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