Las Aventuras del Cuerpo de Paz en Panamá

Closing an experience

2010-07-03T16:10:00.000-07:00

I finished my Peace Corps service in Panama on June 10th 2010. The last few months of my peace corps service passed at a unimaginably fast rate. They were filled with so many emotions and happenings, that I could hardly take a moment to breath and write them down.

A few last thoughts and happenings.

Packing and the yard sale. I had a great big yard sale on my lawn of all the things in my house. Everything went at 25 cents to 50 cents, a few prized items at higher prices. Everyone came over and bought what they liked, while I served popcorn and juice. Everyone went home feeling proud about the things they worked hard to purchase instead of fighting over the items that I could have given out for free.
For the last few weeks, I had a constant stream of visitors at my house. As soon as one visitor went down the steps, another came up. We talked of how much we would miss each other and how we would all cry on my leaving day. They asked me not to forget them and who I would speak their indigenous language with when I arrive to the states.

The going away parties. I had three days of parties before my departure, filled with delicious traditional foods, long speeches, and beautiful handmade gifts. We had a big party at the school. The community members took their turns saying words of thanks. And then it was my turn and a knot grew in my throat and I started to cry. I mumbled my way through my speech that I had written, unable to calm my sobs. It was an inevitable goodbye, but that doesn´t make it any easier. A handweaved bag with a home grown cucumber was one of my favorite gifts. We had a pinata and we did a rendidtion of the traditional Ngobe dance called the Hegi or gwara.

At the goodbye party with my women´s artisan group, we ate until we couldn´t eat anymore and we watched parts of movies using a small generator. We watched the first twenty minutes of the Michael Jackson film, and the adults giggled at the pelvic thrusts on screen. The group gave me a nagwa, the traditional dress, made with the loving hands of each of the women. Now when I look at the dress, I will think of each of them. It was a motivational party because although it was goodbye, the day also served as a work party for the new artisan house where the women will sell their goods in the future. It brings a tear to my eye that I will not be here to see all of the advancements and the impacts of my time here, but it makes me feel proud to see the community take ownership and continue into the future with motivation and hope. I look forward to returning in the future and seeing all the changes.

One of the hardest goodbyes was with my sidekick Placido, my 16 year old neighbor that I could not imagine my service without. He helped me pack my bags and clean my house. On my last day, he specially cooked me a lunch of boiled green bananas and a piece of beef that was from the cow that died that morning up the hill. And he sat down with me in my house and gave me a 5 minute speech of all the reasons he wanted to say thank you to me. And then I said all my thank yous. And we stayed composed, although there were a lot of internal tears.

Guillermo and Anselma and their family. I love this entire family so dearly and they are my closest friends here. After I left to go to Panama City to finish up officially in the office, I returned to say one last goodbye. And Guillemo called out ¨aye mere tikwe¨ with the most endearing tone, as a family calls out to a family member who has been gone for some time. And it was just like that.

With all my bags packed, my dearest friends Guillermo, Anselma and Placido helped me down to the school to wait for a taxi to come. I waited with them on my either side, hugging my shoulders. Placido suddenly said, is that a grey hair that you have? I said that I had never had a grey hair before, so it couldn´t be. Not 30 seconds later, Anselma pulled two bright white hairs out of my head. I was astounded.
There are a few ways to look at this.
1. The Peace Corps has aged me, which in some ways I believe is true. Physically but also emotionally and mentally, in wisdom and maturity.
2. The way the ngobes see it is that if you are really kind to others in your life, you will live to have many a white hair.

My service was an incredible experience, one that I would not change for anything in the world. I have so many friendships and I have grown in ways that I could never imagine. I can hardly explain the love I feel for these people.

So I will miss here. But it now time for me to transition on. Thanks to all of you who have supported me throughout my time here.
For those who would like to continue to read about my experiences, head to www.cyclesofchange.wordpress.com
where you can trace my journey back to the US by bike, supporting sustainable agriculture projects along the way.
Muchas Gracias

medicinal treatments

2010-04-24T19:36:00.000-07:00

There was a little lady,
who got bit by a sand fly,
that bit a sloth,
who had the leishmeniasis protozoa parasite,
and I don't know why she got bit by that fly,
perhaps she'll die.

Well, not really die, just get her flesh eaten away slowly by those little protozoas. I recently found out that I was hit by the "bite of the vine", otherwise known as leishmaniasis in scientific terms. It comes from a little bite from a sand fly who has bit a sloth infected with leishmeniasis. It starts as just a little bug bite and begins slowing opening wider and deeper. This part is not the troubling part. Those wounds can be healed. This is a common ailment in my community, many adults have scars on their faces and children have little marks on their faces. It advances slowly and when I first began to suspect something, many community members began commenting on my little wounds. They were sure that it was leishmaniasis, but not to worry, because there are many natural cures. In my time visiting around I was offered various medicines, truly out of the hearts of my friends. Here are a few of the examples (some do not qualify as natural)

boa oil
manta ray cartilage
cacao
leaves
vines
raw cashew juice
tree sap
battery acid
Kerosine
Nail polish

I tried a few and do not doubt the healing abilities of these treatments ( maybe the battery acid) but through Peace Corps I am required to receive the western medicine treatment. At first I was opposed to the idea, wishing to cure it in my community, but as I began to read more about it, I became more convinced of the seriousness of the issue. As I said, the sores are not the worrisome part. Truly what is worrisome is that the leishmaniasis may come back in another form in the future and begin to eat the cartilage of your nose, ear or roof of your mouth. And after seeing a few people with flat noses that looked as if they had been eaten off, I was convinced.
So now I am receiving 20 days of IV treatment for 2 hours a day. It was difficult to explain my necessity to leave for three weeks to my community member and this came at a poor time, with only 2 months left in my service. But now that I am here, I am enjoying the luxuries of the world including internet, electricity, hot showers, and flushing toilets. And for the moment, it is pretty nice.
Before I left my community, my close friend and "little brother" Placido told me that they figured out why I got so many bites of the vine. It must be because I walked over a tree that had got hit by lightning without tying two banana leaves together after crossing. And then he handed me a little film canister of a botanical medicine made out of leaves and cacao to take with me for my treatment. It just goes to show, that no matter what people or place, as human beings, we will always search for a reason and a cause. Another one of those things that crosses all boundaries.

