Community Analysis, Peace Corps Parties, Etc.

A Very Lila Community Analysis

After stressing out and over-planning for my community analysis, the meeting ran completely smoothly.  I followed my program director’s strict structure, adapting it and adding my own style as I found necessary, and she seemed very pleased with it.  The written report of it can be found here: http://lilabailapeacecorps.blogspot.com/2012/09/community-analysis-report-given-to.html in (campo) Spanish.  I will eventually translate it both into English and more formal Spanish as required by Peace Corps.  This current version is what I’m giving to community members. 

The gist of it is that together we reviewed several general community characteristics to gain a comprehensive understanding of how we’re doing -- How are families structured? What is the education system like? How is income generated?  What are the gender roles like?  When are certain crops harvested/planted?  Etc.

Making an Agriculture Calendar.  Apparently all I will have to consume in November is coffee.

Community Map.  People were more or less able to figure out where they all live on here.  I drew the main road straight instead of its true curvy nature, so this seemed to confuse some.

Then we analyzed our strengths and weaknesses and evaluated which agriculturally-related weakness within our control is considered most important.  The 19 people present voted “lack of food with nutrients” as a top priority.

Strengths, Opportunities, Weaknesses, Threats

We then discussed the causes and effects of this problem and developed the beginning steps of an action plan and timeline to address and improve it.

Causes & Effects of not getting enough nutrients

Planning activities to achieve our new goal

Whew!  It was a lot to cover and the meeting lasted about three and a half hours.  We celebrated after by trying the foreign American delicacy: peanut butter & jelly sandwiches!

The whole crew lasted through the whole meeting.

PB & J = a hit with my community members

So now I am pumped to continue working with everyone to achieve our goal of obtaining a more balanced diet (i.e. mixing in more nutrients to the standard rice and yucca straight carb baseline).  I am currently busy preparing for my first step coming up on Tuesday.  Along with an awesome neighboring volunteer Jim who is extending for a 3^rd year here, I’ll host a training session on both basic nutrition concepts and also how to compost.  In three months when the compost is ready (things degrade fast out here), we can use it to plant more nutritious food!

Publicity for upcoming event

Learning Moments & Observations

- Information gathering is a tricky thing in the development field.  I am trying to record a baseline regarding El Harino’s current diet in order to later evaluate if we are achieving our goal of consuming more nutritious foods.  I thought about asking people how many times a week (or day) they eat certain foods like rice, but realized quickly that no one thinks of things that way.  I’m going with asking what foods they eat the most.  They always say rice and yucca first, so I only record when they can think of anything else.  In a year we’ll see how many name a vegetable, fruit, or protein along with those two staples … The overall lesson here is that quantifying our progress will be a challenge.

- Rice production = seriously hard work!

Harvesting rice: You strap a knife to your hand and grab the top of the rice stalks to snip them off.  Yes, I fell a few times with the knife still strapped to my hand.  No, I didn't cut myself.

Harvesting rice: Bundles are tied together and left around the farm to gather up at the end of the day.

Rice post-harvest step 1: Degraining.  My fingers went numb doing this.

Rice post-harvest step 2: Toasting.  I accidentally threw a spoonful of rice into the air trying to stir the pot so the rice doesn't burn.

Rice post-harvest step 3: Dehusking.  I nearly hit myself in the head with these heavy mallets.

Rice post-harvest step 4: Shaking out the husks, leaving behind the rice ready to cook!  I did not even attempt this step.

- One of my favorite things to see out here is when people on horseback pass by blasting reggaetón on their phones.  Something about it just seems like such a funny contradiction

- I now love doing laundry.  These are usually the only few hours a week I spend listening to my iPod.  I’ve been told that people can hear my singing from the road, but I guess I don’t care.  Fortunately, they can’t see me dancing.

- Some days I really feel like Katniss in the Hunger Games.  I hike through the forest, with my hair in one long braid, wearing boots, and planning when I can replenish my supply of clean water.  Except I don’t have a bow & arrow, and no one is trying to kill me.

hiking around

- The term “licenciada” here is used for anyone with a college degree.  The term “ingeniera” is confusingly used to describe “engineers” or people considered experts in their fields.  I have been uncomfortable using these terms, because in many ways, I feel inexperienced in comparison to the local producers who’ve spent their lives working in the field.  However the fact is that I have received a high level of education and this does qualify me to give advice on certain topics.  When my education occasionally comes up (a bachelor’s in “Environmental Engineering” indeed earns me both titles of “licenciada” and “ingeniera”), people seem both impressed but also a little uncomfortable.  It’s just a weird feeling that while my education qualifies me to be here, it also distances me from the community members with whom I’m trying to integrate.

