Thursday, December 13, 2007

War and Peace in the Azuero

Forgive me, devout followers for it seems I have forsaken you. It's been many a fortnight since I engaged you last. I have seen the sin in my idle ways and repent. I beg to be your humble blog servant once more.
Apologies aside, many events have transpired in my life since i wrote last that have irreversivibly transformed my mind and person. I has not been any single event or events really but an amalgamation of occurences, thoughts, feelings and other complicated intangibilities. I'm not exactly positive what it all means but i'm sure it has happened and carries great importance.
What i've experienced since I moved into my commuinity five weeks ago and will continue to go through over the next 23 months plus is impossible to describe so i shant bother. Sounds rather pompuous and dismissive I'm sure, but i cannot begin to express how different a world i am currently living in is compared to the one i spent the first 23.5 years of my life in. In this different world, i am the owner of a different life and by consequence am a different person. Indeed. Mind you, these are all positive changes. you'd be surprised how different your body chemistry reacts and becomes once you shed yourself of most of the western world's distractions. there are drawbacks, this goes without saying. Oh, how i long for spices in my food! What I'd do for some hummus or a quality deli sandwich. How splendid it would be to once again suffer a solid regular bowel movement! yes, there most surely are hardships to endure in "el
campo de panama" but i cannot find myself to complain. the nature of the approx 120 residents of my most rural community surpass by and large any other group of people i met. they are, in my educated opinion, the way human beings were intended to be by the great force that brought us all together on this vast blue rock. Yes, i'm sure of it now. my fellow community members work the land , love theior families and drink their fermented corn beverages without bothering a soul. Outside of the extreme poverty, isolation, and lack ofeducation and medical care i'd say my community has life figured out.
Harmless jests aside, they bend over backwards for me and i am regarded as something as a popstar. everything i do and say is watched and mentally recorded to be passed along in a community-wide game of telephone. they all think everything i do and say is hilarious. the latter being a point of concern for me. they simply guffaw and cackle at anything remotely funny that comes out of my mouth. i have found the best audience here without ever having to bestow any good material on them. my concern is that perhaps when i leave in wo years, i would have lost my funny bone, to use the parlance of our times, as it were.
Selfish preoccupations aside, any loved one or liked one who might have been worried for my safety or adaptation abilities need not. They love me and mysafety is their number one concern. and anyone that knows me will attest that i am more than capable of adapting to a situation that has the spotlight thrusted upon me.
Pleasantries aside, the initial purpose of this entry was to inform that i have decided to turn this blog into no more than a series of anecdotes. as i stated earlier, i cannot possibly convey what i'm going through short of sticking my hand out of your screen and dragging you thousands of miles away into the jungle to me. if i do try to walk everyone through my emotional and physical transcendence in Panama this blog would surely turn into mock-intellectual, pseudo-philosophical attempts to examine cause and effects of socio-economic factors involving my communities development in a post-Noriega Panama which we all know to be a world of discussion on its own! In other words, psychobabble. I'm sure it's too late.
So i will leave you with the on-going saga that is my rectum. Twelve days ago I switched host families not because I was unhappy but because the deal was one host family a month for three months until hypothetically my hy house is built (no such progress there). My first host family i simply adore. The man is a real ball of energy and is one of the only people in the community that does not treat me as if i were made of glass. the old lady is a dreadfully splendid woman whom despite her incredulous stance on religion and nutrition caters to my ridiculous pleas for sugarless coffee and the occassional non-fried food. Yes, Bartolo and Serafina Castro are grand. So as you can see it was with great reluctance that i picked my belongings half a fortnight ago to begin my new life (or december) alongside Chu and Jobita Valdes. They are very nice and giving despite their aversion to talking to me. But enough about them, this story is not about the Valdes family (although they could easily be the subject of a series of biographies, i'm sure) but about their latrine. You see their "servicio" suffers from what whe in Peace Corps Panama affectionately refer to as "splashback." The pit latrine is entirely full the brim and i refuse to use it. They don't know this of course. It would break their hearts with shame to know that the gringo dislikes having everyone's feces splash back up his naked rear end every time he uses the facility. So i had decidedto hold it until i went to Chitre, my provincial capital, to meet with government officials regarding my community's lack of access via road and shotty aquaduct system. Twelve days is a long time to hold anything, especially a bowel movement. By day 7, my tummy looked like the big bad wolf's when he swallowed grandma. It made me heavy and walking was more challenging than usual. Do not try this at home, kids. On day 8 I woke up and knew i was not going to make it to Chitre. I decided to walk the 20 mins in the mud (remember the mud?) to my old host family's house and use the latrine in their backyard. their latrine is no club med either, with its many hundreds of creepy crawlies and creepy flyies. But at least it is meters and meters deep. With a palm over my nose and a roll of "i can't believe it's not sandpaper!" toilet paper in the other I waddled into my destiny. There i sat for of course thirteen eternities and god knows how many limbos until i felt something tickle my bum. Usuallyit is a fly or mosquito so my natural reaction is to squirm and fidget. Much ot my chagrin the tickle did not subside. No, sir. In fact, it continued stubbornly. I knew something wasn't kosher. I sprang up twisting my neck and back to reluctanly yet necessarily examine the regretful situation I knew it to be. Much to my dismay and horror I saw and felt a scorpion crawling away from my anus! I had no idea the Azuero had such monstrous creatures of the night. Without a moment's hesitation i swatted her off and stomped on it until I was sure her mother would be deprived of an open-casket funeral. The rest of my month with Chu and Jobita I'm sure will be a riot.
For all you overzealous worriers (madre mia) I'd like to make it absolutely clear that I am nothing but quite content with my Peace Corps-filled life.