We Heart Seminars

In the last month, I´ve helped out with three seminars in three separate volunteer sites. We PCVs have become savvy to the fact that our community members respond better when we call something a ¨seminar¨ instead of a charla, and invite a few other volunteers along to help out over the course of a few days. I think they like the idea of a one-time commitment and a more formalized environment of a seminar or workshop . Oh, and the free food. The PCVs always get a kick out of the fact that participants LOVELOVELOVE the visiting volunteers when they seem so luke-warm about the ones in their own sites sometimes.

In mid-July, my friend Dan held a two-day health seminar for the women in his community. I came for the second day to do a charla on S.T.I.s and HIV/AIDS.

Here is a woman receiving her certificate of particpation:



More interestingly, Dan has a monkey:



This is his house:
From there, I headed straight to the Comarca, and after a 90-minute hike, arrived in Aleah´s site to help with a water seminar. They are becoming very popular activities for EH-volunteers. Over the course of a few days, we educate water committee members on virtually everything they need to know about their systems--the nuts and bolts of how the water travels through the tubes, how to clean the tanks, how to repair damages, how to decide on a quota, how to run better meetings, you name it. Aleah has a beautiful site on a ridge, and this is the view from her house (sooo jealous):

One of my favorite participants:

Another PCV Dan, leading a session on thermoforming-- a method of molding tube using hot vegetable oil. Creates tighter fits and is safer than the more popular burning-PVC-over-open-flame method.


Then, last weekend, I went to other PCV´s Myles site, close by here in Bocas, to do a PML with his junta local and water committees. Here I am talking about how to work in teams!



On my side,I have been continuing with the sex-ed and life skills charlas with the 8th and 9th graders in my school. It´s going well, and they´ve impressed me with their candor and willingness to ask questions. More on this to come.

I´ll be bringing whoever I can convince to go from my community to a water seminar in nearby Punta Peña for them and three other volunteer sites in mid-September. They are daunted by the overnight stay and the four-day length, but with my diligent persuasion techniques,I hope to wrangle in a precious few. Sigue la lucha...

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.