Escojo Mi Vida

Just arrived at an Internet cafe in Panama City after facilitating a four-day personal development and sexual health seminar at the Lions Club facility here. Every volunteer in the country had the opportunity to nominate two kids from their community to an all-expenses-paid seminar. For many kids, this was their first time out of their province and certainly the only time they´ve gone anywhere without a family member.

I invited two kids from my community. It wasn´t easy getting them here; I had to talk their parents through the seminar many, many times and go over the intinerary until I was blue in the face. But who can blame them? A gringa wants to send their child to a personal development and sexual health seminar? In Panama City? What in the world is sexual health? Despite my enthusiastic explanations, I am still battling the will-this-gringa-kidnap-my-child stigma, and had to lay on the charm even more thickly than usual to convince them this was a good thing.

But anyway, it all worked out in the end, and I had an absolute blast facilitating sessions on everything from establishing goals, identifying goals, problem-solving, pregnancy, HIV/AIDS and STIs, to the obligatory condom demonstrations.

I´ve written here before about the pena many Panamanians and especially indigenous people have here in Panama. Almost everything embarasses them, and they are not used to talking frankly about anything. Knowing this, I was expecting a lot of uncomfortable, silent kids who were wondering what these crazy gringos were going on about.

Amazingly, it was the exact opposite. Thanks to some great planning on the part of the PC Gender and Development (GAD) team which puts on the event, all the PC volunteers were straightforward about everything from the beginning. I think this helped ease the embarassment tremendously, and we mixed up with lots of dinamicas, games, skits and competitions to keep things rowdy and fun.

There were group presentaitons on the main topics, and then two facilitators worked with groups of eight or nine kids one-on-one. I was amazed how mature everyone acted and how willing they were to ask questions. I doubt I would have responded as well to all of this information when I was 13 or 14 years old, and you know? I still struggled when two of the girls in my group asked with no pena what oral sex was.

Oh, every day here in Panama presents its own challenge.

But this seminar has been one of my favorite experiences as a PCV here, and I can´t wait to bring some of the charlas back to QP. Now that two of my kids have attended, I plan to drag them into co-facilitating.

Now I am off to reunite with everyone from my training group for a week of in-service training. After spending nearly four months in site, we know better what is needed and can attend whichever sessions are most important. And in every free moment, gab about everything that´s happened since we last saw each other. We´ll all have a lot to say.

The doctor is out

Health is a fun topic. No matter who you are, or how much access to education you´ve had, you probably still harbor some baseless medical theories, or cling to a magical cure that you swear will knock out a fever, stomach ache, low bone density, or what-have-you better than anything else out there. In my magical Ngobe village, it is the exact same, but more extreme, because bush medicine reigns supreme, and people hate going to the doctor. I have trouble walking the line between enjoying their stories to intervening when they say something that is completely untrue and bordering on harmful.

So my neighbor Julio is a ball of energy, and he has taken to coming over several nights a week (despite my loosely-enforced stay-out-of -my -house-after-dark policy). He is always overflowing with questions and enthusiasm, and sometimes I can´t bring myself to turn him away. Eventually his wife and sleepy children parade in one by one, and I am left explaining every medical condition or strange news story he has ever encountered while the kids fall asleep on the cement floor.

Last week, I exceeded even my own expectations and explained The Pregnant Man, and led him slowly but surely through a conversation about sex, gender, and sexuality. Last night, he came over and all of a sudden said, "What about AIDS!!!"

What about AIDS, Julio? I should be thankful, because Peace Corps wants us to teach all about HIV/AIDS, sexually-transmitted diseases, and other sex and gender issues on the side, and his questions give me great practice. He told me all about how he never eats in Almirante, because the plates could have AIDS, and also that he used to fear sitting on warm seats because the heat could have AIDS!!

This soon led us into a larger discussion about health matters in general, because he knew I was sick and had to come back to the city today for a blood test. He told me not to wash my face or brush my teeth before, because otherwise they couldn´t take the blood. To which I responded with one of my favorite exclamations, "Mentira!" Lie! He then told me another story about a time he was going to donate blood, and couldn´t because his wife was pregnant. Another mentira! (Although that´s kind of a cute idea. His blood is "weak" because his señora is preggers... like sympathy pains!) Then, he said he hasn´t been feeling well and the solution would be to fill himself up with horse blood. Because, you know? Horses are really strong.

Please join me in a collective sigh.

Lucky for me, Julio is a smart guy and he usually latches on to my lessons quickly, and can laugh at himself when I tell him frankly that his theory is way-off.

Bush medicine is still very popular in my community, and Julio`s wife´s uncle apparently had an herbal cure for cancer, which he distributed to Ngobes, gringos, latinos, and Afro-Antilleans alike who flocked to him. This magical recipe died with him, unfortuately, and it seems The World Will Never Know.

But in all seriousness, they do have success with a lot of herbal remedies for stomach upset, diarrhea, topical infections, snake bites and other such merriment that comes along with living in the campo. The medicines often work, and people only go to the clinic as a last resort. Those treatments have been along a lot longer than modern medicine, and are well-respected in the Bocas region. I would like to learn a lot more about what they use and how they know (one otherwise down-to-earth guy told me he dreams the cures). Of course, Peace Corps medical policy tells me I have to go to a real doctor, which is okay by me, because I don´t want to wait around for Green Plant Number 342 to kill my giardia.

But as I plan charlas about health education, it is important to incorporate both lines of thinking-- traditional herbal cures, and other modern ways they can treat common problems like diarrhea with rehydration drinks, etc. You have to start with what they already know, and build from there. No one will listen if I say everything they know is wrong. Because of course it isn´t. They will always know way more about what medicine the earth offers than I ever will. But the horse blood thing? I am definitely right about that.