Not exactly the 9-5 Dolly was singing about

I am in David today and tomorrow, doing a lot of work on the computer that I haven´t had time to take care of earlier. That, and I hadn´t taken a ¨personal day¨out of site since vacation in March, and I found myself getting grumpy with some of my near and dear community members. When I get grumpy, I know it´s time for a time out. I think I just needed some ice cream.

So anyway, the end of April was busy, and May is shaping up to look like more of the same. Here´s a summary of what I´ve been up to.

1. On the latrine front: Last Monday, my latrine committee and I met with a representative from ANAM, the government´s environmental agency, to complete a community diagnostic activity. It is the first of several steps we will complete in order to plan our latrine project and obtain funds. ANAM itself won´t provide them, but our contact with this agency can help us obtain money from another, or a private donor, and the documents we complete with them can be used as jumping-off points for future projects. They were incredibly pleased with the committee, and said they did a great job participating. This of course made all my community members beam with pride, and many of them came to talk to me afterward to see if I agreed that yes, they did a great job! I also invited a representative from the Ministry of Health (MINSA), who was very helpful and enthusiastic.

Our next step from here involves filling out a detailed project plan, which I will do over the course of several weeks with my counterpart at ANAM´s office in Changuinola. I would like to involve the rest of the committee members in this process as much as possible, but I´m still thinking about how I can best do that.

2. On the water front: My latrine committee held its ¨elections¨ on Friday, and I came to brief them first with a charla about the roles and responsibilities of each member of the board. It went well, and they seemed grateful for the information. It seem the President has given the laws that the committee must follow no more than a cursory glance, and everyone was prepared to vote for and fill positions they weren´t entirely sure about.

The biggest obstacle I have had in working with my water committee has been that the group is extremely dysfunctional. They have all of these internal issues, grudges, family histories, gossip, whatever, that prevents them from communicating, working as a team, or well, working at all. I also presented a few notes on the virtues and vices of good team work, and tried to offer some motivation for the future. After having just completed six months in service, only now are the members starting to tell me the true past of the aqueduct committee, and everyone´s story is different. The common themes are: corruption, selfishness, rule-breaking, lack of responsibility.

The other obstacle I have been met with is that, until recently, no one seemed willing to work on the problems. But sometimes you just have to give people time. After months of gentle, and sometimes, not-so-gentle prodding, the President and the Vice President seem more willing to listen to what I have to say and the charlas, trainings, and work days that I have offered. They see now that neither the committee nor the water system is functioning as it should. The biggest problems I have seen since arriving here in Panama among water commitees are people issues, organization, motivation, or conflict issues. The technical stuff is easy once you have a strong team. Now I just have to get them to believe me.

3. The kids: A few weeks ago, I went around to the 7th, 8th, and 9th grades to talk about Panama Verde. It is an environmental group that was founded by a Peace Corps volunteer, but is now managed on a national level by Panamanians. It promotes conservation projects and the development of leadership skills among youth with equal emphasis.

In my community, all of our biggest creeks run directly to the ocean. They are contaminated with chemicals, trash, and human excrement. Candy, cookie and food wrappers litter the ground. People burn trash-laden with plastics, and the breeze blows it all back into their house. Most families cook on fogons in their houses, which are essentially indoor campfires which use use copiuous amounts of firewood (deforestation). The thick, black smoke blows right back at them. The lungs of all of my neighbor´s children rattle. (I am hoping that my group will be interested in a stove project I plan to suggest... more coming on this) Obviously there are dozens of opportunities for environmental education and projects in my QP. Panama Verde empowers the jovenes (youth-ish 12-25) to take it on themselves. I am a counselor for the group. I give them ideas, help them fundraise, teach them through charlas, activities, and games, but they also form their own governing board (directiva), and take on more and more as time goes on. One group that was started by a Peace Corps volunteer a few years ago in a neighboring town is now run entirely by the jovenes without any help from adults.

That for me is the most exciting part. The development of self-esteem, problem-solving, and leadership skills. These kids have very few opportunities for that, and in fact, have very few opportunities to just hang out and be kids. If they are not in school, they are working in the finca or taking care of younger siblings. Panama Verde is a real opportunity for them to think about personal development, all while helping out their community.

