I started off the week with a few main goals. The first was to spread the word about a
fast-approaching meeting with the Peace Corps Environmental Health Program
Specialist, which would determine if El Harino will receive a follow-up
volunteer. After two volunteers whose
work focused on sustainable agriculture, I believe my community will benefit
from a program change and support for our mismanaged, lacking aqueduct systems
and latrines. Strong attendance at the
meeting was important. My second goal
was to spread the word about an upcoming bridge project work day. We are in the process of gathering an insane
amount of rocks, sand, and gravel so the materials will be ready when
construction begins later in March. The
third was to offer my services as photographer to those families who are currently
trying to get the official titles to their land and need a photo to complete
their paperwork. This process is costly,
so not many have taken me up on the offer yet.
Goal four was to begin gathering data on how much nutrition has improved
since it was voted El Harino’s biggest problem in September, 2012. My strategy was to ask people what foods they
eat a lot and to compare to their answers from way back then. And of course, my permanent goal when I am in
site is to be a visible, well-integrated member of the community. As with most weeks, I set myself a rough
schedule, which was bound to change.
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| Publicity for Environment Health follow-up volunteer meeting |
Monday, February 17.
Monday morning I climbed my phone hill to call Panama’s
fishery organization. My contact there
helped us get fish for a couple projects here in August 2012, so I thought he
might help us get the tubes that MIDA has failed to provide for almost a year
(my last inquiry informed me that the only farmer on the short list to receive
tubes happens to be the only one who is a member of MIDA’s political party.
Hmmm). Señor Cobas told me his organization doesn’t have
tubes, but that he was meeting with MIDA the next day and would plead my
case. I was to call back Wednesday to
see how it went.
After the call, I set out on a Power-Pasear route hitting nine houses.
I won’t describe each visit, but just a few highlights. Three houses gave me food to eat: rice with a
little meat; soup with rice, pasta, yucca, and a little meat; and soup with
yucca, otoe, ñame,
and a little meat. I don’t eat red meat,
nor do I usually eat three lunches, but it was a long day and I managed. I drank coffee, juice, and tea. I was gifted yucca, ñame, tomatoes, eggs, and plantains. I had some good discussions and talked up the
Peace Corps meeting. People agreed with
my assessment that they don’t need another agriculture volunteer (saying that
even though not everyone is practicing techniques like compost, they at least
get the idea) and that getting help with water is a necessary priority. I found out that a couple more families are
backing out of getting their land titled (no
hay dinero). To my incredible
excitement I saw that one of my farmers’ dugout fish tank is now full of water
and fish and accompanied by a second functioning fish pond. Apparently the farmer I’d worked with on it
let his brother take over and the brother decided to invest his own resources
to get the tanks up and running. Woo!
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| Tanks finished up by original farmer's brother |
Tuesday, February 18.
Tuesday I knew I’d have kids over for reading club in the
afternoon so I set out for a “quick” three-house pasear. One of these
families is new in town and the single mom there told me her tough story of
leaving her husband after 20+ years and starting over. We talked about more pleasant things as well,
and by the time I left, I had gotten to hold her adorable infant, said hello to
her teenager, and set a date to work on making them a compost pile. House #2 surprised me with another revived
fish project. This farmer had
temporarily given up on the project when strong rains caused a nearby creek to
overflow and carry away his fish several months ago. Now that it’s summer here, he got new fish and
is strengthening his pond to withstand the next rainy season. I left there after drinking some coconut
water and with a couple eggs in my purse.
We also set a date for him to take me to his farm to take a photo for
his land title paperwork.
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| Fish tank revival |
I got home just in time to scarf down some lunch before the
kids arrived to read. As usual we read a
few short stories and then a chapter of a longer one—we finally finished
Charlotte’s Web! They all confirmed they
had never read a book that long before.
At the end I gave out a snack and got out some balls to kick around, but
to my amazement they all went for the bag of books and read individually for a
while. So great. Eventually they put the books down and we all
played catch for a bit. Then we headed
over to the school to say hi to the teachers who just arrived this week to get
organized for the new school year, which was to start February 24. It was nice to see the teachers back and they
invited me to the PTA board meeting the next day at 2:00. We all played dominos for a while, and then I
went home.
