Its been a while.
The thing about life is that no matter how hard we try, our best efforts, it is impossible to schedule life. We can say we are going to do something and we can make damn sure that we do it. We can even say and do that thing as planned, but it will never be a perfect symmetry. I love this about life, its arguably my favorite thing about life, its terribly unpredictable, keeps me on my toes, I know you're thinking, "Angie!? But where are you going with this? I'm here to read about this, 'Peace Corps' business in Panama," my friends, I know, and its coming I promise, just follow me for a second, you won't regret your decision when I get to the big reveal, you'll have a lot to gossip about and then I'll tell you specifically about events in Panama.
This tangent in this tangent is for the purpose of making it clear that Panama isn't me putting my life on hold for two years, this is my life, a continuation, its fluid, connected. Love like life, is a very fluid, very unpredictable thing and like life we can try our hardest to plan it, our hardest to control it, but despite our very best attempts it moves and develops on it own terms, independent of our wishes and plans for it and those wishes and plans we have for life. We can section seconds into days, group them into months, and name them, but this is classification, not control, never control. This is getting abstract.
I fell in love and I went to Panama, love didn't care that I planned to be in Panama and love didn't care that we were the same gender. I recently changed my relationship status and I recently have been deflecting a lot of questions. The basics are I am not dating a Panamanian, I am in love with a wonderful girl, and I have been in love for over a year now, but I have been hiding it, we have been, "dating," Its a long distance relationship and it sucks, its really hard, but it was only harder as a giant secret. Now its out, its common knowledge, think what you will. She makes me happy even with an ocean between us. That's that.
The other day I was Floating in the river, completely submerged except for the smallest portion off my face possible to breathe, while fish nibbled, bit, at all my limbs, and the occasional flea escaped my best efforts at drowning it and everyone it loves, to find sanctuary at the tip of my nose just long enough to come to terms with life and existence before being flicked off my face, fish food. Suddenly it started to rain, and I wondered to myself if Panama was the right decision. Was floating in a river to drown fleas really the best way to spend two years of my life, what the hell am I even going to do here when I am not drowning fleas?
For that second question, I don’t have an answer, more of a vague clustering of ideas and topics floating around my brain in broken Spanish, from clean water to learning how to play guitar, composting latrines to mastering the art of doing a handstand, the seeds of goals are planted somewhere deep behind my eyes, waiting.
And in regards to the first question, I lack the ability to form an alternate present for me, if I wasn’t in Panama I do not know what I would be doing, I never had a plan b, and so I feel that I can say with some confidence derived from that, that drowning fleas is in fact a good way to spend a portion of my next two years, and in fact is quite a relaxing experience.
Jump two months. I had a meeting to identify an prioritize needs in my community. The people and I had similar ideas but maybe didn't identify the same urgencies, at any rate. It seems my community is most concerned with improving the quality of water, eco stoves and more help with growing the ecotourism group. I have a lot of ideas and its overwhelming as fuck.
I'm going to write another blog with details and plans and everything, but I have internet right now and just realized I can in fact use Netflix in Panama. I have priorities.
