El Español, el Baile Típico, el Café Robusta, y SITE ANNOUNCEMENT

El Español

As you may already know, I love speaking in Spanish, something I haven’t had the chance to do much in the last few years.  Being back in a Spanish speaking country feels great.  It’s like a constant mind-quiz and I get really excited when random words come back to me that I haven’t used or thought of in years.  We had a language evaluation a couple weeks ago and mine went really well – I tested at Advanced-Medium.  I have now been switched into the language and culture class that includes two native Spanish speakers from Guatemala and El Salvador.  In this class I can get some extra help on more complicated grammar/vocab, work on Panama-specific phrases, and hopefully learn more about Panamanian culture and history.  We are also working on a project where we walk around the community and gather info on local plants, their uses, and how to grow them.  I’m really excited about this switch since my last class was too easy for me and felt limiting.  I’m looking forward to going deeper into more interesting topics.

El Baile Típico

A few weeks ago I finally got to experience Panama’s typical dance.  Panama has your usual latin dances – salsa, merengue, bachata, reggaetón – but it also has its own “típico.”  The rhythm of típico reminds me a bit of a latino-sounding polka mixed with the Texas-two-step, if you can imagine that.  Like the two-step, típico is danced with a partner and you follow the current of people in a circle around the dance floor, going at your own pace but staying with the general flow (although I’ve heard that this circle pattern might vary regionally).  Overall we had a lot of fun with it and as usual, I’m just happy to be doing any form of dancing at all.  I stuck to dancing with other gringos … the older Panamanian borrachos were just a little too creepy for me.

El Café Robusta

Last week was “Tech Week.”  My sustainable agriculture group was split into three depending on the focus of our assignments, and I hit the jackpot – coffee!!  My group of 8 spent one day at a coffee farm in Colón and the rest of the week visiting and working on various coffee farms around Boquete.  As a coffee-lover and a frequent caffeine-addict, I found learning about the whole production process to be fascinating.  We worked on pruning techniques, shade management, organic pest controls, soil improvement strategies, and processing options. 

From the tree to the cup!

Drying process

I also learned a lot about different coffee varieties.  All of the coffee in the world is classified as either “robusta” or “arábica.”  Robusta grows well in lower altitudes (which is what most of Panama has), tastes more bitter, has a higher caffeine content, is used in things like espresso or blends where taste doesn’t matter so much, and is not exported out of Panama because nobody wants it.  Arábica, on the other hand, is valued for its high quality taste, and is sold at high prices globally, but only grows in select areas of Panama like Boquete that are high enough up in altitude.  The taste of Arábica coffee varies depending on the environment in which the trees are grown and cared for, in addition to how the beans are dried, cleaned, and roasted.

Light, Medium, and Dark Roasts

Since I have never been a coffee snob, the taste-testing we did was a little lost on me.  To me, all coffee tastes good and I would rather drink the robusta that has more caffeine, but apparently the rest of the world disagrees with me and does not want to buy Panama robusta.  As such, communities growing robusta coffee focus mainly on maximizing their production and have no incentive to improve the quality of their product, since the extra effort doesn’t result in more income, and selling is limited to local communities or domestic coffee shops.  Pretty small scale stuff, but hey, every little bit of added income helps.  And if grown using the organic, low-input methods we are learning, coffee production can actually benefit natural environments without depleting resources.

“Cupping” (smell & taste testing)

I was really happy to split into a smaller group for the week.  I feel like I got to know the 7 other coffee volunteers really well and we had a lot of fun together.  Very positive energy all week.  Boquete is a beautiful little tourist town with less humidity than in the rest of the country and a beautiful view of Volcán Barú (it’s dormant, don’t worry).  Some of the farms we visited were pretty far out there.  We got to experience our program director’s badass, off-roading skills – river-crossing included!

Adventure time

Fancy Coffee Farm

At the end of the trip Peace Corps gave us our first completely free day since we’ve been here.  My coffee group headed to a beach called Las Lajas where we met up with the Environmental Health group of 24 volunteers.  We took over the beach and it was awesome.  It was a pleasant surprise to discover that the Pacific Ocean down here is actually warm!  We did a lot of swimming, tanning, drinking, and general relaxing.  It was a much needed break and the perfect way to end such an incredible week.  During a night swim we also got to see some bioluminescence going on (I’ve seen it better in Cali, but it was still cool).  Basically my life is amazing and I am feeling very lucky to be doing what I’m doing here.

California girls reunited with the Pacific

Where the jungle meets the Beach

Site Announcement

  

This morning our sites were announced!  I am going to a small, latino community of 200 people called el Harino en the province Panama Oeste (Western Panama).  My site is relatively accessible by road and I have a few other volunteers within a 45 minute hike.  I won't have electricity but will have a relatively stable source of water.  My work will include coffee production but also home gardens, fish tanks, etc.  Woo!  Next week we will visit our communities and find out more info...  !!!