The Sounds of Silence

For the past week people of the Comarca Ngabe-bugle have been protesting a proposed mine and hydroelectric dam that is to be put on their reservation against their will. Just like last year, all along the Interamericana Highway - the only trans-country road in Panama - people have blocked vehicle passage with logs, metal street signs burning tires, semi-trucks, and rocks. Travel is impossible, tensions are high, and everything is escalating.

Protesters at Horconcitos, one of the protest sites (photo courtesy of Jack Fischl)

burning tire (photo courtesy of Jack Fischl)

The Ngabe's demand that a government contingent of three people - including Ricardo Martinelli, the President of Panama - travel to the Reservation to meet with its government. Martinelli declined to do this but counter-offered to fly the 'Cacique' ("chief" or "leader" of the Comarca) to Panama City for a meeting, but this time it was the Cacique's turn to refuse.

The protesting continued and the following day a call from Martinelli is all it took to turn off all the cellphone stations in the Comarca. Now protesters wont be able to organize as easily and Peace Corps can't contact me except by sending a radio announcement, which may not reach me. 

On returning home on the fourth of February my neighbor, Victor Salinas, engaged me in a conversation and explained how he views the events of the past few days:

We are rich. We are poor but we are rich. There are three mountains that have gold in the Comarca and outsiders want to take it. What will happen if the mine is built? Multi-national companies will get richer and we will get poorer because the mine would contaminate our land and streams. Animals would die and crops wouldn't grow. Look Choy, the Spanish came here five-hundred years ago and took our land, killed most of our people, and stole all of our gold for themselves. Now these Latinos are trying to do it again but we've learned -we're saying "no more"

On the fifth of February Martinelli sent the police to open up the roadblocks. Armed with rubber bullets and tear gas they faced off against slingshot and molotov-coctail carrying Ngabe's. Four Ngabe's have died as a result of the clashes and hundreds more have been injured, including a couple dozen policemen. Last year, only one person died.

protesters and policemen clash (photo courtesy of www.elnuevodiario.com)

A Ngabe man armed with a slingshot (photo courtesy of  http://www.elpais.cr)    

In my attempt to watch the Superbowl I hiked 1.5 hours to Cerro Sombrero where I intended to catch a pickup truck to the nearest town, Tole. It was an eerie hike. Normally the houses I pass blare annoying Panamanian Tipico music but on this day I heard no music. At every house families were huddled around their radios and listening to the news. Each family was listening to the same station because the others were shut down. Even the people I passed on the trail were holding radios to there ears, hanging on every word the newscaster spoke. This is the most important event to happen to these people since the Ngabe's marched on the capital and won the creation of their reservation back in 1997. It is easy to understand why nobody here can think or talk about anything else. 

Upon my arrival in Cerro Sombrero I saw two large groups of people huddled around two small televisions, watching live footage of policemen clashing with protesters on the highway. I joined the smaller group and was immediately overwhelmed by the site of policemen shooting guns and Ngabe's throwing rocks through tear gas. I almost cried when I saw footage of four men carrying their dead friend through a crowd. They just don't show that kind of stuff in the United States.

Before I could process what I just saw a truck pulled up and interrupted our fixation on the television. The driver stuck his head out the window and yelled to us, "muchachos, lets go! Grab your machetes and rocks -we're going to defend the Comarca! Hurry! Lets go!" Upon hearing these words a group of men ran toward the truck. Armed and packed like sardines in the truck bed they sped off down the road to Tole. I felt uncomfortable being the only gringo there and knew I needed to leave but before I could another truck pulled up, filled with men, and  it too raced off down the road.

At the departure of the second truck I hiked home. During the hike my head filled with pressing questions: How will all this end? How many more will die? Am I in danger? How many more days will my food last before I need to re-stock? How can I contact people and be contacted without cellphone signal? Will Peace Corps remove me from my site? If so, how will they do it? After these questions sat with me for a while my worry subsided and as my thoughts shifted I began trying to process what I was experiencing. Immediately I remembered the protest movement in the United States. You can imagine the shock I felt when I had a momentary epiphany that these two groups of protesters - however different they might seem - are actually fighting the same forces: the power of money and extreme inequality. 

When I got home I glanced at the calendar. Below February 5 was written "Superbowl Sunday." As a sports fan dying to see the rematch of the greatest Superbowl ever I was surprised that in the excitement of the day I had forgotten about the game and furthermore, didn't mind missing it. Noam Chomsky once said, "One of the functions that things like professional sports play in our society and others is to offer an area to deflect people's attention from things that matter." 

With this sentiment in my thoughts I couldn't help thinking about the hundreds of millions of Americans who, glued to their televisions and watching the Giants cream the Patriots yet again, had no idea Ngabe's were being exploited and killed not too far away. 