Wednesday, February
19.
Wednesday morning I did about an hour and a half’s worth of
laundry. Then up to my phone hill to
check in with my fish friend. He hadn’t
had much luck, but reported that our tube request still was in an
approved-but-not-yet-filled status. So
the waiting continues. Before climbing
back down the hill, I was asked to play hair dresser and gave two girls French-braided
pig tails. Super cute. Their grandma then gave me a bunch of tomatoes
from her garden.
Heading out for another “quick” two-house pasear before the afternoon PTA meeting,
I ran into a community member out telling people that the land-measuring guy
would be coming here on February 26 – the same day as my Peace Corps meeting!
ARG! Now I (selfishly?) felt lucky that
not many families are actually measuring their land and so hopefully this will
not conflict too much with my meeting.
Still frustrating though, considering I’ve been telling everyone about
this date for over a month now. As I
headed to visit my first host family’s house, I ran into some city Panamanians
who said they were going there too and asked if I would lead the way. As we hiked, they told me they came out here
occasionally to participate in the Evangelist Church’s activities. They were out here on this particular day to
deliver a special vine plant known to cure leishmaniasis. I remembered a gnarly-looking sore I’d seen
on 12-year-old Diana’s arm the week before and my heart sank. We learned about the flesh-eating parasite
called leishmaniasis in training. Getting "lesh" for a volunteer means three weeks in Panama City with daily intravenous
treatments. What does it mean for people
out here? Sure enough, when we arrived I
saw that all the kids had itchy, open, large sores on their skin. The man I’d led explained to them to keep the
sores clean and to apply the salve from within the vine plant twice a day. He also explained the origins of the parasite
carried from sloths to people by way of biting sandflies. I was horrified by what I saw, but the kids
were in good spirits. They said the
sores itched a little but not too bad.
They applied the salve and were soon off playing again.
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| Explaining how to get the salve from this vine plant |
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| a sore caused by leishmaniasis |
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| Even the baby got it |
I hung out for a while and talked to their parents about
community issues like water. They agreed
that an Environmental Health volunteer could help the community, but warned me
about some gossip. Apparently some don’t
want another Peace Corps volunteer because my landlord makes too much money. Seriously?
That’s a legitimate reason to not want another volunteer? I said that sounded resolvable since after my
two years of paying $30/month, my house will have finally paid for itself so
maybe the next volunteer would pay less or split the rent between my landlord
and a community fund like the school or the town hall. For lunch they fed me boiled yucca with fried
chicken-based hot dog, gave me a couple eggs to go, and then I was on my
way.
Leaving there, I stopped by my second host family where my
25-year-old host “mom” was nursing her one-week-old baby (she had the baby at
home instead of going out to a hospital, but everything was fine “gracias a Dios”). We talked about how she now has two girls and
two boys and would like to leave it at that.
She is looking into the paperwork involved to get her tubes tied. It sounds like a long process, so I attempted
to explain the rhythm method for the meantime.
I arrived at the 2:00 PTA meeting around 2:30. The president of the PTA didn’t get there
until 4:00. Once the meeting finally
started we talked about school projects like fixing up the cafeteria, etc. They need to have a meeting with all the school
parents and decided to set it for the 26th, after my meeting
ends. Hopefully that will work to my
advantage and get more people to come since they have to be there anyway. The president told me they were all
machete-chopping the school lawn on Friday and that I should come to promote
the 26th’s meetings. By the
time I got home I found my sheets and most of my clothes had dried in the hot
sun. I prepared myself a dinner of all
things I’d either been given or had grown in my own garden: ñame, eggs, tomato, and
mustard greens. YUM!
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| Colorful, local food bowl |
Thursday, February 20.
Thursday morning I woke up early and it wasn’t quite light
yet. I went to turn on my solar lamp and
found my hand stung by a bee hiding on the lamp string. Good morning to you too! I laughed to myself remembering that in Peace
Corps training we’d been reminded that ice is good for stings like this. Ice.
What a luxury. I ran cool water
over my hand for a few seconds and went on with my day.
Now my day got confusing.
