Cultural & Technical Weeks

Well, we just finished week 5 and 6 of training (out of 10) and as usual we are tired.

Week 5 focuses on Culture. All the trainees travel out to thier region of Panama to experince local culture. Kevin and I traveled to the mountains of Veraguas to visit Areshia, a volunteer who lives and works just a coulple of ridges away from Noah and Karine (who we visited previously).

The first photo is Areshia while teaching in the school. She does a weekly environmental class and we helped her to prepare for and run class that week. We did neglect to think up a rain plan....I don´t know what we were thinking of seeing how we are in PANAMA, but we recovered nicely and had a good class despite the rain.

This is our group (l-r) Cassandra, Maria our Regional leader, Arishia in the back, Teri in orange, Kevin and me.

In Areshia´s community we contunied our practice in Spanish and lived with host families. n Kevin and I asked to be with seperate families so we would get more individual spanish time...and that was good practice.


We experenced culture by talking to local artisans, one that makes Panama hats, another who makes maracas, and a lady who makes jewlery and uses many local seeds in her jewlery. We also visited a local hostel (well worth the trip to Santa Fe to sit in thier hammocks - see the photo of our group above) and a small food and crafts market. I came close to buying a Panama hat, but it was a tad to big. Darn.

This is Cassandra and Teri modeling the jewlery with local seeds. Teri (in the green) bought the one she is wearing.


We also had a good time watching "The Devil Wears Prada". Imagine 7 people crowed around a laptop in the dark and you get the picture. There is a very funny line in the movie that mentions Peace Corps...so we got a good laugh.

For Technical week we seperated and I headed out to join others in the CEC program to learn about the coastal environment and the issues we will be working on. We stayed with host families in Holly´s community on the South-western end of the Asero Penninsula.


The people there were great and the weather and it was beautiful. The sand on her beach was grey black in color and not developed. Holly works with a very motivated and organized communtiy group on Sea turtle conservation. They collect and protect eggs from people and animals until they hatch. We walked the beach looking for turtles every night, but did not see any as it is early in the year still. We
had classes on sea turtles, mangroves, eco-tourism, youth leadership development, and how to build a Lorina stove.

A very large percentage of Panamanians cook with fagones...which is really just a pot sitting on three large rocks over a fire. Even those people who have and use a gas range still use a fagone when they cook for large numbers of people or traditional foods. Well you can imagine that this takes a lot of wood for the cooking.

Loriana stoves are earthen stoves made with easy to obtain materials - clay, sand, grass, and a zinc pipe for a chimney. The benifits of a loraina stove are that they burn about 30% less wood, they divert the smoke from the cook, they contain and focus the heat onto the pot, and they can use the same flame to heat more than one pot. You can also bake in them after cooking if you are real good. A Loraina stove can last 10-20 years with proper care.

With that said they are labor intensive to build. The steps can be seem in the photos.

1. 1. You collect and sift the soil and sand. You have to check the soil content to be sure that you mix things in the right purportions. Sifting soil took FOREVER because the soil was damp...nothing dries fast here.

2. After mixing the parts together with just the perfect amount of water you put it into the mold and tamp it down hard...beat the snot out of it until you have to work to dent it with your finger.

3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 until the mold is full...8 hours or mor of work.

4. Remove the mold and pray it looks good...it will but at that point you have soo much work in it you can´t help but pray a bit.

5. Carve out the openings and tunnels for the wood, fire, pots, and chimney. Use water to smooth all surfaces.

6. Let dry for 30 days. Check daily for cracks and fix them. Do a test fire on day 20 to check for major issues before it is too dry to fix.

7. Use and maintain your stove....tell all your friends and have a party to build on for someone else.

News on Watson!

For all of you out there who knew our 4th guide dog puppy, Watson, here is an exciting update. Watson just graduated as a guide dog this month. He will be living in Louisiana with a wonderful woman named Angela.

Angela tells us via email that she is an event planner. She and her husband have a big family and are very excited about Watson. She says that they have bonded strongly already. Watson is her first guide dog, before she used a cane. She seems very happy with her new partner.

