Transition from Training

Last Thursday, our 36-person group was sworn-in at the ambassador´s residence in Panama City, and became the first in several years to have every trainee make it all the way through training. The ceremony was a formal affair, with speeches given by the Ambassador, the Peace Corps Panama Country Director, a representative from ANAM, a Panamanian environmental agency, and two trainees from our group.

(all of group 64, EH and Community Economic Development)

During the ceremony, we all had a chance to stand up, introduce ourselves and say where we would be serving. I was filled with an inappropriately maternal pride for all of our volunteers, with their much-improved Spanish, previously-unworn, fancy shirts, ties, dresses, and visible eagerness to see what the next two years will hold. We´ve grown so close over the last ten weeks that it´s hard to believe we´ve only been here since August. The intensity of this experience brings people together in a unique, unexpected way. When I signed up for Peace Corps, the process I imagined didn´t involve friends. But training has been an almost completely group experience, which is odd when you consider that it´s preparing us for one of the most solitary, self-directed jobs on the planet. Our environmental-health group spent this past weekend after swear-in together at a beach town, enjoying each other´s company for what will be the last time until February (for most of us). I feel lucky to have landed among group of exceptionally caring, thoughtful, intelligent people. But we all felt sad to be leaving each other. The reality is that many of us live at different ends of the country, or are difficult to get to, and we´ll never be able to keep in as close touch as we´d like. As we move on and into site tomorrow, it´s hard to imagine life without the immediate support system we became so used to.

(the five EH girls. Four of us lived up on the hill in Santa Clara, and spent many-a-walk debriefing, oversharing, and offering emotional support/reality checks as needed).

Most everyone is nervous, some borderline panicky, about returning to site. We arrive with nothing specific planned, no immediate assignment, and the responsiblity of directing ourselves, and eventually hundreds of strangers in a country, language, and circumstance that is foreign to us.

It is easy to become bogged down in all the anxiety. I came back from site visit feeling overwhelmed, underqualified, and uncertain about what I could offer my community. But, as I was reminded today, this is the part we all signed up for, to offer support to communities who want it, to live as the only gringo in rural communuties no one´s ever heard of, and to put ourselves in situations that we could only experience here. And I came to Panama partly to test my limits. Tomorrow, when I arrive in my community, it´s for good this time (but not forever, Mom!). I am ready to stop saying I´m going to live in Panama for two years when I explain and introduce myself. Going to live refers to the future. I live here now. Even though I felt intimidated by my responsiblity to my community, I also realize that there is no amount of training that can prepare you for what PC life is like. I know enough. The rest of it will come as needed.

We are encouraged to stay in-site for a few weeks at the beginning, so updates could be scarce. But stay tuned, and in the mean time, I´ll be taking notes and ready to assume a regular blogging schedule again. Comments, questions, and emails are of course always appreciated and encouraged.

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.

Mail, etc.

A lot of people have asked about where mail can be sent. First, thanks for asking! As of now, my mother has sent several packages, and I haven´t seen a single one yet. They may still be on their way, as mail takes forever here, but I´m unsure. I am recommending no one sends me any mail until I can set up a PO-box like situation in Changionola. I´ve heard mail is more reliable there, and further, the address I have now (listed on the side) is only good through October. So thanks to everyone who offered to send me something, but if it´s anything more than a postcard or letter, I´d recommend waiting until I can set up a new address which will hopefully be more secure.

Also, while this blog is set to private, I´m happy to let anyone read. If anyone you know wants access, send me their email, and I´ll send an invite.

Photos and Culture Points

I hope you all appreciate that I am spending our first day off ever here in Panama blogging and uploading pictures at long last. You can view them here.

Today I´m looking to fill you in on the culture points that I haven´t had time to write about in my other exhaustive summaries.

TOP 10 THOUGHTS ON PANAMANIAN CULTURE

10. If you ever took a Spanish class, you learned that the word bastante means "enough." As in, I have enough food, or We have enough time to go shopping. In Panama, bastante is only used to mean a lot or too many. How many grandchildren to you have? BASTANTE. It is a word you usually have to yell. This takes some getting used to, but now I enjoy having a way to express myself in extreme a way as possible.

9. If you ever have to ask directions, make sure to ask at least three people, because they will all give you some vague answer that mostly consists of wild gesturing and pointing with their lips. There are no maps anywhere-- not for public transit, not in malls. Towns don´t have street names, and there are eight different Diablo Rojo buses that can take you to the same place. Speaking of Diablo Rojos, they make up the public bus system here, and they look like this. At first they´re quite intimidating, but they´re really not so bad, as long as you don´t think too closely about the fact that you are barreling down the street in an outdated American school bus with 100 other people packed shoulder-to-shoulder.

