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.

Listening to "I and Love and You" and drinking a latte....

Week 6 of training. Time is passing at a violent pace. I am not quite sure how I am keeping up. Life as an aspirante (PC trainee) is trying at times. I am leaning many things, especially about myself. But before I get into the deep stuff, I would like to take the chance to recap a bit with some hilarious hilights.

SCENE: Bird on a bus, SETTING: As we casually sit on the morning bus out of our technical training week in Cocle provence, we see an elderly woman board the bus with a young boy. She guides him to a seat near us and coincidently waves her clinched fist in our direction. Sticking out of the fist is a bird's head. A green parakeet to be exact. Apparently you can bring any number of animals on a bus in Panama, and carrying a small tropical bird in your hand is perfectly acceptable. I just wonder why? What is the purpose of this strange ritual? It only got stranger when we glanced back at her and had the bird balanced on the little boy's head. The mystery was never solved.

SCENE: Go Gators/No Teeth, SETTING: While hiking up a mountain to tech week training classes in Cocle at 7am, I suddenly see a familiar sight passing me. An older campo soldier weilding a machete is approaching on my left. While this is becomming a daily occurence, this was not the familiar part. The crazy thing was that he was wearing a Florida Gators hat. Yep, campo farmer in a Gator hat. My man! I of course immediately freaked out and started doing the Gator Chomp wildly yelling Go Gators (which I don't really know how to translate... maybe VAYA LAGARTO! ) while I undoubtedly shocked the heck out of this guy by my sudden display of excitement, his response was even better. Coy campo smile... all four teeth he had. And he walked on into the morning mist. We never did get to discuss Tebow.

SCENE: Pee bucket, SETTING: No big deal, just thought I had to include this little incident. It is perfectly normal in Panama for your new host mom you met just hours before to offer you a delightful bucket to use in case you have to tinkle in the middle of the night. The latrine is a long walk in the dark. The best part was that I was sharing a room with one of my friends, and incidently we got to share one bucket. Luckily I was able to wake up, fumble in the darkness, find the right key on a ring of five, open a padlock, and hike up a hill in time. That bucket stayed dry :).

and one more ..

SCENE: Teaching Environmental Edu/Sex Ed, SETTING: Hi maestra, yes we will teach your class tomorrow as practice for our future careers as environmental educators. Oh and yes we can tailor most subjects to environmental themes. For example, if you are teaching religion or math, we can pepper in some talk of God's gifts or word problems involving subtracting deforrested trees. Easy. Wait? You are teaching natural sciences? Well perfect, that is simple, you see we have these amazing Env. Edu. guides written by your ministry of education. Simple. What's the topic? WHAT? SEX ED? Oh ... um... golp.. ok I guess we can do that. (Imagine this all in broken Spanish and you can get a better picture). So making a lesson reviewing reproduction systems and excretory systems is hard enough as it is... in Spanis. Now try to make it involve a message of environmental conservation. Yeah... we did it, and we did it game show style. My partner and I got creative and involved an overall environmenally focusses lesson at the end of each "system" review. Excretory system matched up with environmental health and latrine use, reporduction with pollution. Yeah that one was a stretch involing fish and pollution affecting sex hormones leading to all female offspring. A  bit above 5th grade but it worked. Yes you do need a male and a female to make new baby fish! Win! By far the best part of this story was when we asked the final round question to the team... for the win, explain the difference between sexuality and sex. ..... yeah it's a real toughie, but it WASSSS in the book.
      A smal boy raised his hand, stood up, and clearly expressed ( in Spanish) "A boy has a penis and a girl has a vagina!" "Si. Bueno, buen trabajo" (They really want us to stress positive feedback to students). We let the teacher step in and teach that part... but he was correct, just not in answering the question.

So yes, perfectly normal, yet perfectly strange. This is my life here. I adore most every moment and thus far the people I have met are beyond amazing. For example, this new host mom/family I had during tech week was amazing. Leaning about Panamanian culture through delicious meals and conversations on patios is an ideal way to spend an afternoon. My favorite meal so far was coconut rice with chicken asado (cooked in a traditional fagon stove, which is not an eco stove by the way), and plaintains. Oh yes and this was paired with something called arroz y pina or a frozen drink of sweetened pineapple and rice. It's creamy and amazing.

I find out this Thurday where in Panama I will spend the next two years. Words can't realy express the anxiety I feel right now. My training group has become like family and soon we will all be strewn across the country. Crazy to think we have already lost 2 potential volunteers. Statistics say we will lose more before the end of training. I hate to think like that. Honestly this training process has been very difficult. The highs are high and the lows are low. I get pangs of longing for I feel like sometimes I won't be coming home again, at least anytime soon. I can see myself fading into Panama....maybe it's just the start of a change.

"the highway sets the travelers stage, all exits look the same, three words that became hard to say I and Love and You."

The reason dogs are so happy.

Day one of only working one job. I have too much time on my hands and I have only been awake for about an hour. Oh, and did I mention I am currently working my online job as I type? Yes, my multi-tasking is making me more than a bit ADD and is going to drive me crazy when I begin adjusting to the slower way of life in Central America. I better have a stack of books to distract me. My mind has the discipline of a toddler and for some reason it truly settles when reading a book.

Today I am thinking about reconciliation. Forgiveness is truly above the normal capacity of human nature. It is Godly, so to say. I am not sure if we are capable of it without some divine intervention. Mending friendships takes one other element outside of human control; time. Ample amounts of time.

I am pretty sure the pace of life is set and that it only gets screwed up when we try to move things along or slow them down. Mentally it can be a disaster. How do we know when it is time to forgive, to move on, to patch hurts from the past? How long does it take until blame is a non-issue?

I want to become more active in unraveling these clogs in my life. Maybe it's the psychology student in me. I just don't think it's healthy to have one's soul weighed down with bitterness, resentment, hurts. As adults we learn to bottle these emotions and let them ferment. They get denser and harder to break up. Kids and dogs seem light, airy, and happy as can be for a reason. They deal with emotions in the present. I am not saying it would be ok for adults to just burst into tears in the workplace, but then again why not? Why are we afraid to let things out? For fear of judgement or being chastised?

So this is my goal for the next two months. Work on myself. Work on being self reliant. Work on making the people who love me feel the appreciation they deserve. Let go, when necessary. Be unselfish and realize that this whole endeavor is very selfish for myself (in some ways) and I need to understand the strain it places on others. Work on remembering who I am at my core and seeking to live to best represent those values. Work on being a better friend, daughter, sister.

Quitting my job has given me real work to do. Let's get started.