A very big THANK YOU goes out to all of those poeple who supported us in raising Watson...our family, friends, co-workers and volunteers who resited the urge to pet, play and feed the puppy. Our hard work paid off...and you are a big part of the our in that statement. Thank you for sharing your time, home and patience with our little puppies.

The last puppy that we raised is doing well with Amanda, the wonderful raiser in Baltimore who is finishing him off. She tells me that he recently enjoyed camping at the beach. I hope to send along good news about him in a year or so.

Sr. Gilberto

This is a transcription of notes I made this week while on Culture Week.

I´m sitting on the porch under a florescent light, the view of the dark night obscurred by hanging laundry. Senor Gilberto is tocar-ing, strumming an old guitar, his fingers brushing clear the dust. From inside comes the rapid fire announcer of the Panamá v Mexico futbol game, but unlike so much of the rest of Panamá, quietly. He tunes by ear, easing away the years of disuse, and begins to play. The music flows in fits and spurts, occasionally interspersed with singing, the words coming harder than the strumming, and occasionally with long blank pauses.

I don´t know what the pauses contain for Sr. Gilberto. Dusting off long forgotten tunes? Thoughts about how to work the finca tomorrow? Or memories of the last time he played this guitar?

Sr. Gilberto is in his 40s, an extremely happy man with a wonderful welcoming wife. They have four children. Two are engineers. One is in university still, and one had to stop to take care of his own family.

Not bad for a man who had to stop his own schooling at age 10 to get a job and help his family. When he was 3, his own father was paralyzed in a small plane crash. Since the age of 10, he as worked, in the monte, clearing, long hard days to ensure his brother and sister and parents were taken care of. And then doing the same so his kids could have better than he did.

From the porch we are sitting on, we would see the house he was born in, were it not for the thick trees. He has travelled a few times to other provinces, for work, but never wanted to stay or liked it as much as here. His may go to Santiago, a moderately big city 1.5 hours away, at most once a year.

Now it is morning on the same porch. Three dogs sit patiently in hte mud yard looking at me hopefully, but not pleading. They regularly get scraps, and bones, beating the ducks ,geese, and chickens to them. Two handmade cages hang from the ceiling with parakeets. The sun is still blocked, across the valley, by the mountain ridges. At least four spines of land unfold before me, without a building on them, some spots cleared for fincas, the rest trees and greenery. Clouds drift between the spines, the white highlighting the verdent green. The roosters have been crowing for hours by now, it is amazing to believe this is not a dream.

What a beautiful place. What warm wonderful people. What a great experience. Thank you Sr. Gilberto. Thank you Peace Corps. Thank you God.

It was my first great ¨Peace corps experience¨ Great!

Site announcement….prepare to be envious!

Well, where we are assigned to live for the next two years was announced the other day and we are pretty excited about the news. After training (5 more weeks), we will be living and working on a small island near/in the Golfo de Montijo, which is the gulf just to the West of the big peninsula that juts south into the Pacific. It is about 5 hours outside of Panama City. (on the map at the bottom of the page the gulf is just below where it says Santiago. We won’t say which of the many islands in that area we are assigned to for safety reasons, but if you choose to come visit for your own island getaway we will tell you where to come.

I can tell you some general details about the likely living conditions. Based on the information given to us so far (some details may be wrong according to other PCVs):
*****The island is home to a small community of less that 300 people. They seem to be very interested to have a volunteer – they even formed a committee to “support the PC volunteer”. Impressive!
*****We will have a boat ride to the island…likely 40 minutes or so. Faster with a newer engine, slower with an older one…guess which is more likely. Still, Kevin looks forward to that more than a long chiva ride (see previous posts if you don’t understand)
****We will not have electricity in our house, there may be some very limited access to solar power on the island, or may not.
*****We will likely have running water at or near our home, but will need to filter and treat it to be safe.
****We will likely have cell phone coverage…and plan on having a cell phone. Cell phones are very expensive to use here…even in country. We will likely not use it much to make outgoing calls. However, incoming calls are free to the cell phone user…so you are welcome to call us. Other volunteers say that pre-paid international calling cards are the cheapest option state side, with rates around 5-8 cents per minute. We will likely not get a phone until the end of training.

