A long overdue mental check in

July 17 2011


Suddenly my mind pulls a blank. What the heck did I want to write about again? Oh well I’ll sit here with the tri-layer sounds pulsing through the living room; a mix of frogs croaking in synchronicity with crickets, and the endless blaring tipico pounding out of the local cantina speakers. It’s Sunday night and I have officially been in my site for 2 weeks. It may not seem like a milestone for a lot of people, but 2 weeks is definitely something. Not a turning point, no that’s not the right way to describe it, more like a settling. Things are starting to feel more comfortable. A subtle shift in the right direction? I can never be sure, I should learn from all those self-help and mediation books I have polished off over the years that I should never really go with my surface emotions. You know the ones that rise and fall like waves across a much larger, immobile ocean. If you know me well enough you will know I tend to thrive off the rise and fall. I make the best decisions and get the most work accomplished. I also motivate myself to write.

So here I am, two weeks of life in El Cedro, and I just found out yesterday that El Cedro is an enormous corrigimento rather than just a small community, yet there exists a part of El Cedro, called El Cedro. I know that as the part with the tiendas and the park. I was confused why people in El Cedro (the area in general) would say “I’m going to El Cedro.” Now I finally understand that part. This is just a preview of all the little nitty gritty things that I have to figure out on my own. Seems silly right? Things I will undoubtedly learn along the way. I also calculated today that if I spent just one day REALLY trying to get to know one community member in my giant corrigimiento, I would just about barely meet everyone after two years. So far I am behind.

Rain is a fun novelty for now. Today I walked in the rain on a mission to “pasear,” i.e. go and meet people, wander, walk, or whatever else you want to call it in English. I have not truly found a translation. It can sometimes just mean hanging out on a porch. Peace Corps volunteers tend to Spanglish it up by saying, “My job for the first three months is to go pasear-ing.” I personally love the mezcla of verb usage there. Anyways, yeah back to my attempt to pasear. Well, nobody was around. Yep, I hiked pretty far trying to at least push my limits a bit to start crossing some names (I sadly wouldn’t have remembered anyways) off my hefty list, but alas, it was not to be. The only people out mingling were a bunch of young kids playing soccer in the pouring rain. I stood with my umbrella and raincoat and watched for a while with a huge grin as they slipped and sloshed around the makeshift soccer field. Ah the life of a preteen. I was tempted to join in but realized I was an odd number to their equal teams. Well that was one of the excuses I told myself. I probably could have jumped right in, but been more hilarious then they were. Scoring a goal while simultaneously sliding through 3 days’ worth of mud requires a certain grace and confidence I do not have let alone experience. So instead, I observed and vicariously soaked up their sopping wet zest for life.

I have been thinking a lot today. I returned from a solo trip to the regional capital yesterday with a newly discovered enthusiasm and appetite for everything. (I mean this literally and figuratively, however the appetite thing may relate more to the fact that I spent the previous day and night uncontrollably ill after eating wild coconuts form the front yard with a group of machete wielding neighborhood kids. Oh, but that’s another story.) Like I said, enthusiasm on high. The range of emotion this last week has caught me off guard. A few days previously, coupled with the aforementioned sickness, I felt overwhelmed with anxiety. I was not at all questioning my reasons for being here, but rather feeling full of self-doubt and pressure. Time is ticking, am I making the right impression?, I haven’t pasear-ed enough. I haven’t asked enough really deep questions, and I can’t remember a third of the names! You can probably guess the brigade of damaging mental messages I was under. Getting out to the city did the trick, and sealed me back into a state of appreciation and wonder for my setting and the people in it. That and waiting in a 30 min checkout line the Panamenian equivalent to Walmart (Machetazo rocks by the way). So yeah, I am doing pretty well now.

I made my first real Panamanian friend this weekend. Well that statement is entirely false actually, but what I mean is more like I made a friend with a very nice girl who is not 20 years my senior or junior. This is an exaggeration, but for all intents and purposes, I did hang out with someone my same age that shares many of the same interests, and life passions, which has been a first for me in Panama. Around her and her boyfriend (who I also consider a new friend of course), I surprised myself but acting, well, more like myself! I was making corny jokes and gabbing on with excitement like I do with my friends at home (LOVE YOU GUYS). Living with a middle aged male cattle rancher and his adorably sweet mother is absolutely amazing, however I guess I do keep in some of that spunk that gets out more when I am around people of my same age group. Maybe it’s a comfort level thing. Either way I am glad they all got to see it. Poco a poco ,here I am!

I’ve been thinking a lot, (an understatement) about the “extras” in life. Thinking about how these “extras” differ so dramatically between individual people and cultures, places, and socioeconomic levels. Thinking of life in the suburbs of the United States, these extras can be anything from buying a tv with a few more inches and special features, to hitting up the local beach bar at the start of a long weekend. Here my “extras” come as simple reality for others. It’s just how it’s done in the campo. Drinking hot chocolate made from fresh milk (the cow is about a hundred yards away mind you) and cinnamon leaves picked fresh from the garden, and lots and lots of sugar. Well that’s how it’s done here. Bien rico. (Sidenote: rico may be my favorite new word because it can pretty much describe all things good, delicious, rich, soothing, or even comfortable. I realized this after one of my community counterparts told me the temperature of the shower water was really “delicious [rico]”, my confusion led me to discover the word covers more territory than I had previously thought.) I hope this place never changes, and that by making progress El Cedro and the people here never lose their indulgence for simple, wonderful things that just don’t exist in the so called “developed world” I come from. When did the past inhabitants of St. Petersburg, FL stop raising chickens on their patios! They too are bien rico!

At times I feel like I am falling in love with this place. Falling and panicking. I know I worry too much but sometimes I even surprise myself with the absurdity of my mental jumps into the future. Got to trust the big man upstairs a bit more, huh Natalie? Anyways, yeah falling in love = panic in my book. What do you do when you find what you are searching for? The life you have always dreamed of? The job you didn’t know existed and now can’t believe is your only real priority for the next two years? And, that it’s more of a lifestyle (that you are thrilled to have) than a job? What now? How do you sustain that feeling that you have reached what you have longed for, for so very long? Any advice?

The other half of the love dilemma was, is and will continue to by my ultimate downfall. Boys in general (a few may deserve to be called men) are stupid and my weakness. While everything else seems to be falling into place in life, the irking and insecure mind-brain always seeks out the what isn’t instead of the what is. Thoughts are magnetically drawn towards the lack. While this can occasionally be helpful for motivational purposes, generally it just plain sucks. Note to self: be more positively oriented. How come my dreams of where I will eventually “end up” are intrinsically tied to a man? How can I continue to think this way despite my logical understanding that life is never about “ending up” anywhere? Life just keeps going! I just have a hard time believing the love-life part of life works out the way we are brought up to believe it does. The “good” life, the movie ending. This doesn’t seem to be the case in rural Panama. Nor the case in my family. Maybe being truly happy involves being outside of a relationship. Maybe it just means living fully. I hope I can live fully and find someone to live fully beside me. Vamos a ver.

I saw a commercial last night for a product called Fat Seltzer. Yes Fat Seltzer, people! It’s the newest product to hit panama and the name being in English makes it super “pretty” and an instant hit with those wanting to bajar pesa. The commercial promoted it as Alka Seltzer for fat. Put this fizzy pill in your water and bam! It made me yearn for those cheesy Cortisol commercials with the creepy hot grandma. Almost.

The good, the strange, the random thoughts, there you have it.

I teach my first environmental education lesson this week on air pollution and have to present myself at my first organizational meeting. Life is good.