Lila baila en Panamá (2012 - 2014): January 2014

Am I Scrooge?

I’m sorry if this offends anyone, but I have never been a fan of Christmas. And not just because I was raised Jewish or because my friends’ parents got mad when I was in 2^nd grade and told their kids that Santa didn’t exist. My dislike of Christmas stems from its overwhelming focus on consumerism. Of course I think kids should be gifted toys from time to time, but they should be meaningful ones and not in excess. I think the charity efforts that accompany the Christmas season are well-intentioned but often miss the mark when it comes to truly helping, as I recently witnessed in my community.

Over the holiday season, El Harino received a total of 7 groups who came out, played some games with the kids, brought piñatas, a meal, and a ton of presents. I have heard community members comment that many of the toys are cheaply made and break quickly. I have watched kids looking dazed and confused at the random items being thrust at them by strangers posing for pictures. I have seen our school trashed with wrapping and packaging. That being said, I have also seen some great gifts. My host family got the game Monopoly and playing with them, I love seeing them practice the necessary arithmetic skills as well as the concepts of buying property and investing. And some toys are just so much fun you have to love them, like the colorful, inflated cows and horses a local politician gave out to toddlers.

These double-wrapped juice sticks were strewn everywhere by the end of the day. But oh, that smile is precious

Pinata photo op

Santa photo op

BMW Moto Club came over

BMW Moto Club unloading goodies

Santa on a horse led by a creepy clown

Politician and posse

Politician photo op

Best toys ever: inflated horses and cows

So much musical chairs

Creepy toy. Label says it's from the Panamanian Government. That girl does not look Panamanian

What's a volleyball?

Long line for bags of candy

I guess my main point is that thoughtfulness and moderation should play a bigger role in Christmas charity planning. While El Harino received many visiting groups, other neighboring communities did not. The paved road ends in my community. Cars can get here with minimal difficulty, but they can’t get to several others around us. I felt somewhat guilty about this blatant unfairness, but El Harino inhabitants didn’t seem to. They did not make any effort to include other communities or suggest that the visitors try to extend their reach, but instead accepted all of the groups and all of the gifts with open arms. Again, I’m all for the idea of helping people around the holiday season, I just wish more thought went into questions like:

What do people here really need?

What can we give that will last long-term?

Are we arbitrarily leaving people out?

Repping for Peace Corps

Recently, I've had a few opportunities to serve as an unofficial spokesperson for The Peace Corps, and have really enjoyed it. Formally, I prepared and gave presentations to high school Environmental Science AP classes when I was home in November, and then used mostly the same spiel to co-present with Peace Corps Panama’s Country Director for a group of visiting business school students from Seton Hall in January. Casually, I found that while traveling with my mom in December, both Panamanian tour guides and American tourists seemed very interested in what I'm doing here and engaged me in some interesting discussions. Here are bits and pieces that stood out from such experiences:

Some American tourists staying at nice Panamanian resorts were surprised to learn that there is poverty in Panama. Yes, there is extreme poverty here. Nearly all of Panama’s economic wealth and growth is concentrated in the capital city, known for closely resembling Miami.
I forget how bad healthcare is for people in my community until I start explaining how the nearest hospital is over an hour’s drive away (and what if there’s no car around?) and that people are carried in hammocks from their houses that can be 45+ minutes from the paved road. Tourists were rightfully appalled by this. “And what about your healthcare?” they asked me. I explained that Peace Corps completely covers me and reimburses any travel costs associated with getting me to a doctor when needed. “Are you ever scared?” Sure, when I’m walking between houses in the middle of the jungle and I remember that there are poisonous snakes around. But what can I do? Fear of those things doesn’t stop my community members from living their lives, and it won’t stop me either. Besides, according to the Peace Corps medical staff, as long as I find another human being who can help me get out after a snake bite within the 5 hours I have before I go unconscious, I’ll be fine… (Mom, forget you read that part)
I was asked if I ever just give out money to people. This question gave me the opportunity to explain why hand-outs are largely ineffective. People don’t appreciate what they are given without having invested themselves, and therefore do not care for such gifts responsibly. Panamanians are not known to be good at money management and quickly spend cash that comes their way. My role as a human resource, well-integrated into my community’s culture, would be completely undermined if my neighbors viewed me merely as a rich foreigner handing out $$
The business school students asked thought-provoking questions about long-term monitoring of our impact. The truth is there is no budget for that. Peace Corps typically sends three volunteers through a community for a total of six years of Peace Corps presence in one place. While volunteers are there, we are required to submit trimester reports quantifying our activities including counts of how many community members we have trained in new practices and how many are actually implementing those techniques. Once a community is left with no more volunteers, there is no more recorded data on our long-term impact. And then there is the issue that much of a volunteer’s work is simply unquantifiable. How do you measure cultural exchange and understanding? How do you measure community empowerment?
In spite of the above, I feel confident in presenting a few clear examples of things I consider successes, however small. While far from everyone in El Harino has a perfectly managed compost pile, people at least do understand the concept that soil needs nutrients and that organic material has those nutrients. When I ask how people are fertilizing their plants, I used to only hear that either they didn’t at all, or that they used a chemical. Now they tell me they are mixing manure, ash, and kitchen waste into their soil. The home gardens I helped several families start over the last year are still going. Even if families neglect their gardens for a while, they eventually clean them up and plant in them again. Some families who I helped start just a couple beds, took it upon themselves to expand their gardens and found their own materials to use as fencing (chicken-protection) beyond what I provided them. Some families that never asked for my help saw what their dad/brother/friend had going and started their own after seeing positive results. My neighbors up the hill where I go every single day to get signal had always told me they wanted to start a garden and would let me know when. I took their “I’ll let you know…” comment as the Panamanian way of saying “Not gonna happen” and was confused since we get along so well and they seem to care about me and my work. Around New Year’s (a year and a half after I arrived) they showed me the garden they’ve started, and the woman in charge proudly told me she’d done the whole thing by herself. Nothing could make me happier.
Talking about this stuff to students and tourists gets me so excited. I am passionate about the work I’m doing and have discovered that I probably have more to say than a polite tourist cared to hear. But hey, they asked.
Here's a link to see the presentation I made for both the Environmental Science AP and the Business School students: Presentation

Martina watering the garden she started all by herself

Out with the Out-of-Site-Guilt

Telling myself to stop feeling guilty every time I leave site is easier said than done. People living in my community do not leave often. The chiva ride is expensive, and leaving El Harino is considered a big deal and saved for special occasions and needs. Even though my neighbors smile and nod when I explain why I have to leave this time (I have a medical appointment in the city, I am giving a presentation to MIDA, I have a meeting at the Peace Corps office, etc.), I still feel that they can't really relate. My constant comings and goings are a blatant reminder that even while I technically live with them, in a traditional hut attempting to fit into their lifestyle, the reality is that to a certain extent we continue to live in different worlds.

Due to the increasing obligations I've taken on within Peace Corps such as my role as Agribusiness Coordinator, involvement in our Volunteer Advisory Council, and other random projects I help with in the office or with other volunteers (not to mention my remaining vacation days that I’d like to use), I now leave site almost every week, if not more. That seems crazy. However, my tangible work in site seems to be winding down (gardens have been started, fish ponds have been dug, etc.), and I am proud of the impact I've had in El Harino. While I will continue to work and share with my community to the extent possible in my last months, I need to remind myself that my experiences out of site are also important.

I miss this view from my porch when I'm not in site.

From Panama to Pennsylvania!

The morning of December 9^th, I hiked around visiting families and passing out some photos I’d recently gotten developed for them (they love getting photos!). Walking through a particularly treacherous patch of mud mixed with cow manure, I slipped and fell catching myself with my left hand sinking into the muck. In that moment, with my arm submerged up to my elbow in poop/mud, I thought to myself, “I hope I get into Yale today.” It turns out that indeed I had!