****Our house will most likely be cement blocks with a zinc / steel roof and a cement or earthen floor.

What will we be doing on this tropical island? Laying in a hammock? Well, there is some of that in the life of everyone in Panama, but we be doing many other things as well (no, really I mean it!). As you read the following please know that the first step for all Peace Corps members is to spend several months talking to everyone to figure out “What do they really want to work on here? What are the beneficial projects that the community will be supportive of?”
For Kevin: We have been told that the island is fairly deforested from farming and raising cattle. The people who live there have expressed interest in reforestation to protect their watershed and water supply. We have been told that they are also interested in learning about organic farming as a way to make the most of the land that they have….land is likely more obviously a limited resource on an island. Also, a chicken project may be possible.
For April: We have been told that they are interested in ecotourism, and their location is reasonable for this to be possible. Teaching about the environment & very basic science are also likely projects. There may be call for marine conservation projects in the area, the island fishermen have noticed a change in their harvest patterns and are interested to explore why.

We will have a chance to visit the site in 4 weeks and will know more then. For now it is time for bed, I have to get up tomorrow at 4:30 for travel to our next week of training. We will be doing a week of region specific cultural training, so we are off to Veraguas! I should mention that as I write this there is a bunch of music coming in the window from distant parties…Saturday and Sunday nights are big music and party nights. The music could go on until the wee hours of the morning and I can tell from here that they are having fun.

We will be sure to tell you more when we can. Until then, just know that we are fairly happy and safe (and April continues to be itchy with bug bites.)

Training & Raining

So yesterday we really got to get our hands dirty. And everything else for that matter. After weeks of mostly ¨classroom¨or lecture type trainings, we dug beds, made water diversion / erosion control ditches, and planted. About 30 minutes after we started, the skies opened and it poured. Agua sera, mucho agua, lots of names for it, but pretty much the same thing - we were soaked.

Typically, our trainings for Language and Technical work are held in ranchos, or palm frond covered huts with no walls. (We´ll try to get a picture for our next post.) They are quieter than the ´zinc´roofs on most of the houses, and generally work well, but we were getting tired of sitting in metal folding chairs on the mud (although mostly dry, the legs would still sink into it) and listening to how to plant, or how to perform a community assessment.

So we were excited to build beds, spread the borycachi (bocachi, with the name changed to relfect the tweaks of our Tech Trainer, Borys) we´d made, build a seedling nursery, and get blisters. Besides, the torrential rains helped us know how well we´d designed and implemented our canals guardar (erosion control / water diversion, or guard channels); otherwise, we wouldn´t have figured that out until it washed away our seeds. (Sometimes I wonder how tall Panamá must have been originally, looking at all the mud that washes down in every rain. I´m thinking Rocky Mountains high.)

So hopefully we´ll be around to see the results of our planting and building efforts; we have a couple of weeks of off-site training, so we may come back to beautiful beds of corn, rice, beans, and such just starting up. Either way, it will mostly come ripe just after we leave our training site for our real sites, a bit of a bummer; I would love a garden fresh salad.

Oh, and coming home that wet (I managed to not be red with mud, but had definate spots) for lunch, I figured I´d shower, put on dry clothes, eat, and put the wet ones back on for the rest of the day (on Saturdays, we don´t split the day half language, half technical). However, our host mother took my Tshirt to wash while we were eating. I grad another. I looked outside again, and now my socks were missing. Okay, I grabbed some others. I went outside to put my boots on, and they were getting washed. I had to explain that yes, I wanted to wear the wet boots, as I was going back to the mud. Obviously still some differences between cultures (or maybe just people?) that I haven´t fully figured out yet.

More later, hopefully after we find out our site on Wednesday!!!! We´re all excited!

Lodo - otherwise known as Mud

So, this has been a rather quiet week for us...just training, no movies or galavanting across the country. So I figure I can take a moment to tell you about one of the every day realities of life in Panama...lodo. Lodo is the Spanish word for mud.

