Monday, December 28, 2009

Reverse Camping

We are getting ready for bed, a rest too short for our weary bodies. Our stay with our families was too short as well. We'll be asleep only a few hours before we have to get up to catch a 5am flight back to Panama City. It's been three weeks since we were in site; I'm sure that our cat has made the most of it.

During our first week out, Felix (a family name that also happens to be the "sainted" name of the town at our entrance off the interamericana) feasted on the toads and birds that dwell around our jungle shack while we were in the City for training-of-trainers. Then, I'm sure he chased the neighbor's female vixen in heat while we visited my parents in Phoenix. And towards the end of our vacation, he surely warmed himself in the new-summer's sun that dries out our muddy yard while we slogged through the slush in Virginia.

As our thoughts turn towards our shack like iron filings toward a magnet, a phrase that Lisa and I have been bantering around comes to mind: "reverse camping". We realized a few weeks ago that much of our activities could be described to the people back home, who would be and have been pumping us for information, in much the same terms and timelines as camping, only in reverse.

We plan our outtings to the world of electricity and hot water (hopefully) in much the same manner as one goes about planning a camping trip in the United States. We get our clothes and essentials together. We assess the food situation. We check on the life of our batteries. We pack our bags. Headlamps? Check. Lighter and candles? Check. Cash and cards? Check. We lock up the house. We hike down a wooded path.

The major difference between camping and reverse camping is that we do much of it backwards. The batteries that we checked are not coming with us. The food situation we apprised tells us how much to bring back home. The essentials that we are lacking will be bought on the trip, not before or on the way out. The hike through the woods (albeit in our case rather short) is to get to a car and down the mountain rather than into a camp site.

We also spend much of our time at home acting like Americans do while camping. We shower in the water from a mountain stream. We cook over a small propane stove. We eat only items that are non-parishable or that we picked up recently at a local food stand. We wash our dishes and clothes outside. An unusual amount of time is spent reading in the hammock or sitting with people (the latter being a major pasttime for much of the world outside America and doesn't necessarily mean we talk much, just sitting with someone is gratifying.)

There is a freshness to our camping lives as well. Every day holds the promise of something new. Every day we are likely to learn something new about ourselves, our friends, our worldview, human nature, simple trivia, or an number of sundry facts and truths. Our time is our own. Our culture is what we make of it, as a couple or as a small group of volunteers getting together. We can come and go as we please. Much like being out on a weekend retreat, we are free.

Not everything is analogous, however. Unlike a pleasure trip to a national park (though some volunteers in Panama actually live in a national park), that much free time ends up meaning plenty of time to do our work. All the independence puts more pressure on us alone to do it right. There is no one else to blame. If something goes wrong, no one else culpable. No one else is even around to affect it. We are it, total and complete.

Some PCVs hate that liberty and its burden, and they leave. Some learn to live with misgivings about success and how to define it, tell themselves everyone feels the same and accomplishes little, and they focus on the goals cultural exchange. Some throw themselves into every available project and task so that they will know with certainty that they did everything they could, but risk burning out. Some find a serene bonhomie in their core, learning more about themselves and about the art of self-direction, of honest self-appraisal and impetus.

I believe that this last discovery is one of the prime motivations for becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer. We know going in that helping people improve their own lives will not be easy, so the challenges are guaranteed. We are understand that our personality will be magnified in a new culture, so self-awareness is assured. We are conscious of our choice to leave everything that makes us comfortable, so we recognize that we will have to redefine our comfort zone. We know we are leaving our family and friends, so we've got to know that we will be all alone. And one is never so alone as in a crowd of strangers.

Like camping, part of being a PCV is getting out there on our own. Some of the appeal the self-directed and self-apprasing of going solo. And much of the experience truly is seeing just how far you can go. "How far will you go?"

Monday, November 30, 2009

Forces at Work

There are strange forces that act upon our world, turning it inexorably towards the future. Usually we are in sync with them, understanding them intuitively and matching ourselves accordingly, but occasionally we will be out of step, or they take an odd turn, and we are reminded that there are things we just don't get, and maybe never will. Yet the wheel keeps on turning, and those things that are ground down take on a new shape that matches with world and are back in sync.

For us, these forces peeked out through the chickens.

One day, as Lisa and I lounged in our hammock together, the heat of summer slipping through grip of another soggy winter, I whispered to her, "Look at the chickens." I had to whisper, for the forces of the world were strong and strange. I immediately knew we were out of step with them. Lisa raised her head from her book and gave a little gasp.

All of the chickens that are normally in constant motion (peeking, stratching, clucking, raping or being raped, and generally annoying us) had been pushed down on their sides with just one wing or leg sticking out. Or maybe as if they'd fallen out of the sky, but chickens don't fly and they weren't hurt. It was an odd position, and one that they seemed unable to overcome. A rooster might try to stand up and peck at a hen, but after moving for a second or two, they'd lay back down in the same position. We were fine, but the planets must have lined up funny for them. Maybe Jupiter was in the chicken coop.

This went on for a half hour or so. The weather was warm, but not too hot. The breeze blew, but not too hard or too soft. The sun was out, but so were some clouds. For us, it was a normal day. But for the chickens, something had pushed them to the ground and held them there. Then, all at once, the entire flock stood up, and, in normal chicken fashion, clucked, and stratched, and pecked, and went on with their stupid lives as though nothing had occurred.

Something similar happens every year here. During the beginning of November, when we American foreigners look forward to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, anticipating some a few days off with family and some feasting and football, the Panamanians are already in full swing with their Mes de Patria (Patriotic Month).

There are so many days off for the kids at school, that they essentially stop going, especially in the campo where the teachers already only work Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The farmers still go to the fields to harvest, but now there are juntas with fermented corn drink randomly sprinkled throughout. The women look after the children and stay inside out of the heavy rains hoping for a sunny morning to wash all the dirty laundry. And every few days, there is another national or provincial holiday.


The 3rd and 5th, the 10th and 12th, the 15th, 22nd, and 28th were all times when our entire corregimiento (county) were all celebrating something or other with alcohol. (And we had our Thanksgiving on the 26th.) At each of these gatherings, men and women, and sometimes children, got drunk and had fist fights. Just the other day, we watched as every 20 minutes or so three to six fights broke out as men pulled off shirts and circled up. Mostly these are all in good fun, though sometimes they are used to settle old grudges. Luckily, we seemed to be exempt from the sparring, which is good because the people are powerfully built and tough as coffin nails.


This may be the time of year when foreigners feel the most out of sync with the rest of the country. Last year, we were brand new so everything was unusual. This year, we did our best to present ourselves but drink moderately, dance but not arouse jealousy, and still have some kind of forward motion with our work.

In the end, we mostly just enjoyed the company of our friends (both Panamanian and American) and get a lot of reading done. Nevertheless, we still felt the strange forces of a wheel we were not perfectly matched up to, which seemed to knocked down the chickens and men alike.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

A Study in Muddy...

Mud.  You learn to love it, or at best, you get by, because you have to during this time of year in Panama.  And even though we live at an altitude of 3,000 feet or so, we still deal with a lot of the brown, mucky, boot sucky stuff.

