So here i am again, after a two week stint in the countryside. It is absolutely beautiful in this country, I feel some times that I live in a national geographic magazine, these past two weeks have been really nice. The picture that you see on the left is Nutivi, it is the first place that we went. It was a four hour boat ride across a bay and then up a river. The baot was a dug out canoe with reinforced siding to make it safe for human transport. As we crossed the crystal clear waters of the bay dolfins surfaced about twenty feet to the left of our boat and began doing jumps along side. We then made our way up hte river, which seemed like to took forever. What you see here on the left is a picture of Nutivi as we got off the boat, this is the village that we built the rainwater collection system and immersed ourselves in Ngobe culture. In the afternoons we went swimming in this river to cool off and relax. I was exempt from going to the ngobere classes because my level pretty high so instead i just hung out with my two younger brothers. We had a great time, they took me fishing which was the most fun. We put on snorkel masks and he grabbed his spear (about five feet in length) and headed to the river about mid day when it was the clearest. I was the designated spotter and he was the "spearer" he caught enough fish and i caught enough crawfish for dinner that night. So we had coconut rice with fried crawfish and grilled riverfish, it was great.

The picture here is another of Nutivi, this the actual village itself, which was pretty small and spread out. As you can see the continental divide in the back ground, we were nestled between the river and the mountians. I really dont think the picture needs much explaining. they really speak for themselves.







The next place we went was another village called Junquito, it was a two hour hike into the mountians along a small trail that dropped down into a small valley. As you can see the houses were very rudimentary, and elevated off the ground. This village was much different than Nutivi, it was a very close knit community that spoke a variation on the dialect of ngobere. But dont get me wrong i liked them both equally. Junquito was much smaller, but thee was less

humidity in the air and the food was different . Here we built three composting latrines , which was quite a bit of work. We did everything from mix the concrete to make toilet seats. It was a really good experience for me. The whole community worked together to make it happen, so everyday we all ate lunch together and worked together. It was reall neat to see everyone come together for a common cause. Everyone did there job well, the women made really good food and the men hauled the sand and concrete blocks.


In both villages i was given a ngobere name, in Nutivi they called me "Nichi," which means "Little One." In the second one i was named "uchu-lu" which i have no idea what it means.
Anyways needless to say i had great time, there is much more to share but my time is up right now, i hope all is well and the razorbacks are winning.
Panama Jack signing off

well, here i am again. life seems to be much easier here, and the internet much faster and accesible, but that wont be for long. tommorrow i am going on a two week trip into the heart of the comarca ngobe-bugle, it is going to be quite a trip from what i understand. there is a group of six of us that are going on this training, we are going to a place called nutivi. We have to go to the laguna in the western province of bocas del toro and take a lancha (boat) across the laguna and then up a river with class three rapids. the river ride will last about two and a half hours and i have heard that it is a pretty wild ride, so i am looking forward to that. we will be staying with a village of ngobe indians and will be studying their culture. that includes living with a family and learning ngobere (thier language), fortunately i have been studying ngobere since i arrived so i have a pretty good grasp on how it works. but i am the only one in the group that has been learning ngobe, the other guy that was in my class (the native spanish speaker) that an indigenous language wasnt for him and asked for a latino site, so now he just does community projects. everyone else has been working on spanish but yesterday a few of the people tested out of spanish and joined me in the ngobe class. i was really lucky to have three weeks of one on one classes, but now there are five other people in my class, which is a bummer. ngobe is fairly similar to bangla as i mentioned before so i am picking it up pretty quick, but now i have to go put it into practice in the village setting which wont be a cake walk. i feel kind of bad for the people that have only had two days of classes because it is going to be really difficult to communicate, the spanish of the ngobes is really poor so it is difficult to understand. anyways i guess we will see soon enough.
i am really excited about my site, i will be living in a tropical paradise only accessible by boat (three hours). the community is really small and lobster is one of the most common dishes there, i know it sounds pretty rough. hammocks, crystal clear water, coral reefs, dolphins, ceviche, palm trees, houses on stilts, cliff lined coves and me enjoying every second. once i get my house built i will be open for visitors, but beware there is no electricity nor plumbing, so it is not for the tourist, more for those who have adventure in their blood. or better yet, those who just want to escape from the world and disappear for a while into an undiscovered paradise. but it will be a couple months before anyone can come visit me, but for those that want to it will not be a waste of time or money.
anyways enough of that, so all is well in this tranquilo country which is nice but not so great. i miss the excitement of living in bangladesh, there is nothing like it. although it was dangerous and one big circus living in bangladesh i grew an affinity for it. i will always appreciate what i experienced and learned there, it is by far and away the best thing that has ever happened to me, which is easy to say now that it is over. maybe i can find something wild to do here, like take a boat up class three rapids to a secluded indian village ;)
well i guess that is all for now, i will post pictures of my trip when i get back, which should be about two weeks from now so stay tuned even though there will be a gap in my posting.
signing of from a place where i can count the # of degrees off the equator on both hands.
panama jack