A hike across the divide

2010-04-02T08:16:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, I went on incredible three day hike from the top of the panamanian mountains down the famous cricamola river and to the caribbean. The cricamola is the river where the majority of the ngabe people living in the province of bocas del toro retreated to when the spaniards came. Later, many ngabes migrated from the river to the rest of the Bocas del Toro province in the 1950s and 60s when the banana company sent boats up the river to look for workers.

So three girlfriends and I and a wonderful ngabe woman from Kat's community set out on this adventurous hike. We started up in the cold windy rainy mountains, hiking downward, following the river and watching it grow from little creeks to a rushing river with rapids and later to a wide meandering river. We had to cross the river walking over and over, and then later when it got to big, by pieced together bridges and by ziplines.

(daily commute to work anyone?)

We saw the culture changing from the ngabe style of living in the reservation on the pacific side (with nagwa dresses and round houses on the ground) to the ngabe bocas style (with bocas house dresses and raised square wood houses).

We stayed in schools and houses along the way. Many were curious about why we were there, some openly welcoming and others retreatingly scared. We met kind old men who yelled out to us in ngabere, pleased that we could speak their language a little. We met inventive young farmers, excited little children, and a wonderful old women who invited us to be her children for life. We even met a young ngobe boy in charge of a zipline crossing who was more like a troll in his demeanor. A few asked whether our backpacks were full of money. Unfortunately we only had dirty clothes and cans of tuna fish to show for. But it makes you think of the image of tourism and what are effective ways of supporting communities along the way. These communities are incredibly isolated. In order to get out to go to larger towns to get merchandise for their stores, some would have to walk for a day and a half and then take a long boat or truck ride. We saw families on their way out to visit other family or to buy more merchandise.

(Kat and Kate in their Ngobe hiking clothes)

(Yes that is a pig crossing the river)

I think my two favorite memories were at our first zipline crossing, watching parents send their children across in a chakra hung from the zipline and later seeing a young women in a traditional pink nagwa flying across the the beautiful turquoise river on the zipline. It was an amazing hike, challenging, a few sicknesses along the way in our group, both overall, incredible. When we arrived in Kankintu, the ngabe city in the jungle, we were amazed by the sidewalks that seemed to appear out of the no where. It is a small city 5 hours up river by boat or three days walking but has a small university, restaurants and lots of people. The night we got there, it was the day that women were in Kankintu to collect their welfare checks. At 8:30pm there were still women in line. Those that had already received their checks were with their husbands, browsing the different street vendors that set up on the side of the sidewalk with flashing lights selling everything from radios to undies and shoes. It was quite a sight. The next morning at 5:00am, we left in a big dug out canoe headed to the ocean, we even got a coffee break halfway down river. Incredible.

The best use of the chiquita banana logo

2010-03-03T14:15:00.000-08:00

We all know the logo. We are all very familiar with the stickers on the bananas. The region I live in is home to Panama's major Chiquita banana plantations. From my house I can see the flat lands filled with bananas and the big Chiquita banana boat come in every friday to pick up a shipment of bananas. When I ride the bus to the regional capital I see fields and fields of bananas covered with blue bags. When I stay in Changuinola, I can hear the crop duster planes flying over. Occasionally a bus is stopped by the cables of bananas crossing the road.
The majority of these bananas are exported. People here eat bananas too, but mostly just the ones they grow in their farms. They say their own bananas taste better than the company bananas because they are organic. Here families survive eating bananas as the main carbohydrate source. The Ngobe word for banana, Mrö, also means food. But not ripe bananas. Boiled green bananas. Mmmmmm. Some times they even make banana balls, which are made by boiling green bananas, mashing them together into a meatloaf shape and wrapping them in banana leaves to take as a snack. Later you can slice the loaf like bread. Being here, I have grown to appreciate and love all the different types of boiled bananas. Often time in the states, we only know one type of banana. But there are so many different flavors and textures of banana.
Recently, Chiquita has had extra bananas, so they drive them around in a truck to the rural communities, trying to sell them at a low price. The truck arrives and the driver yells "banano, Banano, Banano".
When families have no bananas to harvest from their farm, they scrounge up whatever money they can find and buy a sack of bananas. Can you imagine buying a sack full of bananas? So lately we have had a plethora of chiquita banana stickers.
A few days ago, I saw a homemade kite, out of sticks and a plastic bag, held together with about 20 chiquita stickers.
The next day, my neighbor came over to tell me that his little brother had a bott fly in his head (this is a nasty little grub that grows in your skin after a fly lays its egg in your skin). I asked how they were going to get it out. He told me they were going to use a chiquita. I said "chiquita what" (chiquita also meaning something little in spanish). He said, no silly chiquita, you don't know what chiquita is? You know, the thing stuck to the banana? OOOOOOh. Then I understood, since often what is recommended is to put duck tape over the bite so the grub cant breath and dies and comes out of the skin. But I still was in amazement of the creative use of a chiquita banana.

Tomatoes and notebooks for all!

2010-02-16T18:39:00.000-08:00

Isn't that what we want for everyone in the world? In my two years here, never have I been able to say that our school garden is successful. But right now, we have tomatoes for everyone! A success! From January to March is summer break here in Panama and all the kids are out causing mischeif with their slingshots (at least they ate the poor parrot), or sitting around lazily in the house. So I looked at the kids and I looked at the school garden, both in disaray ( i no longer know how to spell well in any language, english, spanish, or ngobere). And so I said to myself, now is the time.
So I bought a fence for the garden, because without it there is no hope as long as the pigs, chickens and cows are still around. And I bought some school supplies. And I rounded up those hardworking kids early on a saturday morning and told them that they could work to earn their school supplies. So we weeded and planted and cleared the grass and trellised the tomatoes. And now every saturday I have 15 to 20 students ages 6 to 17 working in the garden and saving up points to earn notebooks, pencils, erasers, rulers, and toothbrushes. And although the project is currently not sustainable as I am the one buying the school supplies, at least the students are learning that they can make a future possible, that their work is worth something and best of all, that they can grow delicious vegetables. Three have already started their own gardens. So for now I am taking the kids off the trails and putting them in the garden and in school!