Our house is situated in a fairly level area, with about 5 other homes in the family group - on the edge of a decent sized field that the kids in the area like to use to play various sports, or just run around like crazy.  This field is actually a secret lake in the rainy season.  When the rain starts, the ground will soak up some of the water, but not anymore!

What this means is that life in a dirt floored house, situated on level with the secret lake, gets quite interesting as the rains get harder and more consistent.  Before you fret too much, know that our dirt floor inside the house actually stays pretty nice and dry, thanks to some draining ditches that Ben dug around the house to divert the water flow.  We do drag in a lot of mud though, and stepping even a foot outside our house now is a dangerous activity without rubber boots.

Oh how we love our rubber boots.  Almost like 4-wheel drive in the mud - you can go just about anywhere and not worry - unless the mud gets as deep and sticky as it now is around the house.  A trip to our water faucet, a mere 5 feet or so away involves inches of mud, and the trip to the latrine is much more perilous.  Thinking about showering?  Wear your rubber boots, then strip out of them into flip flops to shower, then try to dry your feet without getting your towel muddy so you can put the boots back on to get to the house in one piece.  But we careful, you'll probably have to stop at the faucet to wash off the mud that you've splattered onto your upper legs, arms, back or any other exposed flesh.

I've started a bit of a mantra when going into and out of the house.  Boots go on, boots go off... Boots go on, boots go off.  Why so much on and off though?  Well, if you keep them on, your feet don't breathe - so you end up with moist foot rot.  Which you're going to get anyways from wearing socks for 5 days on end (yeah, we do, we don't have many pairs) and putting them into and out of the boots so much, but - it won't be as bad as it could have been.

Once we leave the house area, we have to slog through 6 or more inches of mud/lake to get to the horse gate, climb up the path to the main road, and then you're safe - heck you may not even need the boots - but don't you dare not wear them and think you could just wear other shoes and wash off the mud.  No, this path is deceptive.  It's muddy yeah, but part of it is pretty solid - and MOLDY.  That mold is slippery.  So, avoid the mold right?  Ha!  Then you're in the 6 inches of mud just to the sides of that moldy hardpacked path. What to choose?  Either way involves shuffling along, and a lot of concentration.

Case in point: we returned to site one day - laden down with our backpacks, computer case, and bags of food.  We get to the top of the gentle slope down to the horse gate, and start inching our way down.  I'm wearing my crocs (stupid idea).  I'm about halfway there, and have already slid around a bit, when a girl yells "BEI!" - I say "Hola" and watch my feet fly up in front of my face, as I fall on all my bags, and slide into the mud.  She ran into the house to inform everyone of my hilarious act.  After much cursing, I found my footing and worked my way to the house to scrub up every inch of my body and salvage the bags.

Sometimes you've got to embrace the mud.  I also recently played a game of baseball with the area kids in the secret lake.  The water receded - but I was fooled.  This game quickly turned into a game of mud baseball.  And mostly, I was the one covered in mud, because even in my mud 4-wheel drive, I couldn't keep my feet on the ground.  I dove for the ball and fell on my butt and hands.  Then at bat, I cracked a nice hit to the outfield, and took two steps to run to 1st - and ended up on my hands and knees in mud.  The game didn't last long, but I gave the kids a lot of laughs - something I'm apparently pretty good at.  The ICY cold shower afterward actually felt pretty good, and I didn't forget the boots!

When will it end?  Hard to say - maybe a month - based on last year's experience. Time will tell, and until that time, you can imagine me saying "boots go on, boots go off..."

Check out photos in the "study of muddy" on facebook!  Enjoy!

Thursday, October 29, 2009

We're still here, but...

apparently just don't have much to blog about.  Our great friend Andi summed it up best on her blog with the following:

"It has been so long since I've updated this 'ol blog. But it's funny, the longer I'm here the less the experiences I have impress upon me the need to record them. They become less out of the ordinary. I don't carry my camera with me as often and my journal, instead of filling with the happenings of the day, is a place of introspection and answerless questions."

Life is pretty "normal" for us now.  We've got our routine, we're settled in, and it really takes something crazy to shock us now!  We're happy, healthy and busy, but none of that is very interesting. But, we'll keep up with this - we're done with one year in our community, which means less than one year to go! 

A preview: The next blog to come promises to be of real import - a discussion on the abundance of rain, and thus, mud in or community.  We know you're sitting on the edges of your seats waiting for it!

* You may have also noticed an addition to our disclaimer.  Corriente Resources, a mining company from Canada, recently took and used a photo of ours in a powerpoint presentation in our community WITHOUT our permission.  Peace Corps volunteers are not allowed to be involved in political activities.  If anyone would like to use or reproduce content from our blog you will need the express written consent of both Ben and I.  Thank you.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Tale of Two Birthdays

As many of you know, Lisa and I have our birthdays two weeks apart. Hers usually comes first so she has time to plan mine based on how well I fared with hers.

This year, we had a really good friend named Andi come up for the day and spend the night. She lives in a village a couple of hours away. Early that morning, I snuck out of bed and joined our neighbors/landlords at their store to help butcher a cow. I'd written on their announcements all around town that the cow-killing was for Lisa's birthday though they had planned it before they knew. After an hour and a half of waving flies off the meat with a leafy stick, all the edible parts had been sold and I went home to find Lisa up and ready.

We paseared a bit (strolled around the community passing the time), waited until Andi came, and had a nice little snack for lunch. We'd started a chill afternoon, just hanging out with Andi and another couple of new volunteers who just started their tour in the Comarca (one lives in our village and the other uses it as a chiva stop before his two-hour hike.) As we were discussing how to get the meat smoked in the communal fogon (three-rock cooking fire) that our family group shares, a gringo was lead up to our house by our old host grandpa.

This guy was very white, appeared to be in his late 30's, and spoke excellent Spanish. He immediately asked which of us was Ben and Lisa. He explained that he was traveling around Central America to look at different mining projects. Although we were weary at first, he soon explained how he found us and what was his angle.

This guy was a professor of a university in Canada and part of an NGO that monitors the mining activities of Canadan companies around the world. It seems that he was at another volunteer's site a few days before and had gotten our names from her as the closests PCVs to the huge (4th biggest in the world) copper deposit further up the road from us. He was interested to know what kinds of propaganda and trainings the most recent petitioner had been offering to the indigenous people.

After talking with the guy for a while (during which I'd excused myself for a bit to smoke the meat), and introducing him to our neighbor so he could ask some questions directly, this newcomer invited himself to Lisa's birthday dinner. The two new volunteers had already left for their own meals with their host families. We turned the fresh delicious cuts into fajitas. We'd brought up tortillas, refried beans, and salsa already and picked up some veggies from the local market. They were scrumptuous, but it was kind of a drag having a stranger around, even though he left us with a beer and some fruit juice.

Lisa was a bit frustrated that most of the day had been about mine.  It was not the best birthday on record.

My birthday, on the otherhand, was better. Again, we had some strangers come to visit, but of an entirely different sort. While I was acting as a training facilitator for the new group of business volunteers, our boss pulled me aside to ask if a married couple could visit us that weekend. This was Monday and they would basically be coming back with me on Thursday. Another curveball: Lisa was supposed to be out of town for the first few days of the visit although that ended early so it was only one night. Originally, the couple had been scheduled to go to another site, but those volunteers had ended their tour early so a quick change had to take place.