Last week a farmer had told me MIDA was coming to inspect his farm and
see how his MIDA-sponsored poroto (bean) project was going. This proud farmer invited me to come early
for breakfast and to see other products he was growing before MIDA got
there. He told me that he did not burn his land, but rather had left cut down debris on top of the
land around where he planted his crops and had noticed that the soil was
producing well (the nutrients from the debris were returning to the soil as the
dead plant material decomposed), the soil was holding moisture better, and that
less weeds were coming up. I told him I
was so glad he was able to see these positive results with this
experimentation, and that I couldn’t wait to see it myself. But then when I had passed by his daughter’s
house the afternoon before, she told me MIDA wasn’t going to her dad’s and
instead wanted me to accompany them and a few other El Harino farmers to see a
garden project in a nearby community. So
when MIDA came for me, I hopped in the back of their pickup truck and
went. Except I discovered too late that
in fact two different MIDA groups had organized separate events for the same
day and expected me to be at both. Hmm.
I had a nice visit to the garden project and took the opportunity to push some
more for help getting fish tank tubes, but as soon as I got back I rushed over
to the proud bean-farmer’s house to apologize for not showing. Thankfully he understood the confusion and we
set a new date for me to come see his beans.
While there I played with his grandkids, French-braided a 4th
grader’s hair, was fed purple-colored rice and coffee and was gifted three
bananas for the road.
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| Pickup truck ride to see a garden project in a nearby community |
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| Learning about simple sticky traps for insects |
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| Farmer's grandbaby who knows my name now! |
,
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| Once I made it to the bean farm early the next week, it was gorgeous!! |
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| The farmer had his son give me the tour (hmmm trying to set me up, perhaps? no gracias) |
Friday, February 21.
I arrived fashionably late to the machete-chopping at the
school. The truth is, my machete could
use a more professional sharpening than me and my little file are capable of,
and so machete-chopping fields is not my favorite thing to do right now. My timing worked out well. I said hello to everyone and then helped peel
and cut root vegetables with the only two women present for the soup they were
making for the men. Once the guys
finished chopping the field, they switched to mixing concrete for the floor of
a new room for the 7th grade teacher (she had complained last year
that her old room was too far from the other teachers and that she got scared
at night … I find this silly since I live by myself much farther from any human,
and I don’t get scared at night, but the school parents are trying to keep her
happy). I like this work better and
grabbed a shovel to dig in. I had a nice
day talking, working, and hanging with the guys. One particularly entertaining
topic of conversation was that apparently witches have been around a lot
lately. One guy said he felt a witch
grab him in the middle of the night and woke up with bruises on his arm. Witches…
Right… At the end of the day the
PTA president and I made sure everyone knew about the meetings on the 26th. They began talking about selling fried bread
and coffee that day as a school fundraiser.
Sounds good to me!
When I got home, I did a little tidying up and looked
through some books I was thinking of donating to the Peace Corps office. SURPRISE ANTS! I sprayed some Raid, did some sweeping, and
highly doubt I got them all. Sigh. Don’t worry mom, my business calc book was
safely stored in a Ziploc bag.
I would also like to note, that this day was ERICA GOLDMAN’S
BIRTHDAY! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Saturday, February 22.
Saturday the district mayor was scheduled to come out. He actually was supposed to come one week
before, but postponed for one reason or another. Also the meeting location changed. It was supposed to be at a faraway house and
I’d planned to pasear my way over for
the noon meeting, but it switched instead to a close by house, leaving me with
a newly emptied morning (and the realization that I probably wouldn’t make it
to all those houses before the 26th’s meeting). After breakfast I cleaned the tomato seeds
I’d harvested from the previous night’s dinner and let ferment overnight. As I set them out to dry, I was visited by my
20-year-old neighbor who asked to borrow $20 so he could take his niece out to
the city back to her mom’s house. This
family is always responsible when I loan them money and they are always
generous with me, so I lent him the money.
A little while later I went up to his house to get signal and check my
phone, and my world got rocked just a little.
As Agribusiness Coordinator with a grant sponsored by many of you lovely
people, I am organizing three agribusiness seminars, the first of which is
coming up in the Veraguas province March 7-10.