"Engineer Lila?"  Excited about eating Panamanian tree grapes.

- Among my other roles, I’ve recently taken on babysitter and cheerer-upper of older folks.  I play with kids a lot while their parents are busy cooking, etc.  The awkward teens are even warming up to me and now include me in soccer games (fun!).  I’ve been visiting some of the older “abuelos/as” around town.  While I realize these visits will never result in interest in my home-garden projects, I still feel they are worthwhile just because they seem to make them happy.  I listen to them vent about their health issues and about how alone they are.  We discuss the weather, how happy I am to be in Panama, and how beautiful it is.  They tell me about how things used to be here before the road when there were “tigres” everywhere (“tigre” = general term for scary, wild animals).  It’s cute.

Hanging with kids playing dress-up

simply gorgeous sunrise

- I’ve been dreaming in Spanish! According to my host-family I’ve even been sleep-talking in Spanish haha.  (I blame this on the side effects of Malaria-meds – I never used to be a sleep-talker).  I am feeling very good about my Spanish, but finding it hard to balance wanting to integrate and be understood by locals with wanting to maintain my more city/formal manner of speaking.  It’s like trying to spend two years in some small, southern US town and come out without an accent. Hmm.  Even so I can’t imagine how much harder this must be for volunteers who come in with low language levels.  My obsession with Spanish over the past 9 years has definitely paid off!

- I anticipated that people out here would not use tissues.  I assumed people would use handkerchiefs, and I brought a few.  But I was wrong … they’re all about the snot rockets!  And when it comes to little kids, parents grab their noses and tell them to blow, later flinging the snot from their fingertips.  I think I’ll stick with handkerchiefs.

How far will Peace Corps Volunteers go for a party? 

Far.  A neighboring volunteer is finishing up his two years, and his community threw him a going away party.  I met a few of my closer neighbors and we hiked for nearly three hours through some intense mud and including a river-crossing to meet up with a few other gringos (some who had traveled from much farther away) to attend this party.  In order to not hike back at night, I slept on a friend’s cement floor.  Was it worth it?  I suppose.  It was my first typical campo house party.  There was a fair amount of sitting in awkward silence.  A lot of Seco shots (Panamanian cheap liquor) being poured.  Much Peace Corps gossip with the gringos.  It’s always interesting to compare our sites, which in some ways are really quite different, while somehow our experiences still feel pretty similar.  In any case, it’s nice to be able to share.  My favorite part was getting to dance some típico (I said no to super drunk Panamanians, but yes to more sober ones and to my Peace Corps friends).  My least favorite part was that they cut up and cooked pig face into the rice.  Yes, pig face.  I tried to pick around the pieces, but gave most of it to a more carnivorous friend.  This was the first night that a few members of my community who also attended saw me drink alcohol.  I have discussed with some community members that the US drinking culture is different from the campo’s in that it is normal for women to drink, and that it does not center around men getting plastered and violent.  I am hoping to show by example what responsible drinking looks like.  I was mildly concerned that the next day I would become the talk of the town for having those couple drinks, but so far so good.  The few who saw me there continue to talk to me and treat me with the same respect as always.  Whew.

Who would want to eat those faces?

Community Analysis Report - given to community members

There are bats living inside the latrine.

Host-Family Switch

Peace Corps Panama used to require volunteers to live with 3 families in 3 months.  Since Washington set stricter rules on host-family housing requirements (walls, a door that can lock, etc.), Peace Corps Panama decided we should only stay with 1 family for 3 months (less housing inspections for them to do).  Since my community had a previous volunteer and was used to the first idea, they decided to compromise by having me stay with 2 families during my 3 month starting period.  So after being in site for 1.5 months, I switched families.

Moving is always draining, but exciting.  With the critical help of a couple horses I had to schlep all my stuff on a 20 minute hike and spend a day figuring out a livable, new room set-up.  In some ways I really miss living with my old family: playing soccer with the 4-year-old, listening to típico music with the 17-year-old, talking and listening to the news with by host-dad, and joking and laughing with my host-mom.  I had some near-tears moments talking with my host-mom and saying goodbye to the kids the day I packed up.  They are only 20 minutes away now, but this is still a big change from living with them.

Poor horse.

I moved to my 24-year-old host-brother Santiago’s house with his young wife Eudocia and 3 children under the age of four: Benilda, Besaida, and Israel.  Incredibly good people, really adorable kids, and I’m excited to get to know them better.

Besaida is still pretty camera shy.