Being the flexible, hardworking PCVs that we are, we agreed right away. Nevertheless, it was another birthday for me with people that I barely knew. This has happened to both Lisa and I often in our lives because our birthdays are late in the summer and because we moved so much, thus we were able to have a good time regardless. It also helped that the people who came to visit were very friendly and a lot like us (you could say he's a smartass and she's the planner).

Over the weekend, we hiked to villages around us where Lisa and I have been working. We gave a talk about planning, paseared with families that we enjoy spending time with, and started a clay oven. They held up really well, and like us, fell in love with the Comarca cloud forest almost as soon as they arrived. It was a bit rainy (it is the rainy season) during their visit, but all in all it went well. The best part was the cake that Eli cooked for me before we went to work on the oven. MMMM: double layer chocolate cake covered in chocolate frosting.

Overall, we really had a good time with them. We played hearts in the evenings and joked almost constantly. They did some of the hardest Comarca hikes/car rides and held up admirably. We are looking forward to seeing much more of them, especially considering they'll be back for Tech Week on the 20th!

Random Fact from Lisa: Government of Panama is building a sidewalk in our community.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

What's new?!

Time is flying by, and it's been a while now since we've taken a moment to step back and blog. This blog doesn't have any particular theme, but I thought we'd update you on the happenings in our lives over the past month +.

We've been busy, for one! We've been finding ourselves traveling more and more out of our community for various seminars, office initiatives, trainings and other commitments. It's great to be busy, but it feels really good to come home to our little shack, rest, relax and hang out with the wonderful friends we've made! I'm looking forward to getting back tomorrow after more almost 2 weeks gone. Unfortunately, most of our time in site recently feels like it's filled with endless washing of clothes that never dry.

On that note, all of our clothes smell like blue cheese. This is not a good development. Mold is good in cheese. Not in clothes.

We're going through a time of transition right now with Peace Corps volunteers. We had the latest training group arrive in April, and swear-in in July, which means we've got new faces, and another new volunteer in our community, working in agriculture. He's settling in, which means that we'll soon be saying goodbye to Stephanie as she finishes her 3rd year in our community and is moving on to bigger and better things. Change is good, but it will be really hard to see her go - we've developed a really strong bond with her, and she's been such a great influence in our lives! On top of that, as one group enters, another one is leaving, so we just said goodbye to a group of volunteers, of which included some great friends as well. And if you can still follow this, the next new group arrives in mid-August, like we did - almost ONE YEAR AGO! Wow!

Ben and I are going to be quite involved in the training of the new group. Ben will be coming in during their first whole week in country to train them about community analysis, and share our experience of community integration. I have been working on developing an analysis tool for our sector. Something that will help us assess the needs of groups and communities and help us target our work a bit more - "community economic development" tends to be a bit vague! On top of that, we've been asked to host the Technical Training week in our community - the 7th week of training, for the new business sector volunteers. This means that we will host 19 trainees in our community, and help them to go through the process of assessing a group's needs, planning a presentation or other activity with their group, and then delivering a community-wide presentation. It's a hard week - and I remember from my experience, after coming from my culture week in the Comarca, and into my tech week, I was drained! Having everyone come to the Comarca during this week will definitely be a strain on some people, but we're excited, and we know our community is a great place to host this special training!

What else is new? Well, in the beginning of July, Ben surprised me with a trip to Cartagena, Colombia to celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary! It was a huge surprise, and he had me thinking of a million different possibilities, but definitely not Colombia! The trip was AMAZING! It felt so nice to get on an airplane and be somewhere so quickly and easily! The city was beautiful, and we spent the majority of our time wandering around the streets of the old city, with no particular agenda - popping into museums, soaking in the scenery, drinking fresh limeade and eating lots of delicious street food! We also lived it up a bit and treated ourselves to some really nice dinners and Ben bought me an emerald ring - we were in Cartagena, right?! More than anything, it was nice to get away, and be "normal" again (aside from the blue cheese smell which followed us in our clothes).

After coming home from Colombia, Ben went to the doctor in David to check up on a little diarrhea issue. He'd come down with it a while before, and was supposed to send in samples while he was in Panama City, but didn't, and then it passed, so he figured he was fine. Not so. Upon returning from Colombia, the diarrhea returned, so he went in, and they found that he had not one, but two different types of amoebas living in his system! Hopefully he's cleared out now, after all the medications he was taking to clear out his system, and replace the good organisms. While at the doctor's office, he was weighed with all his clothes, shoes, hat, things in his pockets, etc, and weighed in at 201! This means at least a 50 pound weight loss for him! Incredible! He looks and feels great!

The last thing is that we're coming home for Christmas time! We've scheduled a two-week trip back to the states to see family, and we're really excited to see everyone and hang out!

That should cover everything major! To sum things up, we're pretty healthy, very happy, and really enjoying our time here in Panama!

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Changes....

Before discovering I was robbed this morning, I was reflecting on a potential blog topic about things that I´ve noticed have changed with me since coming to Panama - most of them for the better.

Changes to Lisa:
1. I eat, and actually enjoy now, a lot of white rice.

2. I am a lot more patient. I can think of a lot of examples, but lets just say that most involve children, culture shock or a candy bar.

3. I´m a lot more comfortable being alone with myself. At the beginning, I think I had too much time to think. Now, it´s not so bad. I´m pretty cool. *giggle* Although, I do realize that I need to learn how to quiet my mind.

4. I´m also a lot more comfortable being around Ben 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Which makes number 3 seem totally ironic. Let´s just say that going from our life in the states to being around each other constantly was a struggle at first.

5. I get a lot more male attention in this country. It makes me angry when I´m hissed at, called ¨joven,¨ my queen, baby, etc. I didn´t know this about myself before.

6. I don´t miss food much anymore. Along that line, I´ve had a lot of time to think about my food issues and wrestle with some demons.

7. I can speak Spanish! And a tiny bit of Ngöbere. That´s pretty cool.

8. Although I still really like having stuff to do, I am now fine with dedicating a day to a good book in the hammock.

9. I´m a lot more social in a community sense than I ever was or wanted to be in the states.

10. I feel a lot more appreciative of just about everything. It´s really easy to take so much for granted.


Now, how about some things that I miss... (and I think that it goes without saying that I miss family, friends, and Nikodemus ♥ )

1. Carpet. This may seem odd, but when I think of home, it´s one of the first things that comes to mind. I want to squish my toes in carpet. This is probably because my floor now best resembles a litter box.

2. Being able to follow just about any conversation. I can speak Spanish, but it´s not perfect by any means. I have to still piece things together at times, and if you throw in a conversation in Ngöbere, I just try to catch a verb here or there and laugh when appropriate.

3. Cold. Winter. Snow. Bundling up in lots of clothes.

4. An indoor toilet. Hell, a toilet for that matter. I´d still go outside for it if it flushed away the shit.

5. A dryer. Maybe this should be number 1. Clothes don´t dry here. Everything we have is at varying levels of moldiness.

6. A washer. Washing clothes in the campo sucks. I´m convinced nothing is ever really clean. Stupid mold.

7. Dryness (is that a word?).

8. Nice clothes. Dressing up. I think this experience is making the girly girl in me scream to come out. Oh how I used to hate dressing up for work. Now I´m a perpetual scrub. And now, a perpetually muddy scrub. Lets throw in cute shoes too. Although, I do love my rubber boots.

