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!