Happy Holidays

Hola to all at home: Family, friends, former co-workers and fellow Volunteers!

We wish you a merry christmas....may you spend it with family and friends and snow. We are jealous of all of the reports of cold weather coming from up there...our fleece sweaters are currently growing a bit of mold. We are determined to drink hot cocoa over christmas even if it means sweating.

We also wish you a wonderful New Year. We certainly have quite a few projects to focus on as we more into the new year. We will be working on teaching english, building estufa lorenas, starting up a reforestation effort, restarting the island´s tourism group, and starting a club for kids. As you move into the new year, please remember that there are lots of little ways that you too can make this world a better place without taking 2 years to do Peace Corps. Please consider making one of the following your contribution to a better world:

*Visit special places. Make some time to go to the places you love. Parks, museums, nature centers, plays, concerts, cultural events. Help these important institutions to feel supported with your presence, your attention and your money. Saying you love the Zoo isn´t enough....you´ve got to go and enjoy and support it. If neglected too much we lose these wonders through funding cuts and neglect.

*Follow one of the three Rs that you are not already doing. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle...in that order. Are you using cloth bags at the store? Do you even need a bag for this purchase at all? Reuse all that you can... for items that you normally use throw aways think of reusable alternatives. For example paper towels vs cloth rags...I mean it isn´t that hard when you aren´t handwashing things. Change those light bulbs to florescent...it does matter!

*Volunteer your time. If you are not already volunteering somewhere get out there and start. Volunteering gives to your community, makes important community ties and enables our society to accomplish a ton of good with the little funding that most good-doing groups have. Yes, everyone does have some time to volunteer...you just have to want to use it for volunteering. As a full time volunteer and former volunteer coordinator I offer a 100% garuntee that there is volunteer work out there that will fit your schedule and warm your heart. You will get more out of it than you put in, I promise.

*Speak up for what is right, whatever you consider to be right. Consider asking your local and national leaders to support environmental issues. Even if Global Warming is a total hoax it is just good sense to keep this country and globe from being a gross place. We as a country need to lead the world in making the environment a priority and backing up our priorities with $. China isn´t going to do it...and they are the ones jostling to be next to lead. If the USA will not lead in a direction that the world thinks is reasonable, the world will look elsewhere for leadership.

*Make yourself just a little healthier....it will pay off long term in your energy, time available, and less healthcare cost. I can attest that a being a little bit healthier brightens your whole world. You will feel better and thus be more able to go volunteer. Uh-oh starting to repeat myself...it is time to quit.

One of my favorite sayings has always been from Gandhi "we must be the change that we wish to see in the world¨. Kevin and I are living it...and so can you. What change will you be in 2008?

We will be on the island for a while...so you might not see another post until mid January.
Feliz Navidad y prosero año nuevo a todos.
April y Kevin

All I want for Christmas....

Well, we still find it almost impossible to believe that it is the Christmas Season. It is not possible that you poor souls up north have snow and cold weather....and that we are missing it all. Mailing packages home for the holidays was a surreal experience...what holiday are these for anyway, it is too warm for Christmas.

Now, don´t get me wrong. Christmas is celebrated here, in some areas in much the same way as in the states. The streets are more full of sellers and buyers than normal - but the noise and music are much the same as other holidays. Here in Santiago, where I sit typing, there are plenty of christmas lights at night and wrapping paper for sale in all the stores (sold by the sheet). The Virgin processed last night, carried on by a croud of the faithful (these processions happen more often in a year than I would have thought before coming here).

On the island there isn´t much in the way of Christmas celebration. I have been told that Chrismas will be just another normal day. New Years will get more recognition with parties and special food. This leaves us free to make Christmas as big or small a deal as we want within our home. Very exciting to be totally free of outside Christmas imputs...no commercials, no christmas specials, no holiday traffic or holiday cookies luring me from the table in the office.

I did go to a Christmas parade with a boat load of children and adults from the island. There were about 60 of us loaded into a boat that is sometimes used to haul cattle (watching them load cattle is interesting!). The ride to port was a long one as the boat was so full and running just a 40hp engine. Just before we arrived at port there was a general changing of clothes and shoes and every kid had their hair brushed and was sprayed with deoderant or perfume because apperance is very important here.