9. Good mexican food. Yeah, food was bound to show up somewhere.

10. A reliable power source. Charging my phone over the past two weeks has been ridiculously difficult.

Okay, one more. A bug-free environment. I´ll take those whimpy spiders and tiny crickets in Colorado again anyday. I killed the largest spider I´ve ever seen in my life the other night. While I do realize that I feel more like a badass for that, I´d just rather not have to do it!

This is turning out to be harder than thought. I guess the bottom line is that while I do miss things from home, I´m happy to be here, and I´ll have those things I miss again in the future. And if most of my personal changes end up being good ones, then I´m all the better for being here, and doing something I love.

A reflection on being robbed.

A long, LONG time ago, I remember my dad taking my sister and I to a museum in Boston for a day. I had a little purse, I probably didn´t have much in it, but it was mine. We had lunch in a Friendly´s restaurant in the museum (they had these wonderful peanut butter chocolate sundaes), and I left my purse on the seat of the booth when we left. When I realized it was gone we returned, but no one had seen the purse. I remember being sad - how could someone steal a little girl´s purse?

Now I reflect on a new robbery. Yesterday was a day when, as fellow Peace Corps volunteers would say, ¨Panama got me.¨ Everything went wrong. I left Santiago in the morning after attending the Volunteer Advisory Council meeting (that´s fancy talk for an organization like student council) the night before as the new Treasurer-elect. I had work to do to prepare for a Business Plan Seminar that I´m helping to facilitate at the end of next week, so I made a plan to stop off in San Felix, hit up the Internet cafe, do my work quickly and head back up the mountain to home. The first problem was that I didn´t look at the work beforehand, and actually ended up having a lot more to do than I thought. So, after 1 hour at the cafe, I decided to shift gears, print a large document to read on the bus to David, so I could plan, and then spend the night preparing my work in the comforts of the regional capitol.

I went to ask the manager of the cafe to print my document, and found out that he finally hooked up the 6 computers there to the printer so I could do it myself - what this meant is that my jump drive was in and out of my bag, and things were shuffled around, BUT, I know I put it back in my bag on my way out. I then waited for a bus to David. In the meantime, some kids asked me to help them with their English homework (this actually happens a lot), and I tried to offer some advice, and then the bus came.

The ayudante (or pavo, as they are sometimes called, which is a totally funny sidenote since pavo means turkey, but I digress) grabbed my backpack, and put it in through the window of the bus near the back, on a seat. I didn´t think of it until I had a panic attack half way through the ride, wondering if I had my jump drive. I reassured myself that I did, although I probably should have trusted my intuition.

I got to David. I get my hotel room. I look in my bag. No jump drive. Well, not the end of the world, I probably did leave it in the internet cafe, right? And at least we downloaded everything from it onto the computer recently. I called Ben, upset, and left a message. Upon getting it (he´s still out having marvelous adventures in the Darien), he called the internet cafe, they hadn´t seen anything, but the guy who was there was I was wasn´t in at the time.

So, last night I head to another internet cafe to get down to work. I spent hours planning everything out in the hotel, and just had to revise and make up my powerpoint presentation. I could only save my work to the computer, but I could email it to myself right. Wrong. I wasted a lot of time (after working for hours on the presentation) trying to get the huge file to attach to email, and it wouldn´t do it. But, I was at the ¨nice¨ internet cafe, they even sell jump drives, sweet, I´ll just get a new one right? Wrong. They don´t sell them anymore, but they do sell floppy disks. Floppy disks? Do computers even have slots for these anymore? Apparently. So, after another panic attack, and cutting down the presentation to just what I had added and edited, I get it to save, and miracle of miracles, to email.

My next move - some dinner and a beer. What a day it had been. I saw a good friend on the way back into the hotel and got to vent about the day, and then watched movies until 3am. Oops. This morning I get up, I want to shower, but WHERE ARE ALL OF MY TOILETRIES????

Then it hits me. I really was robbed. I should have noticed that my bag was less full when the turkey showed me the bag sitting on the sidewalk after arriving in David. There were people sitting in the back of the bus. Even the turkey himself hung out in the back for a while, so there was definitely an opportunity.

My first instinct is to tear apart my bag again (mind you, this is a small backpack) and even crawl on the floor looking under the bed (did I somehow put them there in my panics yesterday? Oy. I´m sure it was a funny sight).

I was robbed. It´s a little hard to misplace a black rectangular toiletry case. This is the first time I´ve been robbed since that small incident so many years ago. It could have been much MUCH worse. The most valuable item I lost was my prescription medication, but I can get that soon. But the worst part is the feeling. Someone went through my things and took them from me. Hopefully they enjoy my new shampoo, my toothbrush that smells like mold, and that Mach 3 razor that I really did like, and the jump drive. Ugh.

I cried. I probably cried way too much for lost toiletries, but the feeling of violation is the worst. That someone hit me up when I was already having such a frustrating day. That I did what I´ve done on countless bus trips here - hand my bag to someone to be stored - but that this was the time. I´m thankful that they didn´t take my expensive raincoat, any of my clothes, my work documents, and my knitting project that I just started. And I´m thankful that they didn´t take the whole thing. But reflecting on it all... being robbed...being robbed in a foreign country, when you´re by yourself...really sucks.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Croc Hunting in the Darien

After fighting through the guerrilla barricade and blasting my way into the FARC stronghold, I strode alone through the fecund jungle gardens of illicit drugs into the heart of the Darien. Among stilted villagers’ huts and captive gringo hostages, I sat down to unpack my presentation on formulating business plans and the proper way to set up group norms. It was time to get these kids organized and renouncing violence. Peace Corps Fuck Yeah!

Actually, I had a very peaceful ride in a white Peace Corps Toyota with several other volunteers. We passed a few checkpoints and had to make sure to have our IDs on us at all times, but we are in a very safe place. The capital of Santa Fe is a nice little town with several supermarkets, internet cafes, restaurants, and a big Catholic church. The site of our seminar is a nice concrete, wood, and palm leaf two story rancho at a complex run by nuns.


Nevertheless, I am out in the Darien Provence, the only place from Barrow, Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, Chile/Argentina where the Pan-American Highway does not go through. Neither Columbia nor Panama has a military presence in the center of the Darien Gap, thus leaving it to the control of local militias and paramilitaries. With the Peace Corps staff and other volunteers, I’ve crossed the American Embassy’s security line, but that was just to go to the closest bank and do a little shopping.

I am here as the future co-coordinator for the Agro-Negocio (Agro-Business) Initiative from the Business Sector side with Kat Fraser as my partner from the Agriculture Sector side. We are learning from the outgoing group about the structure and subject matter. The participants are all local farmers or future farmers, some indigenous and some Latinos, who are learning more about the financial, legal, and general business aspects of farm planning. It has been a great experience thus far and we are only half way through the workload.


The first night we were here, the Regional Leader volunteer and business volunteer who live in Santa Fe told us about a caiman (little species of alligator) that had moved into the fish pond on the farm at the nuns’ complex. They said the lizard wasn’t very big and the fish pond was small but deeper than a person. The local guys to run the farm weren’t about to get him. I offered to try to catch him myself.


