Week 1

If one thing is certain, this is going to be an interesting two years. My few first days in site have had it´s ups and downs, triumphs and accidents, shock and awe. I am living with my host family which consists of Federico, Lidia and their four daughters (two of which are in Chirquí Grande during Monday through Friday for school). I am slowly beginning to meet more of the neighbors and other members of Ballena.

The second day in site, Tuesday Federico and I paddled out across the lagoon to the mangroves and cut down a mangre, a tropical hardwood with an axe. There was no time for blisters to form, because after about five minutes the skin just came off. So, I resigned and left the chopping to Federico while I sat on the log. Once he cut four, three foot sections off, we carried them, by shoulder, through the mangrove swamp to the canoe and paddled them back to the house. This wood, which could probably used to make expensive furniture is going to be split and used for cooking.

Wednesday, I took a trip across to Chiriquí to buy a machete and file and discovered that they have an Internet cafe and a place with laundry machines! That means I don't have to beat my clothes against the rocks in the stream to wash them, and they might last a few months longer... A member from the Panamanian agency INADEH accompanied us back to Ballena to give a demonstration on proper vaccination techniques for cows. I joined him on his business up the hill and into the pasture, where we wrangled a couple of steeds and I was given the opportunity to vaccinate and inject vitamins into a couple.

Thursday, we paddled an hour across the lagoon, through the mangroves and down a small stream back to the hills, where we got out and began to hike. For two hours we hiked up the hills (straight up) to the family finca to harvest the cafe. With a little basket on our hips we went from tree to tree, picking the ripe beans off the trees and put them into the baskets. In the afternoon, once all the trees in that part of the finca were stripped of their harvest, we filled a 50lb sack with the beans and headed back down the hill. Half way down we stopped to the hand-grinder, to remove the cask from the bean. The remaining beans were back in the sack and on we went. [ As a side note, for anyone interested in preparing yourselves for this task I suggest putting the StairMaster in the shower on its highest setting, turn on the hot water, but a 25lb sack on your shoulders and go on for a couple of hours. If you are inspired, wear rubber rain boots]

Friday morning sucked. My brand new machete needed to be sharpened, so we started to file it. After about five minutes, I cut my thumb in half. This a testament to the razor edge of the machete and to my stupiditiy. After it stopped bleeding, disinfecting it was not much fun either. So, after this little diversion, I spent the rest of the day reading. At present, I am halfway through Walden by Thoreau. One quote in particular captured my attention,

¨I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.¨

Friday was mean. Saturday got meaner. Because of my blisters (and now thumb) i couldn't join Federico and the others working in the fincas so I had to stay in the village. My stomach was a little unsettled in the morning, but I went on and walked around meeting different people, sharing their time. Rausiando was cutting a canoe out of a tree and Paulicarpo was making a pair of pants. By the evening I was wrapped in a couple of pairs of paints, my sweatshirt and sleeping bag. By midnight, sweating through it all.

The stomach problems were normal, every volunteer gets them. The fever probably wasn't, so I arranged for a boat and took it to Chiriquí and took the bus across the mountains to Davíd, where I went to the hospital. There, I got some fluids and antibiotics. I got some tests today, and I do NOT have parasites or amoebas, so it must have been bacterial.

And so, here I am in Davíd for another night and will head back to site tomorrow!