8. If they call you fat, it´s a good thing. Within minutes of arriving in Santa Clara, Nani was already on the phone with her friends, telling them a "gordita" gringa had arrived. By the afternoon, Greysi was rolling up my shirt and pointing to my stomach saying, "asi gordita." For Panamanians, this is a compliment; it doesn´t really mean you´re fat, more so that you´re the right weight. It is also acceptable and normal to ask people how old they are, no matter how old. Go for it. I will miss being able to do this later when I one day return to the U.S.

7. Another vocab twist. "Ahora", despite its dictionary definition, never means "now." If you ask when you should do something, and someone says "ahora," wait at least 20 minutes and ask again.

6. We have been told many times that Panamanian time in general is quite different from American time. When we´re in our sites, if we want to give a charla at 10, we tell people to get there at around 8:30, with the idea that by 10, most people should be trickling in. There is also no sense of urgency in restaurants, where you can sit for an hour before a waiter comes to greet you. If you´re going to eat out, give yourself a few hours. I´ve gotten good customer service in malls or large supermarkets, but everywhere else, not so much. Be assertive.

5. No one can believe that the gringas don´t have boyfriends or husbands, and because of this, they are constantly asking who you have crushes on, who you think is cute, and if there is a secret boyfriend somewhere you´re not telling them about. They also want you to find love in Panama and constantly tell stories of other Peace Corps volunteers falling in love here.

4. If someone unleashes a flurry of uncomprehensible (and sometimes toothless) Spanish at you, and you ask them to say it again, they will almost always repeat/emphatically gesture the only word you understood. Sometimes I am just too tired to ask them again.

4. Panamanian women can do everything better than you. The first weekend here, we went hiking, and I didn´t have boots yet. I hiked through a lot of mud with only sneakers on, and when I came home, Nani was horrified to see my dirt-laden shoes. One day, she set out a bucket of soapy water and instructed me to get to scrubbin´. I was in a rush to get to class, but I thought I did a decent job, but there was mud caked everywhere, and some parts of the shoe would simply never be clean again.

I was wrong.

When I came back, she laughed and told me I didn´t know how to clean anything. My shoes stood before me, sparkling white, right down to the shoelaces.

Similarly, during culture week, I got some sea urchin spines stuck in my foot. When I got home, my host mother noticed I was fussing over them, and once I told her what they were, she immediately ran into the house, came back with a needle, and began furiously digging them out.

There are problems that sometimes you think you can´t solve. Your Panmanian host mother will find a way.

2. The food. Panama is second only to China in terms of how much rice is consumed per capita. When I first arrived, there was a heaping mound of rice on my plate at almost every meal. Portion sizes have been adjusted accordingly now that we´ve realized I can´t actually consume a pound of rice in one sitting. Here are the good and bad about the food I´ve discovered here:

The Bad:
Everything is fried. I am typically served at least two hot dogs a day, and in the morning, it is cut lengthwise and dropped in oil in order to maximize its contact with the deep-fried goodness. These are getting harder and harder to eat. But I might miss them one day, depending on what sort of food I´ll be eating in site.

Ojaldre- This is essentially fried dough that is frequently served with my hot dog at breakfast. I wouldn´t be so opposed it if wasn´t frequently the first thing I eat in the morning.

Fried platanos- these are flavorlesss, starchy, and ubiquitous in Ngobe villages. I ate them every day during culture week. With ketchup, they´re not so bad. It is more the frequency with which I eat fried food that bothers me, rather than the individual foods. Panama´s flavors in general are pretty bland.

The good:

Duros- these are basically homemade popsicles frozen in sandwich bags, but they come in amazing flavors like pineapple, or nansey. Nansey is a small, bitter fruit that grows from trees everywhere here. It is sort of citrusy, but when combined with sugar in a duro, it is the perfect treat. My abuela sells duros for 10 cents a piece, and I am a regular customer.

Pifa- a golfball-sized fruit that also grows everywhere here. A lot of the trainees hate pifa, but I love it. Its starchy and has the consistency of squash. Delicious when dipped in a little salt, and I hear it´s packed with vitamins.

CocaCola- I now have a new appreciation for soda. It is still sold in glass bottles here, and Coca Cola would really be proud of how we flock to any small tienda with a fridge for our daily fix. Further, it´s made with real sugar unlike in the States, and that really makes all the difference.

1. Machetes can be used for everything. During tech week, we used red-hot machetes to cut into 55-gallon barrels for water-catchmen systems. They can also chop down trees, cut up fruit, mow lawns, you name it. I cannot wait to bring the machete back into vogue in the U.S.

