hello ya'll!
i hope you are all doing well...iīve heard from some of you, and think of all of you.
life here has been running full speed, although not with any large amazing stories. every day life is packed with organic gardens, mud stoves, miscommunications, shocking exchanges on life visions, and group work. i continue to come to more and more realizations abou the culture here ( which is nutso because just as i really have a grasp on my community and itīs culture, iīm off to the land of ngabe people.) although iīve started constructing phrases in ngabe! this is exciting. i go home and practice with my family, and they all laugh and start to imitate monkeys and make clucking noises. then they make a sad face and ask me if i really do have to go to the indigenous site. so then i take a breathe and try to talk about these stereotypes that people have here and am at a loss...i think that they really donīt want to understand. itīs pretty frusturating to see such blatent racism and discrimination all around. itīs so accepted here.
so there are so many tiny details i could talk about, iīīm not sure what to tell...i went to panama city for 3 days which was exciting! i had 2 hot showers (ok, they were tepid) ate fallafel, and made vegetable sandwhiches up in the hotel room and drank boxed wine. it was fabulous. to finally and at last have control over what i eat...we traveled to this untouched rainforested island which was incredibly powerful and humbling. it is called barro colorado and researchers have preserved it and arenīt allowed to alter anything . the imense size, the noises of nature, the color and the atmosphere is enough to bring tears to my eyes. seriously. my 6 conservation girls and i just walked in absolute silence. almost tiptoeing along the tiny trail which very few feet are allowed to tap.
more intense than that though was the bonding that i did with my conservation group. i am in a training group with 27 people, but within that, i specifically work with 6 wonderful women. we are all just out of college, are very strong personalities, come from very different walks of life. there is one girl who i am somewhat similar to, but other than that, we are different tunes. so i spend at least 5 hours a day with these women, and this has made for an amazing learning experience. we have worked through so much togehter. there have not been any fights or anything like that, just personality conflicts. we all want to be tight and bonded, but use such different methods of communication. with the lack of space and time, this has forced us to quickly opened up to each other before knowing anything aboiut each othe,r and then work backwards to develop incredibly strong trust. i am not really explaining myself very well. basically, through hours of constant discussion! s, which peaked this week in the city, we have laughed, wrinkled our eyebrows, shifted in awkard silences, hugged, beared all bouts of honesty and vulnerability with opinions and confrontations, and at this point, have come to a place where we all completely appreciate the tiny differences. itīs so hard to explain...we have come to a place where we can talk about all communication, we know our differences and know how to work with them. we know how to manage in a group of wide and strong opinions and treasure them all. this sounds so simple, but itīs so incredibly hard. we need each otherīs support to pursue visions in training, and have created a foundation of support and belief. granted, there are many hours of sleep sacrificed (conversations deep into the night), but itīs so worth it. itīs taught me so much about working together, how scary honesty can be, how cool it feels to really truly accept and treasure differences in attitude.
yeah, so now iīm back in my training community for another week and a half, in the city, and then to my site! crazy how quickly time flies at this point. i will send yaīll the mailing address to use for me as of now. um, iīll send it later though. i donīt have it with me...
i look forward to hearing more about life and thoughts and everything large and small. please write- it makes such a big difference in the day!
love yaīll
dana