I had a list of 73 kids who said they wanted to participate. So, I invited the regional coordinator for Panama Verde to come and help me with a charla to explain more clearly what PV is and what sort of work we would do. I was hoping for a group of 10-15. That meeting was Saturday, and six students came. But, as the coordinator pointed out to me, those are the ones who really wanted to be there. And they seemed genuinely excited and dedicated. I plan to recruit a few more members, and we´ll have a swear-in at the end of May.

4. Project Management and Leadership (PML)! Peace Corps invites all of its volunteers to bring a counterpart to a PML conference after five months in site. I was unable to attend mine because I was held up in the clinic with that bothersome foot infection, but my counterpart did attend, and loved it. The conference focuses on the following themes: Identifying Personal Goals, Values, and Missions for Groups, Time and Money Management, Forming Effective Groups, Facilitating Group Interaction, Formal Letter Writing, and Interacting with Agencies.

The information seems fairly basic to us, but for many of the Panamanian or indigenous peoples we work with, PML might be the first time anyone told them to write down their appointments in an agenda, or that to offer someone positive re-inforcement is better than negative, or even how keeping close track of your monthly expenses can help you save money. The ideas are simple, but many have never had opportunities to properly learn and practice them. Many of the counterparts get a lot out of it, some of it is over their heads, but at the very least, it is a reward away from the communities, and a chance for them to feel special. The idea is that they can help their PCV present these concepts in their communities at a later date.

Enter Cati! I am bringing PML to QP this month, condensing three days of material into two, and presenting it all with the help of three other volunteer friends. I invited all the members of my latrine and water committees, and so far, everyone seems willing to come. I typed up formal letter invitations and hand-delivered each. I think this helped, they respect a formal letter. I am trying to obtain some donations of materials from a local bookstore in Changuinola, and will be busy prepping the materials in the coming weeks. I am super excited to work with my counterpart Lucas and my committees in a new capacity, and one that will empower them and provide them with some legitimate tools to continue forward. And, it´s always good to bring in back-up volunteer reinforcements. (Three other people are saying what Cati is saying... maybe now I´ll consider it!)

5. Spent two days surveying for a new aqueduct system in a nearby PCV community. The tool we use to survey is a water level, which provides measurements that are much more accurate than a GPS or abney level or whatever other tools other professionals might use. Water levels have been used in various forms for centuries, and work on the principal that water always looks for its own level. Picture: a reservoir tank out of which exits a clear plastic tube which extends for 50 feet of length, and then another 10 feet up a straight pole, with a measuring tape attached. As you move along the terrain, you maintain the reservoir higher than the pole, and move from point to point. The water level gives you the change in altitude between the two points, and the marks you´ve made on the length of the tube tell you the distance. This, combined with measuring a source and doing basic population forecasting, are the first steps in planning for an aqueduct system. The water level is a PC favorite because it is something we can do with our community members, and helps them understand some of the basic principals of gravity-flow water systems.

So that´s what I´ve been up to.

The days we surveyed were HOT AS HADES, but it was fun to do some real dirty work, and the company of other PCVs is always appreciated. This is kind of a ridiculous pose I am striking but que va...

So on Tuesday, I am leaving for three days of aqueduct technical training in one of our group 64 volunteer´s sites. I am excited to see all of my EH folks again, since I felt robbed and socially-deprived after missing PML in March.

To Bocas and Back

Writing again from the city of David, having returned a couple of hours ago from my volunteer visit to Bocas del Toro. On Thursday morning, Patrick, the volunteer I was to going to visit, surprised me by knocking on the hotel door just as I had emerged from the shower. I didn´t know he´d be meeting me in David, but finding out I wouldn´t have to navigate any buses by my onesies was a pleasant surprise.

After a delicious lunch for the whopping price of $1.85, we departed on a Changuinola-bound bus and rode for about three-and-a-half hours over rolling hills, toward the blue misty mountains of Bocas. Panamanians like to pack their buses tight, and this one was about the size a shuttle you´d see shuffling tourists to and fro in Florida. Ngobe women got on with their children from the sides of the road, barefoot and in traditional colorful dresses. They stood so close their long hair was whipping my face at every turn. As we climbed higher, I could tell I was heading out of familiar Panama and into something completely different.

