As many of you know, Lisa and I have our birthdays two weeks apart. Hers usually comes first so she has time to plan mine based on how well I fared with hers.
This year, we had a really good friend named Andi come up for the day and spend the night. She lives in a village a couple of hours away. Early that morning, I snuck out of bed and joined our neighbors/landlords at their store to help butcher a cow. I'd written on their announcements all around town that the cow-killing was for Lisa's birthday though they had planned it before they knew. After an hour and a half of waving flies off the meat with a leafy stick, all the edible parts had been sold and I went home to find Lisa up and ready.
We paseared a bit (strolled around the community passing the time), waited until Andi came, and had a nice little snack for lunch. We'd started a chill afternoon, just hanging out with Andi and another couple of new volunteers who just started their tour in the Comarca (one lives in our village and the other uses it as a chiva stop before his two-hour hike.) As we were discussing how to get the meat smoked in the communal fogon (three-rock cooking fire) that our family group shares, a gringo was lead up to our house by our old host grandpa.
This guy was very white, appeared to be in his late 30's, and spoke excellent Spanish. He immediately asked which of us was Ben and Lisa. He explained that he was traveling around Central America to look at different mining projects. Although we were weary at first, he soon explained how he found us and what was his angle.
This guy was a professor of a university in Canada and part of an NGO that monitors the mining activities of Canadan companies around the world. It seems that he was at another volunteer's site a few days before and had gotten our names from her as the closests PCVs to the huge (4th biggest in the world) copper deposit further up the road from us. He was interested to know what kinds of propaganda and trainings the most recent petitioner had been offering to the indigenous people.
After talking with the guy for a while (during which I'd excused myself for a bit to smoke the meat), and introducing him to our neighbor so he could ask some questions directly, this newcomer invited himself to Lisa's birthday dinner. The two new volunteers had already left for their own meals with their host families. We turned the fresh delicious cuts into fajitas. We'd brought up tortillas, refried beans, and salsa already and picked up some veggies from the local market. They were scrumptuous, but it was kind of a drag having a stranger around, even though he left us with a beer and some fruit juice.
Lisa was a bit frustrated that most of the day had been about mine. It was not the best birthday on record.
My birthday, on the otherhand, was better. Again, we had some strangers come to visit, but of an entirely different sort. While I was acting as a training facilitator for the new group of business volunteers, our boss pulled me aside to ask if a married couple could visit us that weekend. This was Monday and they would basically be coming back with me on Thursday. Another curveball: Lisa was supposed to be out of town for the first few days of the visit although that ended early so it was only one night. Originally, the couple had been scheduled to go to another site, but those volunteers had ended their tour early so a quick change had to take place.
Being the flexible, hardworking PCVs that we are, we agreed right away. Nevertheless, it was another birthday for me with people that I barely knew. This has happened to both Lisa and I often in our lives because our birthdays are late in the summer and because we moved so much, thus we were able to have a good time regardless. It also helped that the people who came to visit were very friendly and a lot like us (you could say he's a smartass and she's the planner).
Over the weekend, we hiked to villages around us where Lisa and I have been working. We gave a talk about planning, paseared with families that we enjoy spending time with, and started a clay oven. They held up really well, and like us, fell in love with the Comarca cloud forest almost as soon as they arrived. It was a bit rainy (it is the rainy season) during their visit, but all in all it went well. The best part was the cake that Eli cooked for me before we went to work on the oven. MMMM: double layer chocolate cake covered in chocolate frosting.
Overall, we really had a good time with them. We played hearts in the evenings and joked almost constantly. They did some of the hardest Comarca hikes/car rides and held up admirably. We are looking forward to seeing much more of them, especially considering they'll be back for Tech Week on the 20th!
Random Fact from Lisa: Government of Panama is building a sidewalk in our community.