As with everything, there are some advantages and disadvantages to this change.  First, the good stuff.  I am now right next to the main road which makes coming and going so much easier since the chivas (small buses) pass right by.  It also makes it easier to pasear since I’m in general closer to all other houses and worry less about making it back before the afternoon rains when the muddy paths get ugly.  The couple owns a small store, which means I get to talk to a lot of people without even having to leave the front porch.  My room is now much larger, allowing me to unpack a little more and find things I knew I’d packed somewhere.  Since there are less children here, that means less crying and less singing of loud Jesus songs.  Not none, but less.  My new bed is a little longer and has a foam mattress!  Sleep has improved greatly.

And now a couple of the character-building characteristics.  Yes, there are bats living inside of the latrine.  I can’t think of a worse place to want to live, but there they are.  It took me a while to realize it.  I kept hearing strange noises down there.  At first I thought there was a toad (there might be that as well), then I thought squirrel (but have never actually seen one around here), and then one evening I caught them.  There were a couple flying in and out of the latrine pit.  I shined my flashlight through the floor-boards and could see more.  So weird.  On the plus side, this latrine is not nearly as fly-infested as my last one.  Maybe the bats are eating the flies.

I now have to walk down the main, public road and down a steep muddy incline to get to the water that I use for my filter, to wash clothes, and to bathe.  I’ve already fallen along the way, but thankfully so far the falls have been before doing laundry or taking a bucket bath instead of after.

Overall, I am happy with the switch, but still looking forward to moving into my own place in October!

View of a gorgeous sunrise from my new family’s house.

Amoebas

I survived my first bout of amoebas.  It wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be, which is why I waited longer than I should have before telling Peace Corps and getting treatment.  I’ll spare you the details, but know that I’m doing fine now. 

City vs. Campo

Between getting sick and attending a few Peace Corps meetings/get togethers, I’ve been spending more time out of site than predicted.  I tend to feel guilty leaving site for a couple reasons.  I want to show that I am part of the community, and don’t need city breaks all the time.  I’m a work-aholic, and even though I often spend a significant amount of city-time on Peace Corps work, I still feel like I’m ditching just a little.  But the reality is, I will spend the majority of my life for the next 2 years here, and these little trips aren’t going to make a difference.

The culture shock I experience leaving site is interesting.  My community members often ask me about things in the U.S., and I realize that these same things exist in Panama, albeit a part of Panama they may never see.  The economic disparity within Panama is extreme.  City Panamanians share priorities and attitudes of any developed city, and are completely unaffected by the campo Panamanians that seem to live in a different world.

The agricultural organization MIDA continues to amuse and frustrate me.  I recently attended a capacity-building event called an Escuela de Campo that was supposed to cover the topic of seed collection and storage – extremely important and difficult in such a humid climate.  The event started late because they were waiting for an important figure, the Minister of Agriculture, to show up.  When he and his posse finally arrived around 11, the first thing they did was eat breakfast while the campesinos continued to wait.  We then sat through several speeches about how great it is to get campesinos out to events like this so that they can exchange knowledge and ideas with MIDA’s technical experts, and so they can receive hands-on field training in techniques that will help them back at their farms.  The speeches lasted until lunchtime.  After lunch a couple people talked about seed-saving in very general terms and asked for a few anecdotes from audience members.  This maybe lasted an hour, and all the while MIDA employees were scuttling about the premises, carrying on distractingly loud conversations, paying no regards to the presentations taking place.  Afterwards there were more speeches about how important food security is and how important it is for producers to work their land instead of the current trend that is selling land and migrating to cities.

The press even came to see the Minister of Agriculture speak

So during a full work-day missed by producers, they received an hour’s worth of mildly relevant information, and the rest of the time listened to MIDA employees pat themselves on the back for all the good work they’re doing.  Hmmm.  In my opinion the theme of the day was all talk and no action.

Coming Soon – Community Analysis

On September 17^th I will be presenting in front of my entire community.  Peace Corps provides a rigid structure for what to cover in this first meeting, and while I find some of the topics to be irrelevant, I am treating it like a research project and trying to prepare myself.  My boss (who will be there) only gave me three weeks’ notice on the date, which is pretty tight.  In addition to getting materials ready, I have been ‘power pasear-ing,’ which is much more intense than power walking and also involves more eating.  I am trying to personally invite everyone, which means visiting every single household.  My record is visiting 10 households in one day, which meant eating 3 cups of rice soup, 1 bowl of pifá, and 2 cups of coffee.  It will be very interesting to see who actually shows up and participates.  Ideally, we’ll all come out of this meeting with a better understanding of community priorities and specific goals to work toward while I’m here for the next two years.

I put up signs like this at each of our four little stores.  Sort of reminds me of the publicity work I did for Environmental Club in college, except without the benefit of a copy machine or a facebook event.

Wish me luck!  I’ll let you know how it goes next time …