Hato Chami

Greetings to all! It´s strange how time passes so quickly. It seems like forever ago that we had our tech week in Hato Chami, but that´s what I want to talk about. Hato Chami is in the comarca Ngobe-Bugle (No-bay Boo-glay). It´s basically the same as an Indian reservation in the states. They´re still a part of Panama, but they have their own laws and leaders, or caciques as they´re called.  Some of the older generation only speak their native language, but most speak their own language as well as Spanish. We were only there for a week, but it left a great impression.
It´s an hour and a half chiva ride from San Felix to Hato Chami. A chiva is just a pick-up truck with a big metal cage attached to the bed. They cram in as many people as possible (usually 15) and then take off up the mountain. The road conditions are brutal. It´s kinda like walking on river rock which makes the ride there pretty bumpy. There are also good size ditches carved into the road due to water run off, not to mention the landslides of rock and dirt that form quite the obstacle course for the driver. Four wheel drive is a necessity.
Tall boots are also a necessity. When not on the main road through town (river rock city) you´re slopping through lots of mud. I reluctantly bought a pair of boots literally at the last possible minute before jumping into the chiva. I was upset at the time to spend the $9.50, but I guess I got a good deal because there were plenty of other volunteers who paid as much as $15 in the city. Trust me, it´s a huge expense on the Peace Corps budget. However, after arriving on site I realized I had definitely made the right decision. I can´t tell you how many people fell multiple times because of the road conditions and the sheer amount of mud.
I stayed with a host family that was super nice, very accommodating and just a lot of fun. The conditions in the comarca are pretty harsh compared to Santa Clara. There´s no electricity in the community except for the school which has some solar panels. There is running water, but it´s intermittent (at least during my stay) and was a shared tap in the center of four different homes. Most of the laundry and bathing are done in the small creek which is a short hike down a pretty slippery, muddy, rather steep path. The homes are made of wood and have roofs made of zinc or some kind of large leaves that I can´t remember the name of. (Think tiki-huts) There were no walls inside the house and dirt floors are the norm.
Most people in the comarca can´t afford beds (or mattresses I should say) so they either sleep in hammocks or on boards. I slept on boards on a raised platform-to keep away from the creepy crawlies. While several volunteers complained of the cold nights due to the altitude, Hato Chami is at roughly 3,000 feet, I was most comfortable. Sometimes in Santa Clara I lie in bed and sweat, so this was a nice reprieve. Actually, the views from Hato Chami of the surrounding mountains are quite stunning and on a clear day you can see all the way to the Pacific Ocean. The air is cleaner, the temperature is cooler, and there´s no plumes of smoke billowing forth from the thunderous Diablos Rojos. But, I digress. In the morning I traversed the muddy slope down to the creek to bathe and then changed clothes in my sleeping bag, which was a little difficult; guess I shouldn´t have bought a mummy bag.
My host mom cooked our meals using a propane tank and gas cook top. They also have an outdoor kitchen and prepare meals there with firewood. Just preparing meals can be an all day labor intensive effort. First you have to find the firewood (which most likely entails chopping it down and then cutting it into pieces small enough to carry) gather it all up and carry it back home, which is probably a 30 minute hike. Then you have to go to the creek, carry the water up the narrow, muddy path afore mentioned, start the fire to boil the water and find whatever you can to drop in. It´s not like you can just drop by Walmart and get a pizza to pop in the microwave. They eat a lot of plantains in the comarca because they´re cheap and plentiful, but unfortunately aren´t very tasty or nutritious. They´re MUCH better when you deep fry them.
A lot of people go to bed very early because it gets dark a little after six. I tried to stay up till at least nine most nights, but it was a little difficult because the family was used to going to bed earlier. There were some volunteers that went to bed as early as seven. My headlamp came in very handy, although the Ngobe´s didn´t seem to need them. My host mom cooked in complete darkness and the kids all ran around barefoot with no lights and somehow managed not to take a mud bath. How?....I really don´t know.
While we were there, they broke us up into small groups and my group worked very briefly with a sugar cane farmer who belongs to a co-op with several other members. They plant the seeds, grow the cane, care for it, harvest and then process it into a liquid. They run the stalks of cane through a machine called a trapichecomarca for next to nothing. How they make a profit I have no idea. There are other businesses in the area as well, including an artisan co-op that makes bracelets, handbags, dresses and other articles of clothing, which is also a very labor intensive process. They rub down leaves to get the strands of cloth to work with if that tells you anything. There´s also a bee keeping honey business and a couple of restaurants. Hato Chami is a hub or trade center of sorts, but trust me, it definitely doesn´t seem that way.
I also helped my host brother with his English homework and he taught me a few words in Ngobe. All the families gave all the PCV´s (Peace Corps Volunteers) Ngobe names. Most (actually I think everyone) just had regular Ngobe names that didn´t have any real meaning. However, after telling people my Ngobe name, they would usually laugh and joke around with each other and give me funny looks. My host family named me ¨Krodgy¨ which basically translates as ¨thin one¨. Who would´ve guessed that I would come all the way to a comarca in the middle of Panama and I´m still the butt of skinny jokes. The kids would say my name, laugh and then run away. I had a lot of fun with them though.
Actually, one of the reasons I was placed in my site was because of the work I did in the school in the comarca. I taught a third grade class which consisted of 8-13 year olds about indigenous culture in Panama. Go figure. That´s what the teacher wanted so that´s what we did. Apparently the higher ups were impressed with my two hours of teaching experience and decided that I should be working with youth in the schools. We´ll see how that goes. They´re definitely putting a lot of faith into me based on two hours of my life, but when I came here I did agree to go wherever they felt my skills would be needed most. So....looks like I´ll be teaching; at least some of the time. By the way, if you were wondering about the age difference I mentioned earlier (my class was 8-13 year olds) it´s because some kids leave school to help out at home, work in the coffee farms, they can´t afford the materials to go to school, or the just didn´t pass into the next grade. Many of the parents are illiterate, so students often don´t get much help at home. They do get a couple of meals at school, which is a big help. Some kids bring their own bowls from home and those that don´t are given cups to get crema-basically a corn pudding kind of drink. They get a pre-packaged lunch from Brazil that´s supposed to have some nutritional value since most of the kids don´t get the nutrients they should.

Me and the Fam

Ngobe girls playing soccer

It`s better than a Serta!

Kids lining up for crema

More family fun!

Girl from my third grade class. Ain´t she cute.

Jobs aren´t exactly in abundance in the comarca either, so many of the men work in the coffee fields in Panama or Costa Rica during the harvest season, which begins in September and ends in December, then return to the comarca. I had several talks with my host mom and her son about the lack of jobs in the comarca, electricity, water, road conditions, the health center in town, the schools and American culture. Although most people there are living in extreme poverty, they seem genuinely happy and are a joy to be around. They were overly nice to me, took me into their home and offered to share with me everything they had. I can honestly say that it was a humbling, moving experience that I hope to carry with me for a long time to come.