Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Worst Week of our Service. We hope...

So, it´s been a rough week.  This is probably one of those blogs best done by both of us, but Ben is off finishing the leadership seminar that we were both supposed to be at.  I´m sure I´ll mess up the details of his part of the bad week, but I´ll try to summarize as best as I can!

!Beware, if you´ve been ¨freaked out¨ by our blog in the past, you probably shouldn´t continue on.  If you do continue, prepare yourself for lots of poo talk!

Last Thursday, Ben traveled to the carribean side of the country to the province of Bocas del Toro for his Agro-Business seminar.  (He´s the co-coordinator of the initiative - he represents the business sector, while another volunteer in our region, Kat, represents the agricultural sector.)  Bocas del Toro is ¨famous¨ for it´s tourism - beautiful islands, surfing, etc (I haven´t been yet).  As such, there´s a lot of gringos roaming around up there.  To get to the beautiful islands, you get off the bus in the town of Almirante, before the end of the bus line, which is in Changuinola.  So, usually lots of gringos get on the bus in David with their large backpacks, and then get off early.  Ben was going to the end of the line for his seminar.  (I´m building to it, it´s like a math question from middle school).  So, what happens when all the other gringos get off the bus in Almirante?  The ayudante (literally, helper, or the guy who takes money and handles baggage on the bus), gives Ben´s large backpack to the other gringos.  Ben arrives in Changuinola with only our computer case.  Mayhem ensues.  The company deduces that they took it off early, but who has it?

That evening, they thought maybe it would come in on the next bus, it didn´t.  So, with everything closing for the day, Ben decides to take up the hunt the next day.  Friday he goes to Almirante and asks around.   He talks to the police and tries to get the water taxi manifest with passenger names so he can find the other tourists.  He calls our office, because the bag had his Panamanian i.d., and he files a report.  Then he goes out to the touristy island and actually finds this couple in a park.  They tell him that when they got in the taxi, the driver put the bag in the back and they didn´t realize it until they arrived at the boat launch, where they refused the bag and the taxi driver said he´d take it back.  Back where? 

Ben goes back to Almirante, talks to cab drivers in the area and using a description from the tourists, they figure out who it is.  They try to flag him down, he won´t stop.  That took all day.  That night he wrote up a statement and estimated the value of everything lost.  $1,275!!!!! Saturday, Ben goes to the DIJ (roughly the department of justice) to actually file a report ¨denouncing¨ what happened.  They take him to Almirante yet again and to the house of the cab driver.  He wasn´t allowed inside, but the guy was apparently very defensive and no one saw anything.  Then they were supposed to go to the office of the cooperative that runs the bus company to file the complaint so we can get some amount of compensation and they were closed, and wouldn´t be open until Monday.  Everything, EVERYTHING takes so much time here. 

Ben couldn´t stay because of the leadership seminar he´s now at, so he left saying he´d come back again to file the report with the company.  So, the bag is gone, and in it - the camera, back up hard drive, the backpack itself, all of his Ngobe clothes made for him, other nice clothes, shoes, toiletries, medications, well, just about everything of value that we own now.  What a blow.  And it´s gone.

We´ve come to terms with it more now, but after giving up so many material posessions and comforts just to be here and do this, it´s hard to lose pretty much the only things of value that we did have.  So, now we´re at Saturday.

I´d been in our community agonizing over this issue waiting for phone updates.  Saturday I came down to attend the going away party of our former regional leader.  But when I arrived in San Felix, I decided that I really just needed to see Ben, and the heat was killing me, so I jumped on a bus to David.  About an hour after I arrived, the diarrhea started.  To set the stage, a week earlier, I came to David and went to the clinic for 6 months of recurring symptoms of diarrhea, and was diagnosed with giardia.  I got my medications and left.  So, diarrhea again, story of my life.  Never have I had so much diarrhea in my life as in this year and a half, hell, never have I had so much as I have the last 4 days.  It came on fast and violent. 

