Llega la gringa

My nervousness about my site visit started mounting when I realized how close I was to training´s finish line. Since I arrived in Panama, there was always a period of time stretching before me, during which I could improve my Spanish, learn about PC´s development approach, figure out everything I needed to know about aqueducts, latrines, and methods for community mobilization and organization.

The list was long, but I had time.

So as excited as I was to finally see my community, I also realized that it was time to pull everything I´d learned togethe, and with luck, convince over a thousand people I was up to the task. I would be all on my own (solita!) during the 5-day visit, and responsible for introducing myself and explaining my presence to as many people as possible. I would find housing, develop a sketchy outline of a work plan, and start gathering information for my community analysis due in January.

Last Monday, we headed to Farallon in the Cocle province to meet our community guides, who would travel with us to site. As our stretch on the Pan-American highway rolled by my window, I found myself wondering how I tricked so many people into thinking I was capable of taking on this assignment, what PC promises will be "the hardest job you´ll ever love."

We´ve been told over and over that the PC process is a roller coaster of emotions. Until now, I hadn´t really experienced it. I´ve been sick, encountered difficulties and frustrations, but overall I´ve been happy here. Things have gone smoothly, and I´ve been going little by little, poco a poco, through training. It´s funny to think that my application process for PC started almost a full year ago, and only now are the details coming into focus. Only when I met my community guide this week did the question marks really start fading away; an image of what life will be like here started coming coming in clearer.

And I´m realizing that some of my self-doubt and worry was well-placed.

Quebrada Pastor has many needs. The aqueduct, which only serves a small fraction of the community, works inconsistently , and the water committee doesn´t actively work to repair it. The vast majority of the community lives at great distance from the center, with some houses a two-hour hike from the road. No one out there (¨por alla arriba¨) is connected to the aqueduct. They hike through the monte to springs or the river to fill up their water buckets. The only latrines are at the school. People do their business in the river (the same one from which they get their water, also the one in which they bathe and wash their clothes.)

On Saturday, we held a meeting as a way to introduce myself formally to the community. I gave a quick speech, explaining who I am, what environmental health is, and what we might work on. I stressed that I don´t have money, or projects in mind, and that we must work together to figure out what the community needs, and what they will use. My gung-ho counterpart, jumped right into talking about composting latrines, which was not what I would have done, but he seems to be a man with a mission. Many seemed interested, which was a pleasant surprise. For people who are used to using a river, storing excrement above ground for prolonged periods of time, and then using it on crops, is a big leap.

One of the greatest challenges I will face is involving the whole community in project development and plannning. My community guide asked for a PCV because of his interest in composting latrines, but it´s hard to say whether everyone´s interest is genuine, or simply at his urging. PCV have done plenty of latrine projects in Bocas. Many stand unused or unfinished. Additionally, weighing the needs for latrines against the need for running water is nearly impossible, especially when the most underserved parts of the community are unwilling or hesitant to participate in meetings and potential projects. We visited houses all day Thursday and Friday, hiking two and fro, and we still failed to make it to over 50 percent of Q.P.´s houses. I have to work to work to include them all. Let me just say I am going to be really skinny after two years of all that walking.

I am lucky to have landed in a community with established leaders, who understand the PC process. But their expectations are high, and their needs are urgent. I hope I can help keep them motivated and interested through what will surely be a long, arduous process. I am not here to march in, build lartrines, and march out. It is essential that PCVs assess the real needs of a community and equip them with the skills and knowledge to reach their own goals. It´s called "capacity building" in development lingo. It´s the cornerstone of ¨sustainabile development.¨

In many ways, this visit was an overwhelming one. I met sick people who couldn´t afford medical treatment. I saw children who seemed two or three years younger than they are, because a diet of boiled bananas and rice lacks some important nutrients, to put it mildly. When we were visiting house-to-house, my community partner had to explain to some people who I was very carefully, several times, because when they see a gringo, they assume s/he brings trouble. My host family asked me questions that I didn´t know how to begin to answer. After remarking about how many tourists come to Bocas Island, my host father soberly asked me if there are benefits to travel. He couldn´t see why people would go so far away from where they´re from. During my first few days in site, I had a cold. They told me when I came back, I had to bring sandals to wear in the house. They pointed to the cool cement floor and said "You have to protect your feet from the cold, Cati. It affects you." I just nodded, deciding to save my explanation of Germ Theory for another day.

Even though at times I have felt apprehensive by what this experience has in store, as always, there are are a multitude of quiet moments that remind me how rich this experience is. In so many ways, it´s possible for to feel more fulfilled here than I could ever be if I were doing something else. These reminders are everywhere. When my host dad grabs my hand to help the uncoordinated gringa cross one of the many creeks and rivers. Or when the vice-president of the water committee invites me to dinner, and having heard of my desire to learn some dialect, decides to start teaching me immediately. He asked me to read from a Spanish hymnal while he proudly sang the same lines in dialect. Or when I explained the idea of sustainability and could see they understood, and felt excited by the idea of empowerment. When I learned how to wash clothes on rocks by the river. When my host parents say they think they´ll cry when I leave in two years, and are already worried that I´ll forget them one day.

How could I ever forget? In five days, I felt sad, overhwhelmed, energized, welcomed, confused, relieved, intimidated, excited, and as far away from what I know as I´ve ever felt. Whatever these two years have in store, I´m sure it will be unforgettable.