I'm pretty sure this has been a crazy week for just about everybody on the planet, but if anyone is quarantined and looking for something to read, pues, I got ya.
We did a bold thing and decided to do divisions with the Hermanas of Ticantiqui Island (this was before everything escalated...), so we got up early on Tuesday morning and caught a panga headed por allá. Being in a panga just feels like the last 15 seconds of Star Tours when the ship is skidding and bouncing to a stop, but instead of 15 seconds, it's 2 and a half hours. It was very scenic and fun but also made us very woozy so when we arrived and Hna Lopez didn't feel good we didn't think much of it, until BAM. Throw up. pain. diarrhea... The whole shabam. Hna Lopez was sick! [but not me, gracias sea bands and Dramamine] and we were like "wow we're just the worst hermana leaders ever, we're so sorry."
Anne of Ticantiqui Island
But then on Wednesday she was better, so we started divisions and about mid-day the Branch President was like "Bye kids, I'm gonna go pick up some food in the port before it closes" and we were like "They´re closing the port?" and he goes "Yeah, this is the last panga and then we're not going back out again" and we go "wot!" and he goes "yeah ya'll better hurry and hop in cause it's leaving in the next 5 minutes" and we said "wait for us!" and we scrambled to pack up all our things and skidadle over to the dock and then they go "Oh wait no, they're closing the port but you can still travel between islands for now" so it was just a false alarm and we stayed there to finish divisions but there was lots of stress and spice because one of the Hermanas over there is finishing her mission in 2 weeks, but we all know there's been lots of drama about traveling and such so she was very worried. Anyways.
Ticantiqui Island (red pin that says Panama) is a 2.5-hour boat ride from our island of Carti Tupile (over on left side).
Ticantiqui Island, off the coast of Ticantiqui, Panama
This is someone's pet monkey who lives on Ticantiqui. He used to be depressed cause he just had a log to live on and he was tied up but now he has his own tree and he's a happy boy. He was very funny and would grab anything you had loose in your bag and try to eat it. His name is Ricardo.
Us with Hna Brian and Hna Call
Kids on Ticantiqui with herbal necklaces to protect them from the coronavirus
Ticantiqui Crab
We get back from divisions and BAM Hermana Tolman gets struck down with a cold. Not coronavirus, just a cold. But it's a bad time to be having a cold. The Kunas are going ALL OUT with their medicine. Everyone's burning leaves outside their homes and has protective necklaces and face paint and plant water. We were just observing from afar until yesterday as we were walking out of the Branch president's house, one of the members grabs my hand and starts rubbing this sticky clear juice all over it (they smash the seeds of a plant with a rock and then wrap it in cloth) and turns out it's the very same sticky plant juice that they use on the girls when they go through puberty and with time it stains your skin DARK DARK blue and apparently is "armor".
Armor hands and a protective doll necklace, courtesy of the Kunas
Anyways they proceeded to paint our faces and noses and tie medicinal plants and tiny dolls around our necks that will supposedly protect us from coronavirus and visit us if we pray to them. It's been a strange balance this week of respecting cultural beliefs and accepting their love and care but also being like "Hey woah, praying to tiny dolls is BAD and against the commandments of God!" And it's funny, cause we take off the paint and then right when we leave the house they come out of nowhere and paint us again. What can ya do.
We've heard from a lot of people this week that the Kunas are 'immune' to Coronavirus because supposedly Christ told that to them when he visited them anciently. That the rest of the world can be affected by mass plagues but that their blood is different and it can't happen. All they need to do is sweep their houses and go to congress and they'll be fine. The thing is, their dialect isn't written it's just spoken, but what they believe is that a man in white came down from the heavens with a woman and when he spoke at first they thought it was just the sound of the river and they didn't understand but then eventually they did. And then they taught them how to cook and sew and build houses and bury their dead, and then they chose 12 men from among them but only 3 of them stayed forever. It's basically just 3 Nefi 11. They're the Nephites. But there's been some major apostasy happening and they've been changing things over the years from retelling the story verbally. Anyways. That's all I think.
Panama apparently has very much Coronavirus (all the Kunas gather around the 1 TV in the Sila's house and we saw this week that Panama reached 100 cases!) but it's not yet reached San Blas and no one's allowed to come or go so I guess you could say I'm safe and sound. I'll just have to stay here forever and marry a Kuna and go hunting in the monte to survive.
Just kidding that was all a joke, this is all part of God's plan and I know if we follow the prophet we'll all be just fine. I've felt lots of peace that we've been put in the places we are with the people we're with for a reason. But that doesn't mean we don't need to repent and come unto Christ, cause believe me...
we do.
Hna Lopez and I with some protective necklaces that a member made for us. It's some sort of herb from the monte that's good for the lungs wrapped up in fabric.
The big cauldrons are the women of the island making dulemasi (a soup of coconut water and bananas and salt and lime) for the whole island cause another little girl reached puberty. We helped them fan their fire for a solid hour and we were dripping sweat from how big the fire got. None of the ladies spoke Spanish but they were delighted to receive our help. (This was right when we got back to Carti Tupile after divisions)
Well, this week a kiddo named Emerson got baptized.
