The ferocious tale of Chino Rojos

So we are all familiar with the story of Hansel and Gretel and the witch who eats children in her oven as she attracts them with her candy house. Well, not all of us. Here, no one is familiar with this person-eating witch. Instead of a haunted witch who lives deep in the woods, here there are Chino Rojos, translated to Red Chinese (Communist or Sunburned?). The Chino Rojos live under the sea and eat Ngobe people, of all ages, no one is safe from the danger (can you imagine them under this caribbean ocean?). They like the flavor of Ngobes because they have strong blood since they eat mostly organic food from their farms and rarely eat greasy fried things. I have been told various stories, many told with real fear, in which these Chino Rojos live under the ocean in glass houses or wooden houses on stilts, or some in submarines. In one very detailed story I was recently told, there is a city the size of the regional capital Changuinola of Chino Rojos that live in the Chiriqui Grande Bay. They have figured out everything, from hooking up electricity to growing bananas under the water. The story goes that there was a Latino man who contracted Ngobes to cut and carry wood for him from their farms. The Latino had all the wood taken down to the water and loaded into a boat, but no one ever knew where the wood disappeared to. They would watch it go out into the bay and in a blink of an eye it would be gone. A few ngobes went missing, those who had been carrying wood for the Latino man. One very curious wood carrier cornered the Latino and asked him where he took all the wood. The man told him that if he could keep a secret, he could see.
Later that evening, the Ngobe hid himself in the boat and they left the dock. They went out into the bay and suddenly submerged under, and there before him lay a city full of lights. The Latino took the boatful of wood to the Chino Rojo who was the main house constructor of the city. As they were taking the wood out of the boat, the chino rojo caught site of the Ngobe hidden there and immediately demanded how much the Latino was charging because he was very hungry. Oh, I forgot to mention that the Chino Rojos are millionaires and buy ngobes to eat. The Latino told him that this ngobe was not for sale, but the Chino Rojo lunged with hunger to grab the ngobe. The ngobe took one of the boards and swung, wiping out the Chino Rojo and the Latino in one fell swoop. In that moment of distraction he escaped, swimming frantically home. The latino escaped too, and picked the ngobe up and took him back to shore on the boat, pleading with him never to say a word about what he saw. But when the Ngobe returned home, he reported the latino to the local authorities and the man was condemded to life in Prison on Coiba, an island off the Pacific shore that was used as a prison until a few years back.

It turns out that this story may have originated from a submarine spotting in the mouth of the Krikamola river in the 1940s. All cultures have stories, and all stories have origins.

So I asked if I eat the same things that the Ngobes eat, will the Chino Rojos eat me too? The answer is yes.

Celebration of papas

Fathers’ day 2009 was a rockin party. About 70 people attended my neighbor’s gathering, from little babies to old grandmothers and grandfathers. They cooked up a storm on the open fires and gave the fathers a huge meal of thanks. The celebration started at 5:30, the women cooking breakfast of bread and fish for all the fathers and continuing on to lunch. The biggest bowls they could find (anything from large tupperwares to small buckets) were overflowing with boiled green bananas, chicken, rice, spagetti, and even a little bit of cabbage and carrot salad, and the biggest cups they could find (mostly pitchers) filled to the brim with juice made from cornflakes and powdered milk ( the father’s day specialty). I held down the kids station with cards and books to read. Everyone was there to enjoy themselves. It was a fabulous day to spend together as family with the dads in the spotlight. So Happy fathers day to all the dads in my community and to my dad!

half way and thinking

I have now been in my community for one year. It is quite a feeling. Of accomplishment, of disbelief of how the time moved so fast, of fear of how fast the time will move, of appreciation, of thought on how effective and sustainable my work here is and so on.
This experience is incredible, and although challenging every day, it is amazing and I am very happy and would never change my decision to come here for anything in the world.