By the time Ben arrived in David that night, it had quickly escalated into nearly constant, extremely painful diarrhea, and I lost my appetite.  We went to bed and I didn´t sleep because I was up probably over 50 times with the diarrhea.  At some point in the middle of the night, I noticed the blood.  LOTS of blood in the diarrhea (how many times will I say diarrhea?)  It wasn´t getting any better.  I felt faint, had a raging fever, still had the pain, if not more, and couldn´t face sitting on a bus for 5 hours in the morning to go to our seminar (you´re not allowed to poop in the toilets on the buses in Panama).  I woke Ben up by saying I was going to the hospital.  I got there at 8am to be told that the doctor would arrive at 930am.  I dozed off a couple times and finally was in, and almost immediately admitted into the hospital.

I waited some more, got my first IV, and then got the poop and pee cups- what a relief, I was going to explode.  They ran those tests as well as blood tests and came back with the exciting results.  Giardia (not gone), a bacterial infection AND amoebas!  I´m such an overachiever.  All three of those alone give people wicked diarrhea.  Monday they seemed to get ready to discharge me until I said I still had diarrhea.  Then the main doctor came and said that because of where I live, and how bad I really was, I needed to stay until everything was dead, that meant at least 2 more days there.  Yesterday, at about 1am, the nurse came to give me new meds (I think they loved waking me up) and she blew threw the vein my IV was in on my left hand.  Time to try a new vein, new hand.  First try she blows my vein.  So, the third attempt goes in on the side of my right hand.  My hands are messed up now.  Typing this pretty much sucks.

But, I was discharged today after four days of laying around watching American TV channels and receiving about 10 gallons of medicines through my IV.  I feel MUCH better (aside from the hands), and I have a mountain of medications to take over the next week. 

So, it´s been a full week.  Not a good week.  But we rise up and continue on!  Earlier this week, we both discussed that this was probably a much better time in our service to experience these setbacks, rather than earlier.  I´m looking forward to seeing Ben sometime soon (everything this week made even harder by not seeing each other but for one night) and we know that we´ve probably got something good coming our way soon!  Things can be replaced, and my health is restored!

Sunday, March 21, 2010

February & March 2010 - In Photos

We've been busy in the last few months, so we've decided to post a few photos from our many adventures to help everyone catch up - but don't you fret, we've still got more to post about, including our VERY successful leadership conference that we just finished!  These photos start with a few from our trip to Boquete with my friend Michele and her mom, who visited from the states.  From there we've got some pictures from our community, the birthday of a friend, and our quick vacation to San Blas (aka the Comarca Kuna Yala) on the Caribbean coast.  Enjoy!

River above Boquete.

Yay Peace Corps!

Me, by a waterfall (not huge, but not bad for Panama!)

Watch out for cars falling off cliffs around this corner!

This business works REALLY hard, they have a 25 hour a day schedule.

This chiva is *pretty* full!

Playing with the neighbor girls - they're pretty awesome!


And the neighbor boys.  They love hamming it up!


Hello grasshopper!  We found this lady laying eggs outside the school.

David, with our cat, in a hat.


I'm drawing the Chilean and Argentine coasts on our world map.

In mid-February the freakishly strong winds came back and ripped the "rancho" off our house one night.

I took this picture from my "seat" on the spare tire in the back of the chiva. There were quite a few people riding down with us that day.

Celebrating Andi's birthday with a flaming flan!  Ben wanted us to use trick candles.  The flan was tiny.  Ben almost burnt his hands, but it was a good time!

Latrine in San Blas - where does the poop go?

Huts in Carti, Comarca Kuna Yala (San Blas)

San Blas gorgeousness from Devil Island.  Looking at Dog Island.

The huts on the beach on "our" island.

Beautiful!  We swam over here to enjoy Dog Island for a while.


Combing the reef for cool sea creatures.

One of those sea creatures, a large sea urchin, stung Ben.

Then, the next day he stabbed his hand with his knife while peeling coconut flesh.

Meligo's grandkids!  Isabella's babies!

All the animals are interested when the Spink's wash dishes.  2 dogs, 1 cat and a chicken...

This guy was on Ben's neck when washing dishes the other day.

"What are you painting?"

