Sophia

I am not sure where to start; it has been so long since I have published anything. I guess I can start by saying that I recently had my first child, that may explain the hiatus in my writing, as many of you (especially women) probably know it is a rather time consuming thing. Sophia Jasmine was born five days ago here in Panama City; she weighed six and a half pounds and was 50 centimeters long, which is apparently the average. I neglected to say anything in the blog because I am rather wary of speaking too soon, but now that I can hold her in my hand I feel that I am ready to present her to the world. I am sure there are a million questions that are going through your head, the first one probably being, how the hell did this happen. Well that is quite a story in itself one not easily explained in a blog, the story will be much easier over a beer, so if you catch up with me anytime soon the first one is on you and I will tell you a great story. There surely will be many stories to come in what will be a rather interesting life of my little sweetheart Sophia.

Is that the Doctor or the Daddy

A beautiful woman and some guy

Some things in life just are not fair, poor horse.

Some times there just are not any words.

How many people does it take to fix a beer truck

The beautiful Darien

What is that falling from the board I am carrying? God, it is gigantic, it looked like a mangled wasp. Wait, is it in my boot? Oh shit, I feel it crawling up my leg; it is almost to my knee, aaaaaahhhhh, now little (or not so little) bastard is gnawing on my calf. What is happening to me, I feel light headed, is that the ground touching toward my face? Opening my eyes and seeing the soft blue sky looking down at me brings me comfort, wait, please don’t tell me that is a machete slicing toward my leg, surely it isn’t that bad, are they amputating already, can I have a second opinion? I hear a muddled tongue of Ngobere coming from the medicine mans lips, “Ñan teibiare kwra, ti ta mabe,” what the hell does that mean? I should have studied a little longer last night, god the venom is throbbing in my thighs, wait I know that one, “don’t worry tiger, I am here with you.” Jesus, what in the world does that have to do with the machete slicing open the blue sky as it reaches for my calf, I need my leg, or better yet I want my leg! what is the Peace Corps going to say when they find out my leg was amputated by a medicine man deep in the jungle? I feel I dull pain in my calf as the creature discharges more venom into my limb. Crunch!!!!! “Ya tare mabta bi niken kurera,” can someone please speak Spanish or any other language except Ngobere? Yes I understand you “the pain you feel will soon end,” tell that to the lymph nodes in my upper thighs that are throbbing like a teen’s heart at a Brad Pitt movie. What in the world did you do with the machete, is my thigh still intact? Wait don’t leave me, where are you going, are you really going to leave me alone in the jungle? Man, I feel light headed, I think I will just lie my head on this spongy moss and close my eyes till the Doc comes back, did I mention the sky was a nice lazy blue perfect for a nap. Aaahhh, that is sour, don’t you know better than to wake someone up when they are sleeping? Why am I being told to suck on a lime? The response by the medicine man, “didn’t your mother teach you to do what you’re told?” Coming to my senses I realize that my leg is killing me and so is my head, wait that sensation is slowly fading, surely it is not the lime. But I am being reassured by the Doc that it is. As I thank the medicine man for saving my life he laughs at me, telling me that most “men” would have walked it off in a few minutes, that we are weak race (Americans, as if we are a species).
Recap, a massive ant with a stinger twice the size of a wasp fell from the board that I was carrying into my rubber boot. After a second or two of jumping around it decided to sting me in my calf, thus injecting a large amount of venom into my blood stream. The medicine man disappeared into the jungle gathering the local remedies for the sting in a record time. But before making his exit he killed the insect with the broad side of his machete, hence the impending doom part. After being resurrected in the tropical rain forest we picked up our load and made our way down the mountain and back to (semi) civilization. Upon arrival the story of me being stung by a “dribe” spread through the village faster than a California wildfire, my ego taking the majority of the thumping. I would like to formally apologize to all American men for not being “man” enough and walking off the assault by the bizarre tropical insect. I think the only way I can regain respect is by bare handedly tear a shark apart in one hundred feet off water. For now I will keep my head a little low in order to avoid the ridicule, although let me tell you, that sting hurt like hell and I don’t care what kind of man you think you are, it would bring you to your knees.

