Fear is the mind-killer...

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
- Dune by Frank Herbert.

This quote has popped into my head many, many times during this trip (and not only because I have just finished reading that book). I have done so many things that used to (and still do on some levels) scare me a lot. This past week especially forced me to face several things that terrify me.

First of all, we spent the week in Santa Marta, a small community about a 40 minute chiva (a pick up truck with benches in the back) ride away from Cope. When we got there, we were split into groups and assigned to families. I was placed in a house with Audra and Courtney. Audra studied Spanish in high school, but Courtney has only had a semester’s worth of Spanish. I have had five years, but it has been forever since I have had to use it. I was super scared that we were not going to be able to communicate with our family because they didn’t speak any English. The first night was a little awkward, but after that everything went super well. The family we were placed with, a father (Adonio Rodriguez), mother (Marcelina Arrocha), 25 year old daughter (Marcelina Elena Rodriguez) and a grandma (Elena Sanches), were super patient with us. They spoke slowly and waited while the three of us tried to formulate coherent Spanish sentences.

The first full day we were there, we hiked up to see the remnants of Omar Torrijos’s plane. It was a super intense hike. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it all the way to the top. But I did. It was not worth it. The hike back down was pretty awesome. Plus while I was at the top, my family gave Audra, Courtney and I tea! I finally got to have tea on top of a mountain. There were no Bedouins, but I was still excited.

The next day was the roughest day I have had here in Panama. I felt incredibly useless. I spent the morning volunteering at the school, but I was put into a classroom full of 26 fifth graders with no teacher, no lesson plan and no Spanish… I lost their attention pretty quickly, but I was amazed with how well behaved the kids were. They weren’t paying attention to me, but they stayed in their desks and talked quietly among themselves. There is no way that would happen in the States. After that, I walked with Joey up to meet another group of students who was doing work at the community’s water source. I was expecting a short 5 minute walk, but after 45 minutes of hiking up hill (the day after I climbed a mountain), I hit my breaking point. I was exhausted and tired of walking. Joey and I decided to wait for the rest of the group to go back, but apparently they went a different way so we ended up waiting for much longer than we needed to. That afternoon, we played soccer against the kids. I didn’t play because I was exhausted, physically and emotionally, but it was fun to watch.

The next day was much better. We walked to a couple of waterfalls that are close to the community. I only walked to the first one, because I was still drained from the previous two days of walking. It was really awesome. I swam behind it! That was kind of scary because I don’t swim very often so I am not very good at it. It was another one of those moments where I had to trust people (which I hate doing), but I panicked about half way there and Will had to help me get the rest of the way. I made it though, and it was awesome!

The Santa Marta trip, like the rest of this experience, was both extremely good and extremely terrifying (never really bad… but uncomfortable). I loved spending time with my ‘family,’ but seeing the amount and type of work that they do every day made me feel little bit worthless. I realize more and more on this trip that I can’t really do anything useful. It is a little bit sad, and makes trying to decide what to do with my life extremely difficult. It’s hard to find something to be passionate about if you don’t feel like you can do anything. I’m really excited for my friends because they are getting jobs and going to grad school, but I kind of feel stuck right now. Que Triste…