But on this morning, I listened to a voice message from the volunteer
whose community is hosting the seminar saying he was just informed that there
is a big provincial festival called Cristo
de Atalaya involving some kind of pilgrimage that same weekend. He wasn’t sure how many participants would be
affected, but considering this seminar is for Veraguas farmers and this is a
local Veraguas holiday, this did not sound good. I made a round of calls to other Veraguas volunteers
asking them to confirm their farmers’ desire to attend or if they were all actually
busy with the holiday and had somehow failed to realize the dates
conflicted. But of course, none of us
have cell signal, so the phone tag began.
ARG! If I have to postpone this
seminar, it will wait until at least April.
FRUSTRATION. I then called my mom
to vent (and just because I like to call home about once a week), and she
reminded me in that mom kind of way that in spite of my type-A personality, many
things are out of my control here, and that all I can do is my best. Thanks mom.
At around 11:00 one of my neighbors said she was heading to
the mayor’s meeting, so I went with her.
I had seen billboards with this guy’s face, but I think he was even more
comical in person. Fatter (obese,
really), darker skinned (he looked orange on the billboard), and with a raspier
voice than I expected. He arrived with a
big posse of helpers who immediately set to work cooking lunch, amazing my
community’s women with modern technology like a device that cuts hard boiled
eggs for you without a knife (“Really Lila?
You’ve seen that before? This is
the first time I’ve ever seen something like that.”). He and a few members of his posse all took
turns addressing the crowd. This is an
election year for Panama (coming up on May 4th) and I’ve seen politicians come
in with some pretty strong rhetoric.
This one kept it relatively short and sweet and gave out shoes to all
kids present and huge lunch portions to all.
After the speeches, our bridge committee asked for his support following
up on a formal solicitation letter they’d already sent to his office. He agreed he wanted to help, but said he
couldn’t exactly make any promises, so we shall see. In any case it was a good opportunity for us
to remind everyone about the upcoming bridge work day. As the meeting ended, one of the creepy
politician guys accompanying the mayor told me he’d been born too early and
that if he’d been born at the right time, I would’ve been the mother of his
children. GROSS!
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| Check this guy out |
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| The man in person. Buying votes with lollipops? |
I got back to my house in time to freshen up a bit before
heading out again. One family had
invited me over for that evening to celebrate three of their birthdays: father,
son, and daughter’s quinceañera. The daughter had actually turned 15 in November,
but they’d decided to wait and group everyone together. I got there at around 6:15 in time to help
with the last bit of cooking. Then we
all hung around waiting for more people to arrive. The 20-year-old birthday boy kept giving me
swigs of the typical fermented corn drink chicha
fuerte intermixed with shots of Seco, a Panamanian sugarcane rum that
tastes like burning. The kids around
took notice and asked me, “You drink that stuff?” “Yes, but only a little,” I replied. “But what if they give you a lot?” “Then I stop.” I realize my fight against the macho
binge-drinking culture here is probably futile, but I still try to lead by
example. In between taking shots that
burned my insides, I mostly played with the kids, who took to playing with my
hair, repeatedly commenting that, “Lila has such yellow hair!” Meanwhile the men, growing in number, were
all getting noticeably plastered. When
we finally reached critical mass there were speeches on behalf of the quinceañera (who looked gorgeous
in a nice, white dress) and the birthday boys. We sang feliz
cumpleaños and watched a brief father/daughter
dance. Then around 9:30 the food was
served and for the second time that day I ate arroz con pollo and potato salad with beets and mayonnaise (I have
yet to figure out why Panamanians think that is a typical food of theirs since
none of those ingredients are local), and for the second time everyone ate two
full plates to my one. Cake was also
served – always the same dry, white cake with sickeningly sweet frosting. After that the kids started falling asleep on
their moms’ laps and the men started getting rowdy. The most amusing town drunk entertained all by
dancing by himself with surprisingly good rhythm. At 11:00 a few people started trickling out
and I jumped on that bandwagon. The family
thanked me for coming and for taking photos and tried to give me more food for
the road. I said no, saying that I didn’t
want to get fat, which made them laugh.
“Crazy gringa,” I could read their thoughts. They sent a random visiting cousin to walk me
home, which I told them wasn’t necessary, but it was nice. I was finally in bed a little before midnight
– hours past my normal bedtime.
 |
| Quinceanera and kids |
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| Birthday family |
Sunday, February 23.
