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Published: February 5th 2010
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one of these things is not like the other...
At a farm in Jacinto, Veraguas. My internship supervisor and I hung out all day eating fruit, hiking and talking about geophagy O Hey! Been a couple of weeks since I posted so there's some good stuff to catch up on. First off, last week we had off of class to work on our internships, so I spent a couple days in the city at the Patronato office working with a woman named Danya, then took off for a 3-day tour of really small co-op farms in Veraguas run by campesinos. I was accompanied by Eric, the Veraguas rep for the Patronato who met me in Santiago and drove around with me for the tour, taking me to farms, introducing me and helping me to foster conversations about the (apparently slightly sensitive) topic I'm researching (Geophagy/pica). I had some serious learning experiences, sometimes learning more about how to ask about the topic to get the people to open up about it rather than actually collecting any serious amount of data. I'm really happy with what I got out of the trek and can't wait to get out there again and take a slightly different approach to see how I can have some more meaningful conversations. The conversations in between the intervews about geophagy were just as meaningful to me, sitting and eating fruit
The gang at the fair
A great fair in Chorrera, about 1.5 hours away from the city and feeding chickens with people of the farms talking about their lives, struggles, relationships, day-to-day happenings, etc. It was also great practice since not a lick of english was spoken by anyone I saw for almost a week. I got back to the city exhausted and ready for a weekend, which we spent barbequeing, swimming, salsa dancing, and going to the fair! There was a great fair in a town called La Chorrera about an hour and a half from the city that gave Canada's Wonderland a run for its money...but then again it was also 1/100th the price! I discovered a new favourite food- fried yucca with salsa (amazing) - clearly washed down with Panama beer. I took some pics and a short video to say hi. It was a great weekend and we topped it all off with a Sunday dinner at the house of the prof of our next class, who lives close to us in the city. She came to Panama years ago for some research, married a Panamanian and now lives half the year there and half here (not bad!). For the class we took a field trip to Isla Barro Colorado, the island where
the canal opens up into a lake near the caribbean coast. Before we went our prof warned us about africanized bees (aka Killer Bees) and kindly let us know that if you're attacked there is nothing anyone can do... say your prayers! But thankfully the only insects that bothered us (even after we tucked our pants into our socks and taped our sleeves to our wrists) were some ticks and chiggers (itchyyyy). We also spotted some pretty cool animals while we trekked around for almost 10 hours- howler monkeys, agoutis, toucans & spider monkeys.
We've been feverishly planning for next weekend when CARNAVAL starts!! Apparently the whole country shuts down and chaos ensues. We're going to the town of Las Tablas in the Azuero peninsula (the bit that juts out the bottom of Panama into the Pacific) where it's supposed to be the best fiesta. The two sides of town each pick a queen to rep their hoods and they battle with floats, parades, songs, water fights and dances to have the best spirit. The party lasts Friday through Wednesday, and there's about 24 of us from the crew that are renting a house together for the week (for beans)
that's a 10-min walk from the city center. After wed we're going straight from Las Tablas to climb a volcano in the west. Volcan Baru is in the province of Chiriqui near a town called Boquete and is about 3500m (~11,500ft). We'll take 2 days to hike, camping near the top and waking up early to reach the summit at dawn.Carnaval + Volcano? I'm pretty dang excited for next week!
I added some more pics from Santa Fe a couple weeks ago, pics from the fair, and some from a dinner we made. We wanted to mesh the cultures of Quebec and Panama so we made poutine with yucca and plantain and it was aaamazing. Victor, the panamanian that lives with us said he really liked it!
I hope everyone is doing really well, surviving frozen February and if need be, getting ready for midterms!! Hahaha I'm so cruel.
Stay fly friends & fam. Much love!
Lach
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