We got off the bus and sat down to put on our rubber boots, an indispensable accessory in this mud-laden country. We were immediately greeted by a Ngobe man that Patrick knew. Campesino, or farmer/country, Spanish is spoken much slower, a cultural equivalent of a Southern drawl. I could understand more than I expected, even though their language was peppered with Ngobere terms. Hearing Patrick converse with people throughout the weekend helped bolster my confidence that my Spanish would be up to par by the time training is over, more or less. He speaks simply and slowly, but so does everyone else.

The hike was a challenging one; quite steep and I had to frequently pause to pull my leg out of 8 inches of mud. There is something about walking through wet, sopping ground however, those satisfying slaps and squishes really make you feel like you´re going somewhere.

After about 80 minutes, we arrived at Patrick´s site. I was sweating profusely as usual, but eager to take in everything surrounding me. All the houses are raised huts, mostly with roofs made out of penca, or thatch. Some had zinc roofs, but those were exceptions. Penca, while dusty and attractive to critters, is overwhelmingly preferred because it keeps homes a lot cooler than zinc. I know this because my home in Santa Clara has a zinc roof and it undoubtedly contributes to the ever-present gringa sheen. At this point I must interject to apologize and say that again, I forgot my camera. I am failing miserably in my efforts to document this journey photographically, but I promise to do better/steal pics from my fellow trainees. But, your image of a wooden hut with a thatch roof is likely accurate, so continue to use your imaginations.

When we arrived, it was already getting dark, so I rushed away to rinse off quickly before dinner. Patrick´s bathing situation is an interesting but common one. About 50 feet away from his house is a three-sided bathing area with a large bucket and a faucet that usually has running water. I, in technical development terms, would call the water flow a half-hearted trickle but when it works, it gets the job done. Because it only has three sides though, most volunteers wear clothes while bathing, which limits how clean you can really feel. I decided after about day five in Panama that I wouldn´t really feel clean until 2011 so any time I don´t feel filty, I count my blessings.

Is this too much information? Now that we talk about excrement and water-borne diseases all day, I assume this is stuff everyone wants to hear. Any sense of decorum I was clutching onto left me immediately once I landed in Panama.

Anyway. I was interested to see how dinner would be because up until now, I didn´t have a good idea of how or what volunteers ate. Patrick happens to be a master chef, and he works wonders with a propane tank and two burners. We´d hiked up with veggies from the market in David, and over this last weekend, I ate the best food I´ve had since arriving in Panama. That is, if we discount the Dairy Queen Blizzards I´ve eaten in the mall food court. Why has no one told me about those until now? Over the course of a few days, we had spaghetti with stir-fried veggies, oatmeal with flax, wheat germ, powdered milk and sugar, homemade cornbread (I know!), chili, brown rice with squash, lentils, and other goodies, and even crepes. This trip proved to me several things, diet-wise, a) It´s possible to eat well as a PC volunteer b) beans are indispensable c) peanut butter can go in pretty much anything.

Friday, the Ministro de Salud (Health ministry) planned to be working on a water project in Loma Azul, which we were hoping to observe/help haul sand for, but it got rained out. A fierce thunderstorm rolled through, with lightning strikes only a couple hundred feet from our hut. I donned my fleece jacket for the first time in Panama and was thrilled to do so. So Friday ended up being a low-key day. I read a couple hundred pages of my book, laid in a hammock, and chatted with the people as they passed by Patrick´s place. Even though we didn´t do much, it was a useful experience to see how volunteers spend time in a day. PC work moves at a rate slower than a snail´s pace sometimes. Especially in the first year of service, there isn´t much to do the majority of the time. Even when you´re actively seeking out work, doing community analyses, and getting to know people, you have free time. It is one of the most frustrating aspects of service because volunteers feel that they´ve sacrificed so much to be in the Peace Corps, and many of their days are spent idle. So I was glad I got to experience a "tranquilo" Peace Corps day. Also it was the first time I´ve had a free moment since arriving, so falling asleep in a hammock and listening to storms roll in was exactly what I wanted to be doing. I introduced Patrick to Bananagrams and Farkle, and would you believe I was soundly beaten in Bananagrams three times? This was a blow to me ego, but I took in stride because my opponent is also a voracious reader and writer.