The next day we went to the farm during the seminar and I looked for the caiman. I didn’t see him. Back at the Regional Leader’s house, where all of us facilitators are staying for these few weeks, I got more information about crocodile hunting from Leah’s boyfriend Colin, who said that you can see them at night with a flashlight and that it will help hunt them.

I went out that night with new batteries in my headlamp. I spotted the alligator almost right away, but I wasn’t sure I was looking at it because it was just a strange orange reflection on the surface. I watched him for about an hour and a half. I saw him float around, dive and resurface, and could kind of see his body beneath the murky waters. I also saw bullet ants, leaf cutter ants, and a crazy-big beetle, heard night birds, and got eaten by a truckload of mosquitoes despite my Off Spray. I returned home to get some more data before getting into the muck-water. Besides, I’d just showered.


This brings up a fascinating and often-cited fact of Peace Corps: the network of volunteers has rarely failed to offer up information on a topic. You can send an inquiry into the grapevine and it will come back with anecdotal and/or technical answers to nearly anything like grad schools, countries’ GNPs, or alligator wrestling. And generally, that’s just in your own country. These are amazingly capable and experienced people.

In this case, Colin knew from first-hand experience living in Ghana that the beasts hunted at night, that a flashlight in the eye confused them allowing a single person to get close enough to pounce, that it was best to grab them around the neck and hold them while they thrashed to let the lactic acid build up in their muscles and quickly exhaust them, and that you can then inch your hands up their snout until you close and can tie their tooth-filled jaws shut. He had a memorable event in his amateur wrestling career late one night at a campground (alcohol use possible) with a seven-footer that he tackled outright. Beware the quiet ones!

Armed with this invaluable information, I returned to the pond the next night, and I convinced two other volunteers to go with me this time. I hadn’t showered and had sweated buckets during the seminar all day so I figured the water would do me that good at least. We had a rope and flashlights, and Ed and I had had three beers each. We were ready. Mateo didn’t feel the need for bravery-in-a-can.


We found him after only a couple of minutes. Ed and Mateo kept an eye on him while I walked around the rest of the pond to see what’s what. When I came back, the gator submerged, but that was fine. I wasn’t planning on going in dressed.


I left my boxers on so that I would have something to which to clip my one-hand-open knife. This handy little three inch blade has been helpful since my days in Alaska and I trusted it to be a quick weapon if necessary. In my shorts with my headlamp, sandals, and rope, I eased myself into the water and approached the lizard. When I was close, I could see that his belly was enlarged like a ballast and guessed he used it to keep effortlessly afloat.


When I got within two arms lengths, he did a lightning quick U-turn and dove into the murk to my right. Remembering that Colin had told me he would resurface soon, I stoically scanned the surface while trying to ignore the constant bubbles bumping up my legs and torso. After several quiet minutes, I saw his eye again, in the opposite direction from which he’d dove, about five yards further and slightly left from where he’d been the last time.

Even more slowly this time, I slipped nearer and nearer until I was closer enough to make my move. I kept my body low in the water as the bottom came up so that my arms and shoulders could mobilize without alerting him. The whole time, I’d been wondering if I was really going to go after this beastie barehanded. I could get bit. I could get in trouble with the Peace Corps Medical Office. I could look foolish and overconfident (or worse) to the other volunteers.

This time, the caiman slowly closed his eyes and sunk backwards into the dirty water. I shot out my hands and caught him by the snout and throat. I raised him out of the water easily, lightly, and saw that he was only about three feet long at the most. He scarcely could struggle as I carried him back to Ed and Mateo, but he couldn’t do much.



We marveled at his ancient looking eye and strange ridges. We tied up his mouth tight. His tail whipped whenever free. We figure it couldn’t have gone any better or easier.

We gave the lizard to Ishmael who sleeps at the farm as well as runs it. The next morning, he showed him off to the seminar’s participants before taking him to the river and releasing him. He’s now happily fishing in a bigger place with more variety and less humans.

Both Ishmael and the nuns asked me if I had seen the two caimans. Or their mother. She hasn’t been seen in a while, but we are going to go back to find any more little ones. Kat called the next one, though Leah is itching to impress her fiancé and Ed and Mateo might want to get their feet wet. Peace Corps Fuck Yeah!

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Balseria

The summer was ending.

The rains were coming.

The traditions called for it.

The people wanted it.

The time was ripe.

Balseria.


They came from all over.

They came to Ceble.

They came from tiny villages.

They came from our town.

They came from the capital.

They came from the other side of the mountains.

They came from San Felix, and San Lorenzo, and one even came from San Francisco, CA.

There must have been 300, at least.


They had made the chicha fuerte and sancocho.

They had covered hats with vulture feathers sticking straight up high.

They had fashioned musical instruments from turtle shells and cow horns, bones and conchs, and bits of left over modern trash.

They had dried out hunting trophies in splayed eagle to hang on their back: jaguars, sloths, monkeys, and a little squirrel.

And they had cut the balsa wood in five foot lengths.



The slightly sloping field can be seen from our town.

A lush green of short grass dotted with large black volcanic rocks.

We three girls and three boys hiked for over an hour and a half.

The trail drops off precipitously at first and then picks its way over hill and creek.

The sun was shining high and strong.

We were sweaty from the start.


The Balseria had started a few days before.

We had been planning to go for some time.

We learned that it had been moved, and then moved back.

We heard the balsa throwing would continue for one morning more.

We didn’t want to miss this.


We passed people on the trail headed in the opposite direction.

We asked each for the latest news.

“Are they still throwing the balsa?”

“Is there still chicha fuerte?”

“Are people still there?”


Many of these people had mashed up faces, swollen lips, cut eyes.

They had blood on their shirts.

Vomit on their chins.

Grass and mud on their knees.

They walked with a limp.

Sometimes we passed them without a word for they were passed out under a tree.


We arrived.

We were questioned.

They wanted to know who we were.

Why we were there.

Then our friend saw us.

He wanted to know who was the owner of these women.

Ryu and Eli pointed at me.

Lisa and Steph laughed.

Jen protested, loudly, in English.

We saw more friends,

We drank the chicha fuerte.

We tried to get our faces painted.

We made new friends.

We drank much chicha fuerte.


We joined the groups in the main field.

Only men were playing then, though women do, too.

Each group was split into two teams.

The teams came from the same family or village.

There was much bellowing, oohing, ahhing, and hooting.

Many men were wearing naguas (Ngobe dresses) to hide their legs.


One man has the balsa.

Another stands his ground.

The balsa-thrower may skip in close, circle the target.

The balsa-dodger might taunt, blow a whistle.

The thrower cocks his arm lifting the balsa high.

The dodger rolls to the balls of his feet.

Like a javelin, the balsa flies.

Only between knee and ankle can the balsa fly.

Like a dancer, the dodger’s feet move.

IT FLIES.

IT STRIKES!



The dodger’s teams race to pick up the balsa.

The thrower becomes the dodger.

The one who got the balsa becomes the thrower.

The dance begins again.



Eli, Ryu, and I race after the balsa.

We are excited to try our luck.

I get the balsa after a throw.

I chuck it rather lamely, easily dodged.

It is the receiving that I want more.

Balsa wood is a light wood.


I had planned to let them hit me.

I had planned to show my Alaskan strength.

I had thought that the balsa would be shorter.