These are the pictures from the trip that i took into the mountians, i hope you enjoy them.

well here i am again, fortunately i am still alive and kicking, not that i have been doing anything that would put me in that kind of situation. but i have been having quite an adventure to say the least. last week we went on our volunteer visit, which was quite a ride. the person i went to visit lives in the comarca ngobe-bugle, which is basically the indian reservation. over the past week i have been learning ngobere (the language of the ngobe) which is quite difficult but i am picking it up with a suprising amount of ease if that makes any sense at all. so anyways, my assignment was to take a bus to a small pig trail on the side of the road (the pan american highway) and hike up he road until i found the volunteer. now the what were forseeable obstacles: the community spoke very little spanish instead they spoke ngobere, the site was a three hour hike up hill (12 miles), the possibilty (likelyhood) of a tropical rainstorm, the road (trail) was unmarked by signs, the site was deep in the comarca, and the guy lived on top of the mountian which was called "mutu wobti" which means on top of the pigs head." so with all that on my plate i set off on the adventure, when i finally arrived to the small dirt path going up the mountian on the side of the interamericana i was greeted by a small indian man on a horse. the funny thing was that we were looking eye to eye, which was a little akward. i asked him if he knew "the white man who lived on top of the pigs head," he promptly pointed up the mountain and muttered something about a pigheaded whiteman ontop of the mountain. so i knew i was in the right place, so i headed up the mountain. after an hour of up hill hiking i reached a resting point, at that very moment it began to pour rain like i had only seen in bangladesh. so i then proceeded to continue up the mountain, after being passed by a few indian old men i realized i better step on it or i would not make it to the cerro (mountian top) by night fall. at hour number two i had aquired to little indian kids that insisted on being my companions, which didnt bother me until the next sequence of events. apon completing a half hour down hill portion i was feeling pretty good, until i arrived at a semi-large river. at this river there was only one way to make it across, a swinging suspension bridge that dangled over a swollen river. after gaining the courage to cross this bridge that was incomplete at best i then realized the kids wernt following me. i thought to myself this cant be good, so about half way across the kids then steped foot on the disgrace of an engineering attempt to connect the opposing banks, and began to jump up and down laughing outloud. this made the whole bridge begin to dance, which inturn made my heart cling to my collar bones and my huevos retreat into my abdomen and that left me with nothing sheer terror. the river was gushing underneath me and i still had the rest of the rickety bridge to navigate. so in an instant of insanity i yelled outloud and dashed across the planks which were incomplete, only taking about four steps total equaling about twentyfive feet. after arriving at the bank of the other side i turned around to see the kids laughing so hard the almost fell off the structure (if it is even fair to call it that). with out wainting for them i continued on my trek. around the next turn awaited the next obstacle, another swollen ravine but this time with no bridge. so here i was stuck between two death traps and nowhere to go. behind me i heard one of the kids approaching, he looked at me then the ravine and then back at me. i asked him if there was anyway around, he said this was it. then in a fit of selfishness i started across the ravine, and from behind me i heard him begin to cry. the nice guy in me began to take over and i turned around and scolded him for scaring the living hel out of me and threw him over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes. i then comenced my anphibious crossing of the muddy gushing water. the kid was clinging to me like a cat over a bath tub and the water wasnt getting any shallower. halfway across the water rising over my waist and was extremely powerful, now mind you i had a backpack and a small indian boy over my shoulder and had been hiking for over two hours. not sure which would give out first my legs or my will to carry the little rug rat i continued across the stream as to not lose my balance. now let me tell you it took no small effort to make to the opposite bank which was muddy and porous with snake holes. well needless to say i made it without incident, but it was no small chore.
the rest of the hike was straight up hill and was like walking on a bar of soap. but i made it safely to the top of the pigs head and found the gringo without any problem. there is much more to the story but that is for another blog.



for now i have much bigger fish to fry. i found out where i will be placed today, which is still supposed to be a secret but i have my methods. it is on the carribean side, on the carribean to be more specific. it is a small cove on the penensula called bahia azul, he desribed the place as a pirates cove with the a small sandy beach flanked on both sides by coral reefs. yea i know. an hour hike over the hill is one of the best surfing locations in panama and is a white sand beach. yea i know. the community is a small indian village of two hundred. yea i know. i will be the first volunteer there to date, and i will be speaking a coastal ngobere langauge. so anyways that should be nice, there is much more to write but i will have finish it on sunday because i have to go.
take care everyone.
signing off from nowhere (which is exactly where i want to be)
panama jack