In acctuallity we have not yet had any really deep shoe sucking mud momemts here yet (they say that it is just a matter of time). And, before you get the wrong mental image of a country that is just one big muddy road lined by deep forboading jungle let me tell you that that had not been my expereince. When it rains here we do get mud. I have seen two different types....the sitcky stuff and the not sticky stuff. I don´t know what the diffence is, but the path behind our house is a whiteish soil that is firm and does not ever get slick or sticky. It makes a very nice path.

The more common type of mud here is red in color and sticky as can be. It is not uncommon while working in the garden to get a 2" layer of mud stuck to the bottom and sides of your shoes. When it gets that big the wieght eventually causes it to peel free and you start up a new layer. It is persistantly sticky. I have left my shoes to dry for a day or two and gone out to hit the mud off and had it not come free. When using tools like a shovel it is common to have to stop and use a stick or machete to clean the mud off of the tool so that it doesn´t interfere with your work. Digging in Panama is hard work...much harder than back home. The soil feels more dense and heavy.

The red mud drains quickly and dries (well, as dry as it gets here...not to the dusty stage) to a nice firm surface. The only areas that seem to stay persistantly yucky are low lying wetspots that get heavy traffic. Something funny, I once thought that I had the start of a good sandal tan...just to wash my feet and find that they had been stained by the mud.

Stay tuned for more postings on life in Panama - including a posting on "Los Diablos Rojos"!

Site announcements coming soon!

Hey all,
Just a quick note to let you know that we will be finding out where we will be assigned on Wednesday. This will finally answer the question that you have been asking since last spring...."Just where will you be living and working???" We will post info as soon as possible after that for you to enjoy. I think that it is going to be very good. Stay tuned!
April

Photos from Volunteer Visit - previous post

These photos are from our visit to see Noah and Karinne in thier community. Every trainee gets to visit a current volunteer at thier site for a weekend. See the previous posts for a discription of our visit, when we posted we did not have a way to upload the photos.

April and Kevin on a chiva.

Chivas are a main method of transportation in the campo...which means anywhere off of the main highways and big roads. Chivas are 4wheel drive trucks with a roof and two hard small benches in the back. Cargo gets strapped to the top, and people get crammed inside. We were the last stop...that is why you don´t see other passengers.

Kevin on the Chiva. Clearly head room was not a high priority in the creation of this chiva. They tell us that not all chivas are this short. Kevin hit his head multiple times each way...hard enough to be heard over the engine noise.

A view of the community fair grounds. Each small community has a Saint or "Patronales" that they celebrate - sometimes for days or weeks at a time. The fair grounds at this communtiy become a market and activity area for thier week of celebration.

The view from Noah and Karinne´s porch. They have a beautiful site location. Almost (emphasis on almost for me anyway) worth the 3 plus hour chiva ride.

My first of the really big Panamanian creatures. This spider´s main body was easily as big as my thumb. Wow. The list to date includes: two small scorpions, a BIG tarantula, many mosquitos, tocans, many interesting and colorful birds, a cool big lizard (that bit Colin in our group 4 times...but Colin is the guy who catches lizards and stuff and gets bit as a result of the fun) and a lightning bug that had to be as big as my thumb with an orangey colored light rather than the typical green/yellow. (Ok, on that one we didn´t actually get a look at the bug as it was dark....but there are other witnesses who agree that it was a lightning type bug. I guess we could all be wrong...it could have been a tiny UFO.)

We took a walk/hike with Noah and Karinne to a water fall and swimming hole. Our camera batteries were limited on this trip, so these are the best of the photos.