Tech week roundup

I am happy to be writing from an Internet cafe in Panama City, having just arrived from our tech week in Soloy in the comarca. The week dragged on at times, my energy was low, and we hit several obstacles along the way, including torrential rain, lack of materials, broken tools, and everything in between. In the end, we weren´t able to complete our projects in one week, so some PCVs are finishing up what was left on Monday. But as always, I learned a lot, and helped build two pit latrines and two composting latrines from the ground up behind the school buildings in town. And let me tell you, when you are inside the (as yet unused) poop chamber of a composting latrine, you cannot help but smile.

Life in Panama is so different.

We worked hard. I got dirtier than I´ve ever been. I will let you know my host mom´s reaction when she sees the clothes that come out of my backpack. I am preparing myself for 30 solid seconds of head shaking and eye rolling. This stuff is filthy. On Friday, we gave a charla to some of the middle-school-aged kids about how to use and maintain composting latrines. It is strange how acccustomed I´ve become to having only a few hours to prepare entire Spanish presentations. And you know? When there´s no electricity, your flashlight is broken, and the kerosene lamp is shooting out flames, you can´t really prepare anyway. So why worry?

Host-family wise, this week was less satisfying than culture week. My host mother was only 18, had a three-year-old, and was still in middle school. When she wasn´t in school, she was working, and if she wasn´t doing that, she was practicing in her dance group, which is traveling this weekened to represent the comarca in a Ngobe competition. Hence, I ate all my meals in a restaurant owned by her friends, and spent most nights by myself. This didn´t leave a lot of room to work on PC´s goals about cultural exchange, but it did mean that I could tuck myself into bed at 8 every night. On Thursday, we did get a chance to see the group perform, and Ngobe dancing is quite unlike anything else I´ve ever seen. Mostly it involves simple rhythmic foot steps, occasionally some chanting and general shifting about. After their performance, they invited the aspirantes up to dance. You can imagine I was mosty unsuccessfuly in my endeavors to execute these moves accurately, despite the insistent efforts of the tiny, tireless Ngobe men trying to direct me.

Tech week was also an opportunity to see the contrast between coastal Ngobe culture in Bocas del Toro, and in the comarca. Soloy is a large town, so I think they are less traditional than some other smaller, more remote communities, but the difference was still stark. All the women wear the traditional Ngobe dress, a nakwa (pronounced nahg-wah. I think I might be spelling this right, but I have no idea.) Their artisan works are everywhere. They carry babies in their hand-made bags called chakaras, and rarely greet or make eye contact with passersby. Ngobes are one of the largest indigenous populations in the world, and I always catch myself thinking about how I didn´t even know they existed a few months ago.

We have a week and a half in Santa Clara, then I leave on Wednesday for my site visit, where I will set up a host family for my first three months in site, meet my counter part, and generally get a better idea of my future home. So many new things in so little time!

Culture week roundup

Every time I sit down at the computer to write a blog post, I am daunted by the amount of information and stories I have to tell. Today is no different, and worse, I´ve forgotten my notepad with all of my little thoughts and notes I wanted to share.


I´ve just returned from culture week, and my first experience living with a Ngobe family. I stayed in a raised hut with with a mother and father, and two kids, 14 months and four years old on the Island of San Cristobal in the Carribean. When we arrived on Sunday, the whole town was abuzz waiting for the boat load of gringos to disembark, and while we walked through the town to the rancho, we were stunned by the number of children all around. So. many. children. Over the course of the week, they would become some of our best buddies in San Cristobal, running up to hold hands as we walked to class, lifting up their arms to be thrown in the air, and hanging on the legs and backs of the big, burly boys in our group. We spent a couple afternoons swimming in the ocean with them. Ngobe kids loaded up their dugout canoes with PC aspirantes, and we swam around among the coral in water that was still only about waist-deep(my host mom later dug out spines from my feet with a needle. So handy!). We made sure to paddle extremely far out. The environmental-health situation in Isla Cristobal is pretty poor; they do all of their business in ¨servicios¨over the water. Often in the afternoon and evening, the smell of excrement wafts from house to house, especially those whose homes are built directly over the shore.

That aside, I continue to be wowed by the jaw-dropping openness and kindness of the Ngobe people we meet. I would like to say it is my effervescent charm that endears me to everyone, but I can take no credit for how well we are treated.

