The Jungle

(Photos are of me degraining rice, my newest host family, and other members of the Indigenous Community)

As part of cultural training, I spent the past week in the Jungle with an indigenous community. We trecked through the rain forrest and climbed precarious rocks to see an aqueduct on a waterfall. As facinating as the landscape here is, the people are even more astounding. The level of poverty in this community is heartbreaking (although there are parts of Panama even worse off). The latrines are overflowing, the children are often naked, many residents have some sort of sickness, and malnutrition is rampant. The daily diet consists primarily of plantains and rice (unprocessed rice can be purchased although it requires much manual labor before consumption).

Despite their destitution, the community is incredibly generous. For each meal, my Host Grandma laid a skirt on the table for my dining placemat. She also wrapped a beautiful skirt around my waist for a celebration, wrapped my hair in her butterfly clip, as well as wove me a beautiful, intreciate hand fan, which is one of the most meaningful gifts I have ever received. This may sound odd and cheesy, but this is the best way I can describe the community; the comfortable feeling I get when someone plays with my hair is the same warm feeling I get when I am sitting with this new host family.

The children here are little superheroes. They do handstands, backhandsprings, flips, walk on home-made stilts, wander through the community and then up home-made ladders of neighboring huts alone at the age of 3. They are so curious and have so much potential. If only they could afford an decent education....which is where I hope to come into the picture by helping to promote economic opportunites. I can´t wait to get started. Only 3 more weeks of training.

The Touristy Part of Training

As part of training this week, we visited a couple spectacular places in Panama including a Cheese Plant and a Coffee farm. The first photo is of us 20 business volunteers plus our trainers near the cheese plant (I am disapointed that cheese is not a greater part of the Panamaian diet,) and the other photo is of Joanna, Lydia, and me sipping our fresh coffee.

The Site Announcement

(Description of photos above: Jake and I at the Site Revealing pointing to our sites / A pig at Spanish Class / Chickens at Spanish Class /Monkeys at Technical Class / The platter that my Sister Michele and Cousin Lauren painted for my Host Family that is now always displayed on the dinner table)

Training has been exhausting as it engulfs all 7 days of the week and allows for very little recooperation time. In addition, we have not known where we will be working, so our time thus far has been abstract and theoretical.

Until now.

After much anticipation and consideration during the site matching process, I now know where I will be working during my next 2 years. I am absolutely estatic to be going to my community as it embodies my idea of the perfect site...but boy are my nerves working up a storm.

To arrive at my site, I will take two short bus rides and then a quick trip in a dug out canoe to reach my indigenous site of less than 100 people. The residents work collaboratively in tourism by entertaining tourists with their beautiful clothing, language, dancing, and customs while also selling impressive artisanry. My home, like the others in the community, will be a palm thatched roof hut withought walls built on stilts. Another Peace Corps volunteer will be only a few minutes away in a neighboring village. Possible forthcoming projects in my site include running a computer lab off of solar power, improving tourism, personal finance training, and leading youth groups. I am truly excited about this venture and cannot wait to get started (after 5 more weeks of training).

Did I mention, though, that there was a previous volunteer from the Peace Corps in this site? Actually, it was a married couple...super successful with their endeavors...the epidimy of what the Peace Corps can accomplish...leaving big shoes to fill....oh - and the wife of the couple will be my boss.

Spanish is fortunately spoken in my community in addition to the indigenous language. I am, however, training to learn the indigenous language so that I can better integrate into the community, although my Spanish is still very much a work in progress. Thus, communicating in a 2nd language that I am rocky with to learn words in a completely new 3rd language is fairly challenging. Also, my community specifically requested a Peace Corps volunteer who will be a negotiator to empower the community to reach more equitable terms with tourism agencies. Unfortunately, I would not say that negotiating is my strong suit, but maybe I can put to great use all of my accumulated Clark Howard tips for giving the little guy an upperhand.

Despite the pressure I feel to be successful, I am so, so, so excited about my community and the possibilities of making a lasting impact.

The Sample Site

(The photos above are of a public bus, Michelle´s homecooked tacos, Michelle´s neighborhood kids, a mangly Whytegalow lookalike, and a nearby beach)

After 2 weeks of nonstop training consisting of classes, studying Spanish, and virtually no free time, each Trainee visited a current Volunteer in Panama to see an example of where we might work and what work we might do.

Traveling in Panama is always interesting. The Public buses here are old school buses from the U.S., and bus drivers take great pride in decorating them. On my way to the site, the bus driver held a cup in one hand, a cellphone in the other, shifted gears (but never steered with his knee), and rumaged through his CD collection, while crossing a double yellow line to pass a car. The bus had fixtures where side mirrors once were mounted but had since come off. An overhead mirror remained; however, it was adorned with stickers. At times, the bus driver stopped in the road to add oil or clutch fluid (not all buses have properly functioning clutches although they do all seem to have working cd players and loud speakers). We stopped at the Panama Canal to wait for boats to pass through, and the bus driver turned off the bus and got off, leaving the keys in the ignition for our 20 minute delay (Panama hopes to build a bridge for vehicles to cross the canal at this junction, but until then, vehicles wait up to an hour...even ambulances!)

I really lucked out on this sample site visit, which consisted of a much needed minivacation after non-stop training. Michelle, the incredibly hospitable volunteer I visisted, cooked tacos (I was craving Moe´s!), spaghetti, and scrambled eggs. Heaven! We spent a day at the beach, which helped relieve training, cultural, and homesickness frustrations.

The visit was not solely recreational, though. It was also a great opportunity to learn what expect once I am out of training. My favorite aspect of Michelle´s site is that after 10 months of her living there, everyone in the community of 300 people knows her name (after living in my house for 3 years in Georgia, I couldn´t name half of the people on my couldesac). Michelle works with an Eco Tourism group, amoung many other groups. Despite her efforts, her projects do not progress as quickly as hoped. Meetings are often inefficient, and when the community expressess an interest in learning accounting or English, there is sometimes little follow through on their part. There is a differnt pace of life here which will take some getting used to.

This visit has been the best part of my Peace Corps experience thus far. The site was incredible, I learned so much from Michelle, and and feel revived. But back to training I go.