50 days or 1,200 hours or 72,000 minutes or 4,320,000 seconds, all of which equal one hell of a long time in the bush. Any way you cut the cake that was a long run without civilization. One must ask: What in the world were you doing out there for so long without coming in? The answer: A lot of reading, spear fishing, canoeing, hiking, body surfing, boogie boarding, fishing, basketball, pushups, aqueduct designing, bingo and last but not least enjoying the Caribbean from my Yucatecan hammock. Is the answer in any specific order? No. There were days when I did none of the above and there were days when I did almost all of the above, it almost always depended on the weather.

The weather on the peninsula varies from minute to minute or some times day to day. There were times when I would be at least two miles off shore diving for lobster and red snapper in water so calm one would think that there had been a massive oil spill that was weighing the water down. Then all of the sudden a wall of wind and water erupts from jet black clouds that were not there the last time that I went under water. Visibility then turns to a hundred meters or less, the direction of land becomes irrelevant because it is almost impossible to row against the wind and water even if you could see the land. So what is left to do? Go down for another lobster and hope that the canoe doesn’t fill up with rainwater, even if it does it doesn’t matter because they are made of wood. By the time you make it back up with your lobster the storm has blown over along with taking you and your boat a couple hundred meters farther off shore. Then the lip cracking sun reveals itself evaporating all the rainwater collected in the canoe in what seems a matter of minutes, those minutes then turn into an hour of laborious rowing that test the integrity of all the muscles in your body from the waist up. But in the end when land is but a stones throw away, you look down and see the fish and lobster that you will be eating that night, and think hell twenty days is nothing, not even a full calendar month.

Speaking of the weather, one usually imagines the Caribbean as a rather peaceful sea that is great for beach-loving snorkelers and sucking on freshly cracked coconuts. But for a few wretched months of the year substantial swells roll in from out there on that glassy horizon, making some very nice waves for surfing but not so good for trying to escape the peninsula in a small boat with a forty horse power motor. So what does one do? I grab my boogie board and make the forty-five minute trudge through the jungle to a stunning beach with a long right to left break of waves up to eight or ten feet. Running across the golden sand to the bright blue water diving at the last second to make my glorious entry into the Caribbean Sea, I begin to think; hell thirty days that is just one flip of the page in the calendar year.

Hiking to the top of hill through the thick foliage following the trickle of a stream that hopefully will be a new source of water for the village, I tend to forget the bug gnawing on my neck and the yellow horned pit viper watching intently at something that it can kill but for the moment is enjoying its superiority. Pausing at the top to enjoy the sweeping view of the surrounding islands and crystalline water lying below, then looking down the path I just came up I begin to think that is going to be a pretty serious climb with a hundred and ten pounds of cement on my shoulders. At that point I take a swig from my water bottle only to find a large scorpion lying in wait for some innocent green horn, but this is no green horn I came prepared, and with what better than an oversized machete that would make Genghis Khans kneels rattle. Wielding my jumbo blade I begin to hack recklessly at my water bottle only to realize that it is still connected to my hand, which I am not interested in losing. A well timed release of the bottle and a well placed slice with weapon severs the container as well as the bright green and red scorpion in half. The good, I am now somewhat safe from the paralyzing sting of the deadly scorpion, the bad, I am now out of water and have a rather long trek back to the house. So I sit down and collect my thoughts and get my bearings, I feel my butt become wet with the water of the stream and realize that I am sitting at the source of a seemingly inexhaustible source of uncontaminated water. So as I am filling the half of my bottle that is left and is not tainted with scorpion, I begin to think maybe I can do forty days in the bush, just so long as there is a cold beer in the cooler when I get back.

So as I sit back and enjoy my refreshing beverage from the cooler and watch the sun set on yet another day on the peninsula, I begin to think that this isn’t so bad after all, maybe twenty seven months isn’t so long in the end considering that I have already knocked out sixteen. But let me make something clear, on that 50th day or 1,200th hour or 72,000th minute or 4,320,000th second I was very much ready to make my exit from the wilderness and into the civilized world. There is nothing like a hot shower, a warm water shave, a soft bed in the AC and some news from the land of milk and honey. In the end when I get to live in the civilized world fulltime, I will probably miss some of the roughness on the peninsula because living out here is one hell of an adventure, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

One year, I really cant believe I have made it through another year in the Peace Corps. This is one hellava job, there really arent many that compare, and i only have one more year left before life goes back to normal, but to be honest i dont think that my life will ever be normal after this.