I had thought that the balsa would be thrown sideways.

I had assumed it wouldn’t hurt much.

I was wrong.


The other side picks up the balsa.

There is much shouting for the throw at the gringo.

The other man begins to approach, running in a circle.

He moves in right to my shoulder.

He wants me to be scared.

He wants me to be distracted.

He backs up to throw.

I lose my nerve, try to dodge.

I throw my left leg out straight in fear.

The balsa hits my right leg, not fast enough to evade.

The inside of my right calf explodes with pain.

I do not fall or cry out,

But I regret my decision to show off.


The welt rose immediately.

The welt continued to rise for some time.

The welt drained blood into my ankle hollow.

The bruise was ugly for some time.


The rest of the day I dodged much better.

We drank more chicha fuerte.

We played the turtle and the horn.

We whistled and bellowed, oohed and ahhed.

I didn’t get hit again. Ryu, twice. Eli, not at all.


The women fended off marriage proposals.

Normally shy, respectful men become enamored.

"You are the sun in the sky.”

“I do not yet have a blonde wife.”

“Come meet my other wife to see if you like each other.”

Not one proposal was sufficient to ensnare a gringa.


At midday, the bare-knuckle fist fighting began.

Shirts were removed to protect them.

Men stepped up to square off.

Always one man fought with only one man.

They aimed for the head and nowhere else.


I had planned to fist fight as well.

I saw the bulging farmers’ arms and chests.

I saw the blood flowing freely.

I saw that the fights don’t end quickly.

I chose not to fight.


We hiked home early in the afternoon.

We started off a little tipsy.

Soon the sun and hiking cooked the booze out.

I had to limp a little for a week.

Ah, balseria, we can’t wait for next year.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

6 months. We’ve been living and working in our community now for 6 months, which means we have 18 months remaining in our service (if we choose not to extend). So, in terms of time in site, we’re a quarter of the way done. Now, if you choose to look at our whole service (training included), we’ve been in the country for over 8 months, although training is advertised as being a 3 month commitment, making the whole term of service 27 months. Thus with 18 months remaining, we’re one-third of the way through our service. What do all these fractions mean for us? This is flying by!

What have we been doing in our six months so far? The easy answer is – we’ve been trying to figure out what we should be doing. The slightly more detailed answer (because it is hard to know without experiencing it) is that we’ve been talking a lot. We’re talking about the culture, the people, the history, talking about their work, their needs, their dreams, their failures and dashed hopes, their knowledge, their fears, their curiosities about life in the United States. We’ve learned that only in truly knowing the people, and being accepted as a part of their community, can we begin to know where our business knowledge and work can fit in and help in the future. And we feel like we’re getting there!

Initially we thought we might spend much of our time here working on developing business plans for many groups to use to solicit funding or other necessities. As time went on we learned that actually, the first step is teaching about planning. What is a plan? Why is it important? What is the situation today – good and bad? And what are our dreams for the future? Then, how do we get there? That’s been our work so far. We could push people to develop business plans, but in truth, we wouldn’t be doing them a service by giving them anything that they don’t understand or see the use in on their own. We might, in fact, be doing them a disservice by wasting their time, raising false expectations, or producing yet another poor interaction with the developed world.

The deadline-driven, results based, “get a good grade to know you’ve done well” part of me isn’t a big fan of the slow pace of the work at times. There are days when I feel like I’ve done nothing here. That I should be planning more to do, having more meetings, touching more groups, etc. And that I can’t possibly be “saving the world” through repeated use of a SWOT analysis, and talking about a vision and goals. Luckily, I also have something inside me that is slowing me down, and reminding me that more than anything, my work is about sustainable development, and even more than that, about being a member of the community. I had a nice experience this last week to remind me of my most important work.

Last Thursday afternoon, I spent hours sitting with a group of community members under the campamento in town (a tall open structure with a metal roof), as they ground corn to make chicheme (a corn based drink). Ben was at home working on making me a door for our latrine (YES!!!! After 4 months of living in our house, I finally have a door on my latrine! No one can see me peeing, or more, anymore!) so I was just hanging out. In all honesty, I did nothing to help them work on making the chicheme, but they were teaching me about the process, and they answered my questions about the “corn with beards” (the corn kernels with sprouts) and how to make the drink. In the hours I was there though, we spent most of it just talking and sharing stories. The people had heard that Ben and I went to the balseria near our town in early April (that will deserve its own blog shortly), so we laughed as I told stories about how men didn’t want to fight Ben for me because he’s so tall and has such a big beard. We talked about all kinds of things related to life in the states. They asked me about life in the community, and we talked about pulling ticks off our husband’s asses (yes, I did this the other night too). I can’t remember everything that we talked about that day, but at the end, they asked me how my work was going. As I sat there, reflecting for a moment, I thought about SWOT analyses, and my presentations, but I also thought about sitting around with some incredible people, sharing stories, and being an accepted and important member of the community, and I answered that the work is going good. Really good.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Lisa's Parents Visit Panama


We have just seen Lisa’s parents off to the city. Chuck and Carole are heading home after a week plus here in Panama, and we had a great time. They arrived in Panama City and worked their way through customs and immigration alone because the buses running from the national terminal got Lisa and I to the airport a little late. The city buses don’t even drop people off right out in front; you have to get off several hundred yards away on the passing highway and hoof it over to the building.

The parents brought us a new computer that we’d decided we just had to buy to facilitate our Community Economic Development work; even though we don’t have electricity in our site, we can work on things offline and upload or email them when we get out. It should save us valuable internet café time. Ever generous, they also brought us an extra battery, purchased insurance for us, packed in an optical mouse, and picked up and arranged a new pelican case that will protect against nearly everything.

We stayed around the Panama City Causeway for the first couple of days. Originally, the parents had set up a tour of an Embera village on Good Friday, but the coordinator called and postponed it for the holidays. How Panamanian? Schedule a tour for the biggest day of the Holy Week of Christianity and then have to change it at the last minute. Nevertheless, we were able to set it up for a week later.

During our days in the City, we went to the Canal Museum, took a boat from Gatun Lake through the Canal’s Pacific locks, ate some excellent food, and enjoyed the comforts of a great hotel. Mostly we stuck to the Canal and Causeway side of the city. Even with a rented GPS, getting through the many construction changes and disruptions in a fast paced, rules-be-damned downtown is sometimes a harrowing experience.

After Panama City, we got on the Interamericana and drove all the way across the country to Boquete. A stay at another first-rate hotel allowed us to see much of the beautiful mountain town. The highlights for us were a tour a world class coffee farm and a walk around an exotic animal rescue center. At the coffee farm, we got to the see entire modern process from start to finish, marvel at the oldest drying/roasting machinery in Panama which is still functional, and learn about and try to cup some of their best coffee.

At the rescue center, Chuck and Carole, who are raptor enthusiasts, got to see macaws, parrots, toucans, owls, and many other large and small birds of which I cannot remember the names. They flittered and fluttered, screeched and cawed. A toucan decided to taste our toes, following us all around the bird-house enclosure that shelters many of the smaller birds. We also got to interact with several types of monkeys, see three large cat species (margay, ocelot, and puma), walk around their new picturesque Japanese gardens, and watch a baby anteater feed on some milk.

