Chocolate's path

My community is made up of families who grow and harvest cacao (cocoa), then sell their dried and fermented beans to the local cooperative. The cooperative then sells the beans to many international chocolate companies. One of these companies, Theo Chocolate, happens to be located in Seattle, where I went to university . Theo chocolate buys cacao from the cooperative and makes delicious fair trade and organic bean to bar chocolates. When I visited home over the holidays, I had the opportunity to visit the Theo Chocolate Factory for a tour. I got to take all sorts of photos and brought chocolate back to Panama. Since I returned, I have able to share the photos and chocolate with producers, letting them see a little more of what happens to their product after it leaves the farm.
Also during my visit to the states, I brought chocolate and photos of cacao production here in Panama, explaining and sharing the background of cacao with many friends and family, to show where chocolate comes from. Connecting all the dots, we can raise consumer awareness, increasing support for organic and fair-trade chocolate and helping to improve the lives of small producers in developing countries.
We are currently working on sending photos and stories from the Ngobe culture and cacao to Theo Chocolate to share with their consumers. In addition, I am working on creating a lesson plan on chocolate to share with schools in the states so that kids can understand part of the path those little snickers bars took to make it into their lunch boxes!
Little by little, I am sharing with all parts of the chain, from producers to consumers to make us all a little more aware!

Back in the swing

After a fabulous trip home to the states, I made it back to my community and am here in full swing again. And there were lots of smiles from the candy canes that I brought back for all the little children.
Since being back, I have been having dreams of delicious food. I awoke this morning after having dreams about apples and about cheese. I went straight to the grocery store when I got to town today.
My trip home gave me a chance to think and reflect. And one of the things it made me think on is to renew my sense of wonder and ask more questions. To pretend like I am new again and ask all the questions that I don't know the answers to.
This week I learned new medicinal uses of cacao. That when a person has bad dreams the first born of the family crushes up a dried cacao bean in water, and after straining the water, applies it to the one cursed with bad dreams. The same medicinal treatment is given to women who get sick during their pregnancy. This was used in the past and is still practiced today.
It makes me so happy to learn more and more about the cultural importance of cacao. That it is not just a cash crop exported for the developed world, but that it is used here and has been traditionally used in the culture. More to come on chocolate soon. So eat up and get your good antioxidants in and now you know what to do when you have bad dreams!

!!!Feliz Navidad!!

Merry Christmas to all! After a lovely time preparing for christmas in Panama, with paper snowflakes, solar powered christmas lights and stockings, we were ready to celebrate. I taught the ladies to make stockings with traditional ngobe designs and we sold them to other volunteers. They loved the tale of the stocking, especially the part about the children who don't behave themselves and only receive lumps of coal for christmas. The day before I was headed out on a plane to celebrate Christmas at home, we had 17 stockings to finish sewing. So we had our own little Santa's workshop. They asked me to sing Christmas songs to lift their spirits up. So I sang every song that I could remember ( lots of forgotten lyrics, but it doesn't really matter, you just get to make them up). They loved hearing about the man made of snow who melted away one day in the hot sun.
Now I am home, visiting the my family in the US, for my first trip home in a year and nine months. And it feels great to be with family and friends and see the beauty of the northwest again.
Merry Christmas to all my friends and family, wherever you may be in the world!

If you want to help support in the festive spirit!

Happy Holidays. Here we are, entering into the season of giving. And we all want to give what we can and help in every way we can. Many people at home ask me how they could help the people that I work with. And now there are a few opportunities to support the people here, giving them opportunities to improve their lives.


In February of 2010, various volunteers and I in the province of Bocas del Toro will be gathering together to put on an Agro-Business Seminar to give small farmers in our region the knowledge and skills to improve their farming and marketing opportunities, in turn helping their families climb out of poverty. In order to fund resources, food and travel to bring farmers from their communities to this seminar, we will need help from friends and family members back home. If you would like to donate, click on
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=525-130

Another opportunity is to donate to a youth development conference we will be facilitating in february, focusing on self-image, sex ed, and the prevention of STIs and HIV/AIDS. Last year, I participated as a facilitator and brought two teenagers from my community, Placido and Angelica. The kids still talk about their experiences, remembering all the fun games, their friends and the amazing experiences they had. Donations will help pay for the travel, accomodations and food and resources for this amazing conference this year.

