Thursday, January 11, 2007

New Years Resolution with Haiku

I don´t know if I believe in formal New Years resolutions, but I do know that the beginning of the new year should be a good time to begin some of those things that you´ve ¨been meaning to do forever¨ or I suppose to pick up where you left off with unfinished business. With that said, this online journal is for those of you who may ask yourself from time to time...¨What the heck is Sara doing out there anyway?¨ As I walked away from Chicago on the 4th I realized that the most of you really don´t know. My trip home brought me the kind of perspective and insight I needed to document some of these unimaginable experiences out here in the jungles of Bocas del Toro. So read on you..... and welcome to my world....

Spent 2 weeks at home. I can say that too much has changed and at the very same time, too little. Had a bit of a hard time in conversation (had nothing to do that it was in English) ... wasn´t there for this, never heard about that. Its a strange feeling when your Granny gives you the low down on pop culture common knowledge. But, I too got some blank stares when talking openly about living in a hut and eating with my hands. Being in Chicago was also like a mental vacation from the alternate reality I have going in my little village of Nudobidi. How easy it was to get used to driving and consuming and showering.... Was greeted by Panama with a big ¨F-you Sara¨ as I killed three days in Santiago waiting for my lost baggage. Maybe it was meant to happen that way because I ran into some folks from my old community in Veraguas at the bus station who told me that my old host Mom has been worried about me and wants me to call her, which I´ve been meaning to do anyway, as well as visiting her in March. I wore the same Chicago-appropriate long sleeve shirt and woolen socks for three HOT days in the meantime ... maybe I wasnt ready to say goodbye to my Midwest. I forgot how beautiful those barren cornfields are when covered in snow and crowned with an icy gray cloudless sky.
I´m happy though to be walking into a busy month. I have back to back compermisos until the beginning of February, which include, but are not limited to: the beginning of my English class in the dirt floored school in town, participation in a fish tank building seminar (the kind that you do in a big hole in the ground), a three day Ngabere class, and a workshop that I coordinated with the local cacao cooperative for my community which will be facilitated by two Ngabe men in their indigenous language about how to properly prune and graft cacao trees. But what I´m really looking forward to is starting my Muchachas Guias (Girl Guide) group.... more info to come, so stay tuned. I was asked to write a haiku for the in-county Peace Corps newsletter (which I also submitted with a priceless photo of my host sisters playing my banjo). So I´ll leave you with this as my final good-bye to America:

Ngabe Children Don´t Where Pants or No Hay Latrina
Barefoot all day long
I step in human feces
Again and again
To view the online La Vaina (In-country PC newsletter), click on: http://www.panamapcv.net/lavaina/index.html