Chocolate's path

2010-02-02T05:36:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-20T18:36:00.000-08:00

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!!

2009-12-23T17:58:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-11-24T06:02:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-24T05:44:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-10T14:42:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-10-03T19:33:00.000-07:00

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.

Teaching english beside the coffin

2009-10-03T18:49:00.000-07:00

There are many birth and death rites in ngobe culture. The Mago bird caws all night long from the cemetery the night before a death. After a death, no one can eat salt, unless the curendero blows on the salt.Saturday evening I attended a funeral for an elderly man in my community. The family stays up all night long every night from the night of the death until the night of the burial, somewhere in between 1 and 2 weeks. It is told that after a death, the spirit wanders the areas that he always passed in life and washes his hands in any buckets of water left out. So each house hold empties all buckets of water for 5 days after the death. You can imagine the fear I had when my neighbor told me I had to empty out all my water ( I have no running water in my house, only a 55 gallon tank of collected rainwater that I use for showering, drinking and cooking). To my relief since that is a covered tank, it is an exception.
After many nights of wake, the celebration was filled with over 200 people, staying up all night long, staving off tiredness, drinking coffee and eating bread every few hours, holding out for the rice and chicken to be served at 5:00am. There was a domino tournament held between 7 different communities attending the funeral. People came from all over to see this man off. He worked for the banana company in his younger days and many of his fellow workers attended. I spent the evening chit chatting in Spanish and ngobere with many friends from the community as well with many that I was meeting for the first time. Many older folks were so curious about the white girl speaking ngobe at the funeral, that they came to talk to me. And I suddenly found myself teaching an intro English class to an elderly ngobe crowd, at 11:30pm, on the back of an empty candle box, five feet away from the coffin. The lesson started with just one old man and within five minutes grew to ten students. And although it only lasted a short while, it was by far the most strange class I will ever teach in my life.
At 1:30am, I participated in a checkers match, with new rules, better than those we play in the US. My favorite little old man brought his own hammock and hung it under the house and fell asleep at 9:30 in the middle of the celebration. I went home to sleep for a while and came back in the morning. The funeral continued. I was the chosen photographer for the event and the telling moment came when I was told that they were going to open the coffin and that I would take a photo. At that point I realized that I would have to see the face of this dead man. I took the photo and they closed up the box and tied it to two branches to haul it to the cemetery, shooing away the chickens. The entire funeral party then walked in a line to the cemetery where all the older men in the community took turns shoveling dirt over the coffin of their dear friend. May he rest in peace.

Ngobeland

2009-09-06T19:29:00.000-07:00

Yes, I let my neighbors comb my hair

A peaceful scene from the community of Laguna, where I recently visited to help teach how to build a mud oven.

Naguas, the traditional dress of the Ngobe women. Every woman wears her colors brightly and proudly in the Ngobe reservation. On my side of the country, the tradition has not held as strong, but here, all you see is beautiful colors and designs.

Here we are, in Laguna after constructing a fabulous mud oven. The whole family is looking forward to baking bread for the first time ever in their new creation!

The ferocious tale of Chino Rojos

2009-09-01T21:05:00.000-07:00

So we are all familiar with the story of Hansel and Gretel and the witch who eats children in her oven as she attracts them with her candy house. Well, not all of us. Here, no one is familiar with this person-eating witch. Instead of a haunted witch who lives deep in the woods, here there are Chino Rojos, translated to Red Chinese (Communist or Sunburned?). The Chino Rojos live under the sea and eat Ngobe people, of all ages, no one is safe from the danger (can you imagine them under this caribbean ocean?). They like the flavor of Ngobes because they have strong blood since they eat mostly organic food from their farms and rarely eat greasy fried things. I have been told various stories, many told with real fear, in which these Chino Rojos live under the ocean in glass houses or wooden houses on stilts, or some in submarines. In one very detailed story I was recently told, there is a city the size of the regional capital Changuinola of Chino Rojos that live in the Chiriqui Grande Bay. They have figured out everything, from hooking up electricity to growing bananas under the water. The story goes that there was a Latino man who contracted Ngobes to cut and carry wood for him from their farms. The Latino had all the wood taken down to the water and loaded into a boat, but no one ever knew where the wood disappeared to. They would watch it go out into the bay and in a blink of an eye it would be gone. A few ngobes went missing, those who had been carrying wood for the Latino man. One very curious wood carrier cornered the Latino and asked him where he took all the wood. The man told him that if he could keep a secret, he could see.
Later that evening, the Ngobe hid himself in the boat and they left the dock. They went out into the bay and suddenly submerged under, and there before him lay a city full of lights. The Latino took the boatful of wood to the Chino Rojo who was the main house constructor of the city. As they were taking the wood out of the boat, the chino rojo caught site of the Ngobe hidden there and immediately demanded how much the Latino was charging because he was very hungry. Oh, I forgot to mention that the Chino Rojos are millionaires and buy ngobes to eat. The Latino told him that this ngobe was not for sale, but the Chino Rojo lunged with hunger to grab the ngobe. The ngobe took one of the boards and swung, wiping out the Chino Rojo and the Latino in one fell swoop. In that moment of distraction he escaped, swimming frantically home. The latino escaped too, and picked the ngobe up and took him back to shore on the boat, pleading with him never to say a word about what he saw. But when the Ngobe returned home, he reported the latino to the local authorities and the man was condemded to life in Prison on Coiba, an island off the Pacific shore that was used as a prison until a few years back.

It turns out that this story may have originated from a submarine spotting in the mouth of the Krikamola river in the 1940s. All cultures have stories, and all stories have origins.

So I asked if I eat the same things that the Ngobes eat, will the Chino Rojos eat me too? The answer is yes.

