Christmas, the government, and other random stuff

So things here are good. The school year is over and ¨summer¨ is starting. Which means it´s raining less. Still almost every day, but it´s like it was when I first arrived - super sunny and hot in the morning, but by the afternoon the clouds have rolled in and the rain storm will start. It´s also very windy in my site. But the wind and rain are welcome, as the sun is incredibly strong and very very hot. It´s exhausting, and some days I feel like I just can´t drink enough water.

I´ve been getting sick randomly for the last couple weeks. Fever, head ache and sharp stomach pains. But it only lasts for a day, maybe two, then it´s gone. Therefore it wouldn´t be a problem, except it keeps returning. So that´s not fun. Yay for mysterious tropical stomach bugs.

My host mom approached me the other day and said she´s noticed that I´m tired of the rice. Because, frankly, I´ve pretty much stopped eating it. A giant plate full of plain white rice, twice a day, every day, for nearly seven months. It´s just a little much. Some days I actually got to the point where if I had another spoon full I would have thrown up. So the dogs ate a lot of rice instead of me. But she´s noticed this, so she said she´s going to start making other things for me because she understands I´m not accustomed to it like they are. So that was really very nice. And it will be a welcome break. :)

It´s the Christmas season! And Christmas here, besides being remarkably hot still, is very similar. Santa Clause is in the mall. There are lots of Santa hats. Christmas trees in the houses, although very very small. The school did a secret pals gift exchange at the end of the year party. Everyone´s getting ready for the feast they have apparently at midnight on Christmas eve. Good times. I think the biggest difference, at least for me, is that you can´t forget here that Christmas is a holiday to celebrate the birth of Jesus. I live in a very Catholic community. So there´s also a lot of religious background to this holiday. Which, I mean, makes sense. I didn´t have the heart to tell them that Jesus wasn´t actually born anywhere near this time of year and the Christians only celebrate Christmas at this time to overshadow the Pagan celebration of the Winter Solstice. They probably wouldn´t believe me anyway. :-p

I had an interesting conversation the other day with a man from my community about the Panamanian government. You see, we´re still in the process of officially declaring a particular area around my site a National Protected Area. But the people who own farms within the limitations of the area, about 20 families, are actually very upset about the idea. Why? Because they don´t trust their government. They understand that for right now, having a farm in a Protected Area doesn´t change much, except for some restrictions. Such as you can no longer slash and burn your farm, which is bad for the soil and air in general. But overall, they can still keep their land and plant what they´ve always planted. Many many people throughout the country live and work in Protected Areas. But some of these men don´t trust that with this new status, the government won´t use it as an excuse to come in the future and take away their land. They want written documentation of their rights as property owners in this area. So we´re having a meeting about this in two weeks and it should work out fine. It was just quite interesting to talk to this man for an hour about his government and why he doesn´t trust them and how (he says) things were so much better when the Americans were here. The Americans kept the country clean, they contributed to society, they helped people, the poor weren´t as poor when they were here. Now the government is corrupt, and the Chinese (or Chinos) have moved in and they don´t help. They only help other Chinos. They own all the stores but they raise the prices and only buy from each other and don´t contribute to the economy as a whole. Now the country is dirty with garbage everywhere and the poor are getting poorer. The price of rice, milk, gas, transportation and building supplies has gone up dramatically. And now they´re going to take away their farms, which they live off of. They are sustinence farmers. Take away their farms and you take away most of their food. Needless to say it was an interesting conversation.

Overall, things are still moving along. Hope all is well up north! Felices Fiestas! :)