So how did I get to that point?

Various experiences have reinforced for me the concept that any truly long-term sustainable solution to a societal problem must be environmentally, socially, and economically sound. So I studied the environmental science part in undergrad, am working with the cultural/people side now in the Peace Corps, and have been planning for some time to pursue an MBA as my next move in order to better understand that last sector. My goal is to keep working in international sustainable development and keep learning how to be more effective at it.

For my entire first year of service, I did not have to think about what comes next. I immersed myself in this experience and loved it. Towards the end of July, business school applications started coming online and I abruptly switched gears to start planning for the future. Needless to say, applying to schools while living in a hut with no electricity presented some interesting challenges…

Online access. To make the whole process more manageable (and because my third cheapy phone had recently gone kaput), I invested in a blackberry. From the hill I climb once a day to get cell signal I can now also receive and send email. This was a huge life changer and helped me immensely. Even my hill; however, lacks strong enough signal to use the blackberry’s browser. When it came time to schedule interviews through websites, I had to call my mom and have her login as me to read me the options over the phone.

My laptop. Thankfully my laptop has close to a six hour battery life, and the teachers sometimes let me charge it at the school where there’s a solar panel. But even so, there were times when I had to work on essays the old-fashioned way, by hand. I often worked at night which meant innumerable creepy bugs attacking my bright computer screen as I went. One night a cockroach flew directly at my mouth and I remember thinking, “I will look back on this and laugh as long as I get in somewhere.” And yes, some cockroaches here can fly.

City trips. I managed to not have to take too many extra trips out of site. But to fully take advantage of my normal, 2-day city outings, I abandoned the fun Peace Corps hostel for a few months and instead hid in a cheap private hotel room each time I came out. No distractions!

My support. My sister, my undergrad college counselor, my mom, and my sister’s friend all helped review my essays. I would send my latest versions from the city and then return to site. When they emailed comments, I would get them on my blackberry and bring them back down my hill to work. Thanks for the help, team! And thanks to all who gave me encouragement along the way or who patiently listened to me stress out.

My mentality. Writing personal statements in the past tense about what I learned and the skills I developed in the Peace Corps was very strange. I am still here and still learning. Additionally the idea that I could even attempt to summarize this experience (and my future goals, etc.) in 750 words or less just seemed silly. It really made me appreciate this blog where I can write whatever I want and don’t have to worry about word or character limits!

Interviews. When I planned my trip home for Thanksgiving, in the back of my mind I thought maybe I’d have some business school interviews around then. This worked out better than I guessed and I squeezed in two in-person and two Skype interviews while I was home. Wearing a suit was weird. I had never owned one before this trip. Here’s what I looked like in one on my way to an in-person interview. I looked the same for my Skype interviews except I wore sweat pants and slippers on my bottom half.

Very different from my REI quick-dry pants, tank-tops, and rubber boots

Rejection. Lest you think I had a perfect score, a few of my top choice schools rejected me, and one dragged out its decision on me for longer than I thought necessary. Such is life.

My community. No one here in El Harino can fully comprehend what this application process is like. I think some are still confused at why I’m applying to universities again since they know I already graduated from college. I explained that I want to get a Masters studying business so I can keep helping people with few resources, but with a better understanding of how to help them also make money. They seemed to get this. It’s also cute to see that even if they don’t fully understand, they are happy when I am happy. As I sat with my neighbor up the hill where I get signal and I told her that a good university had just accepted me, she clapped her hands and said, “Gracias a Dios.”

Decisions. I got into some great schools and was lucky enough to have the “problem” of having to choose. I am a full believer that anyone can make the best of wherever they end up. While in some ways it was hard to wrap my head around my options, I did as much research as I could from so far away, and I had plenty of time to think and meditate on it from the solitude of my little hut. But I have finally decided that come August 2014 I will be headed to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. I am already bracing myself for some intense culture shock and look forward to a whole new kind of challenge :)