Celebration of papas

2009-08-13T13:02:00.000-07:00

Fathers’ day 2009 was a rockin party. About 70 people attended my neighbor’s gathering, from little babies to old grandmothers and grandfathers. They cooked up a storm on the open fires and gave the fathers a huge meal of thanks. The celebration started at 5:30, the women cooking breakfast of bread and fish for all the fathers and continuing on to lunch. The biggest bowls they could find (anything from large tupperwares to small buckets) were overflowing with boiled green bananas, chicken, rice, spagetti, and even a little bit of cabbage and carrot salad, and the biggest cups they could find (mostly pitchers) filled to the brim with juice made from cornflakes and powdered milk ( the father’s day specialty). I held down the kids station with cards and books to read. Everyone was there to enjoy themselves. It was a fabulous day to spend together as family with the dads in the spotlight. So Happy fathers day to all the dads in my community and to my dad!

half way and thinking

2009-07-10T10:39:00.000-07:00

I have now been in my community for one year. It is quite a feeling. Of accomplishment, of disbelief of how the time moved so fast, of fear of how fast the time will move, of appreciation, of thought on how effective and sustainable my work here is and so on.
This experience is incredible, and although challenging every day, it is amazing and I am very happy and would never change my decision to come here for anything in the world.

There are many ways of measuring success. After a year here, I pause and think whether me being here is successful, otherwise, is there good coming of my time here? For my community and for me? And my answer is yes, although there is still much room for more good to come of my time here. I see success in so many different ways. After one year, I can carry a decent conversation in the local language of ngabere, I can make the string from the pita plant to make the traditional artisan bag Kra, or sew the traditional nagua dress. I can carry a Kra on my head full of anything from cacao pods, to rocks to a propane tank, up incredibly steep hills. The men and women I work with now feel comfortable enough to have meaningful conversations with me about anything from love and relationships, to family planning and so on. We are in the middle of building 22 fish tanks to increase family protein consumption. Families have recently gifted me squash and tomatoes that we have planted telling me that they are thankful that for the first time, their children will learn what these vegetables are.
I enjoy drinking watered down and sugared up coffee, and eating boiled green bananas. I can swiftly kill a scorpian hiding behind a Tupperware and literally said “ hey look there’s a tarantula on my porch” and watched it crawl by. I am trying to work hard, find the innovators that will carry this work forward into the future, make these projects sustainable. In my time here I have experiment in my garden, with my house, with all sorts of things, making rain collection showering systems, making my own bricks from clay (since you can’t buy bricks here). I have been fortunate to travel around the country and see other volunteer’s sites, helping with HIV AIDS education programs, nutrition seminars and cacao improvement training projects. I get to sit on my porch and enjoy the view and more importantly am enjoying myself in this process, through all it’s challenges and rewards.

These are many accomplishments, and through these there have been just as many failures, but little by little, we are making it.

2009-07-10T10:18:00.000-07:00

A little rest at the beach

2009-06-19T15:24:00.001-07:00

The real sandman

2009-05-28T16:30:00.001-07:00

I live in a beautiful humble abode. A house made by the hands of my community members. Up on stilts, made of wood that we cut from my neighbor's farm, with a thatch roof from another neighbor's farm. It is beautiful and I have a beautiful view of the caribbean ocean. I love it. But it sways when I walk and a lot of dust falls from the roof inside of my house. So much, that if I don't sweep everyday, all of my things are covered in a thin coating of very fine sawdust. One day, I asked Fernando (an incredibly motivated and hardworking community partner, definately one of the most forward thinking in the community) if this was a normal quantity of dust to be falling from the rafters each day. He told me that it was an exceptional quantity, not normal. And I asked why. He told me that little bugs were eating the roof away but that it wouldn't harm the roof itself. And I asked why. He told me that it was maybe because we cut the thatch in a new moon, but more likely it was because I gave food to a man inside my house before it was finished, whose wife was pregnant at the time. And he said, " I don't know how the bugs know, but they know when a man whose wife is pregnant ate inside the house before it was finished". We thought back, and identified the man whose wife was pregnant at the time, who ate inside my house before it was finished, while he was working on my house. So I asked how I could solve the problem. Fernando told me that I had to find a man whose wife is pregnant, and have him throw sand on top of my roof. So I have high hopes that this real sandman will help lift the fine coating of dust falling over my head while I am dreaming, and that I don't wake up with too much sand in my sheets!

What I can see from my window

2009-05-18T13:29:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures from my windows of my house, of my wonderful neighbors. Everyday is a different scene, always interesting.

My life is moving along rapidly. I have lived in my community for almost one year and I can say that I am happy here. It is always challenging, but also always fun and an incredible experience. I recently went on a little adventure to collect a certain leaf that people eat cooked with coconut milk. They call it Sega. So I set out with my three neighbor kids on our adventure as they showed me all sorts of wild fruits and leaves that you can eat. Little did I know that I would soon be up to the middle of my thighs in mud, almost losing my boots and my balance. I was laughing and yelping as I almost fell over, but they told me that when you harvest these leaves, you have to be very quiet, because if you talk to much or too loud, the leaves taste bitter. Also, if your mother is scolding you and you talk back, the leaves will taste bitter, but if you tell her "okay mom, I will try harder next time" the leaves taste sweet as can be. We had a fabulous time tromping in the mud, trying to catch crabs and little fish in the meanwhile. And we cooked the leaves up that night with coconut and it seems like we did a good job, because they turned out soooo sweet and delicious.

A few scenes from my life

2009-04-30T13:32:00.000-07:00

A few drops of the large amount of rain we receive here
my neighbor in a breadfruit tree outside my house
Me in Panama city near the canal

Photos thanks to Jake Moriarty, since my camera broke in October!

Time to head to the polls

2009-04-30T13:31:00.001-07:00

People are waiting in lines blocks long, for hours on end, to get their identification cards so they can vote in the upcoming election. A new president will be elected next Sunday. Meanwhile, until Sunday, the country stands in almost a standstill anticipating the results. But as the people in the rural countryside have known for quite some time, their lives will continue on the same without too much variation as the political parties rotate through.
Much of what politics in the campo amounts to here is how much food a politician brings to a community when they give their campaign speeches. And so we continue working here in the campo, with a little more food in the belly.