There are many ways of measuring success. After a year here, I pause and think whether me being here is successful, otherwise, is there good coming of my time here? For my community and for me? And my answer is yes, although there is still much room for more good to come of my time here. I see success in so many different ways. After one year, I can carry a decent conversation in the local language of ngabere, I can make the string from the pita plant to make the traditional artisan bag Kra, or sew the traditional nagua dress. I can carry a Kra on my head full of anything from cacao pods, to rocks to a propane tank, up incredibly steep hills. The men and women I work with now feel comfortable enough to have meaningful conversations with me about anything from love and relationships, to family planning and so on. We are in the middle of building 22 fish tanks to increase family protein consumption. Families have recently gifted me squash and tomatoes that we have planted telling me that they are thankful that for the first time, their children will learn what these vegetables are.
I enjoy drinking watered down and sugared up coffee, and eating boiled green bananas. I can swiftly kill a scorpian hiding behind a Tupperware and literally said “ hey look there’s a tarantula on my porch” and watched it crawl by. I am trying to work hard, find the innovators that will carry this work forward into the future, make these projects sustainable. In my time here I have experiment in my garden, with my house, with all sorts of things, making rain collection showering systems, making my own bricks from clay (since you can’t buy bricks here). I have been fortunate to travel around the country and see other volunteer’s sites, helping with HIV AIDS education programs, nutrition seminars and cacao improvement training projects. I get to sit on my porch and enjoy the view and more importantly am enjoying myself in this process, through all it’s challenges and rewards.

These are many accomplishments, and through these there have been just as many failures, but little by little, we are making it.

A little rest at the beach

The real sandman

I live in a beautiful humble abode. A house made by the hands of my community members. Up on stilts, made of wood that we cut from my neighbor's farm, with a thatch roof from another neighbor's farm. It is beautiful and I have a beautiful view of the caribbean ocean. I love it. But it sways when I walk and a lot of dust falls from the roof inside of my house. So much, that if I don't sweep everyday, all of my things are covered in a thin coating of very fine sawdust. One day, I asked Fernando (an incredibly motivated and hardworking community partner, definately one of the most forward thinking in the community) if this was a normal quantity of dust to be falling from the rafters each day. He told me that it was an exceptional quantity, not normal. And I asked why. He told me that little bugs were eating the roof away but that it wouldn't harm the roof itself. And I asked why. He told me that it was maybe because we cut the thatch in a new moon, but more likely it was because I gave food to a man inside my house before it was finished, whose wife was pregnant at the time. And he said, " I don't know how the bugs know, but they know when a man whose wife is pregnant ate inside the house before it was finished". We thought back, and identified the man whose wife was pregnant at the time, who ate inside my house before it was finished, while he was working on my house. So I asked how I could solve the problem. Fernando told me that I had to find a man whose wife is pregnant, and have him throw sand on top of my roof. So I have high hopes that this real sandman will help lift the fine coating of dust falling over my head while I am dreaming, and that I don't wake up with too much sand in my sheets!

What I can see from my window

Here are a few pictures from my windows of my house, of my wonderful neighbors. Everyday is a different scene, always interesting.







My life is moving along rapidly. I have lived in my community for almost one year and I can say that I am happy here. It is always challenging, but also always fun and an incredible experience. I recently went on a little adventure to collect a certain leaf that people eat cooked with coconut milk. They call it Sega. So I set out with my three neighbor kids on our adventure as they showed me all sorts of wild fruits and leaves that you can eat. Little did I know that I would soon be up to the middle of my thighs in mud, almost losing my boots and my balance. I was laughing and yelping as I almost fell over, but they told me that when you harvest these leaves, you have to be very quiet, because if you talk to much or too loud, the leaves taste bitter. Also, if your mother is scolding you and you talk back, the leaves will taste bitter, but if you tell her "okay mom, I will try harder next time" the leaves taste sweet as can be. We had a fabulous time tromping in the mud, trying to catch crabs and little fish in the meanwhile. And we cooked the leaves up that night with coconut and it seems like we did a good job, because they turned out soooo sweet and delicious.