Man, I really went nuts with my camera over the past few days, I realized it had been some time since I had taken any pictures. I took a nice long hike through the jungle to the abandoned WWII military base above my village, on the left you can see the old radio tower and the increadible view that they enjoyed.

I swear, the beach/caribbean never gets old!

We had to really toss those machetes around to get at the base because the jungle had completely reclaimed it.

Almost finished with the community building.

Here area few pictures fromKusapin where I have been spending a lot of time lately.

It has been quite some time since I made a reasonable posting, to be honest there really hasnt been alot to write about so I have been trying to save up some stories to make a nice long blog. I am sure that I mentioned that I made it back to the US, but if not let me just say that it was a real breath of fresh air, it was definately needed. I brought back a bunch of stuff back for my village, the biggest hit was all the baseball equipment. I brought the team eight gloves, two bats, twenty-five balls and a new nike baseball bag; they were really excited to say the least. It is pretty safe to say that we are the best equiped baseball team in the league, everyone knows why; because we have a gringo and they are all filthy rich. I am happy to say that with our new equipment that we made it to the semifinals of the Penensula League, which has been a great boost of confidence for the guys. Out of the sixteen teams we are one of the smallest villages, so anyone of age to play....plays, it is like mandatory military service. Playing baseball has really made the time go by, we play doubleheaders every weekend and practice at least twice a week.

Another thing that I brought from home was fishing tackle, they just about cleaned out the ocean with lures that I brought back. We catch everything from Thirty pound Barraccuda to twenty five pound Red Snapper, needless to say that we are eating well. The only problem is that we lose a lot of them because the fish are two big or have teeth that would make a grizzly bear back down......the summer season has finally hit down here, now what does that mean.... water as calm as a swimming pool, visibilty that is even better than a swimming pool and sun sun sun sun sun. The weather is amazing right now, so needless to say we have been doing a lot of spearfishing and lobster diving. I know that I talk alot about lobster diving, but it is really fun and now that the currents have brought a fresh batch in from the open ocean it has become a regular meal in the Tuchi household.

We finally got going on our rainwater catchment system project, I say finally because the families finally got it together and built their tables. Let me back up a little, a high school group from Springdale High called Paso A Paso decided to sponsor my village with a fundraiser. They raised five hundred dollars which goes quite a ways down here, so I am using the money to address the most pressing need of the village: water. We are building seven rainwater catchment systems in the village, basically all the houses that have metal roofs get one. Now, with any project it cant be just a handout or the people will never respect the project. It is kind of like that rich kid in high school who always wreaked their new car and their parents bought them a new one.

You make the kid buy his own car and the chances of them running it into the ground are a little

less , the same principles apply here, if I just build them catchment systems and they have nothing invested then they will let the project go to waste, believe me they will. So I have required that they build the tables on which the tanks will sit, I am not asking for much but it makes a difference.

So we finally got all the materials together and had them brought out from the mainland, not as easy as it sounds but it got done none the less. Within a matter of three days the project was half way finished, now what does that mean, it means that the people who built their tables got their catchments systems immediately. Of the six houses that are to recieve them three built thier tables before the materials arrived, the other three are still waiting to see if the systems really work. Well let me assure they do, as a matter of fact it rained about an hour after we finished the last one of the three and all the tanks filled within an hour. There were adults acting like children playing under their new showers and water sources, it was pretty funny to see macho men acting like kids in the sprinkler during the summer. They assured me that if fish stayed fresh from here to the US they would personally send each of the high school students their own personal Barraccuda and Lobster, believe me they would do it. Instead I ate them for the students and now weigh ten pounds more, thanks Springdale High (I never thought I would ever say that being a Fayettevillian).

I got bored the other day and decide to do a little Bob Vila home improvements. As you can see from the pictures I decided to cover my deck and close it in. This whole operation took about six or seven hours, including cutting the wood out of the tree. It is so nice to sit out there and enjoy the sunset especially after a long day of lobster diving and rowing on the open ocean, oh what a difficult life.

I know I paint a nice picture, but it is not always like that. Sometimes I have to settle for Snapper, hell life is hard sometimes.

So in closing, I hope all is well in the good ol US of A, I am way out of touch with the news so if anything interesting is going on back home (besides the depressing national news) let me know, I will be in town til Monday and then I am headed back out to my village for another month or so. Take care and call those hogs for me in that first football game.

Tuchi Kobiarekobu