Volunteer Visit – Practicing the Pasear

Just got back from a volunteer visit, the idea of which was to get a taste of what life is like in site.  I had a lovely time.  The volunteer I visited is living in an Emberá indigenous community to the east of Panama.  It is close to the Darién region (considered a mildly dangerous jungle territory close to Colombia), but technically this particular community is still in the province of Panamá, not Darién.  Getting there involved some buses and a 2+ hour boat ride across a lake and up a river in a motorized canoe that filled up with water if we stopped bailing.

canoeing across the lake

During my stay with Kelly, we did a lot of what the Peace Corps likes to call pasear-ing.  Pasear means to stroll around, and in this context it also means stopping to visit and chat with your neighbors.  It’s a great way to integrate into your community and be kept in the loop of what projects they want to see happen.  Some adults complained about their kids not speaking their native Emberá language and about losing their culture in general.  I found it interesting that this community is completely Evangelist Christian.  I tried to ask what their original religion was like, but they act like they have always been like this, which is pretty impossible.  We also spent a lot of time on Kelly’s porch and entertained a lot of visitors, mostly community children.  I basically fell in love with every kid in that community. SO CUTE.

kids love cameras

I was there for one work day where we worked on the school garden project with some of the community dads (who according to Panamanian customs, showed up about an hour and a half late).  I also worked with Kelly a little in her own home garden, which provides her with fresh veggies.  Home gardens haven’t quite caught on yet in this community which only relatively recently stopped being hunter/gatherers, but seeing Kelly work on hers does spark some interest and we received a nice amount of unrequested help. 

school garden - putting up the fencing

Kelly's home garden

I made it back to my training community, took a shower, and nearly put on my bathrobe before I noticed a scorpion clinging it to it.  He dropped to the floor and stayed there long enough for my host-dad to take a machete to it.  Así es la vida.

Contact info update!

I have a cell phone.  I’m sure it’s expensive to call, so no pressure to do so at all, but if you really want to, here it is:  011-507-6793-1077

I still won’t know where my 2-year site is for another few weeks, but it sounds like mail may as well go to the Peace Corps office.  Again, I have no expectations here, and mail is rather unreliable anyway:

Cuerpo de Paz, Panamá

Edificio 240, 3er Piso

Calle Víctor Iglesias

Ciudad del Saber, Clayton

Corregimiento de Ancón

Panamá, Rep. De Panamá

Week 1 of Training = Done!

Todo bien.  My host family in our training community (I’ll be here for a couple months) is super sweet.  The couple runs a little store attached to our house and my host dad buys and sells (or kills and sells the meat of) cattle.  When I first met him, he couldn’t shake my hand because his hands were busy chopping huge slabs of meat…  We have electricity and running water.  I am lucky to have a flush toilet and a (cold, refreshing) shower faucet.  The trade-off is that I am far from most other students, so I have to walk 25 minutes to and from class multiple times a day on a road that includes 3 hills and some scary dogs.  Good workout!  The trainees that are living closer to town mostly have latrines and bucket showers.  My host mom is sisters with another host mom and they have a deal worked out such that my friend Lauren comes over and eats every meal with me.  It’s a pretty fun setup, but the downside is we speak in English way more than we should be.  Most meals include soup and rice, and some form a meat.  Whatever I can’t eat, I feed to our dog Pinto (my host mom told me to do that).  Occasionally we get some delicious papaya, mango, or pineapple juice.

House with dog and horse

Hill #1 of my walk to class

Every morning I have Spanish class with 3 other trainees and our teacher.  I am in the 2nd highest level of our group (the highest contains a woman from El Salvador and her husband who served in Peace Corps there, and a woman from Guatemala).  So far we’ve been going over pretty basic stuff, but we are also starting to learn the Panama-specific things I really need help with.

After lunch we have technical class.  This is broken up into soft skills (leadership & taking on a facilitating role, sustainable development principles, non-formal education methods, etc.) and agricultural skills (so far we have learned how to use our new machetes, vaccinated baby chicks, built seed trays out of materials like banana tree trunks, and soon we will plan and implement a home garden for our host families).  I feel like I’ve become that obnoxious student who always has their hand raised to answer questions, but Lauren says I don’t seem too annoying.

Seed trays

I am already using my mosquito net.  There are no mosquitos here, but there are other interesting bugs and my host mom says the net will prevent the little lizards from crawling into bed with me (those lizards are everywhere and make an interesting chirping noise at night).

Safe, happy, and healthy,

Lila