I have glimpsed the future, and it smells fishy. That is to say I got to finally glimpse my home for the next couple years with my site visit. Boy I tell you what though, it sure did come with a rollercoaster of emotions.
First lets start with site entrance preparedness day. This was a day spent in the office as we got to discuss what to expect this week, our paperwork we needed to get done, and we met our "community guides" a.k.a. the first people we would meet from our communities. It was their job to lead us out to our sites and help show us around for the week after we got there. As we showed up in the morning all the guides were standing around with signs for their province and wearing both their own name tag and one they had made for us as well. My guide was Marta, and my first impression of her was that she was super nice and also high energy. This is very helpful to have as your guide since going into a new community with a guide that is very shy can be a difficult task. Throughout the rest of the day we had various seminars on what to expect from both the point of view of the trainees and the guides as well as some talks about differences in cultural norms. The rest of the evening was spent relaxing in the dormitories there at the office compound in full anticipation of the coming days.
The next day we woke up to take a bus from Panamá City east to the town of Metetí (6 hrs). In typical Panamanian public transportation fashion we nearly missed the last chiva ride from Metetí to Puerto Quimba (where we would take our boat from) (30 min) which also meant we had to call ahead to the boat to make sure they would wait for us. We boarded the boat and rode to Las Palmas (30 min). We stayed the night in Las Palmas which is a cool port town with houses all up the hill and one road through it, and in the morning boarded the final boat to my site, Taimati (a bit over 1 hour). I keep saying we because of course my guide was with me, but so was another volunteer, Mateo, with his guide. Mateo will be living in a site only 20-30 min by foot from my site. This is rare in the Peace Corps world but will be nice since the next closest volunteer is a nearly 3 hour hike away after that.
So I finally arrived at my site, although first I must say that the boat ride to Taimati, while being a little long, is not without its fair share of beauty. Where the bay meets the ocean, rocks covered in vegetation jut out from the water, and the shore line along the entire trip is covered with ancient looking rainforest that appears as beautiful as it is ominous. But alas, to discuss my site. As I approached Taimati I could see a beach shack, several boats all beached along the shore, and several more people waiting for our arrival. We beached our boat, jumped into the shallow surf and locals helped us get our luggage to the shore. I was greeted by several people who's names I will not remember for some time I'm sure (there are over 300 names to learn), and all of the sudden there I was, standing on a new shore in the far reaches of Panamá. A new shore that I will call home for two years. A new shore that will be the starting point for many adventures. A new shore that will surely shape and change my life during these two years of development of Taimati alongside two years of development within myself.
After moving my stuff into the house of my new host family, comprised of a couple in their 60s and a 12 year old girl that I believe is not biologically theirs, I met up with Marta to pasear the community. I don't recall if I have described pasear-ing or not but just in case, pasear-ing is the act of going house to house and saying what's up and generally hanging out for a little while. Often times this is accompanied by the receiving of fruit juice and/or food. Speaking of food, now is a good time to describe why my future smells fishy. This is not because it literally smells of fish but because many people in my community are fishermen and so fish and shrimp will become staple items for me in the near future. I love seafood and have no problems with this at all. Many sites have a lack of protein sources, so a fishing village site was met by me with much excitement. That evening I watched poorly dubbed over Disney movies with my family and then went to bed. "Wait wait wait. You watched movies Austin?" I hear you anonymous blog reader, and believe me I was just as surprised. As it turns out many people in Taimati have their own little generators and although gasoline is quite expensive, they run them for a couple hours each night when they do have gasoline. There is also a big generator in town that was brought in by some organization to light up the streets at night when there is gasoline for it.
This brings us to the following day. My only full day in Taimati. I discovered on this day the terrible side of Peace Corps that for so long had eluded me. On my Peace Corps roller coaster there have been many, many highs, but this was certainly a low...home sickness. So far Peace Corps training has kept my days extremely full and I have been surrounded by my friends, the other trainees. This morning in Taimati I woke up and was greeted by the thought that here I was, alone and with no schedule of things to do. As I walked around a little I realized everyone else has thier daily activities, but at this point so early in my service I have none. This forced me to face the daunting task of what I have signed up for: to come out, alone into the far reaches of Panamá and to help the people in areas of environmental health development for two full years. I survived the morning and in the afternoon people started to emerge for the socializing and my homesickness subsided. Marta and I did some more pasear-ing just after lunch and also visited the water filters of the town. I will reserve a future blog post to discuss the town's water system. After more Disney movies in the evening (one's dubbing was 8 seconds behind the video...unbearable) I slept and prepared for the journey home the next day.
The thing about Taimati is that the boats only take trips out for passengers twice a week. Normally Wednesdays and Saturdays, but this week they decided Wednesday and Friday which is why my trip was cut so short. This is also why I was so worried when I heard that our boat left without us. Fortunately for Mateo and me, there was another boat leaving the same day that happened to be there for some government organization meeting. We hopped on that boat and made it back to Puerto Quimba. We had extra luck because it was a government boat so the trip was paid for and we both saved $15! That's a lot of money in the Peace Corps. After spending the evening in Meteti we caught a bus back to Panamá, spent the afternoon in the city and returned that evening to Santa Rita. I realize the next two years will certainly come with challenges and lows, but I am super excited to work in Taimati. The people there are extremely nice and seem motivated to work together on projects in the future. I look forward to sharing future posts about Taimati, and will post pictures soon! Thanks for sticking to the end of a real long post. Also we have a Bible study group here during training. Our next chapter has this verse in it:
James 3:18 (NKJV) – Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
Pretty cool, huh?