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail& projdesc=525-132 (If unable to view hyperlink, visit www.peacecorps.gov click on Donate Now and search by project number 525-132)

Also, if you are feeling excited about giving in a different way and sending a package to my community, we can always use kids books in spanish, or old yarn for my women's knitting group!

Another idea is to purchase a 2010 Panama Calendar

Each year, the Volunteer Action Council (VAC) in Panama creates a Panama Calendar using photos submitted by volunteers. Photos here are from the new 2010 calendar. The proceeds go to small grants awarded to volunteers and their communities for small projects.

Last year, PCPF sold 250 calendars and sent $3,000 to VAC. We want to sell 300 calendars this year.

Price is $17 per calendar, with free shipping to U.S. addresses. (Shipping to overseas addresses

is at cost.)

Please help us meet our goal of selling 300 calendars this year. Order calendars for yourself and for gifts:

1. Order On-line:

Click to Order On-line.

Use "Buy Now" button to pay by credit card

or PayPal. It's fast, free and safe!

2. Order by Mail:

Click for Calendar Order Form.

Mail completed form and check to address

on form.

Questions? Email panamacalendars@panamapcv.net or call Steve Spangler, 703-536-5457, or Jerry Lutes, 301-881-3407.

Hope you are all having festive holidays. I had a fabulous thanksgiving full of turkey, stuffing, pie and good cheer, with all the other volunteers of the country. Here we are in Cerro Punta, a community up in the mountains where we actually felt cold! It was a lovely weekend, staying in cabins, drinking coffee in the place where it was grown, wearing our jackets and pants and using my long underware for the 2nd time ever (1st time when I climbed the volcano). So refreshing. Happy thanksgiving and enjoy the holiday season.

little faces

My friend Elena, hauling bananas back to her house for supper in her chakra on her head. Even the children have strong necks.

Bijen, who always has a smile on her face when I see her
A glamour shots photo, posing with the dog. ( she has a little knit hat on her head that her mother made in my knitting class)
And now the dog is wearing the knitted hat.

Receiving light

And then there was light!
Although you can't see it well, there is a little solar panel in this thatch roof.
My wonderful little helper Rigoberto, hauling solar lights up the hill.
Today, the shipment arrived. I walked down to the main road with a possee of 3 teenage boys to help me carry up 5 boxes of 48 solar lights. The delivery truck arrived an offered to drive us up the road to the school. From there, all the little kids put the boxes into giant chakras, strapped them to their heads and we headed up the very slippery mud hill. My favorite little helper Rigoberto insisted on taking a box up the hill.

Later in the day, after the community finished their cleaning of the cemetery which happens every Day of the Dead on November 2nd, I gave a brief introduction of how solar lights work. Everyone got so excited. I had many women say they were so excited to get light to cook with in the night. They were talking amongst themselves that if their husbands didn’t want the lights, that they themselves would have to find a way to save up their money.
So we are selling them at $11 a piece, $10 for the base cost and $1 to benefit the women's chocolate group helping me sell them.
I have begun helping to install the little solar panels on the thatch roofs. And the first night after the lights charged in the blazing sun, the look of their faces beneath the light was so precious. It was amazing. Although it is not like having full on electricity, it is something, and something sustainable. Through this, the people will not have to buy kerosene which is bad for lungs and the environment or candles which are just expensive, or as many batteries for their flashlights which then get thrown into the streams and the water sources. It is a way of getting the clean development technologies into the hands of the people that need them most.
So thanks to my grandfather and my father who helped in the research and paid for the packaging the families in my community have a little bit more light in their lives.

A very Happy 25th birthday to me!

I had a fabulous birthday party in my community, complete with popcorn, cake, lemonade, a soup with squash from my garden and my duck that we killed off my deck, pin the tail on the pig and a piñata. About 60 guests arrived, counting all the children. Thanks to my dear friends Andi, Janell, Jake, Rebecca and my brother Ben for joining me and helping so much in this extravaganza. It was quite outrageous, but a good time. It was wonderful because almost all the people who are most important to me in my community arrived to help me celebrate. So thank you to all my family and friends and my community. I love you all. I couldn’t ask for a better birthday celebration at half a century old.