Emerson's Baptism
He is a funny, funny boy. There seems to be a lot of arguing here about how old people are so when I got here Emerson was always following us around telling us he wanted to get baptized but his grandpa was like "no he's about to turn 8 not 9" and everyone's like "yeah hmm probably that seems about right" (and when they're 8 we're not supposed to teach them cause it's a baptism of the branch not of the mission) but long story short we found his cedula and he was actually gonna turn 9 so we put a baptismal date for his birthday (yesterday) and taught him all the lessons.
The zipper on Emerson's baptismal suit is broken cause the salt water corrodes the metal so I gave him a safety pin from my dress to help close it up but there was still this funny opening in the suit, haha.
Then we got the bread boy (island baker) to make a cake and we decorated it with Nutella.
It had a very rubbery texture and didn't taste very good but Emerson was a happy boy when he received it and basically just licked all the Nutella off haha. It was a happy fun time.
Anyways here in San Blas they do a lot of things to scare away evil spirits and this week there's been a lot of drama on the island having to do with evil spirits (maybe a little too intense to talk about in a group email, but I'll tell you the story if you ever ask me). All this to say, we got our faces painted with red plant juice more than a few times. They also put mirror shards outside their houses and burn leaves and slap the walls and hammocks with giant leaves.
Dule-masi, fish, and soda for Lunch
At the end of a rather mentally challenging day, Hna Lopez found this doll and was laughing cause she said it looked just like me
This week I'ma teach y'all how supposedly to pray in Dulegaya (I say supposedly just cause I struggle to recognize all this when I hear them pray but this is how they tell us it is):
(Ammar or ani or we or ve) bab segoleh = (We or I or he,she or you) are going to pray. Pab dummad = Heavenly Father anoedi = I thank thee ambega sogeh = I ask thee JesuCristo bamachi nuki = In the name of Jesus Christ, amen (or literally it would just be Jesus Christ the Son, amen)
I love you all, have a good weeeeeek
The bread boy makes pizza with canned hot dogs and tiny squares of american cheese.
The final product. I'm always hungry at night but cooking is really hard to do in the dark so I always give in and buy some.
An artsy pic I took with the cat that lives in our house when we found him chilling in the window.
We spend a lot of our time being island nurses and using our hydrogen peroxide and ointment to help out the Kunas. Lets just say there is a lot of disease here.
We went to the shopping island to buy fruit, and when we came back with a watermelon everyone that saw us with it told us to keep the rinds to feed to the turtles. We were like ??turtles??, but soon discovered there's this family that essentially has a bunch of giant pet sea turtles that live right by their house.
We did the honors of helping prepare some warm banana mush so that we could drink it in a mug afterwards. idk.
Need to cross to the other island? All you need is a big block of styrofoam and an oar!
I took a sneaky video trying to show how the Kuna Dialect sounds. This is all we hear all around us during the day unless jovens are talking to us directly.
I took this video to send to my cousin Abby on her birthday but it doubles as a tender memory of Rosa, one of the funny members who takes care of us a lot
A sad short story is that me and Hna Lopez bought some gnocci while we were in the city and we fried it thinking that somehow it would taste good but it was NASTY. So we fed it to this cat and a couple weeks later the cat died. We dont *think* it was our fault but it could've been and we feel terrible.
Video of one of the sea turtles eating our watermelon rinds
I tried taking a picture of a bird on my camera and it came out weird but I kind of looks like a cool painting or something so I kept it.
In this video you can hear the medicine man singing- a sound that is almost constantly going on in the background of any day.
It started with the celebration of the Revolution of 1925 which is basically when the Panamanians came into San Blas and tried to take out their nose rings and mola (traditional clothing) and all their traditions and force them to adopt the Panamanian culture and they fought back. Everyone wore traditional clothes and they had their chicha fuerte and they put their flags up. The Kuna flag is a swastika with yellow and red stripes and it still throws me off.
We also had a special surprise trip to the Panama City, just us and the Zone Leaders for a leadership conference. It was shocking and fun cause usually San Blas doesn't get invited. I got to see all my friends and receive the Chick-fil-a sauce my parents sent me and buy new ear buds for pday calls home.
The most eventful day of all was yesterday cause we had a baptism. I filmed a FUN video the second day I was here about how they have baptisms here but the internet here is actually so bad that it would probably take a full day to send so I'll just tell ya and you can all pretend you're seeing my fun video. When we have baptisms we go to a different island. Basically we just have a shopping island, a baptism island, and a proselyting island.