The local government paid for the ride and provided a small dinner just to encourage islanders to go to the parade with thier kids. The parade started after the dark came and the rain left. It included floats pulled by semi trucks, a marching band, lots of music, and lots of thrown candy. There were also some fireworks and a band/orchestra concert afterwards.

We then piled back into a bus to go to the port only to find that the captain had not bought fuel when we arrived. As it was now 10pm buying fuel wasn´t possible so for a while it looked like we were going to have to sleep in the port area...not a fun prospect. Someone managed to track down and wake up a guy who could sell fuel and so we were able to leave. We arrived home at 1am. It was a long but fun night.

So what does a Peace Corps Volunteer ask for for Christmas? Well, it is different for everyone. Kevin and I asked for:
*hummingbird feeders to lure all the hummingbirds closer to the house
*synthetic travel underwear (synthetic dries fast and the ants like to eat cotton)
*letters / photos from home
*tyvec envelopes (it is hard to find strong mailing envelopes here and they don´t like it when we reuse them)
*and the biggie: a world band radio, meaning a radio that picks up SW bands. Stay tuned (haha...a radio reference) for a post about our experiences with the new radio.


So what are our plans for the Christmas holiday? We have friends coming to stay with us. Brook and Mac are another of the married couples in out training group and they will be with us from Sunday to Wednesday (if we can get them off island then). We hope to get the ingredients for bread, cider, hot chocolate, apple crisp, and other yuppy holiday foods. I hope to do luminaria on Christmas eve on our porch. I think that we will make christmas "poppers / crackers" for our host families and nieghbors to share the spirit and culture with them.

We are thinking of all of you and the wonderful cold that you are getting up there. We miss you (even if I don´t miss all the christmas craziness).

Listening to the world

What do I really miss here in Panama!"=)(/&%$·"!ª well, keyboards that actually show the symbol you will get when you type a key is one thing that I miss. What I had been planning on saying before the unsucessful quest for a question mark got me side tracked was that I miss NPR - otherwise known as national public radio (yup, sorry mom... news with a liberal bias).

Here in Panama there is plently of news, on TV, radio and newspapers. On the island we only get radio, and while we enjoy listening to the local radio most of the time, listening to news is hard because it is fast spanish without context clues to help with changes in subject. What I end up hearing is ¨blah blah hoy blah blah blah presidente Bush blah ba blah¨ Or simular experiences where the recognisable word is Estados Unidos, Chicago, California, or insert some other single word. Just enough to know that something noteworthy enought to make world news but not enough to know what it was.

As a result of this we felt totally out of touch with everything in the world. How DID Putin go from questionable to be Time´s man of the year anyway? Who is still in the running for the presidential primaries? All a mystery to me.

Sheer dumb luck put us into a conversation with a volunteer who wanted to sell a very nice used radio. So for Christmas we asked for help funding a World Band radio purchase. Thank you to Grandma Cropper for sending the funds to allow the purchase...you got a great deal. (Anyone else who sent us radio money...don´t worry...I will likely use it to further my mola collection. That will also make me very happy.) So we are now the proud owners of a Grundig Yacht Boy 400E radio...I think that we are the 3rd PCVs to use it and it is a nice radio.

World Band Radio is also called SW, short wave radio, Single side band...well, a ham radio operator would correct me with a long thesis on what each of those really means, but all that really matters is that they are things that I can now hear that you don´t hear with an AM/FM radio. SW radio is different from AM/FM in many ways:

1. You hear things from all over the world. We have heard prgrams from: the Netherlands, Prague, England, Germany, Japan, China, South Africa, Equador, India, Argentina, Cuba, Iran, the USA, and others. We have heard languages that we can´t identify and some great world music. We have heard China broadcasting news in Spanish (that is a fun accent). Each broadcaster has a target audience, but sometimes the conditions are right for the signal to carry much farther than intended.

2. Reception depends on time of day and atmosperic conditions. SW radio comes in clearest the 2 hours before sunset...whatever time that is locally, until midnight. Also the 2 hours before and after dawn can be good. Reception is often staticy and sometimes includes funny alien sounding noises. Sometimes the volume changes as the signal clarity changes. But hey, it is worth it for some english language news.

