious rager.
• I haven’t been sunburned yet, and have what you could almost call a tan girls winter skin color.
• I have been running four days a week, sometimes more, and have been eating healthy and losing weight and if I wasn’t so self-conscious I might think about walking around with my shirt off.
• I got kind of sad and lonely the other day so I started listening to Rock and Roll music – thanks to Led Zeppelin and Cream for getting me through.
• I officially have an address in site, and if you want it you can email me at shea.loga@gmail.com.  I’m pretty good friends with the post lady, we talk frequently and I think she really enjoys laughing at me as I have to manually glue stamps to the letters I send out.  

 

All in all, life is going pretty well, getting used to this observing in the school thing.  All I want to do is work, but I’m not supposed to and I don’t want to step on anyones toes and act like I’m here to save the day and be the best teacher on the planet.  School work here is hard, students don’t have a lot of time to practice a new language in the school, and beyond that they don’t have a lot of language support at home, and possibly even worse, the volunteer they all got stuck with is me, god knows what kind of sad lexicon they will have after two years.  Missing home daily, excited to start wandering in Renacimiento, my district here.  

 

xx

life

disclaimer. im at an internet cafe and im using this spanish keyboard and i could try to figure out how to really use it, but instead im just going to write in lower case and not really use commas or question marks or those kind of things, because theyre overrated anyway.

anyway, im living in panama now, like officially. i had a really long well thought out essay i was going to put on this blog, but obviously the usb doesnt work on this computer so deal with it, it will be fun and strange.

in the lost blog post i remember talking a lot about swear in. how we went to the us ambassadors house and had this strange posh party where i didnt feel like any of us really fit. i mean, some people probably fit in there, but i mean, it was really posh and really strange. thats all ive got.  after swear in we went out in panama city and went to dance clubs and then the following day we went to some beaches — at this point i said i had a really cool experience on this beach we stayed at, and it was a funny coincidence because this was a black sand beach, sort of similar to the other time i had a rad beach experience with pat moriearty in iceland.  special shouts to pat as i believe today is his last day in iceland.  im very proud of his adventures and am glad they are still continuing,and always, im hoping they lead his south of the border.

anyway. i arrived in site onnnn it is hard to say which day, but my first day of school was tuesday and ive been observing most days. im observing monday through thursday and am kind of wandering the streets talking to whoever will listen outside of that.  tomorrow im going to head to piedra candela, which is about an hour away but is where some of my students live.

school life is strange and rad. im gifted cookies and bracelets daily, and i get hugged more than i did on a friday night at bars in la crosse. not like thats saying much.  home life is rad. my host family always has delicious food and even better its healthy. yesterday my host mother and i were making mango marmalade together, well actually she was making it and i was smelling it and talking to her, but i mean, you can only tear down the gender roles after youve integrated. speaking of integration, my spanish is already getting better, after i finishthe savage detectives in english i am going to begin a collection of spanish short stories.  im assuming this book will take about 18 of my 24 months to finish, but once i do, i should be proficient in this language.

the next month is going to be pretty crazy, we already have a few trips planned to david for meetings with the ministry of education as well as with the major natural environment organization and then later in may we will be hiking in the parque international la amistad, which is the huge international park that is in panama and costa rica and as well as in two provinces in panama – chiriqui y bocas del toro.  im excited to go and hike, and the trailhead begins in a fellow volunteers site, so that is also rad that we will get to see her community.

i guess ill bounce back to the school and talk about some frustrating things, because in reality, there is a lot more frustration in the school then i am stating.  in the schools there is really no semblance of classroom management or disclipline.  today my students were giving presentations about what they love-hate-like-dislike and while they were trying to speak – they are already shy as it is – all the other students were literally having sword fights with their posters they made, and my teacher really didnt try to do anything.  it was actually really upsetting, not only that students werent getting anything done or not listening, but that they were outwardly being so disrespectful (and, of course, this is in a place where attitudes/morals are in the national curriculum). so i think classroom management is going to be one of the things i really work on while i am here, maybe i wont be teaching as much english as i would like, but in order to get through the language you have to first get through the behaviors that have been normalized.  some days i struggle a lot, already. some days are better.  some days i scribble in my journal until my hand cramps up or i lock myself in my bedroom and try to figure out what im doing here.  other days i struggle through a sentence with my host mother and she smiles and actually understands what im saying.  its hard and it should be, but some days i wish it could be hard but was easy. does that make sense? 

i dont know, maybe im going crazy, but all in all, it is a struggle but i dont have a regret, im here and im content being here, im working hard and at the same time im relaxing and socializing all the time. 

whew. how was that for neurotic. cheers amigos.