Badfish, Sublime

The problem about training is that it leaves little to no time to write and reflect on experiences.  I’ve been keeping up with a journal, but as I looked to see where I left off on the blog, I was shocked that I hadn’t covered certain experiences.  Thanks, Peace Corps!

Well, let me begin recounting experiences – as opposed to just observations.

Back in February, in fact the day before the malaria medications sent me to the hospital, two of my host brothers invited me to go fishing with them after class.  The last time I had been fishing, I was seven years old and fished with my grandpa in a water trap on a golf course.  I didn’t catch anything.  Grandpa told me it was because there were no fish in the pond, but just then, someone caught a fish near us.  Fishing, in my head, consisted of sitting, being quiet and waiting lucklessly.

Boy, was I in for a surprise.  There was no passive sitting around.  There was little waiting.  There was no Grandpa Chester.  Unfortunately (this is where my mind when as I re-read what I last wrote, and I know the story), there was also no spear.  We decided to leave around 5 in the evening, and the sun sets at 6:15.  It is completely dark by 6:45.

Gringo and John led the way, leaving another Aspirante, a few young boys and myself following behind.  I was in familiar territory, the only girl in a group of boys, but the boys decided to make a big deal of it.  At every stream crossing, every fence hopping (I will tear every pair of pants I own on barbed wire) and every animal sighting, Gringo (jokingly) and John (seriously) made sure that I was alright.  On our way back, when we saw a snake, they wouldn’t let me see it – because girls faint when they see snakes.  I’ll keep that in mind the next time I see a snake.

To get to our fishing hole, we needed to cut through someone’s finca, under barbed wire fences, over a rudimentary rope and tree branch bridge to find a far off spot, spear them through the mouth and gills, hear ghost stories, get charged by a bull (bison are way scarier) and barely make it home in time for dinner.  And then write a Faulkner worthy sentence about it.

Finally, we started fishing.  Or they started fishing.  One of the benefits of being a girl on a fishing outing with Panamanian men is that you barely have to do any work.  As they went looking for grasshoppers to put on hooks, I sat around and took in the scenery, stared at leaf cutter ant trails and threw things into the water – only to be reprimanded for the last one.  As they fished, I started at Jesus Lizards.  John asked me if I was scared.

I let the boys catch fish for a bit before I asked to try.  And when I say try, I mean stand there holding the stick as John did everything else for me.  He put the grasshopper on the hook, threw the hook into the water then didn’t believe me as I said that nothing was biting.  He pulled the line up twice empty before he believed me that nothing was biting.  Yet.  I felt the line go taunt and we pulled in the line to find a fish.  It was about this big.