My new home is certainly not perfect, but nothing short of amazing because its mine. It finally happened after after 10 straight months of living with host families all over Panama, coast to coast. I began to feel comfortable with the idea of my general state of health, both physical and mental, in the hands of another. From the food they give me and the sanitation practices they abide by (or not), hearing their 20 children screaming at all hours, or having my basic privacy raped of me, I know with independence my healthfulness will return.
We cut down three threes (actually yelled out ¨NO!¨as I watched the cedar fall because I had no idea they were going to cut it down, which they still bring it up daily how hilarious and ridiculous I am), fixed the stairs, the porch, the bed, the windows. The house itself is stilted about 8 feet off the ground. Ones enters by climbing the stairs from beneath and emerging onto the porch of 6 x9´which holds a new sweet smelling cedar table and one cloth hammock courtesy of my two little hands. The door leads you into a 5 x 9´room which has enough room to hold my bed and a small table that my gas stove sits on. And that's all theres space for. Oh, and theres a shelf that hold things, which when the kids see the mountain of books resting on it their mouths drop and the tornado of questions begin. And I know I have blown their minds. (How many are there? How many pages are in each one? Can you read all of them? How many pages have you read? How many books have you read? Are they in pure English? Why don´t they have pictures?) The palm thatched roof (penca) towers about 15 feet over head, which is an ecosystem in and of its own. It houses bats, sparrows, cockroaches, ants, termites, 100 different species of spiders, and more scorpions than I care to talk about. I´ve killed about 7 in this week alone. The location down right sucks because its the most public place in town, which is what the people wanted. Now they´ll never be bored again what with the little stage (my porch) right before them, more entertaining than watching the grass grow or the clouds moving which is what they usually turn to to pass the time. It also makes it quite easy for the 7,000 children that roam free in the community like a large pack of wild coyotes to come and go as they please, or cualquier passerby on their way home from the finca, usually thirsty and expecting something. Now what you have to understand about the Ngäbes is they are obsessed with food, not the quality (as boiled bananas is it, salt on top if you´re lucky) but the quantity. And so the people visit each others house when they are either hungry, too lazy to cook or when they don´t have any food in their own house. The custom is when you see someone going to their house with food (usually as their walking home from the finca) you give then a little bit of time to prepare it before coming over and then you only eat a little, wrap the rest in a banana leaf and bring it home for the kids. I have been permanently marked as ¨greedy¨ because I can´t seem to get the para llevar part down. I want to think that when people stop by my house its to say hello, but this is not the case. The first few people who came by, usually with their 2 - 7 children when I moved in would come up the stairs, sit down, painfully try to make small talk (which Ngäbes are nearly incapable of) before asking ¨Where´s the food?¨ Yes, they say it just like that, as there really is no filter in Ngäbe culture. And you can imagine the shock when I tell them there is none (I mean come on, that's a lot of boca to feed). Lets just say that the instances of visits have been getting less and less as the word gets around about ¨Sara Mescina¨ (¨Greedy Sara¨) Fortunately I have a lot of nicknames.
Independence tastes good. The first morning in my place I woke up and made a cup of hot black bitching strong coffee (they drink it cold and resembles sugary water more then anything else, says the caffeine addict) and layed in my hammock to watch the sun rise over the misty forested hillside in peace and quite and I actually shed a little tear and then I went back to bed just because I could.
We cut down three threes (actually yelled out ¨NO!¨as I watched the cedar fall because I had no idea they were going to cut it down, which they still bring it up daily how hilarious and ridiculous I am), fixed the stairs, the porch, the bed, the windows. The house itself is stilted about 8 feet off the ground. Ones enters by climbing the stairs from beneath and emerging onto the porch of 6 x9´which holds a new sweet smelling cedar table and one cloth hammock courtesy of my two little hands. The door leads you into a 5 x 9´room which has enough room to hold my bed and a small table that my gas stove sits on. And that's all theres space for. Oh, and theres a shelf that hold things, which when the kids see the mountain of books resting on it their mouths drop and the tornado of questions begin. And I know I have blown their minds. (How many are there? How many pages are in each one? Can you read all of them? How many pages have you read? How many books have you read? Are they in pure English? Why don´t they have pictures?) The palm thatched roof (penca) towers about 15 feet over head, which is an ecosystem in and of its own. It houses bats, sparrows, cockroaches, ants, termites, 100 different species of spiders, and more scorpions than I care to talk about. I´ve killed about 7 in this week alone. The location down right sucks because its the most public place in town, which is what the people wanted. Now they´ll never be bored again what with the little stage (my porch) right before them, more entertaining than watching the grass grow or the clouds moving which is what they usually turn to to pass the time. It also makes it quite easy for the 7,000 children that roam free in the community like a large pack of wild coyotes to come and go as they please, or cualquier passerby on their way home from the finca, usually thirsty and expecting something. Now what you have to understand about the Ngäbes is they are obsessed with food, not the quality (as boiled bananas is it, salt on top if you´re lucky) but the quantity. And so the people visit each others house when they are either hungry, too lazy to cook or when they don´t have any food in their own house. The custom is when you see someone going to their house with food (usually as their walking home from the finca) you give then a little bit of time to prepare it before coming over and then you only eat a little, wrap the rest in a banana leaf and bring it home for the kids. I have been permanently marked as ¨greedy¨ because I can´t seem to get the para llevar part down. I want to think that when people stop by my house its to say hello, but this is not the case. The first few people who came by, usually with their 2 - 7 children when I moved in would come up the stairs, sit down, painfully try to make small talk (which Ngäbes are nearly incapable of) before asking ¨Where´s the food?¨ Yes, they say it just like that, as there really is no filter in Ngäbe culture. And you can imagine the shock when I tell them there is none (I mean come on, that's a lot of boca to feed). Lets just say that the instances of visits have been getting less and less as the word gets around about ¨Sara Mescina¨ (¨Greedy Sara¨) Fortunately I have a lot of nicknames.
Independence tastes good. The first morning in my place I woke up and made a cup of hot black bitching strong coffee (they drink it cold and resembles sugary water more then anything else, says the caffeine addict) and layed in my hammock to watch the sun rise over the misty forested hillside in peace and quite and I actually shed a little tear and then I went back to bed just because I could.
1 comment:
sara, you are truly amazing.
how are you ever going to adjust back to city life?
Post a Comment