TIGDHWMWH #2

My second in a short series of things that I'm glad didn't happen while Mom was here will feature some more of my favorite critters. Last time we spoke about rats and maggots, this time I will mention the tarantulas, snakes, and my personal favorite: the tailless whip scorpion.

Tarantulas have been featured on this blog before, but I'm not sure you ever get used to them. I can handle them alright now, but I get a good jump every time I come across one (especially that one time it was on my toothbrush) then I grab my machete and cut them in half! Thankfully we did not come across any while mom was visiting or I'm sure she would have jumped right out of her skin!

A cleanly cut tarantula half next to a shiny quarter

Snakes are pretty bad. Luckily I have yet to have a snake inside my house. I did have that one in my host family house, but I'm glad none decided to make their first visit coincide with mom's first visit.

Snake from the host family house

Scorpions are bad. I haven't been stung by one yet but have heard first hand accounts that it is pretty painful. I do get some of them in my house and it would have been a possibility for them to show up with mom around, but even more common in my house is the tailless whip scorpion. Although harmless (and thus abundant in my house because I don't kill them), tailless whip scorpions are pretty freaky looking! I can't imagine that mom would have taken well to seeing one while locked up in a dark and strange place.

A normal, dead, scorpion

A tailless whip scorpion mid-molt! (Google images for a better picture)

Well that's all for this time! Next post I promise to feature less creepy crawlies for those of you that dislike them. Thanks for reading!

Anniversario

I live in the boonies. Fact. Also fact, just a little father into the boonies is a semi-autonomous indigenous reservation known as the Comarca Embera-Wounaan Sambu. I have a few Peace Corps friends out there and on November 8th they had the anniversary of its foundation. For this a whole big group of volunteers got together in the main town of Puerto Indio (a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer's site) and celebrated with the locals! Festivities included a tug-of-war, dance contests, food stands, and a parade. I don't have a ton of photos from the two day affair but I can share a few.

Embera family

Myself and Abby all dressed up for the occasion

Wounaan ladies ready for Tug-of-War

The whole group of PCVs in indigenous garb

Dance Off!

So... November 3rd and 4th are big big holidays here. The 3rd is the separation of Panama from Columbia and the 4th is flag day. Of course there are big parties all around the country and my site is no exception. It is mainly celebrated by a ceremony at the school to commemorate the day and then a parade (in Taimati it was a different ceremony each day, but the same parade two days in a row. Hey! When you are going to have town parades you should go all out!...twice in a row!). Then for the rest of the day people are going about their business and hanging out with games such as a sack race, or climbing a tall greased pole to claim the prize up top. It was a pretty fun day overall! Here are some photos to share the time with you.

Leading the parade

Our renowned drum line

These girls got to use fans. They definitely had the best gig.

I almost forgot to mention! In the evening there was a baile (dance) with a competition. First place prize was a 5 pound chicken, so of course I had to enter the competition! And what do ya know, I won! 

My dance partner and prize chicken! (I think I got the comedy vote)

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

Current Events 1

Recent events have been, well, exciting so I thought I would give a few quick quips Over the next few days to update everyone to some interesting highlights of my life over the next few blog posts.


Pieces of Predators from SPACE!

     Ok, ok, ok, so space has nothing to do with this event at all but I needed to hook you somehow. One day I was walking along the beach in Taimati, just killing some time and relaxing. When all of the sudden I noticed a unique shape pass by in the sand. I threw my fiddle-stick on the ground (literally just a stick I was fiddling around with) and whipped around to see....a shark's tooth! It was heavily eroded but of substantial size, and upon further investigation I believe there is a good chance it is an old and small Megalodon tooth! Here are some photos for your investigation:

Shark tooth and a quarter for scale

A sampling of Megalodon teeth.