Hogwarts

Wow, what a first few weeks. In the very limited free time we´ve had, I´ve been reading Harry Potter 5 (Order of the Phoenix) in prep for the movie and to re-read HP6 before the final book comes out. And I realized that Peace Corps Pre Service Training (PST) is just like going to Hogwarts (the wizard school, if somehow you haven´t read them nor know someone who has). Tons of new words we´ve never heard before, tons of homework just piling up in Spanish class (read this, write this, discuss this with your host family, all in Spanish) and in Technical Sessions (here are fifty new trees you need to be able to identify, all presented in thirty minutes walking around the finca - farm; here is a nivel - level - that you need to be able to build from two 2-meter long sticks, some twine, a tape measure, and a few nails; here is a recipe for bocachi - japanese name for organic compost - that requires 200 lbs of chicken poo amongst other items; and an amazing overload of other new trainings and information). Add to that the new foods we´re eating, plus the ones we don´t think we want to eat (no kidding, on our first day trip to a finca, we saw - and some of us more adventurous ones tried - a fruit that reminded me of mibelus mimbeltona - a blistery plant from HP5 - and smelled and tasted like stale vomit - again, no kidding! And the reason there are lots of these around is because they juice this stuff and sell it in gyms and healthfood stores in the states - obviously with some taste modifiers - so everyone planted one because they were selling for a lot, but then everyone planted one, so the price dropped.) and it is very similar to Hogwarts.

We even ride an equivalent to the Knight Bus, called Diablo Rojo (or, Red Devil) when we travel around Panamá City - they are old school buses from the US, painted up inside and out in crazy, but very artistic, designs, the door is generally bungee corded open so it never closes, and the seats PACK in when people get on. The first one we road to Panamá City for a day of locating points of interest actually got condemned (or something, we weren´t sure what) when we arrived there, but luckily another person on the bus took us to another one to finish the ride.

So that has been wonderful, if at times overwhelming. But we´ve managed (by us, I mean both April and I together, as well as working with our other Group mates) to get through it all.

This weekend (April and I are currently sitting in Santiago, provicinial capital of Veraguez, west of Panamá City, before finishing our trip back to our PST site), we went on a Volunteer Visit to spend time with current volunteers and see how they live, deal with work, food, people, etc. Luckily, another volunteer from the area was going as well, because we might not have made it. The ride required a four hour chiva drive - pickup truck with benches and a top in the back, where we rode with gear strapped to the top - from Santiago. The last two hours were off the pavement, but it hadn´t rained much lately, so the roads weren´t too muddy and we only had to walk once. But the chivas are scheduled to leave the Santiago terminal at 4am and 6am, but sometimes the 6am doesn´t go, so don´t count on it, and sometimes the 4am leaves early, so we had to get there at 3:15am. So it was good to talk to Bryan, who guided us through the trek. The mud road was almost easier - they drive fast on the pavement, but it is so potholed, they swerve all the time and straighten the curves - since it was slower - I just had to worry about bouncing my head off the ceiling - everyone else pretty much could sit upstraight. :) Luckily, Bryan got me a set at the back end, so I didn´t get carsick, but dad would never make it.

Once we got to Noah and Karinne´s, it was beautiful, if only 8am!! We ate great all weekend, talked Peace Corps and Panamá, work, the states, the future, hiked, swam in some waterfall pools, saw the BIGGEST fireflies I´ve ever encountered (practically small hummingbirds!), and even got to attend a charla - talk - they held on Saturday to talk about coffee - the main local product - with the local campesinos (farmers). I could follow their Spanish, but not the locals yet. And we got to de-husk some coffee beans by hand - a small batch Noah had, just while we were sitting around on the porch talking. It was a wonderful time and we were really lucky with our visit, since we had so many experienced PCVs to talk to, such great food, and beautiful view. (I´d post some pictures, but we didn´t bring the cord to the camera, so hopefully next time.) We had electricity the last half day, after someone fixed the local hydrogenerator finally (we had a teasing false alarm Friday evening) and had running (but unpotable) water most of the time. This morning, we got up at 4am for the 5ish chiva ride down, but it didn´t come by the house until after 6, so we got breakfast, chatting, and a beautiful dawn (we did get on before the sun crested the mountains). The ride down was mostly uneventful, and it was a surprise to get here feeling the day should be half gone and realize it is only 10 or 10:30am. We still have about a three hour ride back to our PST site, then back into homework, talking in Spanish with our host family, and local food.

