I always read the last blog before I post a new blog to avoid unnecessary overlap and to try to figure out how to continue, and man the grammar in that last one was rough even for me.
I am currently the sickest that I have been since arriving in Panama and the sickest I remember being in a longtime before coming to Panama. Ive made two very serious and effort filled attempts to go and pasear but I was ultimately discouraged because both times I was overcome with an overwhelming feeling that I was about to shit myself. Which wouldn’t really be that bad since I haven’t eaten for about 22 hours, at this point I’m just shitting out water I think, I’m no doctor. Anyway now I find myself in a hammock double fisting oral rehydration salts and water in hopes that I will be well enough to fully appreciate the magic that is my twenty third birthday tomorrow without shitting myself on the bus to the city.
Now that I’ve introduced you all to the love hate relationship that Panama has with my intestines, I guess I can speak about less shitty things, and yes, pun intended.
Panama, oh Panama, what can I say, it feels like home, I’m happy, I literally lack the ability to imagine my life any other way. I haven’t really started doing much yet, I’m only two months into service after all and the first three months are strictly to integrate and prepare a community analysis. Sometimes I’m overcome with having a feeling of absolutely nothing to do, how many times can I possibly talk to the same eighty people when I have the vocabulary of an intelligent eight year old? The answer of course is infinitely.
There have been days when I succumb to the feeling of having nothing to do and do nothing, but those days are more than outnumbered by the days where I go somewhere, anywhere and talk to someone. Ive found the key to successful pasearing is just to speak enthusiastically even if I am sure what I am saying doesn’t make any sense. And speaking of sense, I do feel like I am starting to make more and more of it.
I also feel really integrated and welcomed into this community, and I have almost no peña about pasearing, except for in barrio, I still don’t feel entirely comfortable there. Today I was going to go there too, but my bowels wouldn’t let me, and so it is a thing for me to begin to focus on, a way to feel a larger sense of urgency in my days of pasearing. It’s good to feel included in a community and to realize that the people have a genuine concern for your well-being and more importantly to me, to know they are genuinely happy to see me walking up to their porches.
And on that note I really think everyone in my community is really swell, except for my host family. I really dislike my host family, and I feel super bad for saying it, and I almost didn’t, but I convinced myself there was no way they would learn English and find my blog and then read it. I have tried so hard to like them and to get them to treat me as part of the family, but I can’t move past feeling like an inconvenience. I bring them gifts on occasion, I make them popcorn, say please and thank you, converse, and just all the things I know how to do in order to be a good person, yet nothing works. I’m constantly finding myself locked out of the house, not told plans, without lunch, and other inconveniences. I can’t decide how much it bothers me and for the most part I try to brush it off, but I will attempt to get permission to move out early, because being in a bad mood makes me want to be alone, and alone isn’t the best way to change the world or whatever.
Happier things. I do not have Diarrhea anymore, It has been a couple of days since I started typing this blog, and I had it for a lot of those days, but after my run today, it was gone, gracias a dios. I need to stop talking about the specific present, because I have a hard time focusing long enough on this blog to finish it in one day.
Things that have happened but do not feel like are exciting enough to describe in more detail:
I went to a goat roast in Metati where I helped to make goat kabobs and goat curry with almost all the volunteers from both Darien and Panama Este and then the next day we went to La Palma where a couple of us stayed in a really gorgeous hotel, for a really boring and equally uneventful meeting followed by a very eventful and not at all boring bar crawl through the very happening 4 or so cantinas in La Palma starting with a long walk into the jungle and ending with finishing a box of wine by drinking it out of a metal bowl.
There was a fourth of July party on the fourth of June in Canita after a rousing day of walking all over Chepo to find agencies that I have already forgot the location of and pizza that I will never forget the location of.
Some kids and some doctors from the USA, specifically Alabama, I think, came to introduce an evangelical community to God, which seems to me like a waste of time, but they also gave out medicine and water filters and you can’t go wrong with drugs and clean water.
I went to Chepo and bought a lot of paint and then I painted my house, yes it is gorgeous, it took forever. And I discovered there is some sort of fly here in Panama that has a very strong fondness for oil based paint, not my favorite discovery in the world.
I also discovered a scorpion in my house which I enjoyed even less than the flies, but got a little bit more enjoyment out of when I killed it with a machete, there were a lot of guts, I was surprised, pleasantly.
I assisted with a few English classes in the school and I am planning on very soon to start talking with the teacher there about how I can help with environmental education, and things I actually think are worthwhile.
We are also in the first steps of building a incinerator, the find an old oil drum step.
I turned twenty three, I feel a lot wiser and a little bit older. I already had my quarter life crisis so I am feeling pretty tranquil about the whole situation and it was nice to get to see so many shining faces in the city and of course drink a little beer and a little whiskey.
But more importantly the day after was pride in Panama and a lot of us went to support the cause, it was an amazing experience, lots of energy and lots of really good vibes. I got a free t-shirt; my main motivation in life, held various signs and flags, did some bad dancing in the streets, ran around, and most importantly felt that I was in some way actually helping to make a difference.
I think that’s all that really happened, that wasn’t just all in a days work, but also I just feel really detached from this blog, I think I need to start writing about events as they happen, because when I finally sit down to type up a blog everything seems so irrelevant and in the past and there are so many things that I just list them all out without much regard to detail or emotion.
And so, I hope the next blog will actually be good and exciting to read.
Also days later, I am in Santa Rita for a week of language reinforcement and living in what could be the nicest house I’ve ever lived in in my life or at least a very close second. Running water inside. Electricity. Need I even say more? We also might have internet, but if so I don’t understand how to use it, but I promise I’ll post this blog before I leave civilization and if not I’ll just delete this sentence. How many promises have I made that are nothing more than deleted sentences, how many licks to the center of a tootsie pop, what’s the meaning of life? The world may never know.