3. Program times and channels can vary seasonally and by day of the week. Where there is static now on a frequency may be a show that starts on the hour. Broadcasters each have their own schedule and may broadcast for just part of a day. For example the United Nations has a broadcast that lasts for just 15 minutes. Broadcasters even switch frequencies over the course of the day. This means in an evening of listening you may have to seek a new channel several times. All that channel surfing means you run into fun and strange things. It is kind of like watching cable if you had 1000s of channels and each only broadcast for 3 hours a day...you sometimes get lucky and sometimes not.

I still haven´t heard enough news to know what is really going on in the States (most of what is being broadcast out of the states is religion or is aimed at other parts of the globe and thus hard for us to pick up). But at least we are hearing world news: So you all hit $90 a barrel with oil...glad I am not buying gas these days. I recommend that you think about driving a veggie car like my mom :) (she says my car is running fine!)

If you are interested in trying out world band radio I would suggest trying it out before you spend a lot of money on a radio. There are inexpensive radios out there, but they say you get what you pay for. It can be very rewarding some nights, and very frustrating others.

Overall a night of listening to the world is a very good way to get connected to life outside our island. It is hard to explain just how much fun it is to hear African drumming, Spanish with a Chinese accent, Cuban radio playing Martina McBride singing Christmas Carols, or All India radio giving the cricket scores all brought to you by sheer luck and a little radio.

Thanksgiving 2007

Thanksgiving 2007 was a good holiday. We sincerley missed our family and friends, but we managed to have a good time. Of course, Thanksgiving is a USA holiday - so Panamanians do not celebrate it. That is why we choose to leave our site and celebrate this first major holiday with other volunteers.

For Thanksgiving, we went to the highlands of Panamá, near Vulcan Baru. It was about 2000 meters in elevation, so it was cool, at times like a late September day, and we enjoyed a fleece and a fire at night. Along with 3 other couples from our training group, we rented a cabin located in the mountains. THe cabin is nestled on private land between two national parks - Amistad and Vulcan Baru. The purchase of the land pre-dated the creation of the parks...thus it is a beatiful and secluded spot. Below are photos of the cabin - yup, there was good reason to be jealous. I should also mention that the cost was a good bit more than a typical panimanian (or PCV without thier friends) would pay.

The cabin had a woodburning stove for heat - and we really needed it. It also had 2 futons and a King size bed...so while the photo above was taken as a joke two couples did end up sharing the bed (the floor was too cold to consider). It also had a small kitchen and two tiny baths. But the real beauty lay in the beauty outside and the friendships inside.

There are 8 different species of hummingbird that live near that cabin...and many more in Panama as a whole. I think that I got to see 5-6 of those that live near the cabin. It was easy to see them because the feeders were always just buzzing with them.

Cera Punto is a pretty community. It is part of the Panamanian region that grows the most vegitables and food products because the climate there is cooler (higher altitude) and the soil is rich due to the volcanic histore. This agriculture makes use of some shockingly steep hills. I don´t understand how they do it...or how they keep soil erosion from being a problem (possibly they just put up with the erosion and don´t work to prevent it).

The Lodge Los Ketzels in Cera Punto has very generously hosted 100 plus PCVs for Thanksgiving for many years. They even allow us to rent out thier kitchen and work together to cook the Thanksgiving meal. THis year we cooked 4 (25lb) turkeys, 3 large hams, 2 sacos of potatoes, 40lbs each of brocolli and coliflower, and heaven knows how many sqash, loaves of bread for stuffing, veggie loafs, and desserts. It took 2 days to prep and cook and dinner was served right on time with food left over at the end (even though everyone was groaning they were so full). Kevin headed the Turkey prep crew (I was to work it but they got them done as fast as I predicted and I missed most of the process...last year the Turkeys took 8 hours and made everything late). Below is Kevin with his crew and final product. When asked how he knew so much about turkey cooking he sited his lovely wife as his teacher. However...I would like to note for the history books that I did not teach him to cook salad.This is what the final buffet looked like. We really didn´t have enough room to wiggle once everyone had food.