My humble abode

2009-04-30T13:25:00.001-07:00

I live in a beautiful little wooden house on stilts with a thatch roof, up on a hill overlooking the Bocas del Toro Islands and the Caribbean ocean. It might be the coolest house I ever own. We built it from the base up, cut down the trees (don’t worry, we are planting more) and constructed it with the help of my community members. I now continue to build things for my house; shelves, a bathroom and shower, rain collection system, table, benches, dish rack, etc. It sometimes feels like paradise, that is until a child starts screaming in the house 7 feet away at 3am, or a funeral procession passes under my house, or whatever other event takes place. But the message is, that I have a wonderful little home to live in and for visitors to come stay in. So to all my friends and family, come visit whenever you like, just give me an email heads up for when you might come hang out in this new humble abode!

Water is the source of life

2009-04-30T13:21:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks, I have been supporting an extended part of my community to fight for their right to clean water. Over the last three years, they have been working with the Ministry of Health to receive a new aqueduct with the capability to provide clean water to all houses. Due to a disagreement with another nearby community, the Ministry of Health postponed the aqueduct project, threatening to give the resources away to another community. In a meeting this morning, the two communities fought for their rights. It was quite moving. The children of the school walked out in their little uniforms holding signs, making their own silent protest.

“ El agua es la fuente de vida, sin ella no podemos vivir”
“ Water is the source of life, without it, we cannot live”

“Necesitamos agua para limpiar nuestra escuela”
“We need water to clean our school”

“Podemos vivir sin luz, pero sin agua no podemos vivir. Tenemos derecho a vivir y a agua limpia”
We can live without electricity, but without water, we cannot live. We have a right to live and to have clean water.

They all looked up with eyes so big. And it is true. We cannot live without water. Without clean water, we cannot live fully. Without a clean source of water, the people collect water from nearby streams, the same streams that others use as a latrine. More directly said, people shit in the same streams which they drink out of. Through this form, stomach parasites including worms and amoebas are passed on. I have consistently had diarrea since February. And when you are in this state, you can’t work fully, you feel drained. And I even have had access to outside medicine. The case is much worse for those who cannot afford to leave the community to buy medicine, the majority.
The necessity of clean water made the answer so clear. But still, 3 hours of fighting and arguing followed in the meeting. Unfortunately, Ngobes maintain their original strength that allowed them to prevail over other local tribes, winning wars and outnumbering the others, the response to fight, to defend, even when unnecessary. But as is often the truth, a strength may rapidly change to a vice. But after incessant arguments and various political roundabouts, both communities will receive a new aqueduct, and the people will have water, hopefully allowing them to work harder and to advance.

The Chickens are coming!! The chickens are coming!!!!

2009-04-12T19:28:00.000-07:00

I have spent the last week and a half spreading this propaganda, like the little chicken telling all the world “the sky is falling, the sky is falling!!!”. As of April 1st, a truck full of 1,100 little chicks were scheduled to arrive in my community for my group of 22 farmers that I am working with, sent by the Ministry of Agriculture. We have been working with the Ministry of Agriculture’s program which gives resources to rural farmers to plant gardens, raise fish, chickens, goats and so on. It has gone incredibly well so far, with the cooperation of the Ministry and all the hard work of the farmers in my community.
Last Wednesday, the chickens were scheduled to arrive. I ran around the day before reminding everyone that they needed to have their chicken coops ready with dry sawdust and everything. Wednesday came and no chickens. They all died in the truck bringing them from the other side of the country in the hot Panamanian sun. So we were told that Monday would be the day. Friday morning, while a I was happily sitting on my porch building a shelf for my house and helping a little neighbor girl make a pair of earrings out of seeds she collected, I got a phone call. “ The chickens are coming today, at noon!” It was 10am. I had 2 hours to inform 22 farmers that the chickens were going to arrive and that they all needed to be present to receive them. That act might be easier if everyone had phones or lived closeby, but many live between half hour and forty five minute walk away. It was a daunting task to complete. I sent out messengers, used all my phone minutes to call those who have cell phones, and ran around like a chicken with my head cut off yelling that the sky is falling. Or that is how I felt. At 11:30am, I had informed 21 out of 22 farmers and was 2 minutes away from arriving at the last house, which lies down a very steep hill, when my phone rang. “The chickens aren’t coming!!” “Oh damn! But all the farmers are already coming!” So I ran in reverse, retracting my propaganda.

So we prepared ourselves for the following Wednesday. Everyone was ready, so excited for the pollitos. We even played a game where everyone had to pretend they were little chickens. And then I got a phone call. “Kati, the chickens aren’t coming today. Only 300 arrived and we want to bring them all together”. So I had to break the sad news that “the chickens aren’t coming”. The rain rolled in and everyone looked a little more glum. I told them that I was sad and frustrated and they told me “ Don’t worry Kati, there’s nothing we can do and now we have to time to prepare better for the arrival of all the little chickens! Lets play another game.”