Anyways so on Saturday night we go to the guy that lets us use his panga (his boat) to get to the baptism island and he goes ¨yep everything's all good, I'll take you tomorrow to the other island¨ and we were like ¨ok and it's for sure for sure?¨ and he goes ¨yeah¨ and we go ¨100%? cause if not it's ok we just need to find someone else¨ and he goes ¨NO don't even worry Hermanas I'll be there¨ but of course on Sunday the hour arrives and he doesn't show up or answer his phone for half an hour and then when we finally get ahold of him he goes ¨oops ahh sorry can't¨ so after much searching we found a panga to take us but it was a little, well, en panga. That's panama slang for sketchy and in very bad condition. There were no seats or anything, it was just a bare metal boat so we got mega sprayed in the face with ocean water all the way there and back but it was FUN and happy. Albeniz (on his birth certificate it says Albaniz cause they messed up so he says ¨here in Carti they call me Albeniz but in the city they call me Albaniz¨ so the joke is that all you kids at home have to read his name as Albaniz but for us here it's Albeniz. ok? ok. ok. but anyways yeah he's the guy I wrote about last week who I met before and he is a baptized man! Ahora si, ahora si.
Then after we got back we had to run a bunch of little errands and when we finally got back to the house we were very wet and tired and covered in salt and sand and we walk in the house and see a BIG BOY spider on the wall. Like probably the biggest-boy spider I've ever seen without it being a tarantula (I wanted to exaggerate it and say it was bigger but probably it was about the size of the palm of my hand). Anyways, Hna Lopez and I were like ¨no U kill it¨ for a few minutes before we see this guy walking by and call out to him and he goes ¨oh pfft these are just normal hermanas, don't worry¨ and smashes it with his bare hand and rips his legs off. it was memorable.
What else. oh yes. my fun series
Kuna Tradition of the week:
One day we were helping this girl gather river water and we asked her how she met her husband and all that. We learned that in San Blas if you get caught talking to someone of the opposite sex after dark, you have to pay a $100 fine and if they catch you again, they force you to get married. The way they get married here is "por la hamaca," es decir, they put the soon-to-be newlyweds in a hammock together and swing it and then they have to get out and bathe each other and then they go back and swing in the hammock and repeat that process 4 times and then they're married. We were like ¨wait so like you didn't even want to get married?¨ and she just goes ¨´sta duro aqui¨ (it is hard here)
And now for your dulegaya lesson, I thought I'd put together a list of words that vaguely resemble English that I've learned this week:
igi wachi nika? = what time is it? (wachi, watch)
igi mani? = how much does it cost? or the literal translation would be "what money?"
sappy = tree, haha
orman = old man
soogar= sugar
And that's all for this week. But HEY I've progressed a lot this week in dulegaya. Now when people ask me simple things I can respond and after teaching with a little bit of dulegaya and seeing how they pay WAY more attention and understand better gives me lots of motivation to keep practicing. One day I want to film a kuna lady explaining something to us cause its the funniest thing ever, they use lots of hand motions and make all these sound effects to help us understand and it just tickles my funny bone in a way that nothing else can and I don't know how to explain it to other people.
Anyways, the only other thing I wanted to say is that my testimony has been strengthened and is being strengthened that the Lord is at the head of his work, that he knows how to do his own work, and that he allows us to participate only so we can feel the great joy that comes from it. Sometimes on this tiny island everything just feels just a little out of control and actually crazy but I've seen and can testify from little miraculous moments that when we recognize and allow God to do his own work instead of relying on our own experience and ability, things go a lot better.
Also the kids playing outside the church just yelled ¨Hermanas! We found a new game!¨ and what they're doing is sticking their faces in the sand to make a mask of sand but its getting in their eyes and probably its time for me to go, bye!
Baptism Beach
In the boat on the way to the baptism
Tender memories of getting soaked from head to toe cause the boat we took to the baptism island was very wimpy and small.
Mission Leadership Conference
Me Bringing my Poly Sauce to Every Corner of the Earth
All 3 of my MTC district Hermanas have been Hna Montero's companion!
Crab in bucket-shower pipe
The baptism island explanation video I mentioned
As I explain in the video, a little crab was in our water well. The second half of the video is me trying to fish it out after he fell in.
Riding back with the Zone Leaders
My mom has a friend in the choir whose husband and son were planning a trip to Panama, so she asked me if I wanted her to send anything through them and I said "ChickfilA and Polynesian Sauce!". So she bought me the 8oz containers of them and then when her friend's family got here they went to church and saw our mission nurse and asked her if she knew me and she said yes! So she brought them with her to the conference and I was able to pick them up from the mission offices at the conference this week. Truly a miracle for my taste buds
When we were at the dock about to go back to the island, the ZLs left to go talk to somebody about our boat. We were waiting for a long time and wondered where they went and then we turn and see them riding on this little four wheeler. It made us laugh
(almost) all my hermana friends in one picture!
The big hut where they hold their congreso, also ft. the Kuna Flag that looks like something else
The Kuna Flag
We got news that back on the mainland, Gisela (Leandro's mom, a woman that got to know super well) got baptized! And it was fun that Hna Strong, my mission mom got to be there for it!
Our shower 💖 there's no door so when it's windy we feel extra exposed to the elements
I was eating a tortilla with parmesan and marinara sauce as a snack (cooking is hard after dark but I'm always hungry) and Hna Lopez thought it was gross and hilarious so she took a picture
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