From Boquete, we began to work our way back to Panama City. In David, we picked up some food supplies and magazines. In San Felix, we got some plastic chairs and rope. After strapping the chairs to the roof of the Suzuki, we were ready to make the ascent to our site. Through hill and dale we rode, stunned by the steepness of the slopes and the rugged loveliness of the communities. For Lisa and I, it was kind of like seeing it all again for the first time, this act of showing off our new environs. We could point out things like fellow communities and volunteer sites, but much of the ride was silent.

At home, we introduced Chuck and Carole around to our neighbors and friends. We drove up to higher villages to see the eastern valleys and ridges spread out below us. We could just make out the ocean, but it was a bit hazy that day so we had to settle without it. We presented our new kitten, Felix, to them (he’s still living with Meligo). A short hike below our house brought us to a ridge where you can see all the way down the western side of our ridge. With Chuck, I hiked up a small hill outcropping to see it from a new vantage point that really opened it all up. We could even see the beach that we would be visiting later that day.

Down at Las Lajas, we stayed in the new Beach Resort that was just completed by an American ex-patriot. The Pacific was like bathwater with surf. The beach was fine sand crawling with snails and crabs. The pool was comfortable and fairly clean, except for the suicidal beetles. The food was delicious, as it was at all the tourist spots we enjoyed in Panama. I lost the room keys in the ocean, but not until we were nearly checked out.

To get back to Panama in time to meet up with Embera tour group the next morning, we had to skip out on our El Valle de Anton plan, but we had fun at the now familiar hotel by the Causeway. The next day, Vladimir picked us up and drove us out to the Chagres River National Park. The Embera village providing our excursion lives upriver and in the park, which means that they cannot farm, fish, hunt, or otherwise affect the natural environment. Panama cannot afford to have anything disrupting the natural watershed that supplies the water for the gravitationally powered canal locks.

We worked our way up a very low river, low because it is the end of the dry season here. At many places, the outboard had to be lifted to get through a shallow spot. We were delivered to a tributary and lead up the river bank to a gorgeous waterfall. Had it been the rainy season, we could have been dropped off right at the base of the waterfall’s pool. As it was, we had a short hike.

After the waterfall, the dug-out canoe took us back down river a ways to the village itself where we were allowed to wander around. We looked at their artisan crafts, thatched homes on stilts, and striking bead clothing. The people also presented us with a dance and an explanation of the works. Afterwards, we purchased a few items, ate a normal local fare of fried fish and patacones served in a rolled-leaf cone-bowl.

Back in the City, we relaxed at our hotel and had a few more norteño meals. We played some more cards, as we had done about half of our evenings (I won the last game). For our last day, we visited Albrook Mall and National Terminal. From there, after a little shopping and lunch, we said goodbye to our family. They used the GPS to work their way back to the airport and Lisa and I caught a bus west. It was a great visit, especially for us to get to see more of the country while enjoying the company of Chuck and Carole.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Buabidi - Land of Rainbows

Wow, it´s been a long time since our last post, nearly a month. We would have posted about a week ago when we were last out but the internet cafe was really slow and frustrated the pants off Lisa. Instead, we gave up and went back to site, barely getting our necessary work items accomplished. I´m down in San Felix alone today looking for concrete, gravel, and sand to make a cement floor for our house and shower. Unfortunately, the costs are prohibitive so I´ll be looking for a more complicated (and possibly manual labor intensive) way to get-er-done than simply purchasing the rock and sand. Lisa is at home doing ¨woman´s work¨: washing clothes!

First, the Saga of the Salmon has finally ended. Our boss brought the stuff to us from Panama City when we attended our reconnection training. Sort of anticlimatic but I´m sure they will be delicious when the little suckers are opened.

We recently hiked to Ñano Tugri (named Buabidi in Ngoberi), the capital of the Comarca. The Comarca Ngobe-Buglé was created in 1997 when the people living here marched on Panama City to demand some land of their own to self-govern, like the other provinces have. Comarcas are similar to reservations in the U.S. To choose their new capital, the story goes that they looked at the map, found the geographical center, and named the closest significant village to it. It didn´t have a road, though one has been built in the past several months and a second one from our town has been partially put down.

We hiked the 5 hours through hard winds so that we could attend a coffee convention. Our guide and fellow Chamí-ite Stephanie was planning on giving a little talk about a couple aspects of coffee cultivation and processing, and Andi, Lisa and I tagged along for the adventure. There was also a vote for new chiefs that we were interested to witness. Lisa and I had knee issues along the way, both of us carrying far too much stuff in our backpacks (a good learning lesson for our next overnight hike.) We carried on despite the pains, slowing down our companions more than we would have liked but it was worth it.

As we ascended the last hill before Tugri, the wind that had been whipping over the continental divide nearly knocked us off our feet, making our steps all the more painful. It carried a mist that lightly, slowly drenched us. I was wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and good boots. Lisa was more sensibly dressed in pants and a jacket. Still, the hike itself was invigorating and we were in such great company that was really enjoyed ourselves.

And there, as we pulled ourselves up the last hill, we spotted a rainbow in the direction that Steph had indicated for Tugri. Each of us hurried to share it with each other, but I think that we had all seen it at once. Since we were above this village nestled into the high mountains that receives heavy winds and misty rain nearly every day, we were looking down on the rainbow rather than up. And the end of it came squarely down on the biggest visible buildings, the school, to which we were headed. It felt like our destination was literally at the end of the rainbow, and as with most rainbows in Tugri that trip, it was a double.

We found the best path down the hill and to the school. Steph found a friend of hers and got caught up on the latest news. He offered us a place to stay in his small home, but she had already arranged another place with a different friend. We headed to the new government building in the center of town and searched for booths that lined the open space for some dinner and coffee.

We were quite an interest to the people gathered there from all over the Comarca. They were impressed that we had hike in on foot. Most of the big wigs and those who came from really far (it´s a 3-day hike over the divide) had come in by car from Tolé. Though I´m sure most of the folks walked themselves, and many from farther than us, I think seeing some Gringos trek in made it feel a little more special, like a sideshow at a circus.

After leaving the gathering place, we sought out our sleeping arrangements. The roads were a bit changed since Steph had last been out so it was a while before we found her friends home. As some strangers led us to the home, a rainbow bloomed over the man´s property. Unfortunately, the politico who had been given the building to arrange sleeping quarters for the out-of-towners was not advised that we coming and didn´t have any more space for us. Literally, every bit of space on the bed-tables and floors was taken up by other people. He did tell us that they had opened the church up the hill to take in people.

We spent a comfortable night on the smooth, concrete floor of the beautiful, austere, wooden church. It appeared fairly new and didn´t have access to the aqueduct yet. Nevertheless, we were very happy to get out of the cold wind and rain and into our sleeping bags. Andi and Steph found us some snacks from the store and Lisa broke out her usually prudent supply of extra bars and raisins.

The next morning, after going down to the open space around the government building again to see and be seen, we got back on the trail. We wanted to be home before dark. As we left Tugri, this time with the sun behind us for it was still before midday, a rainbow showed us our path toward home. There was a beautiful waterfall that we hadn´t noticed the day before (primarily because we hiked up and over it and then away from it) and the rainbow arched perfectly over it as it cascaded down into the jungle. It was gorgeous.

