San Miguel Centro is about a 6-hour walk from one to the other, and smack dab in the middle of a rainforest. A real rainforest. Not the dinky kind you see in movies. It is absolutely gorgeous to the point that words, or even pictures cannot do it justice. I was under the impression that rainforests were flat - oh no no no. From the hill where the school and church are, there are 3+ mountains covered with vegetation. Agh. It's wonderful. From the porch of our host family's house, we also have a breathtaking view. It's like nothing I have ever seen. As someone said when we arrived, "We are literally in heaven." Well, I don't know about that, but it sure looks like how I would picture heaven. The town consists of about 1,000 people, all the friendliest I have ever met. The kids are shy at first but warm up fast when you start playing games with them.
We had a "cultural awareness meeting" then met our host families, playing 'zip, zap, zop' as an icebreaker with them. Anne and I are staying with Pedro and Vasilijia (Vah-seel-lee-ah, not sure about the spelling) and their children- the daughter's name sounds like Aumarise and her brother is Josalin (Ho-sah-leen). Aumarise has intellectual disabilities! How cool is it that thousands (hundreds?) of miles away, in a rainforest that you have to drive through a river to get to, I get placed with such a family?! I am so excited. I can't do any music therapy or anything, of course, but that's another not-a-coincidence. P & V have an older daughter that has a son with the name pronounced Arrr-eeel, no idea how it is spelled. He's 2 and is the only one I've met that takes some work. Otherwise, he's adorable and is a regular monkey - climbing everything in sight.
It's amazing how smart, quick and agile all of these kids are. We've been discussing how the U.S. has all of these safety measures and things to protect our kids from getting hurt, and these guys don't...and you don't see anyone getting hurt here. Are they smarter because they have to be? One day we were all around the house and Josalin goes tearing out the door without a word to Pedro. I asked where he went, and apparently to the store. Wow, I thought, they just go. There is so much trust here and it's fantastic.
So I forgot a part - before our families, we were fed by the church - plantains (platanos) and rice. *I just saw our 2-year old running around with a knife. No joke. But I just heard Vasilijia yell at him. Haha.* Plantains are like bananas, without the same sweetness, or taste, really. I think they were fried. Kimber warned us that we'd be having a lot of starches and fried food, and she was definitely right. The drink was what they call chicha, basically what they call every juice beverage. This one was from niranhas, or oranges, but not like Tropicana - this was milder, more watered down and sweeter. Delish. All of it was great. Oh, and Lauren can't eat the plantains, they're too close to bananas.
*My mom just handed me something and instructed me to comodair (eat) it. I'm not sure what I'm eating. Mah-eese is what it sounded like. Oh, mah-eese nuevo. It's in a husk and is sort of a cross between a fruit and a vegetable. New corn. Yumm.*
So, lunch then families. Anne and I (well, really Anne, she's fluent) chatted for a bit and I played with the kids. Apparently our sister's disabilities were caused by a super high fever when she was 8 months old. That stinks. Not too long after going with our families, we headed back to the church for some dinner, which by coincidence was the same as lunch, only with coconut chicha, which no one really drank. Martin, the president of I think the school board, showed us how they peel oranges in SMC. It's sort of a circular motion (I drew a picture here in my journal because it's hard to describe), then they slice off the top and you squeeze and suck up all the juice. Their niranhas are milder than American oranges, not as tart. Mmmm.
Following dinner, we had reflection at Sixta's casa, like we would the following nights. Sixta is the one Zach (Joel's brother) stayed with during his Peace Corps stint. Her husband, Santiago, passed away recently, but her daughter, Nati and her husband Chico and 3 kids live with her. Actually, Chico might be in charge of the school. I remember Joel saying something about that, plus Chico was at the school with us everyday. But yes, reflection. We went around our candle-lit "circle" and shared our high/low points of the day. Most of the low consisted of communication problems, the highs were just being here. I had my first taste of Panamanian coffee, which was AMAZING. I have 3 pounds of it in my pack. They boil the water with sugar, so it's wonderfully perfect without doing anything to it. A lot of the people there grow coffee beans, so it's straight from that area of SMC.
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