Crecer. To Grow.
Growth is a cycle, not a continuum. It begins with birth: think seedlings, think rosy red infant cheeks, think squeeling newborn kittens on a rice sack in the attic, think the very first day I stepped foot on the Isthmus. Maduration follows: ripening mangos, ripening minds, hormonal young boys and wiser (sometimes) old ones. And then death. Think Tio Amado, a good man who passed away this last week, brittle brown tomato stalks, think of those same kittens, cold, stiff, and silent. Add time, add heat, add earthworms. Repeat.
So much has happened in the year I have now been serving in the peace corps.... (Yes! One year has come and gone!) So much has happened since my last blog entry, since last week, since yesterday. How do I even begin to catch you up on what has been, what is, the story of constant growth.
In the last few months our community, as well as a few neighboring communities, have sprung alive with organic home gardens. First there was one (my own), now there are 27. Supporting and promoting the vegetable gardens has become a cornerstone of my service. Somedays, usually Mondays, I walk for hours, from dusk to dawn, visiting the gardens. If I dont make it to all the gardens in one day, I do it again on Tuesday. Those visiting days are the best days. Sometimes I do it just to pat backs, give a thumbs up, and keep the excitement alive--(you should see how excited people get when they show off their gardens.) Other times folks ask me questions about problems theyve been having and we pick a day of the week for me to return and work with them. And I do.
I love everything about gardens. I love planting them, I love talking about them, I love the look on peoples faces, that beautiful beam of pride and natural wonder when they finally have get to harvest something or see the first flowering tomato plant. I love the dirt in my fingernails and in my hair and under my toenails. I love the smell of compost. I love hiking for an hour to help make an insect repellant in five minutes. And of course, I LOVE eating from the gardens. Right now we are just begining to get the first of the tomato and cucumber harvests. Our gardening group is done with their training (a FAO program) and now we have been left to our own devices. Im taking advantage of the momentum and enthusiasm, and this week I will be doing my first nutrition and healthy cooking class. We are going to talk about the health benefits of these veggies and healthy, diverse ways to prepare them. This weeks menu is...... Bean Burritos with Pico de Gallo and steamed corn on the cob. Delicious, no? My one rule for cooking class is that nothing will be fried. ever. period. and no ingredients will come from the city (which is 2 hours away), and everyone will learn that rice and macaronis and fried meat is not a complete or delicious meal no matter how much grease and MSG you throw on it....Sooo heres to gardens, to better health, and taller children, ie. heres to growth in the physical sense. But theres oh-so-much-more growing here in Panama.... its not all physical, nor is it not all external.
Im growing, too. I play back memories of myself, my life before this life. I see myself in the mirror and on the outside its mostly the bugbites and sunburns and gnarled hair and sweaty everything, but when I look at my eyes staring back at me from my ductape-rigged mirror I see inside myself, too, and I know that Im not the same there, either. I wonder if others can see it, or if Im seeing what I believe and feel rather than what is visible. I think Ive gotten older here. I look at photos from before I arrived and I see a young college girl, smiley, giggly, part girl-part grown up, happier among children than among adults, blissfully naive and pretentious. And now? Probably still just as pretentious and smiley, but a lot less naive, a lot more like a woman than a girl. In fact, I feel like I lost something of the child in me while Ive been here. I dont want to say thats a sad thing, because there is a magic in the world of women that is different from that of the childs world. I really enjoy working with women here. I love their silent power and their hugs, the way they take passerbyers under their roofs and nurture them. I love the quaint things they do to bring beauty into their lives and imminent surroundings, they way they love children and one another, the constant sacrifices they make to bring serenity and comfort to others, the comments they make to one another when men arent around that leave them giggling like a bunch of little girls. For the first time in my life I find that I enjoy being among the women than among the children. Could it be that Im really becoming one of them or is it just cultural? (Afterall these campo children are a lot crazier than our well-groomed, well-trained kids back in the US....and there are a lot of them!) Its hard to tell from here, but the fact is that Im happy to be one of them. Im happy to be growing.
What is strange is to think I am officially ¨over-the-hill¨ of my service. The realization of this fact has led me to speculate about what is to come...My next life. I suppose I should get a masters degree, pay off some debts, and echar pa delante, but I fantasize that I will sustain this momentum forever. Continue to travel, live in a foreign land, promote gardens and health and harmony with nature. When the light is just-so I can see myself someday working for the FAO
or USAID, and when it changes I see myself just as clearly as an artist promoting
social and behavioral change, or a photographer for National Geographic,
or a journalist, or a farmer. I wont stay here, though. As much as I love my home here (and I do LOVE this life so much), like any living entity, this experience, too, must come to its dying day. And on this day, I feel like I will be ready to move on from Latin America, to start fresh. After all, growth is a cycle.
-------------------
P.S. Some exiciting news. Si Hay Pan! (Yes, there IS Bread!) I should really send out some pictures of the mud oven we built for the bread shop (yeahhhh woman power! hauling sand and packing mud like you wouldnt believe we could...it was AWESOME). We finished a business seminar recently and now make two hundred breads two days a week and sell them for a nickle a pop. Our goal is to have 2 recipes down-pat by mid august and to start trying cake recipes in September. Fun, eh? Just wait till we get zucchinis from the garden. Im about to rock their world with zucchini bread....hehehehehe.
P.S.S. Will send photos the next time I get internet access.
P.S.S.S. I love you folks.
No comments:
Post a Comment