Ben and I recently decided to take on the popular task of painting a world map in our community.  We started thinking about this early on in our service, based on the popularity of the world map we have hanging in our house.  Community members often pop by to say hi, stare at all of the stuff we have, and to look at the world map and ask questions about places they've heard about.  "Where is Haiti?"  "Where is Panama?"  "Wow, we're TINY!"  At this point, we could continue on to a probably much more interesting blog topic "What it feels like to live in a zoo exhibit..." but we're not. 

The map's popularity sparked an idea - lets paint one at the school!  We'd be helping community members to learn about the world, and geography, and it's a physical piece of work that we can leave in the community (working in business concepts doesn't always give us that "we've accomplished a lot" feeling).  We approached the director of the school at the end of the last school year (December) about painting over the summer and finishing the map before the next year started (early March).  In early February Ben and I received a small amount of funding from a Peace Corps Panama volunteer organization, and we got to work.

The World Map project actually is something pretty well organized (developed by a Peace Corps volunteer) and popular.  We used a book to help us with each step of the process.  Step one - pick a place and get it ready!  The school director decided that the best spot would be the new school library.  For the record, the library is only full of textbooks and a couple of really outdated Encyclopedias -in ENGLISH.  Ben and I went to work deciding how big the map would be (6 feet by 12 feet), measuring it out on the wall and scrubbing the wall.  Even though the library was only built a year ago, the wall was covered in dirty hand and foot prints and other various interesting items. 

Step two - paint the whole rectangle in "ocean blue."  Step three - From there we drew grid lines covering the whole area - each grid was 2.5 inches square, which meant a total of over 1,500 grid squares.  Why a grid? - so we could use much smaller photocopied grids from the book to basically free-hand draw the world onto the wall.  Why paint it blue first?  So we wouldn't have to paint all those coasts twice (with the color of the country and then the blue - what a GREAT idea!)  In hindsight, we drew our gridlines too dark.  We realized this when we had to erase all those lines and ripped a lot of flesh off of our fingers in doing so.


Step four - Draw!  This wasn't so bad, and went a bit faster than we expected it too, but we drew everything very detailed - which just meant that painting would be even more detailed.  Which leads to the obvious next step, five, Painting!  We bought 4 colors of paint, red, blue, yellow and white and mixed other colors from those.  Painting went much slower than drawing, and Ben ended up doing most of the super detailed countries (the colors red, purple, and part of yellow) and I painted the light green, green, blue, pink, orange, and most of yellow.






Step six - we drew a few extra items - the Panamanian flag, the Peace Corps logo, and a compass rose, and painted them as well.  Step seven - erasing the gridlines - BOO!  This took over 30 rectangular erasers (we're not talking the small erasers on the ends of pencils), and much of the flesh off our hands.  Step eight -  sealing the map.  We hit a speed bump here.  When we bought our sealant we conveniently did NOT notice that it said it was white, in ENGLISH on the can.  OY.  So, we were working on the map two days before the school year started when we discovered this.  The next day, I made an insanely fast trip to David (leaving site at 5am, and getting off the chiva back in site at 3pm) so I could exchange the sealant for a transparent one, and get back to get a coat on in the afternoon.  The next day, step nine - labeling!  After one coat of sealant, we labeled the countries and oceans with black permanent marker, added our beautiful signatures, and then slapped on two more coats of sealant and called it done on the first day of school as the kids watched.




All in all, it took 2 weeks of time - we're not talking 2 work weeks in the states!  14 whole days, 8+ hours a day.  It was a lot, but it's great!  And more important that this physical reminder of our service, we're already educating people with it.  All throughout the process of painting, children and adults would pop in to watch us work, and it was amazing how often we were asked what we were painting - they had no recognition of it being a world map (even when it was done).  We were also often asked if it was just a map of Panama.  Nope, the WHOLE world!  The kids have already really enjoyed reading off all the names of the countries (in Spanish, of course) and the teachers are already using it in some of their lessons. 

When things slow down a little for us, we also hope to teach a few lessons here and there at the school on geography and world events.  In the meantime, at least most people in the community can now identify that 1. it's the world, 2. where Panama is, and 3. they can say that Panama is pretty important to the world despite it's size!