TIGDHWMWH #1

I have decided to start a new collection of posts following the theme of TIGDHWMWH (Things I'm Glad Didn't Happen While Mom Was Here). First up.....maggot rain! (like chocolate rain but with more protein)

To start things off, one evening about 5 days before leaving site for something I went to the shower and encountered a rat. This was an awkward experience for both of us since we appeared to be equally naked. The rat ran off and I hoped he'd fled to never return. Wrong I was as I heard him scampering about two days later. I looked for him and found him on top of these boards I have that serve as a drop down ceiling over part of my house (not my design). More unnervingly I also saw that they had established a leaf-den of debauchery on said boards. I set a trap that night in the hopes of snagging one of the two before they could put on any Barry White and start doin' that do. The first night I snagged the guy! HA! Their love fest would never take off now....or so I hoped. The next two nights my trap got nothing and I heard no signs of the female rat so I assumed I scared her off and was home free. I left on my trip and thought nothing of it. When I came back into site about a week later though I smelled death at my door. Literally just at my door. Everywhere else in the house it was fine. I looked for the smell-culprit but it wasn't too bad and I couldn't find anything. After a couple days I couldn't even smell it at my door anymore so I decided to forget about it.

The next day Matt came over for a little visit, and while we were talking I noticed maggots crawling from his bag. "Gross Matt! Did you bring maggots with you?" I said, and he told me that he recently bought vegetables off a boat so maybe they were in there unfortunately. We moved his bag and swept the maggots out of the house. As we did we noticed one land on the freshly swept ground and realized with horror that they were not from Matt's bag but were falling from my drop-ceiling! We moved everything out of the way and put a bucket under where the most seemed to be falling. Over they next 30-45 min there were a few maggots falling down every minute or two. They would fall and we would sweep them out into the yard for the ants to promptly consume. They also were falling from roughly the location of the rat's debaucherous den. This led me to believe that the babies had been born before I killed the father, but then I scared off the mom and they subsequently died.

So there ya go! Aren't you glad you weren't here for that mom?!?

Current Events 3

I'm not going to lie, this is a lazy post, but still fun! I had a trainee from the new group (they just swore in as volunteers on August 27th) come to visit me. It was a lot of fun to have someone around that was getting to see everything for the first time and still so filled with the joy of discovery for a new place. In honor of seeing my site through his eyes I highly suggest reading his blog on the matter to see what his visit was like. He writes very well!

http://ruminaseans.blogspot.com/2015/07/to-darien-july-21-2015-small-waves-lap.html

Current Events 2

An Import of Important People!

So a guy named Ken Yamashita, the Peace Corps Regional Director for the Inter-american and Pacific Region (a.k.a. the boss of my boss's boss) came to see the country and visit a few communities while he was here. He did not visit Taimati, but he did visit Cemaco! For those of you that  do not remember, Cemaco is my closest neighboring village and another volunteer, Matt Simon, lives there. I got to go up there and see no less than 4 people, including Ken, from the Peace Corps Office that exercise authority over me land in a helicopter on the Cemaco soccer field and then enjoy a morning of cultural sharing in Cemaco. The people of Cemaco had a table displaying some artisan goods that they had made and then performed some cultural dances during a presentation where they also discussed what they are working on in the community and what problems they are encountering. Along with the head honchos of Peace Corps the director of MINSA, the Panamanian government agency that deals with health and sanitation issues, was there. This allowed him to invite Matt out to a meeting in Panama to discuss how they could bring an aqueduct to Cemaco. From what I hear this meeting went well and they should be sending people out very soon to inspect the situation. To round out this post here are some photos and videos of the event the day of their arrival:

Traditional dance