The day after Thanksgiving we spent the morning on the 3 Cascades hike near the cabin. It was a lovely short hike that managed to have plently of challenge.

All in all, we had a lovely Thanksgiving. We will be staying in our community for Christmas and celebrating it with our new neighbors and friends there. I expect Christmas to be good as well, but a bit quieter.

I hope you all are enjoying the holiday season. It has been impossible for me to belive that Christmas is just around the corner. The weather certainly does not help me to believe it.

Love to all.

April and Kevin

My Grandpa Dierks - Final update

I am very sad to pass along the news that my Grandfather, Paul Dierks, lost his battle with lung cancer on December 1st, 2007.

He lived every moment of his more than 80 years with virve. He always had a ready smile and joke to share. I was lucky enought to have two grandfathers who both showed in thier actions that it is a good thing to have fun regularly. As a long time and highly decorated member of the Loyal Order of the Moose, Grandpa Dierks aslo modeled a life of generosity and service to others which I strive to emulate in my own (non-moose) way. He also clearly loved my grandmother, I can only hope to have 59 years of happiness like they did. He will be greatly missed by our entire family.

Thank you to everyone who helped to make his last months more bright and interesting through cards and notes. He truely enjoyed the mail and your kind words. Please help me honor his memory from affar by hugging or calling a loved one today.

The Supermarket on the Island

There are five tiendas, or small stores, on the island. When we arrived, three months ago, there there three, but two others have decided to open. It sounds like most tiendas last about a year, with some up to six years. Generally, it is just a a part of someone´s house and is open when they are there and closed when they aren´t. Our third host family ran a tienda. Here is a picture of the store. Everything that is for sale. That´s it.


They have oil, rice, beans, salt, sugar, flour, sardines, tuna, spices, condensed milk, tomato paste, powdered milk, bleach, soaps, toilet paper, toothpaste, some simple medicines, flashlights, batteries, cookies and sweets, onions, garlic, and potatoes. She would generally go to a nearby port to restock every two weeks. As April mentioned in her post about our house, our closest tienda actually has a propane powered fridge as well, so ice, drinks, and duros (frozen bags of juice for 10 cents).

In contrast, in our regional capital of Santiago, there are numerous tiendas and at least eight supermarkets, two of which are now 24-hour supermarkets, with pretty much anything you could need. While you can´t find everything that you can find in the states....you can find plenty. The things that we miss the most in a supermarket? I miss:

Cheese, good real cheese. Cheese comes in white and yellow here. There are a suprisingly large number of white and yellow processed "cheese" options in this world...and none of them worth much attention. I really miss blocks of parmasean. Oh for a chunck of really sharp cheddar. Fresh motzerella I dream about. Feta...is that feta for real or is that really just ground queso blanco? Blue is beyond knowing. You can occasionally find decent cheese...but it is rare in stores and costs my daily salery (wondering what that is now aren´t you??)

Good icecream. I can´t have it in my community due to lack of electricity...but suprisingly a good rich chocolate icecream is hard to come by at all.

A wide variety of vegitables. Veggies are just not as commonly used in the diet here as at home. I could grow estatic for a baby spinach salad. I could drool over fresh real mushrooms. I have been looking high and low for sweet potatoes. I get depressed when I realize that I completely missed an entire sweet corn season. Oh for one (no might as well ask for three and fill my tummy) ear of "perfectly sweet fresh picked and cooked for 45 second and still sweet as southern sweet tea" sweet corn. Spagetti squash....yum, i miss that too. Little red potatoes with soft skins that are just the right size to eat in two "bigger than I was taught to eat at once" bites. I could go on and on...but then I would start to drool.

Before I start to sound deprived and make you want to mail me food...we are eating well here. I have found soya chunks that make a great protien filled addition to our meals. I am managing to keep stocked on chocolate. I will soon start experimenting with making bread in a pot rather than an oven. Living simply with out refrigeration has real rewards and perks. Fresh real free range eggs are much yellower than the ones that I used to buy. I have come to really like fried eggs. I get plenty of garlic. We are basically happy with our food. I am hungry now...time to go.

I do worry a bit about wieght gain when I get back in an area where I can get good cheese. :)