I am not sure if the cat is pregnant or not and other things that have changed 180 degrees lately

Sorry for the long title and even sorrier for not having got to blogging for some time, but this oughta be a nice and positive one to make up for it!

They have a saying here in the Latino campo of Panama, "El mundo siempre da vuelta," which means the world always turns around. This is very true and to know/remember and it will help you along the path to infinite wisdom if you know/remember it, I am pretty sure. So here we go.

Most of the town thinks so and we often think so, but there are times when we doubt the cat is pregnant. Goma, the name that stuck for the cat (which, no pun intended, means Glue in Spanish), seems to have a larger than usual belly, but not huge. Her little cat nipples are pink, but not super-pink. She is lazy, but not overly lazy for a cat. The bottom line is she may not or may be pregnant. Truth be told we have no idea what a pregnant cat does or looks like. Having talked to everyone from Abuela Chola to Andrew Hayes over the phone about the matter we have come to cling to one fact. A cat gestates for 9 weeks, we found her on January 14, so if she has babies by March 21, then she is now (on February 14th) pregnant. If there are no babies by this time, then she is not presently pregnant. Until then Lauren greets Goma by saying, "Where's your babies? Show me your babiiiieeeessss!"

The other thing that has "dio una vuelta"

Organizing seeds in the mud hut

by 180 degrees is the work load we carry. For all the January days we sat in the hammock devouring books and learning new guitar songs, we are now sweating, walking all over God's green Earth visiting people, and mixing it up with a dozen or so semi-serious projects. It's all going down big time now. How do we know? A Panamanian agency showed up at our doorstep and brought an armload of seeds and said, "Here. Hand these out and plant them." This is practically unheard of in this country. Lauren is having a great time divvying up the seeds and looking for homes as fast as she can. So far, the seeds are even germinating, which is also rare since hand-out seeds are usually "get-what-you-pay-for" and that is nothing. I have gone from having no leads in any water-related work to having two viable sources as options and all the leg work that comes with preparing the people and myself for a water project. All this new energy we assume is tied to the other 180 degree change... the weather.

Preparing for meetings with Goma

It threatened to become "dry season" for a long time, but there was always soggy ground, plenty of water, and rain. Now it seems as if someone has flipped a switch that says "San Juanito Dry" leaving the ground dry and parched, our faucets dry during daytime hours, and lots of dust. It is hot as heck and when rain falls it seems to do little to fill up our water tank. We are going to be changing up our lifestyle greatly to accommodate the lack of water. Our house is relatively high up in the water system and we are piggy-backed to the Abuelos down the hill so we are among the first faucets to dry out in the morning. Today we had our first experience of washing clothes at the river, which was actually really fun and a refreshingly different set of challenges than our typical washing rigamarole. We have taken to bathing in the river too like the Jungle Book or Robin Hood "never thinkin' that a schemin' sheriff and his posse were awatchin' them and gatherin' around."

We have walked far and wide in these days too. We are finding San Juanito proper is pretty well off and content if not overly busy with their various pursuits in life. We have found that the outskirts of town, a neighborhood called Santa Cruz and a smaller sister town called Papayal, have been somewhat forgotten and are slightly more game to work with us on their goals. Working in the outskirts means a fair bit of walking and "honey, there ain't no metro-link round here!" We walk, walk and carry stuff, and walk, carry stuff, and plan the meetings we are headed to at the same time. Of course that doesn't bother us in the slightest. As hikers, this puts us in fine spirits and we down plates of spaghetti at the end of each day to replace what we burn. Our nights are spent struggling sleepily from hammock to bed as early as 7:00 p.m. sometimes. We are happy, healthy and always ready for more hiking!

Our days off and vacations are full of stupidly long walks too. We summited the highest mountain in our vicinity Orari last Friday with a group of Peace Corps folks. We are taking a significant chunk of vacation time February 21st through the 27th to plunge into the indigenous region of the Guna Yala people and hike across the continental divide to the Caribbean Ocean side. This adventure is a guided hike with a group of 20 or so Peace Corps folks that involves a couple hard hiking days that culminate in a visit to an indigenous Caribbean island where they will be celebrating, with ferocity we hear, their independence day.

At the summit of Cerro Orari 

All these changes have been much welcomed and the time is flying by again. We can't believe it has been over nine months now that we set out our doors to discover Panama. It is shocking to think we are a third of the way through our service! We have learned so much, but still feel so young and new in this country. I can't believe how incredibly lucky we are to be where we are at with the people we are with. Life is just about perfect and would be exactly perfect if the stupid male dogs would stop fighting claw and tooth over the female dogs in heat!

Lot of love to everyone,

Alex (and Lauren too!!!)


Sent from my iPod