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.
Showing posts with label site visit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label site visit. Show all posts
Monday, October 12, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
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!
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!
Thursday, August 27, 2009
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.
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.
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