On Saturday, Patrick´s friend Jen, and my fellow trainee Aleah hiked from Jen´s site along with the soon-to-be regional leader Ben. The mission today was to give a nutrition charla at the school. Charlas are sort of informal lectures given by PC volunteers in the campo. I pasear´ed with Patrick in early morning, inviting people to the charla. Pasear-ing is sort of the Spanish equivalent of¨going to visit, or to come calling, if you will. A lot of the words we learn don´t have English equivalents, so I´ll introduce them as we go along. Pasear-ing is a huge part of volunteer service. Going to people´s houses, drinking coffee and shooting the breeze is the only way to built trust and relationships in some some communities.

Attendance at the charla was good, about 10 women showed up, some with their children. I was mistaken in my earlier entry when I said many Ngobes are shy and reserved. Most communities in the Bocas area are quite lively, and the women came ready to participate. At some point, we all broke into teams, a volunteer in each group, to make lists of different-colored foods. The women I was with were feeling competetive, and demanded to list the white foods. Good thing too because I don´t know many words for red, yellow, or green foods in Spanish. We joked that our list was the best, and the longest, and indeed ended up winning. I was delighted to talk with community members, joke around, and participate in a charla. We spend hours in training talking about ice breakers, different presentation methods and topics, but nothing compares to seeing what it is really like in person.

Also, I must add. Can you believe what music was playing from the school when we arrived. Celine´s "Because You Loved Me" followed by "My Heart Will Go On."

WHAT!?!? Nothing really compares to entering a tiny school in the mountains of Panama, in an indigenous community, and hearing Celine blasting from the windows. Talk about surreal.

After the charla, the five gringos paraded through town back to Patrick´s house and we spent the afternoon asking the volunteers questions, making lunch, and playing some more Farkle.

This visit was designed to show us what volunteer life is like, and to spend some time up close and personal in a site. I have pretty much nothing but positive feedback for my APCD interview this weekend. Bocas is incredibly beautiful, the communities are less intimidating than in some other areas, and most sites are relatively accessible. They have cell service, and are about an hour away from a town with Internet and some stores. The only downside I saw was that Patrick hasn´t had many big projects to work on. He tried to start some latrine and aqueduct work, but found that people weren´t willing to haul sand or cement up the mountain. Peace Corps is all about building capacity from the ground up, and teaching people how to do the work themselves, and Patrick wasn´t willing to put in effort if the community wasn´t. I think he is exactly right. Unfortunately it means he closes his service without many tangible results, but he did have some big success in giving AIDS/sexual education charlas in eight sites throughout bocas, as well as helping with some side projects in his town.

We arrived back in David at about 12:30 this afternoon and I took the first hot shower I´ve had since getting here. It was glorious and I think my feet are actually legitimately clean for the first time since August 11th.

Peace Corps is all about small victory´s, so three cheers for clean feet!

Volunteer Visits

First of all thanks to everyone who sent me news about Celine being pregnant. Even though celebrity gossip, and news of most kinds, if off my radar while in Panama, I expect immediate notification of anything and everything regarding Celine Dion, or our favorite trainwreck celebs like LiLo, Amy Winehouse and the like. Development work is serious business, but I still have room in my wee little brain for some celebrity skuttlebut. Don´t forget it.

On a more serious note, I heard the news this morning about Ted Kennedy, and audibly gasped, turning heads in the restaurant where we were eating. It´s awful to see him go before the culmination of his life´s work, but after hearing reports about him being unable to speak, and suffering through his last days, in a way it comes as a relief. I don´t have much time to check news here, and Panama nightly news is all about truck accidents and drug busts, so any updates on health policy news would be greatly appreciated.

Today I´m writing from David, the second-largest city in Panama, in the Chiriqi province. I´m munching on slices of mango, which I bought from a street vendor for 25 cents. I am pleased with the cost of food here.

