La Comarca
We have been working for a bit in San Felix. It doesn’t feel like we only have a week and a half left. We are teaching English classes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We split up into two groups every day. Half of us go up to the Comarca, the largest Native American reservation in Central America, to teach sign language to the kids. They speak Ngöbe, but are mostly all bilingual in Spanish also. We also work with some deaf students. There is a lot of witchcraft up there, as well as health problems and isolation. Please continue praying for them.
The other half goes to the children’s home, where girls from the Comarca come down to live while they are in high school. There are no high schools in the Comarca. Apparently it is a big change, especially since their houses in the Comarca have no walls. You know the lizards that run on water, the basilisks? On the walk to the children’s home, we have to cross a little creek where a ton of basilisks like to hang out.
The Panamanians, especially the Native Americans, are naturally reserved, especially towards outsiders. I don’t blame them. They have been hurt and taken advantage of by people like us in the past. But now, they are warming up to us. We get smiles and hugs, and we are missed when we switch groups.
The other day, we went up to Los Cangilones de Guanalaca for Ashley’s birthday before she had to leave to reunite with the other leaders. This is a cool, deep river with waterfalls running through cool rock formations that don’t quite form caves. I have some sweet videos. All of the videos I have from the World Race are going to have to wait to be posted until we get decent internet with giant bandwidth. It was great. There were tons of basilisks there and we got to see a few run on water.
We went to drop Ash off in David the other day and were absolutely dumfounded to see a TGI FRIDAYS. This is PANAMA. They have no business with a Pizza Hut, a Dominos, a Subway with an amazing fish sandwich, a McDonalds, a Safeway (western grocery store chain), and a TGI Fridays. The U.S. is trying to take over the world.
I LOVE RAINY SEASON. The weather is so much nicer. The water turns off a lot here, and the power flickers on and off, but when it rains, if we need to, we can just get our hair wet outside. It pours BUCKETS. And it’s MANGO SEASON!!!! Fresh mangos on the side of the road, just ripe for the picking off the ground. Which we do. And there’s lemons and sweet carrots and taters and pineapple and GREAT apples – which I was surprised about because it’s really hard to get good apples in Central America.
Mentally, I am still very tired and struggling. It was prophesied over me that this month would stretch me and I would be healed of some of my past. But it is a hard process, and I have to keep choosing joy or I would go completely insane. Please pray for the togetherness of our team and the willingness to serve each other during this awkward time of transition.
till next time
-b
