Hitting the Ground Running

Swear-In

On July 5, 2012 the 71^st group of Peace Corps volunteers in Panama swore to protect the constitution of the United States of America and to serve the people of Panama for two years.  Woo!  Swear-in week was an all-around good time.  Our group of 44 (both my Sustainable Agriculture Systems and the Environmental Health groups) got to stay at the Holiday Inn (serious luxury for us) leading up to the ceremony and got to experience a little more of Panama City including the cute although touristy neighborhood of Casco Viejo.  Right after swear-in we headed to a beach to celebrate for the weekend.

SAS ladies post swear-in

View from awesome rooftop bar in Casco Viejo (growing mustaches for swear-in was a big thing for Peace Corps guys)

Beach Corps at El Palmar

Saying goodbye was pretty hard.  We won’t be together as a group again until Interim Service Training in November.  But we’ll keep in touch and hopefully meet up for little breaks from site here and there!

First Two Weeks in Site!

It truly feels like I’m hitting the ground running.  This community has already had a volunteer, who did some really awesome things, and all are eager to continue improving.  It’s really inspiring to see.

Trying to get to know this community is a challenge.  The houses are very spread out, with muddy, narrow, rocky, mountainous paths connecting them to each other or to the main road, which while paved, remains difficult with all of its ups and downs and curves.

Main road running through town

Needless to say, I’m getting a great workout pasearing and my calves are looking good.  But there are mental challenges as well.  I am trying to draw a map of the community (required by Peace Corps) and make sense of what at first seemed a jungle maze but is already becoming more familiar.  Also difficult is learning all of the names in this community, especially when I introduce myself as Lila, and they introduce themselves with all four of their names (each person has two first names and two last names) for me to remember.  But I’m getting down at least one name per person … poco a poco.

When I pasear by myself, I go at a pretty slow pace in an attempt to avoid sweating profusely in between visits and also to avoid falling down the muddy, slippery paths.  When my host family members accompany me, it feels as though I’m running up the mountains through the jungle.  I am so impressed by them and wonder if I’ll ever get used to this kind of leg work!  The walk from the road to my host family’s house takes me 25 minutes alone, and only 15 with my host-family guides of all ages and small sizes pushing me.  I have fallen down at least five times already with a few bruises and some mud stains to show for it.

Sunset on the way home after an afternoon pasear

As I go along, I am also researching info on who is interested in which future projects.  Some families want home gardens and never got the chance when the last volunteer was here.  Some need help finishing up or starting fish tank projects.  Some are interested in organic fertilizers.  Some have coffee farms and are interested both in improving production and also selling strategies.  Some sell other products, but many are the definition of subsistence farmers.

 My host-family grinds sugar cane to make ‘honey’ and huge sugar blocks called raspadura to be sold to clients who already know to come to here for these goods.

Roasting harvested coffee for home consumption.  They burn it pretty intensely to hide bad quality tastes due to poor processing and then cover the burnt flavor by adding a ton of sugar.  Yes, I still love coffee.

I am trying many new foods.  Duck eggs (hard boiled), pifá (palm fruit that tastes like sweet potato), coconut fruit and water, etc.  I said no gracias to chicken feet and left what I think was part of a pig’s tail behind in my yucca stew.  Mostly I eat a lot of root vegetables like yucca, rice, and plantain.  Meals consist of one or more of those empty carbs plus some protein (eggs, fish, lentils, canned sardines are a big thing…) or fruit (banana, pineapple, orange).  Usually I eat the food with nutrients and leave behind a large portion of the empty carbs.

Panamanian duck.  Thanks for the egg!  Not so much for coming in my room and crapping on my floor.  Gross!

Pifá

I have the usual expected visitors in my room.  Found a scorpion hanging on my clothes my first morning.  A cockroach in my bed the second morning.  A spider in my boot the third morning (thankfully I noticed it before putting the boot on).  I’m pretty over any fear of these critters and find them amusing.  At night I look out at the countryside and see fireflies.  Love them!  With the addition of some dry lightning, nights here are pretty magical.  Who needs electricity?

The kids of my host-family house all have chicken pox.  The youngest ones cry a lot (although it’s hard to tell how much they would normally cry anyway because that’s what kids do).  The older ones are dealing pretty well and they should all be well soon.  One of the girls LOVES singing songs about Jesus as LOUD as she possibly can.  These songs are now stuck in my head 24/7.  Que bonito essss andar con Cristooo.  Que bonito essss andar con Él etc. …

Still cute despite chicken pox

I already started teaching English at the school once a week.  I have never taught in a classroom before, and never thought teaching English would be one of my secondary projects.  But the last volunteer did it and the kids clearly love it.  It is a good opportunity for me to get to know the kids and be involved in the community.  So I’ll make it work somehow!

My host-mom taught me how to wash clothes by hand with a brush on a flat rock in the stream.  I need a lot of practice.  It took me 2 hours to wash 5 days’ worth of clothes and I didn’t even do a great job … Hard to believe I was ever lazy about doing laundry back when a machine did it for me, haha.

I have cell phone service in a few select locations on top of very tall hills.  Makes for some lovely spots to call out, but extremely inconvenient, especially considering the amount of coordinating I plan to do with outside agencies that work on agricultural projects with communities like this one.  Communication is a huge problem within the community as well.  No one seems to know exactly when important meetings are taking place, who is supposed to be there, or where the location is.  Everything travels through word of mouth and depends on if you happen to run into the right people with the correct info.

Phone-calling tree stump on top of mountain

I made it to a pretty big government event in a nearby community regarding getting rural lands measured and officially titled (rarely done out here in the campo) and felt very networky collecting contact info from various agencies present.  I had a similar experience at a Mujeres Unidas (United Women) group meeting in my community with people there from different agriculture, development, and renewable energy organizations.  Many opportunities for project collaboration!

Rechargeable lamp project for the Mujeres Unidas group.  Coming soon – the debut of a new kiosk with solar panels where these lamps can be recharged for 25 cents.

I have been practicing my physical agriculture skills.  I harvested coffee with my host-dad (ripening early!).  I macheted weeds both in my host-dad’s yucca/pineapple farm and also at the school with the Padres de Familias group.  The guys laugh at my small machete, but hey, it works for now and I’ll get a longer one when I feel more comfortable using it.

That's it for now until the next time I make the trek out for some internet and a diet coke :)

Thank you, El Harino, for being so beautiful that it is pretty impossible to wish I were anywhere else.