We left Panama City last night at 7:30 on a comfortable, Greyhound-y bus and headed about six hours west, arriving at 2:45a.m. in an unfamiliar city without maps or an exact idea of where our hotel was. Peace Corps likes to give you enough information to get somewhere, but not so much that you really feel like you know where to go. It´s all part of the experience, see?

This trip is for our volunteeer visits, where in our second week of training, we go to the real site of a volunteer. My site is in Bocas del Toro, the eastern-most province in Panama, bordering Costa Rica. A majority of the province is in the Comarca, or the Panamanian equivalent of reservations for indigenous people. To my surprise, my volunteer met me here in David this morning, and we´ll leave together around noon, take a three-and-a half-hour bus ride, and then hike for an hour to his Ngobe site. His directions to his site were good, but I´m glad to be going along with him to make sure I hike up the right super-steep path. Also, if you ask for directions in Panama, most people just gesture wildly and say ¨Por Alla¨ meaning ¨Way over there¨or ¨Por alli¨meaning ¨Close, but a little bit over there¨ or ¨Por Aca¨ meaning ¨Kinda close, like right here!¨ Last week I was showing Nani where I´d be going in Bocas, and Greysia wanted to see the world map I brought. Nani new exactly where we were in Panama, but on the world scale, she wasn´t sure, and needed me to point out the U.S. She did remember where all the other aspirantes who have passed through Santa Clara lived, asking me to point out Virginia, Massachusetts, and a bunch of other states.

I´m thrilled to be out and experiencing the real Peace Corps life this weekend. The majority of our environmental health group will be placed in indigenous sites, and we´ve heard a lot about them, but it´s impossible to know what they´re really like until we get there. So now I have my chance, and when we return to Santa Clara on Monday, I´ll be able to talk with the Associate Programing Director about my thoughts and experiences, whether I would hate living in Bocas or love it, and what I think of a Ngobe community. Using this interview and other means of assessment, Tim (the APCD) will decide a permanent placement for me. I´ll know where I´m going during week four of training. (We´re halfway through week two now.) If I´m in a site where there is cell service, I´ll probably buy a phone soon and will be able to call and text again.

One culture point that is important to consider about Latino sites, but more particiularly Ngobe and other indigenous communities is the concept of ¨pena,¨ which in English translates roughly to something like embarassment, shame, or shyness. We´ve heard people, epecially in the rural country, tend to speak very indirectly, and often not at all to a new person, so it takes months to build a relationship and confianza, or trust, with only a few select people. Ngobes frequently assume the Americans know best, are too shy to be forthcoming, or prefer to wait and be told what to do. But the job of a PC volunteer is to learn from them about the community and its needs. Only they know, and they have the most to teach me. Starting to break down that pena barrier is a months-long process for many volunteers. I am not expecting many to readily talk with me this weekend, but at least I´ll get a feel of what the site is like and how I might react to living there.

In preparation, yesterday I took a one-hour class in the Ngobere language. My only real take away thought is ¨Good Lord...¨At times I feel like my Spanish is actually getting worse; I don´t know how I´ll ever manage to learn Ngobere. The vowel sounds and sentence stuctures are completely different than Spanish and English. I did have another ¨This is so cool¨moment though, as I was being instructed in Spanish about a rare indigenous language that most people in the world don´t even know exists. I didn´t even notice I wasn´t thinking in or about English at all.

Some days there is so much to take in, and my brain is just buzzing with new information until it finally gives up and shuts off. But when I walk home from class, saying ¨Buenas¨to everyone that passes, sharing space with the plethora of chickens, turkeys and ducks that roam around town, I´m always refreshed and feeling grateful for this experience. I´ve been encountering all these little signs along the way too, like one of the first songs Daviey Sr. played on the stereo when I arrived was ¨La Vida Es Un Carnaval.¨ I´m not supersticious but when things like that happen, it makes me feel like I´m in exactly the right place.

So that´s it for now. I might have a chance to write again Sunday when I´m back in David for the night.

And hey y´all don´t forget to keep me updated on your own lives. I want to hear about everyone´s new jobs, schools, and everything in between.