10/11/2008

Review of the last few days: The next day on Isla Cana, we started bright and early to watch turtle eggs being loaded, washed, and put onto the boats. The turtle eggs are for consumption. Apparently they're a very powerful aphrodisiac . The rest of the morning was spent on a boat ride watching the mangroves and going around the Island. In the afternoon we made candy--pretty much sugar, molasses and coconut meat. I gotta say, it was pretty darn good. That night we also had--

--edit-- 10/14:

When I was writing this entry, I was already in the Ngobe-Bugle comarca and if you read the next post, you'll realize why I couldn't keep writing about the past few days... it no longer seemed important. However, I did note what I wanted to at least write about (excluding the comarca) and so I'll continue the post I left off there.

List: Party, Arribala, Love of the People (Becky), Bug bites, Chitre (good shower, starting to get to people, Spanish, Margarita)

The day before was Katie (Cati)'s birthday. Happy Birthday! I know I speak for the group when I say we felt horrible that there wasn't much we could do for her, since we were living as guests in another community without access to stores to buy cakes, presents or even the freedom to celebrate on our own. It was somewhat just bad timing, and we were all already planning to throw a bash in Chitre after Isla Cana.
That night, however, we had a party for Katie. All our host mom's got together and prepared food (yucca and salchicas), ordered a cake from the nearest bakery (sent on a bus from Lastablas... 2 hours away), and set up an area to celebrate. And quite the bash it was. They sang some of their songs, we sang some of our songs. They taught us some tricks (whistling in odd ways) and we shared some of our talents. It was a night of grand cultural exchange.
After the party, we still had a night of tortoise watching. And to be honest I was too tired to even want to go, but it turns out I would have missed a rare spectacle. The "arribala" happens only a couple nights during the tortoise season where a hundred plus tortoises swim up to shore and the same time and deposit their eggs. The first night we had struggled to observe one. That night the beach was filled with tortoises all making their way up and back. We must have seen at least fifty in the couple hours we were out there. They continue until morning so there must have been many more. Sadly, this is one of the last locations where this phenomenon continues. Due to overharvesting of the eggs, numerous locations no longer witness tortoises every season and even the turtle conservation in Isla Cana is struggling to reach a sustainable level.
I walked to the meeting point the next morning to see almost all the moms there to say good-bye. Some of the girls had handmade ornamental flowers in their hair, gifts from Isla Cana. The people of Isla Cana are immensely affectionate and caring, offering us everything they can. To order a cake from far away is both difficult and expensive. There is only one public phone on the Island, no regular medical doctor, and no sanitary restrooms. Many of the houses are makeshift of wooden planks with space enough for a couple rooms inside. They're a poorer region, and they were giving us so much. Becky's host mom stayed up the entire night to finish making her flower. In only a few days, these people made us feel like family.
Oh and when I left I had 75+ bug bites. Apparently I have tasty blood.
We returned to Chitre to rest for a couple days, our first "weekend" in a while. To have a shower again felt amazing. I never thought not having certain amenities would bother me always telling myself that it's just like camping and that it's not a big deal, but it did slowly start to become a challenge to fight the desire of wanting a toilet, shower, hot water, and other home comforts.
Feeling like that made me then and now whether I should feel guilty for wanting these things, or whether I should pity the people of Isla Cana for not having them. It's trying to find the line between "it's just a cultural difference" and "is this something they really want?". From Isla Cana, I deduced that yes there are many things that need to be improved from their eyes, but I feel as though the majority of them were happy with the simple, tranquil life. At least I know my host mother definitely was. I interviewed her, asking about problems on the Island and she couldn't think of many or had to think longer to come up with something that could be improved. It was this that made me think perhaps this is more of a cultural difference than a poverty issue. I apologize if I'm not making sense, but in writing this in retrospect, I have to fight to not compare their situation to the comarca Ngobe-Bugle, which is jumbling my thoughts on paper. But I'll continue.
I think Isla Cana and Chitre was a period of the bottom of the W for a lot of people, probably spawning from the stress of traveling or just... stress. There was a bit of breaking down from almost everyone, including myself. It was in Chitre when I couldn't fight the huge desire to go home, to be around family, and to be around familiar surroundings. No doubt everyone at some point will go through something similar whether it be hating the language, country, trip, or some aspect... to the future travelers, it will happen. Just keep going. :) Soon you'll find the reverse is true... wishing you could come back from your comfortable room at home.
Spanish also started to fail greatly as a group. We made a renewed pack to stick to it, officially banning English. As a group, you can decide whatever you want, making rules or punishments that, sure, might help you inundate yourself into the language. But really it's a personal battle. It's completely a personal battle to get the language etched into your brain. My suggestion? Change everything around you into that language. For me? Gmail, Facebook, Journal, Leisure Reading--all switched to Spanish. And even then it's still hard to fight English. But since then we've improved, step by step. And it's paying off.
Brooks and I were sitting in our room watching the movie Posiedon when the floor started to shake and a monstrous roar came from the street. Margarita, a Panamanian, had won Latin American Idol. The street was filled with people watching a large screen that was airing the show. People around Panama had been voting like crazy, selling goods to buy more cell phone SIM cards in order to text in another vote for Margarita once their previous one had reached the max votes. (By the way, cell phones here don't work on plans, you buy more minutes as you use them). That night Latin America broke a record for the number of texts in a given period. People in the states think American Idol is popular. Latin American Idol is 10 times bigger. It's a battle between countries, each one trying to express their pride. It didn't really matter if Margarita really was that much of a better singer, they were all great. What mattered was Panama was showing off their guns, their pride, and showing the world what they got. It was quite the fiesta.

I actually made a note to write about the Ngobe comarca for 10/11 as well. But I think it's mainly covered in the next post. Please read.