Culture points and catch phrases

During training, I wrote a post about culture in Panama. At the time, I lived with a Latino family and had little exposure to life with Ngobes. I´ve spent over a month in site now and would like to catch up up on some of what I´ve learned. I include catch phrases in this list because I hear each of these sayings many times a week, if not more, and I consider each a culture point in its own right.

¨No hay plata.¨ (There is no money). If Ngobe life was a song, this would be the chorus. People like to end a lot of stories with this sentence, and then look wistfully at me. Sometimes it´s innocent, but it can also be an indirect way of asking for money. Direct communication doesn´t exist in this country, and telling a long story and ending it with this common refrain is the way they know to ask. And they ask often because they think that I am...

The Gringa with money. Panama uses American currency, and everyone knows the U.S. as the place where the money is made. Many also think that its just handed out from the ¨factory¨to anyone who wants some. Everyone is rich, right?, they ask. I have tried to explain this, but in my efforts to explain the basics of inflation, deflastion, and other economic keywords, I often lose them and myself. (If everyone has $1,000, tomorrow when you go to the store, rice will cost $100´, I say). It feels futile anyway, because poverty in the United States is nothing like it is here.

Anyway, needless to say, everyone assumes that because I´m a gringa, I have unlimited piles of money lying around. I´ve been moderately successful in my efforts to dispell this rumor, explaining that I came to live with them, and live like them, so PC only gives me enough for food, money, and transport. I still get asked for money a lot, which is irritating, and from my perspective, kind of hurtful. I left family, friends, and much more to help out here, and it feels like it still isn´t enough. But that´s the thing. I can´t look at it from my perspective. In a way, yes, they do ask me for money more frequently because they assume I have it (and even on my PC stipend, I do have a lot more money than families here), but they also ask because the idea of sharing and gift giving is ingrained in their culture. It isn´t a big deal. It happens all the time, and there isn´t so much of the ¨but this is mine!¨mentaility Americans have.

¨¿Regalame esto?¨- Gift me this? If someone hands me a bag of oranges from their finca, they often say ¨Te regalo,¨meaning ¨I gift this to you.¨Similarly, the idea of money lending and sharing in general much more accepted here. It is not rude to walk up to my bedroom door and say ¨Lend me a dollar.¨Even though it rubs me the wrong way (not even a please!), I remind myself that these are the same people who see me walking and ask worriedly if I´ve eaten yet, and if the answer is no, and they have food to spare, they always invite me in for dinner. Before I came to Panama, I would have said I was a good sharer, but I think these people have me beat.