Sorry I haven´t posted more before, we seem to get about an hour online a week so far, and the computers (or maybe the network connections) here aren´t quite as fast as home, so it takes longer than I expect (of course, if you look at the posts about my estimates for packign the house and moving, you´ll see my expectations are frequently off :) to read emails, do some responding, and try to post. I´ll keep trying to give updates with more about classes, abono (fertilizer), Spanish, food, beautiful sites, and etc. In about two weeks, we should know our site; I won´t be able to post the name, but I should be able to indicate how beautiful it will be. :)

As always, thanks to everyone for their support!! We are really looking forward to getting through PST and into our site, doing some work and having some down time as well. This weekend was practically a great, and much needed, Hogsmeade weekend.

Volunteer Visit - Noah & Karinne

Hello all,
We are sneaking in 20 minutes at an internet cafe (only cafe doesn´t seem quite right as there is no coffee or tea here). First off, sorry no photos this time...I have the camera but no way to make it talk to this computer.

We are in Santiago Panama...West of the capitol by about 4 hours on a bus. We just finished a volunteer visit about 3 hours North of here in the mountains. My rear end is sore from the bouncy ride. Think of the worst 4 wheel drive roads you can imagine...then ride over them on a bench in the back of a pick-up truck with 12 other people and you are getting close to imagining the trip to see Noah and Karinne.

Noah and Karinne are married PCVs who have just finished thier first year of service. Every trainee went out to visit a volunteer this week to learn more about what it is like to be a volunteer. Noah and Karinna were great hosts. They made us brownies! In addition to good food and great company we got to experience life with electricity and water that comes and goes at will. It is just a fact of life where they live because the systems that run the water and electricity are old, iffy and volunteer maintained at times. I have come to find that if I have to do with out either water or electricity in my home I want the water...it is heavier. :)

Noah and Karrine live in a cement block house with a zinc-coated steel roof. It is very typical of Panama. The windows are decorative cement blocks that have openings in them. Sometimes the windows are screens, often not. The houses are all painted bright colors, Noah and Karrine live in a bright peach house. They have an indoor bathroom with shower, but the water pressure is not always high enough to shower...so they often bucket shower. They always flush the toilet with a bucket...for those of you who don´t know this skill you should learn it because it is usefull whenever the water goes out. They also have an indoor kitchen with a propane stove, but many of the people in their area cook over wood fires and fogons (fagon= three rocks with a pot on top). Thier house was nice and cool because of the altitude and cloud cover, but there are some areas of Panama where the metal roof really heats up the house.

The weather at thier site was awsome, reminicent of warm spring in Maryland. The altitude (700m or around 2200 feet) keeps it cooler Cool to crisp in the evening, and warm to hot in the sun of the day. We went out for walks to see the counrty...lots of steep hills. We went swimming in a local swimming hole on a crisp stream with waterfalls. We also go to got to thier first ever charla - or talk. They got the community together to talk about coffee poroduction.

Coffee is the main cash crop in thier area and they are trying to get the farmers to focus on the quality of the product that they raise. It is hard for them to understand that the way they raise and process thier coffee could be important to the price that they get. This is impart because, while Panamanians drink a lot of coffee they sure don´t seem to care about the quality of it. It is roasted beyond dark and drunk with lots of sugar.

It is hard for them to imagine a culture like ours that has a segment of the population that are as coffee crazy and quality oriented as we are. There are about 8 steps in coffee harvesting and processing...and each of them can have a big impact on final quality. Attention to these steps can raise the price that the farmers get for thier products, but first they have to believe that it is important enough to invest the effort. Noah and Karinne´s community doesn´t have the prime coffee climate necessary to produce award winning coffees (altitudes above 1000m are best for coffee), but they can produce darn good coffee that will fetch better prices than they currently get.

Needless to say, we got to see coffee growing. We even got help with some production by helping Noah peal some of his beans. We roasted and drank coffee from local beans and had a generally good time. The scenery was simply breath taking in almost any direction. I have some photos that I will try to post next time. So, do I want to be posted in the Mountains? Part of me does, but part of me is wary of the chiva (truck for passengers) ride.

Hope all is well back in the States. I must admit to knowing almost nothing of what is going on in the world. I don´t know enough Spanish yet to easily read newpapers or follow the TV news.
Send your Panama questions in and we will try to answer them.
Love to all.
April