Life as it was in February

2009-03-05T12:11:00.000-08:00

Overall, I feel calm, happy, relaxed, content and excited. As I rode along in the little bus today on my way back to my community after a agency meeting, listening to the radio, Panamanian version of yodeling combined with guitar and accordion, swerving down the road, just missing people, bikers, landslides, fallen trees, anteaters, and anything else in the path, I thought to myself how happy I am. I wouldn´t change my decision to come here and have these experiences for anything in the world.
But that is overall.
There are times when I miss home, when I am frustrated, when I am overwhelmed at how hard this is, but that is part of the joy and reward of it all. There are happy times and really hard times.
I have spent my month helping my womens group with organizational and leadership skills, leading a teen youth camp on self confidence, personal development, and sex, HIV and AIDS education. I took 2 teens from my community to the other side of the country for this seminar, kids who had never traveled further than the small town half an hour away from the community. The seminar was held in a beautiful place. When we arrived, we walked the grounds looking at the gardens and the lovely pond, complete with ducks. Upon seeing these duck, the boy traveling with me told me he would like to bring his slingshot to shoot the ducks to eat. I taught the girl to use a flush toilet and helped them have a fabulous time away from home. At the end, neither one wanted to leave and go back home.
Other days I spent working with 17 farmers leading them in constructing their own home gardens and planting rice and corn. I somehow got 17 grown ngabe men to participate playing a few games, giggling like children. Sometimes though, I feel really underqualified when these 17 farmers who have been farming all their lives turn to me and say "Kati, what do we do now?". But we are learning together, making our way. Everyone now has tomatoes, ´peppers, cucumbers, squash and beans growing in their gardens which they look forward to harvesting and eating with their families.
I walk around my community and twirl kids around, humor my neighbors when they tell me silly tales, laughing up a storm. The other day they told me about the Red Chinese that live in glass houses under the sea that eat people of the ngabe race ( I think this corresponds to a historic tale of a submarine appearing in the mouth of a really large river sometime in the 1940s). They asked me if I would fight a red chinese if they came chasing after me. I told them i would be too scared and would just have to run and hide in the bushes. They told me they would join me. They then, and now every day since, have asked me to give the example of how I would run hysterically into the bushes. And I humor them, running hysterically into the bushes.
I am learning so much here. My most recent lessons have been in Ngabe culture. My new neighbors practice a traditional religion called Mama Tata. Cacao is a crucial part of this religion. Whenever needed, my neighbors ask the local shaman to grant the right to have a 4 day celebration . They drink cacao (Hot chocolate, but without milk or sugar, just dark) from a big pot in the center of the room with a gourd cup, from 7pm till 12pm for 4 days straight. They put up special plants as an entrance to the house and burn termite nests to fend off bad spirits and wish for good health.
But unfortunately, good health isnt always to be found. Most children here are malnourished, not starving, just not getting enough of the right nutrients that growing kids need. Sunday, a man asked to borrow my hand grinder to grind up some food for his sick daughter. He then asked me to give him money to buy vitamins for his daughter. But everyone here asks me for money, or salt, or sugar, or whatever they come up with. And I just can{t always hadn out things, because it isnt sustainable and will not help them into the future. It doesnt change anything, it is only a temporary remedy and often times the money is just wasted anyways. So I lent him my grinder and we compromised on me visiting on thursday to see what kind of sickness she had. She died on tuesday, at age 2 of malnutrition. All I could do on thursday was console a crying devestated dad who has now lost three children to malnutrition. It was too late to ask for help, but that doesnt mean that I didnt cry too.
These are the hardest things I will ever face. I almost feel like I am being unfair sharing these sad stories, since it breaks my heart, but it has to be known that it isnt all pink clouds and candy gum drops here. Oh what those kids would do for gum drops to be falling from the sky.Oh but their poor little rotting teeth.
Little by little here, working for the future.

Development at its finest

2009-02-03T20:29:00.000-08:00

We all imagine how the things we donate to humanity change lives. And yes, they change lives, sometimes in ways we can never imagine. So my parents were so incredibly kind and brought down so many things to help my community. Thanks to Callie for the new books, small children come over to my house all the time and sit on my porch and read, some are just starting to learn. My favorite are the two little girls who no matter how hard I try to explain it, they always ask why the dogs in the book "Big Dog, Little Dog" walk on two legs and wear T shirts and drive cars and tell me that the ones here just walk on 4 legs. The concept of "an imagination world" is a little hard. Thanks to all the nurses and doctors in the Emergency room at Island Hospital, my community now has two copies of a medical book called "Where there is no doctor" to use as reference when people get sick and don't have enough money to leave the community to see a doctor. And there are now some medical supplies available. And thanks to those who donated the toothbrushes and floss. 50 kids came to a little health presentation that my mom and I gave and learned about general health care (hand washing, diarrea, fevers and toothcare). Due to increased amounts of sugar in the diet, there are a lot of little rotting teeth in the mouths of these kids here. At least that is my theory. Another wise elder in the community says that it must be the sugar and the change in diet from good foods from the farm to processed foods (sound familiar?) but is also caused by the lack of tooth care. And when they say tooth care, they mean that when you loose a tooth, you must wrap it up in a special leaf of a special tree and dig it in a little whole at the roots, so that your teeth and the tree will grow strong (for those of you who have read Life of PI, it might bring to mind some images). This of course led to me telling the story of the tooth fairy which they thought was absolutely absurd! After the presentation, each child went home with their toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss, so proud and excited. And sending these children off, I imagined all the great uses they might find for floss, like fishing, or tying sticks together, hoping that maybe some of them would try it out to the benefit of their little teeth. Two days later, I was visiting a house and a little kid came running up to me, so excited to see me, shouting my name, with the biggest grin on his face, showing all those little rotten teeth, and around his neck, he had created the most fabulous medallion from the neon green floss box. He had creatively used all the floss except the last two feet in those first two days and with the remaining piece, he created a necklace of champions, tied nicely around his neck. So we brought joy into their lives and maybe a little bit of improvement to their health. Little by little the word is. A young man just told me a nice little saying for that. Poco a poco, una vieja gacha come un coco, meaning, little by little an old woman with no teeth can eat a coconut.

Welcome to the new year

2009-01-12T11:47:00.001-08:00

Happy Holidays to all of my friends and family. I hope that you all enjoyed the season thoroughly. I had a great holiday season filled with visits from family, new experiences with the community and just a good amount of cheer!

My parents came down and visited me for a few weeks. My dad was here to celebrate christmas and we had a fabulous time. We celebrated with the dearest family here, the family of the woman in charge of the women´s artisan group. We made delicious traditional food. All day Christmas eve, we prepared tamales and wrapped them up in banana leaves and cooked them on the fire. In Panama, you stay up until midnight on christmas eve to bring in christmas day. I was in charge of the desserts for this grand family celebration ( and when I say grand, I mean that probably a total of 40 people ate at this festivity). I made cake and pie and tiny cinnimon rolls which were a great hit. The family that we celebrated with is very fortunate in the community and had saved up all year and bought a generator for christmas, so they could have light for the celebration. So I had electricity for the night! We even got to decorate a small fake christmas tree and put some lights on it, but only here would you have to worry about scorpìons stinging you while putting up the christmas tree! Christmas day we made a big traditional soup called rondon with fish smoked over the fire and all sorts of lovely root vegetables and other wild veggies. And from there, my dad and I walked from house to house, handing out those little candy canes to all the little children. I think we may have confused the kids, seeing to that my dad has a white beard and was handing out candy canes on christmas day. But the truth is, Santa is not a tradition from here and not too many kids are aware of his presence in the world. We were very fortunate to celebrate christmas with such abundance, as there is a lack of food in the community after the storm and not every family was as lucky to get to make a special meal for the occation. But most found enough spare change to have a drink (asi es la vida).
The holidays were a time that passed quickly but really enjoyably, with all these amazing new experiences. But I missed you all, all my friends and family and the snow. It is quite hard to even comprehend snow, but yes, if I think really hard in my mind, I can maybe start to see a flake or two.

