Friday, July 16, 2010

Below are a list of some of our experiences/lessons in the last 12 days.  I want to stress that these details are to give you a sense of our daily life and some of them may sound negative, but we are not complaining. This is not me griping about our challenges, but instead telling you what those challenges are so that you have a true idea of what we are doing every day. Some things by there very nature are going to be more negative, but that is all part of the adventure! At the end of the day we are having an amazing time in Boquerón, it is a special place with special people.

1. Corn can be a food group. In Boquerón there are days when I am convinced it is the full food pyramid. Sean has gone out cosechar-ing corn with our host father and other family members/friends. They spend all day chopping and gathering corn, brining back ful baskets to the house. Then the host fathers mother and I peel the kernels from the corn. Sean and I did this together and, being true Americans, turned it into a competition to see who could peel the corn fastest. The family got a huge kick out of this and now just assumes that any chore we are doing involves competition in some way.  After the kernels are seperated from the ear of corn they are in a large bucket. Corn is thrown from the bucket to feed the chickens, or milled in the kitchen to be turned into some new food for the family. It is actually pretty cool to watch the grandma work- at 75 years old she is strong and sharp as ever. Sometimes she mills the corn and then mixes it with water and flour to make what they call a toritlla but to us is more like cornbread. Other times she mixes it with boiled water and sugar to make chichemy, a kind of oatmealish type thing. Sometimes she just turns it into juice, or adds it to soup or to milk. One time I ate corn in four different ways in less than 1 hour...I thought I hit a wall until that night when the host dad told Sean they would be heading back out to the monte to cosechar corn again in the morning...


the kitchen, where all the work is done. behind the grandmother is the fogón, where the cooking is done over an open fire.

2. Our family is awesome and they take great care of us. It is essentially a man, his mother, his brother and his significant other (marriage in the campo is not exactly like marriage in the states...)  They make sure to include us in everythign they do, and they are very active members of the community. They are involved in a lot of the local committees (and Boqerón loves committees) and are always to help out with the physical labor for projects going on around town.  I mentioned once liking Mangoes and the next day the dad brought me three mangoes that he cut down.  I asked Sean to get me mimones one day and they were up on a far out branch on a high tree that Sean could not get to...so he climbed the tree and got the mimones for us.  He notced that I was writing in my journal on my lap, and the next day actually made a table! He is very impressive with the machete and can use it for building furniture, cutting fruit, making a path and everything in between. He made most of his house and the things in it. Since there is no electricity we spend a lot of time after dinner chatting- it is amazing quality time that was hard to come by when we were in Rio Congo and we were fighting with the TV. They feed us, and even thought it might involve a lot of corn I can definitely guarantee that we are never, ever hungry.

3. So, of all the animals I was nervous about (snakes, scorpions, bats) I never stopped to think about the boring regular animals of the United States. Now, I am learning that all along I should have been thinking of RATS.  I mean, I have really never thought that much about rats, why would I? But now that they are in my room, scurrying up and down our walls, right above our bed, leaving (what else) corn as a morning surprise in our clothes, and keeping us awake all night long, it is hard to imagine a time where the thought of them didn´t strike fear in my heart. We are not talking about one or two rats running around at night (our hsot dad being as awesome as he is started setting rat traps when I mentioned that just maybe they came around at night. He catches one or two every night) but there is literally a swarm of these creatures. The hardest part is when I am trying to fall asleep but can hear their scurrying feet right above my bed and I can just imagine them falling onto the mosquito net. I mean, I knwo the mosquito net is there to protect me, but I really do not want to have this experience....and I am very thankful for a set of earplugs I got for my birthday- they make all the difference in the world

the metal box there is our room, the rats scurry along the top edge of the metal that is not attached to the ceiling


 4. As I have mentioned before Boquerón is actually Boquerón Abajo and Boqerón Arriba...it is two seperate communities and there is no community just called Boquerón. Each community has a school and I will be working in both schools. The walk from the house we are in right now to Boquerón Arriba school is about 3 miles, which the community members think is a really long way to walk, but they are the most gorgeous 3 miles I cannot even think of taking a bus. Every new turn on the road provides absolutely stunning scenery. I get to take the walk about every other day, more if I want to or my schedule calls me to be in Arriba, and it is such a treat. It also helps me keep off the weight the corn is trying to add.
The very beginning of my morning commute


5. Rio Boquerón is also beautiful, and surrounded by green mountainsides and innumerable plant species that make every trip to the river an escape into nature. The rainy season has just started, and when it gets really intense the river will gorw considerably. Right now we can wade through the river and cross it never having the water come up past our waists. It will all change sometime between September and November with the rainy season in full effect. We are lucky it is not too bad right now because the rio is where we do most of our bathing...when it rains though the water either moves too fast or gets dirty which makes it a bad place for a bath. The result? We are not the cleanest we have ever been. This also comes into play with washing our clothes- it takes a lot of time to wash them and by the time they are on the line a storm rolls in! I am convinced my doing laundry is the most effective rain dance out there. It can be a while for the clothes to get dry... I am really looking forward to when the Rio is big and burly and we get to travel down it in a canoe!
view on the walk down to Rio Boqueron

clothes on the line



6. Sean is becoming a real man of the campo. From cosecharing corn in the monte to using his machete to chop down platanos and forging a path for me in the woods, he is fitting in in no time with the hombres in Boqerón. If we want to drink  pipa he can get it down from the spiky Palm tree and have it cut open in no time. He helped dig a trench for an aquaduct and planted tomatoes in the school garden.  He is quickly earning the respect of the community members because, not only does he get out there and work side by side with them, but he is quickly learning to do it just as efficiently as they do, and they have been in the monte their whole lives.

7. I have been observing classes in both schools and attending all types of meetings (both related to the schools and not related at all to the schools). The students have a midterm vacation starting next week and I will begin my English classes the first week in August when they return. YIKES! The teachers are very helpful and very receptive, but most of my support comes from the parents who are extremely excited to have their children learning English. When the kids go from the basica schools in Boquerón to a secondary school (7th grade on up) they are often the only kids in the school that haven´t been exposed to English. If we can get a program going in Boqerón it will make a huge difference for how they perfrom in the classroom, and hopefully impact their decision to stay in school through 12th grade, which many students do not end up doing.

Oh I had a million other things to say, but we need to catch the last bus up and that means we need to get going.  We are working hard and enjoying the simplicity that comes with camp life. I think we miss some creature comforts more than we thought that we would, but it is probably one of those things that after a few more weeks we won't even notice anymore.  We miss our family and freinds a lot, and wish we could share more of this with you. Hope these little updates help give you a good glimpse of our lives!

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