And probably never will. 

Xmas in the City of Eternal Spring

The group: Omar, John, Moiz, Kate, Charles, me, Jess, Carolyn, and Coy

I almost titled this post "One Thousand Reasons Colombia is Cooler than Panama" because after a week in Colombia we Panama PCV´s wanted to early terminate our PC service, move to Colombia, and never leave. Indeed, we found a new reason to celebrate November 3rd -the day Panama celebrates its separation from Colombia: Panama can´t dilute Colombia´s pristine and pure culture and general perfectness. I should confess that as a PCV I am prone to romanticising things a bit, so I think I should hold off the comparisons until I know exactly how many times cooler Colombia really is (it´s probably closer to 750). Until I know I´ll just stick to writing positively about Colombia.

On December 19 ten of us departed the Panamanian port town of Portobelo and began sailing aboard the Ave Maria through the Caribbean Sea toward Colombia. Also aboard were our Australian Captain, Paul, and Ornella, our sassy Sicilian-Argentinian cook (when she wasn´t sleeping). Things started off without a hitch.

Not.

The first night was so rocky four of us ended up puking over the side of the boat, Kate flew out of her five foot high bed to the wooden deck and hit her head on a metal pole, and the captain had serious doubts about our mettle. Questioning our mettle is not something PCV´s are used to hearing so Omar set the captain straight in one particularly dramatic moment when he said, "We are Peace Corps Volunteers! You think being on this boat is hard for us? You should see what we go through every day. You could put us through hell but we will NEVER, EVER quit on you, Captain."

He was right. We didn´t quit and the rest of the trip went off without a hitch. Oh wait, except when we hit an anchored boat full of overweight middle-aged European nudists (one of which was pregnant) and Omar -to everyone´s surprise- actually said something more dramatic than before. He took one look at some black specks in the water, determined we were going to sink, and announced to everybody, "we´re fu****!"

We weren´t fu****, though, because paint chips don´t sink a boat, and this time everything did go off without a hitch (until we arrived Cartagena late and missed our flight to Medellin, but I am getting ahead of myself).

While the captain navigated with his computer and managed the sails the rest of us paired off and cycled through three hour shifts behind the wheel for twenty-four hours a day. We stayed one night on a tiny postcard island to celebrate Omar´s birthday and snorkled through beautiful reefs off its coast. The rest of our time we listened to the Rolling Stones top five-hundred songs, ate good food, explained to Captain Paul how to save the world, and tried to name as many sailing-related colloquialisms as we could (we stopped around sixty).

Omar and Coy off the coast of a small island in the Kuna Yala´s

The precise moment (and this is too corny for even Omar to make up) we entered Colombian waters a pod of dolphins met, swam with, and seemed to guide our boat for half an hour. We all congregated at the bow to watch them and kept remarking how fantastic and surreal the experience was. Even though it was, by the looks of things the dolphins seemed to be enjoying it more than us.

Later that day we arrived Cartagena but because we missed out flight we spent a night in the airport. But our bad luck did not diminish our holiday spirit and when we finally arrived a quaint house in the heart of Medellin on December 24th we had a Christmas celebration with Omar´s family that not only lasted until three in the morning but made us ever so jealous of everyone who has been lucky enough to be raised in Colombia (come on, it´s just Pablo Escobar, cocaine, and the FARC!). The food was incredible. We sang Xmas songs, hugged and kissed each other, sang Happy Birthday to Omar, and were treated as family. The most heart warming part of the celebration was that gift-giving completely revolved around the sweet-yet-spunky ninety-two year old Grandmother. EVERYONE had a wrapped gift for her and excitedly waited while she opened them.

The rest of our stay was a whirlwing tour that thoroughly convinced us that Medellin is the greatest city in the world (back off NY). Omar´s cousins, Carlos and Carlos, met us every morning and showed us their favorite parts of the city. We visited a poor neighborhood via cablecars where a fabulous library was strategically placed to encourage education and development. We climbed the rock at Guatape, strolled through the botanical gardens, walked through the famous Xmas lightshow on the river at night, and went to the Botero Museum on our last day. Day by day we became more obsessed with Colombia. Thoughtful city design, beautiful public works projects, friendly people, and delicious cousine combined in a way that left of speechless (even Omar).

atop the rock at Guatape



Kate enjoying her Arepas con queso with hot chocolate

Although Xmas in Medellin was not a winter wonderland and we were far away from our families, the city of Carlos and Carlos, of Arepas con queso with hot chocolate, and where ninety-two year old grandmothers steal all the attention on Xmas is where a group of people wished not to be home with their families but for their families to be with them -in the City of Eternal Spring.