Of course, we took tons of pictures of our trip. And of course, I´ve left the camera behind today. When we have a chance, we´ll look into getting this post upded so that you all can see a bit of it as well. I apologize for flubbing that one up! I would also answer the questions that have been sent to us today, but the majority came to Lisa´s email and I don´t have the password for that. Next time, then.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

As All-American as Apple Pie

Today, for lunch, we had a quick snack at the grocery store. Every time we come to David, the capital of Chiriquí, we pig out and eat too much, wasting good money on unfinished food by the second evening out. Today, instead, we ate at the grocery store so that we will have room for a nice steak and some wine at dinner.

We saw some apple pie behind the counter and some delicious apple soda in the cooler and figured that sounded good. Nothing better than all-American apple pie. Unfortunately, as we hope the photo shows, our apple pie turned out to be apple gelatin-y stuff on pie crust, as if they took all the juicy-ness from apples and apple pie and made it into jello. Here, take a look!



The apple soda was far better than the apple pie. I guess we shouldn´t expect something as tasty as all-American apple pie if we aren´t in America.


We have large appetites but small stomachs because we have become a bit skinnier. We got on the scale today for the first time in a long time and found that we have lost some weight. Although we pigged out before leaving the country, artificially inflating our beginning weights, Lisa has lost more than 15 lbs and I´m down more than 40! Yes, FORTY! Lisa says I may have lost more if I would only trim my beard.


What has brought about this incredible weight loss you ask? Well, I´m glad you asked. I´ll tell you what it was. Walking up and down mountains for hours in both directions to meet with our hosts in the Comarca about basic business practices. Eating rice and beans, or rice alone, or boiled green bananas for breakfast and lunch/dinner for two months straight. Then we were able to move out on our own and eat better, but the portions have remained small and the walking has become more frequent. Lisa says that bacterial infections of the intestines could be a factor as well.


How can you get on this amazing diet? What ways can you experience this phenomenon yourself? Get a plane ticket and come on down! We are looking for a few good folks to share some of our experiences first hand! Get out the map, read a little on the internet about sites you´d like to see in Panamá and shoot us an email or phone call.


Also, we´d like to extend the offer of a little Q & A visa vis this blog. We ALWAYS read the comments, often weeks later when there´s been enough time to accumulate all there are going to be, so go ahead and pop some questions in there. Or, of course, you could shoot us an email at the host email of this blog (lisafroggirl@yahoo.com) and we´ll be happy to answer them in the next blog.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Destruction.

Last Wednesday (February 4th), the rain came. It rained hard all day, which is a bit unusual in our ¨summer¨ season. That night, the winds came. Unbelievable winds. Constant, furious, strong winds. Destructive winds. We laid awake nearly all night listening to things hitting our roof, and at 3:30a.m. heard a huge crash. We turned on a headlamp and looked around, but things looked fine so we actually slept some until first light when we had to pee and noticed that the giant ancient tree that used to be behind our house was now ON our house, and part of our roof was crushed.



Luckily for us, the gigantic tree actually fell at an angle to our house and not straight on it. Otherwise, the part of the house where we were attempting to sleep could have been crushed. We got up and began chopping up the tree with our landlord and neighbors, and it took about 3 hours to get enough of the tree chopped up to get it off and away from the house, but a significant portion still remains. Our only real damage is some bent and crushed zinc on the roof and 2 beams that are cracked on the inside of the house, and Ben broke his machete while chopping up the tree.




The rest of our town didn´t fare nearly as well. Trees fell down all over the place, crushing homes and ripping up aqueduct lines. Homes were flattened by the winds and rooves, walls, clothes, possessions and other items were scattered and gone. The destruction was incredible after the first night alone, and just continued to get worse. We had to leave the community on Sunday evening to head to our In Service Training (3 months after you go to your community and 6 months after arriving here) and the winds were still blowing.

It´s horrible to see that people had nothing or next to nothing, and now have even less. Rumors keep going around about agencies arriving with help and food and water (there was no water in much of the town for 4 days), but it didn´t come. No one could start rebuilding because the winds kept raging. People moved out into the jungle because they feared that their homes would collapse, yet the jungle was dangerous too with trees falling and zinc flying. The destruction is incredible.
There are a lot more pictures on Facebook. I´ve seen to hit a limit on pictures for this blog.








Saturday, January 31, 2009

Saga of the Salmon

There once was some salmon. They were born in Alaska (or maybe Canada) and swam all over the ocean. One day, they were caught, cut up, and canned. Now they are tasty.

There was a man, living in Panama and working in Peace Corps, who wanted to eat these fish. His wife and another PCV were also interested in eating them. The man requested his friends from Alaska who were planning on visiting to bring these fish down to Panama so that he could eat them. He also wanted some wood bowls from the Great Alaskan Bowl Company.

The friends arrived on Christmas Day 2008, but they were not planning on visiting the man and his wife for many days. They asked where they could put the fish and bowls because the fish needed to be kept cool. The man´s boss suggested the office of the Peace Corps headquarters in Panama City where the friends´plane landed.

The friends tried to go to the office, but when they got out of the cab and saw the building, an armed guard began quizzing them about their activities. Not knowing Spanish, the language of the guard, the friends had trouble communicating this strange task of leaving fish and bowls at the office. The guard decided to get help and an Italian passing by offered to help. He translated for the friends. In the end he offered to hold onto the fish and bowls until the man from Peace Corps Panama could come pick them up. The friends took his name and phone number.

During their travels around Panama, the friends lost the phone number, but remember the Italian´s name. They let the man know the problem, and the man asked his boss for help again. This time, all the boss could offer was to look for the Italian where he was last found, walking passed the office. The man, his wife, and the other PCV were heartbroken about the loss of the fish and the bowls, but such is life.

The friends had their visit to the man´s site and left the next day. They had a good time and the man and his wife enjoyed their visit very much. Their only regret was that it was so short a time for a visit because the friends wanted to see more of Panama and the man and his wife had meetings and work to do. They knew that the kind Italian would enjoy the fish and bowls and that these things would not go to waste.

The day the friends were to board their plane to go back to Alaska, one decided that they should look for the Italian. Another considered this a bad idea and a waste of time. How would they ever find this Italian again? Nevertheless, they returned to the office...and immediately saw the Italian walking down the street! He welcomed them back and gave them back the fish and the bowls that he was still keeping for them. He was a very nice Italian.

The friends were overjoyed. They called the man and spread the joy to the man, his wife, and the other PCV. They were all happy to hear that the fish and bowls would be theirs again. The friends dropped off the fish and bowls at the office with notes to say who they were to go to. The friends then returned to Alaska on their plane.

The other PCV went to Panama City a short time later for work that she had to do. She wanted to pick up the fish and the bowls for the man and his wife, and for herself too. Unfortunately, she could not because she got too sick to leave her hotel room except for her necessary work. She could not go to the office. The fish and the bowls had to stay at the office a little while longer.

An office staffer came out to the regional meeting of the man, his wife, and the other PCV. He could have brought the fish and the bowls, but he did not. Still the fish and the bowls are at the office. The man and his wife have begun to wonder if these fish and bowls were ever really intended for them or if fate has some other purpose for them. The man and his wife have begun to wonder if the fish and the bowls every really existed at all.

(Stay turned for the continuation of the Saga of the Salmon)