My host mom was very shy and bashful, and at first. When she spoke it was barely above a whisper. But by second day, she started giggling at my jokes, making her own, and even asked to braid my hair. DISCLAIMER: Only consent to a Ngobe hair-do if you want to look like a fool. At first, I thought she was whipping up these styles purely to humiliate me, but I later found out they legitimately think they look lovely. The first style consisted of several brightly-colored pony tail holders positioned at all angles over my head. Everyone from the PC Bocas group could not look at me without laughing. The last day, my host mom said she had to braid my hair, and I tried to do a little intervention by saying that I like the braids best when they started in the back of the head and go down. You know...I was hoping for something french-braidish. I asked if she understood, and she said yes, but then she immediately began forming two gigantic Clifford-size dog-ear braids down the side of my head, with a violent part in the middle. The braiding continued, and at one point, I asked how many braids she had made, and in one of my favorite moments of the week, she sheepishly replied, ¨Varios...¨

This needs no translation. I spent all of Friday walking around with six braids with neon-colored scrunchies, hearing all the aspirantes laugh at me, barely able to mak eye contact. No Ngobes though, to them, I looked just fine.

The rest of the week consisted of culture lectures, Ngobere classes, walks on the medicinal plant trail, visits to the artisan shops, and even a visit to another volunteer´s community on the other side of the island. We paseared to a bunch of houses there, meeting one incredibly sweet, quietly intelligent older man who told us he stayed home all day from work to wait for our visit. With children tugging and grabbing you, Ngobes eager to teach you their language, and community members peering out their windows hoping you´ll stop by to talk, it´s hard not to feel incredibly optimistic about the next two years of service. Nothing comes easily in PC, but I can already see how the rewards will make it all worth it.

In other news, my Spanish is coming along. In my second language interview a couple of weeks ago, I scored advanced-low, and I am definitely shifting more easily between English and Spanish, and speaking a lot more fluidly. I am grateful that I´m well understood, and made sure this past week to spend a lot of time talking with my host family. Every night I sat out on the porch and chatted for a couple of hours, asking them questions about their life in Panama and answering some of theirs about life in the U.S. I continually found myself struggling to put words to such foreign concepts and realities in our country. For these people, the world is so small. One woman assumed everyone in the United States spoke Spanish. I told her a lot of people took it in high school, but few speak it fluently. She couldn´t figure out how they could forget. Everyone asked about my family constantly, trying to understand how I could be 22 and still without children. They were all worried about my parents, and couldn´t imagine why I would move so far away. And how could they? Most Ngobe families live within spitting distance, who could imagine moving half a world away to live with strangers?

On Thursday, my host mom snuck into the living room, where I had just finished watching Touched by an Angel dubbed in Spanish with Monica, a seven-year-old fan of mine who lived next door. (You may be interested to know, whoever dubbed for the Irish angel kept a slight brogue somehow through the Spanish. Incredibly impressive.) My host mom sat down on a bench, and all of a sudden said she didn´t want me to leave on Saturday, and why couldn´t we do tech week in San Cristobal? I told her my permanent site is close, and I could come and visit soon. She paused, a grin spread across her face, and she said, ¨Catherine, how many stories is your house in the U.S.?¨ I said it was two floors, and told her the floor plan, and she said, ¨You can visit me here, but when can I come and visit you and your family in America?¨

On Saturday, she and Toni, my four-year-old host brother, walked me to the dock to say goodbye, and I tried to thank her for everything, and to convey completely how grateful I was. They stood on the dock and waved goodbye, and I was caught off guard by how sad I was to be leaving them.

As we sped away toward Bocas Island, I realized I have two families in Panama now, in Santa Clara and now in San Cristobal. Nani, my SC-host mom was sad to hear my site was in Bocas, because it would mean visiting her, the Daiveys, and Gresyi would be difficult She hugged me as I left last week, and her concern and advice for me was so genuine. ¨Take care, Catherine,¨she said, scanning me up and down, in disbelief that the sweaty, friendly gringa was venturing out to the rough and wild Bocas province. She watched from the door as my friend and I disappeared down the hill, and again, I was surprised at how sad I felt to have to leave them for two weeks.

We are treated so well here, often times just because people, particularly Ngobes, are so honored and excited to have us as guests. We felt like rock stars walking down the paths in San Cristobal, with kids crawling out of windows and climbing onto porches to yell hello. I can´t wait to see my own community in a few weeks, and to find out what happens when my stay is more permanent, and it´s time to get real work done. The reality of living and working here for two years is starting to hit me. Food is an adjustment, there is very little privacy, and once the gringa-excitment wears off, I will undoubtedly be struggling trying to motivate, and inspire people to change how they´ve lived for years, all in a second language. As rich as some of our interactions have been, I am always wondering when other volunteers taking about having ¨friends¨in their community, how meaningful these relationships really are. How deeply can you know someone when, even though you live together, in most way you are still a world apart? Howevr, weeks like the one I just had always remind me that laughter sounds the same in every language, all kids want your attention, and people always surprise you, sometimes for the worst, but mostly for the best.