Rainy day turkey day

2008-11-30T16:46:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. I am thankful to my friends and family and all that support me. Without all of you, my life outlook would be a bit gloomier.
The last month has been a little hard due to some issues within my community, a few health problems and now the current situation. It has been raining in the province for the past two weeks. All of this rain has led to intensive flooding, landslides, crop loss and more. My community did not flood, since we are on the side of a hill, but many people lost the cacao that they were drying to sell, as well as all of their bananas and platanos fell over in the mudslides.I, just by coincidence, left the province the day before the roads closed to attend a seminar on the other side of the country. We as volunteers will be helping out with relief efforts for the upcoming week and much longer depending on the status of communities. This has been the worst flooding in 40 years in the country. Only certain communities were badly damaged, but many were left without food due the closing of the roads. Looking at all the work to be done here, I can only imagine how hard it must be in countries were hurricanes and floods hit hard every year. But we will work through this. We are looking at how we can help our communities be more prepared for the next natural disaster as well as how we can take this experience to help empower our communities to help themselves not only in times of disaster, but through all challenges.
Beyond these hard times, other things have been going well. I have been helping a new group of community members make chocolate to sell and although they have a lot more to learn, it is a fun process. In order to make the chocolate, we harvest the cacao pods and then open them and take the beans out to ferment. We then dry them in the sun ( which becomes much harder when there is no sun, only rain). We then toast the beans in a giant pot over a fire. After pealing them by hand, we grind them up with a hand grinder and add in sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg. And my oh my does it smell good. I have also been teaching how to make organic fertilizers and helping teach english in the school. Every saturday I work with the women's group to sew beautiful geometric designs to create traditional dresses called naguas. I just finished my second skirt. And we are working on selling these cultural beauties.
Before the rains started, we had some beautiful evenings with the full moon. It is quite lovely to live a life where you know the cycle of the moon and the exact time the sun rises. My favorite new panamanian Ngobe story is the superstition that if you point at the moon, a gigantic blister will grow on your finger, the size of the moon (ok well, not quite). So of course I pointed at the beautiful full moon and all the children shrieked in response. In order to avoid the growth of the blister, you must tap your finger on a rock 5 times (somewhat equivalent of knocking on wood). So luckily I don't have a blister growing on my finger, but instead I do have a few worms in my tummy. Asi es la vida.
Despite the tummy, I did have a fabulous thanksgiving in which I got to celebrate with many friends to a feast of turkey, mash potatoes, cranberries! And although I miss friends and family at home, I also have a home here with friends to share these experiences. So I am thankful to all of you at home and all of my wonderful friends here too.

Cacao and coffee harvesting season has begun!

2008-10-28T11:52:00.000-07:00

The cacao and coffee has started ripening and the season of harvest has begun. It has been a while since I have wrote, since I have been busy with little access to internet. Lots has happened in the last month and a half, too much to describe, but here is a little taste. I have been working hard carrying bag full after bag full of cacao pods up steep muddy hills, in traditional weaved bags, slung on my back with the strap across my forhead. Coffee harvest has also begun. I have been picking coffee with families and with great little kids in the farms. I have been sewing diligently with the womens group, teaching them to make earrings from beautiful seeds we have been collecting. I recently went with my women´s group to a national celebration for the day of the rural woman. We brought all of the artisan work and it was fabulous. We all dressed up in traditional naguas, brightly colored dresses with intricate hand stitched designs. I found myself in a very amusing situation, sitting in the front seat of a panamanian bus, in a nagua, holding a tree cookie covered in moss decorated with leaves covered with glitter and plastic farm animals (a fabulously creative idea that my women´s group had to make and sell) listening to acordian music ( a favorite in panama) and I had to think to myself "how did I get here?" Quite amusing.
I also just returned from a cacao seminar which we put on in another community in another province. We brought three producers from my area to this other indigenous area to teach about mantaining a cacao farm. It went incredibly well and it was really neat to see farmers sharing information with other farmers and learning so much. Also would like to give a shout out to my dear friend Alix for coming to visit me and my community earlier this month. It was wonderful to share a part of my life with such a great friend from home. And with that, want to open it up for any friends and family interested, you are always welcome to visit. Well there is much more going on here, but until next time, I hope you are all well and thanks for reading. I have some more great photos to share for next time!
Happy Halloween everyone!

A very happy birthday!

2008-09-18T09:45:00.000-07:00

Thank you to all of you for your birthday wishes and for all your support! It is wonderful to hear from all of you special people in my life on such a special day. Thanks for all your friendship and support in all of my 24 yearsof life! I had quite a fabulous day yesterday. I baked myself a delicious cake the night before and woke up yesterday morning to eat a piece first thing. Then I did some yoga and had a nice little breakfast. When I walked through the community, all the school kids wished me a happy birthday. I then cooked a giant pot of popcorn to share with all the kids. They got a kick out of watching the popcorn jump and fly. I spent my day talking with all the people in the community, and with my favorite little old man, the founder of the community. And then I helped the school kids transpant the tomatoes we planted into the school garden. And I concluded my day with a delicious dinner that my host family cooked me, some delicious fish and yucca! Had another piece of cake and called it a day! And now I am celebrating with some friends at a seafood fair out on the island. Thank you all again for your birthday wishes. Take care, much love,

Yes, the wild things grow here.

2008-08-30T10:44:00.000-07:00

Only here, would a business call be interupted by a group of cows attempting to lick my shirt or by a six foot long, four inch wide, black with yellow head snake slithering 10 feet away from me while I chat about important projects with my boss. And only here would I have the experiece of waking up a six oclock in the morning, climbing out of my mosquito net and in the middle of putting on a pair of pants, see that there is a mother scorpion and 25 babies that she has just layed less than a foot away from my thermorest bed. And so only here would I chop a scorpion in half with my machete in the wee hours of the morning while standing in my underwear! And here I, still living and well. Life is good, moving quickly. There is so much work to be done and so many fun things to participate it. I have just finished my first two months in my community and so I continue on! Heres a photo of one of the intense rainstorms rolling through.

