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!