I usually try to save up my housework for Sundays. Most people in my community either spend
Sundays in church or getting drunk and either way, I’d rather stay out of it. So in the morning I stayed in and spent a few
hours of badly needed work in my own neglected garden (clearing out old tomato
plants and weeds and adding compost to my terrible soil). I also spent some time up on the phone hill
with my neighbors, but still reached no conclusion on whether or not I’d have
to postpone the agribusiness seminar (although I was relieved to hear the holiday might not actually affect too many participants).
For the afternoon, I’d been invited to yet another birthday
celebration, one that I knew would be tamer than the night before. I’ve seen birthdays here celebrated in a wide
variety of ways. Sometimes with a piñata for small kids. Sometimes with men getting drunk as on
Saturday night. Sometimes with a small,
simple meal as this day would be. And
sometimes people have no idea when their birthday even is. So around noon I ventured out to one of the
farthest houses in my community. When I
got there I helped cook for a bit and then played cards with the kids (I lost
“war” twice). We then set the table to
eat, guess what? Yep, arroz con pollo and that purple
potato/beet salad. Again, all ate two
plates to my one. We took a few photos
and I was off again.
 |
| Birthday boy and his step-mom |
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| Family birthday lunch |
On my way back I ran into a drunk, sweet farmer who asked
me, “You’re not going yet, right?” Me:
“Going …?” Drunkard: “You’re going in
like July, right? We’re all going to
cry. We don’t want you to go.” Me: “Ayy, I’m leaving at the end of June, but
I still have a lot of time before that, and then I will cry too.” This went on for a bit before I could excuse
myself.
As I passed by my second host family’s house (the one with
the one-week old), they asked me to come in.
At church that day they’d received boxes from a Red Cross Christmas project
and their box came with a letter in English they wanted me to translate. So I translated the adorable letter from a
girl in Huntington Beach, California.
There was an address listed, so I told this family I’d help them write a
thank you letter to send back. They were
very grateful for the box filled with useful school supplies as their
5-year-old gets ready for kindergarten.
Before leaving, they sent me with a portion of squash to take home. Yum.
Just as I arrived home, some neighbors who live 10
minutes away and who don’t have water at their house came by to fill up their
daily buckets, so I chatted with them for a bit. As we talked, an escaped cow stumbled onto my
property. We chased it off, but it came
back again later and my uphill neighbors helped me notify the cow’s owners who
later came to reclaim it. They were very
worried on my behalf since cows eat everything and likely would have eaten the
tarp off my compost or would have trampled my garden had it been left here
overnight. Silly cow.
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| Example of a cow eating something he shouldn't |
Overall
These daily summaries left out a lot. I didn’t talk about all the pretty birds I
see and hear when eating breakfast or dinner on my porch in my hammock. I didn’t talk about the random rain storms I
hear pelting my metal roof. I didn’t
talk about all the gorgeous stars and fireflies I see when I get up to pee in
the middle of the night. I didn’t talk about how I am now used to
eating just about anything with only a spoon.
I didn’t talk about how hard it is to not scratch all of my bug bites
all of the time. I didn’t talk about all
the cute puppies I played with or the pathetic ones I already see turning mangy
and sick. I didn’t talk about how
whenever I pasear/hike around, I
marvel at the gorgeous tropical paradise scenery all around me. I didn’t talk about how I spent much of my
time on my phone hill this week coordinating the complicated logistics for a
party boat night for my volunteer group to celebrate our Close-Of-Service
Conference in March (three months before we actually leave the country). I didn’t talk about any of the mild boy drama
that I somehow manage to get myself into when I am out of site (sorry, those
stories will never go on this blog!). I
didn’t talk about how a few emails/Whatsapps/texts from you at home totally
brightened my days.
My life is frustrating and weird. It is also rewarding and incredible. Many daily challenges that I now consider normal,
I realize are bizarre and un-relate-able to most. Same goes for many of the things that make me
happy. My principal obligation for two
years has been simply to help people and to be myself, and I feel so lucky for that. I know I have a lot to look forward to with my
next move, but I also know I will miss this world more than I can explain. It is a very strange feeling to want time to
both hurry up and to freeze.
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| Extremely high turnout for the meeting to talk about getting an Environmental Health volunteer to follow me up in El Harino. Exciting! |
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