In other news, I have a cell phone! I finally called home last night, and the reception was awesome. I think you can get to me by dialing 001 for the int´line, country code 507, then 64101638. I won´t have service when I am in Santa Clara, but I will try to start texting and calling when I can. Once I am in Bocas permanently, I will always have service.

Much love to everyone. I´m off to tech week where we´ll be building a compost latrine, thermoforming PVC pipes for aqueducts, and learning how to maintain, repair and design the lines. We´ll be in the Comarca, where the food will be somewhat less plentiful, and a lot less enjoyable (think boiled bananas three times a day), so I´ll undoubtedly have more to share next week. Be good.

Site Annoucements

Thank you to everyone who has been sending me emails. I wish I could send more lengthy responses, but unfortunately my computer time is limited. But know that I miss you all, and am always thinking about what you´re all up to.

As for me, today was the most important day of my training so far. We received our site announcements four hours ago, and I couldn´t be more pleased. They kept us in suspense for several hours, during which I got a serious case of the nervous giggles, leg twitches, and thumb-twiddles. The hour of announcement began with a clip of President Kennedy talking about Peace Corps, and a series of commercials that have aired since PC was started 48 years ago. Talk about drama. They were giving the telenovelas (Spanish soap operas) a run for their money.

The training directors placed a huge map of Panama in the center of the room and said they would announce sites from east to west, starting in the Darien and ending in Bocas. I was called second-to-last, and will be living in a Ngobe site in Bocas, very close to where my site visit was. We only receive a little information about our future site, but from what I´ve heard so far, I´m absolutely elated.

My site has a view of the Carribean Ocean, is predominantly Ngobe, but also has a Latino population. This will be good for my Spanish, as many volunteers are concerned about language loss once they move to an indigenous site. I don´t need to hike anywhere, it sounds like the town is very close to the highway. I was surprised to hear it has over 1,000 people, which was not at all what I was expecting, but I was also told you´d never know there are that many people there. There are only 120 houses total, and while most live close to the road, many others are spread far out. So far out it might take me a couple of days to pasear from one side to the other.

This is good opportunity for exercise.

The site sounds more accessible than I was expecting overall, which means I should be able to get to the Internet regularly, and also to a market to buy the vegetables after which I am constantly lusting. My main project will likely involve composting latrines. The community has demonstrated an interest in them, and even applied for a grant through a government agency, but as of yet, nothing has come of it. They are desperately in need of latrines, as they only have three serving the entire community. Essentially everyone does their business in the creek.

Herego, there is a lot of opportunity for health education as well, which is something I was hoping for and looking forward to. The schools are well-attended and have a larger staff than I was expecting. There is also an existing water committee, and an active community leader who has taken the lead on the latrine project in the past. It is a relief to hear there is some leadership in the community already. Its size is daunting, but I think I was placed there partly because my APCD thinks I could be good at motivating an organizing the groups. Volunteers in Bocas also have a lot of opportunity to work with host-country agencies, like the Ministries of Health, Social Development, etc, which I hope to do also. Our first three months in-site are dedicated to ¨Proyecto Amistad¨or project friendship, and doing a community analysis. During this time, I´ll get a better sense of what people want, what it will take, and whether it´s feasible.

I am thrilled to be in the Bocas province. I´ll have cell reception, several other volunteers close by, and also... when you guys come to Panama... I am very close to Bocas Island, which is the top tourist destination of Panama.

This Saturday we leave for culture week, which will be on one of the islands off the coast of Bocas. After that, we´ll come back through David, and then have tech week in the Comarca Ngobe-Buble. Tech week is for learning more details about how to build latrines, repair, design, or build aqueducts, and other key EH skills. I´ll be away from Santa Clara for two weeks, living with indigenous host families, and spending a lot of time with my training group. I heard these are a stressful couple of weeks, but I´m ready to go in with guns blazing.

I promise to bring my camera this time.

I have so much more to share, but am running out of time. It´s been a chaotic couple of weeks, with tons of presentations, projects, language test, and everything in between. My APCD interview last week went really well. It was a huge confidence boost, and a good reminder of why I´m here. I´lll be in David again later this week, and hopefully I can check in again then. If not, I am sure I´ll have more thoughts than you want to hear once culture and tech weeks are over.

In the mean time, check out the video posted here. We watched it last week, and it shows what some indigenous communities in Panama are like. Might give you a better picture of what PC does here and under what conditions.