I’m a full-time gardener and tree guy now. The residents of Cerro Papayo stared wide-eyed as I built my composter and started to fill it. I was constantly explaining the process of compost and how it can help with gardens. Everyone in town is a farmer, but they slash and burn and don’t understand soil improvement or nutrients. It’s all new to them and interesting because they’ve noticed that the fields take longer to recover and don’t yield as much anymore. And they stared when I took a pick and hacked out garden beds from the clay, because out there no one really cultivates. But they all want to learn and are asking advice on where to put their gardens and how to start. It’s encouraging to see interest in my projects.

And to help me learn and integrate into the community, I’ve been going out to work most mornings. The rice was planted about a month and a half ago, and it’s about six inches high. All the weeds are growing up, because the ground wasn’t cultivated, so we take short machetes to hack down the grass between the rice. It’s the worst work ever. You’re bent over to reach the ground and the sun in your face and sweat in your eyes and the rice keeps going up and up the hill. But people were quite amused at how bad I was at it.

I think I’m going to really connect with people, given some time. At first I thought that it wouldn’t really be possible, since we’re from such different backgrounds, but I changed my mind. Back home, I’m much more likely to talk about the weather or the world cup than I am about anything from my college courses. There’s no reason I can’t continue to talk about those daily subjects. It helps that I’m interested in all the nature and agriculture topics. Some of the younger guys in town seem cool too. I’ve been playing some dominoes and talking with a group from Papayo.

So this was two weeks in site. It’s been the longest period in my life I’ve gone without speaking English and been away from modernity, so I’ve had some intense cravings. The food is good, but there’s nothing with really intense flavor. I really want anything Mexican or Italian. Or anything cold. Ice cream. The lack of refrigeration really limits things. Oh! Want to know how many days I ate pork from the same slaughtered pig? But mostly cheese. The problem with that craving is that even in the cities in Panama, it’s not really possible to find it. So it goes. But I think as time goes, I'll do better and better without those things. And maybe soon I'll be able to make cheese in the jungle. And this week Didima said he'd teach me how to make bread over a fire. And in a few short months my chiles should start to bear fruit. All part of adjustment, I guess.

Well. I miss you all and I hope to be able to write again soon.

Written July 10th

One week down and a hundred and three to go.

Everything is going great. People here are welcoming and are interested in me and in US culture, I haven´t gotten sick yet, it´s been great living with Felix and Senia, I´ve been learning a lot, and am excited to start my projects. Officially, I´m not supposed to start anything because the first three months are for observation ad analysis of the town. But I worked with the 6th graders in the school to plant almond trees, cherry bushes, passion fruit, and guabo. I also broke ground on my personal garden and made myself the largest composter I´ve ever seen, then went around town collecting cow shit with all the elementary school boys. I´ve been devoting the mornings to those projects and the afternoons to language practice- formal study and attempts at conversation with the folks hanging out on the patio. I definitely still cannot get by in ngobere, but I´m hopeful. Even with the difficulty in communicating, I haven´t felt lonely with all the people around and the kids constantly following me.

But one unsettling experience:
Last night I went to a wake. In April, Felix´s sister died suddenly of a cancer and it´s the Ngobe custom to wait of a period of morning, leaving the family house unoccupied out of respect, before holding a vigil to say goodbye. It was confusing to me, a lot of contradictions. We got to the house around sundown and started a church service. A man sang hymns in Ngobere and the pastor came a spoke. They alternated back and forth all night and the guests would rotate in and out as they chose. So it seemed like a Christian service, but then there were witch traps around the house to protect it and the bitter cocoa was there to repel ghosts. And the mood was weird. Some people where weeping loudly and singing haunting traditional dirges through their sobs, while others were right next to them laughing and playing dominoes as they got drunk on yucca beer. It went on and on. Endless rounds of coffee and songs and everything in Ngobere and I was wishing it would end for a long time. But then the sun started to rise. Everyone got into a group and a woman circled us as she sang and sprinkled us with yucca beer and it was over. I´m still quite confused.

Today I'm writing from Las Lajas, from a stick and palm hut on the beach. It's about as beautiful as a place can be and it's only three hours from my site, the nearest place where I can find internet.

This past week has been hectic, preparing to enter site. I have vocabulary cards copied out of the dictionary, so I now know how to say in Ngobere that I have fleas (gwara ti kwete). I figure that the more random words that I learn, the better chances I'll have to understand a sentence every once in awhile. Actually forming my own sentences will take longer.

I've also been hunting seeds. Felix is operating a nursery to distribute trees to rural farmers, in an effort to reforest with lumber species and to bring fruit species around the houses to increase the variety of food. He uses native wood species, but he's always excited at the prospect of bringing new fruit species to the area. So in my time in the city, I went and found some tropical almonds, tropical cherry, passion fruit, and guava. I'm excited to watch the trees sprout and to go help plant them with the farmers. Also I'm going to be able to start my garden this week, so I have habanero (a perennial here), okra, cucumber, pumpkin for thanksgiving pies, basil, cabbage, onion, and leeks. A large part of my work will be to introduce the idea of soil improvement, so I'll also start a large compost pile first thing.

The other thing we did this week was to swear in. Serve and defend the constitution and all that. I don't usually go for ceremonies and speeches, but this one got me. The vice president and first lady were nice enough to come speak to us and talk about what the work of the Peace Corps had meant to Panama and did a great job of making us all feel that we were part of something important and good. After that, it was just a party for the host families, a few days in the city for some admin stuff and another round of inoculations (my veins are collapsing), and now a two day vacation. Tomorrow, I'm off to Cerro Papayo to get to work. Wish me luck. I'll tell you how it's going in three weeks when I come out to talk to the boss.

So, everybody have a good fourth. I'll think of you all, ok?