Life in General

2008-08-22T10:42:00.000-07:00

My days are so full here. Before coming to the peace corps, I expected my first three months, if not six months to move very slowly, without much work, just a lot of time getting to know the people. Instead, time is flying by and I have so much work to do! I am helping train producers in cacao pruning and grafting techniques to increase their produciton. I am teaching in the school, both english and working with their outdoor gardening and agriculture class. I am starting a program with a government agency to help families increase the variety of their diet and improve nutrition as the cost of food keeps rising. I am helping out with HIV and Aids presentations throughout the region and helping plan a girls health camp. And so much more. There is so much work to be done. Also I am looking to help my local school get solar panels and a few computers (maybe the ¨"one labtop every child" computers?), so if any of you have any connections out there and want to help out, let me know!!! So in general life is going well here. Getting started with lots of work and getting to know the community more. Participating in anyway I can. Well, I am headed to another meeting with another agency so I will write more soon!

Man, why didnt I take a wilderness first responder course!!!

2008-08-15T11:40:00.001-07:00

These days in the tropics are good. Full of hard work, lots of sweat, lots of boiled green bananas to eat and lots of people to meet and talk to! Lots of sun, lots of rain. Here is a photo of me and two little kids in my community (host siblings of the first family that I stayed with). The cat is my little pet here in panama, who will keep me company and eat any rats that try and enter my house throughout my two years!Yesterday I visited a beautiful farm in my community which had just about every tropical fruit I could ever think of!!! I ate bananas of at least 5 different varieties that I have never tasted before!I have moved in with a new host family who is so incredibly kind. We live up on a beautiful hill overlooking the ocean, about a 40 minute hike out of the center of town. This is the kind of commuting that I like! Instead of sitting in traffic, I hike in my rubber boots each day over 4 streams and up and down hills to get to work! Pretty steller. Havent ran into a snake yet, but that might change my view on the commute! All else is well. I finished sewing my first traditional skirt and am wearing it proudlyg today. I am learning to make the beautiful traditional bags that these people make called chakras and am learning more of the local language every day. Surprisingly I am incredibly busy with work to do every day. I have started teaching english classes in the school and working with the school garden. We are working with cacao and building new stoves and all sorts of things. Even playing in volleyball tournaments. The most exciting thing that happened this past week was when I was working hard with a group of guys, swinging our machetes to cut down the weeds growing around the cacao trees. Suddenly, ran head on to my first real first aid accident in the jungles of panama! A young guy cut into the leg of another, all the way down to the bone! We had to carry him out, the hour long hike to the highway, on a hammock hanging from a stick. And when we arrived, we had to call the ambulence. After that excilerating yet worrisome experience, I have decided that I should purchase a book on wilderness response to read in my spare time. All else is well. Thank you all for all your love and support. I think about you all so often!

The people

2008-07-31T09:16:00.000-07:00

So I have been in my community for a month now. Little by little I have been getting to know the community. I visit peoples houses and introduce myself to those that I havnt met yet. I try and remember all of the names. I have been learning so much about the community, so I think that it is time that I share a little bit with all of you back home about these people and the community (and here is a photo of the view!). I work in a community located in the Province of Bocas del Toro. In this community live approximately 500 idigenous peoples from the large indigenous group called Ngabe. This group previously live in an area south of here up a big river. About 30 to 50 years ago (maybe more, quite difficult to get dates from some of the older people in my community who have a very different sense of time and dont subscribe to keeping track of years such as how old you are or when an event happened) people started to migrate out to this region to work in the banana company as well as to work on cacao farms own by the afro antillians. They then began to stake out land, which at that point as long a it was unoccupied, it was free to move onto and plant on. And from there communities began forming. There is one very little old man here who was the founder of this community and then his family came and then friends came and so on and so on. These people traditionally speak their own language, Ngabere, which is an oral language and has only been written down in the past 20 years or so. Now, most people speak both spanish and Ngabere, although there are older community members who only speak ngabere and some children in the community who have not learned to speak their indiginous language and only speak spanish. Every family has land where they commonly have cacao, mango, banana, platano, lime, and root vegetables planted. Most families have chickens and ducks. Today, the majority of the diet here consists of rice and boiled green bananas and chicken, although in the past most of the food was that which was collected from the wild, including some delicious fruits and vegetables. People still make traditional food and it varies from family to family. The men work in the farms maintaining and harvesting fruits, vegetables, cacao and wood to sell, while the women split their time between harvesting and cooking. Both the women and men here are very strong. Women in my community tell me that in the past, the women worked harder in the farms than they do today. Women also traditionally make beautiful bags out of a natural plant while the men weave hammocks. This community is a mix of the old traditional past and the new modern world. You may walk into a house made of wood with a thatched roof, raised on stilts and see the grandmother is weaving a bag and the kids are watching rambo 4 on a small television run on a car battery! It is a mix of everything. No electricity, sometimes the water comes from the aquaduct and when it doesnt you either walk to a little stream nearby or you wait for the rain to fill your buckets!

So there is a little description of what life is like here. And now I am off to practice to play in a volleyball tournament with my community this saturday!

A great little thing that happens in my community, the people love to ask me to sing in english, so I sing my heart out, and it doesnt even matter if I remember the words because no one understands anyways! I just make them up! Quite entertaining! They really like to hear the " Jeremiah was a bullfrog" song!

A taste of what is to come

2008-07-18T09:32:00.000-07:00

The first few weeks in my site have been wonderful. Yes there have been ups and downs, some hard times, but luckily many many good times. I have just completed the first three weeks in my community. And through that time, I have started to get to know my community by hiking up vigorous trails to visit their houses, by working side by side with them swinging my machete and pruning their cacao farms, by teaching english classes as well as how to make piñatas (lots of celebrations here), by helping a few kids start their own gardens, by sewing traditional dresses with a women´s group, by starting to learn this new indigenous language and more! I am living with a family that lives in a wooden house raised off the ground on stilts with a part thatched roof and part zinc roof. It reminds me of swiss family robinson. I live in an incredibly beautiful place where there are those times where I look around me at all tropical trees, parrot, hummingbirds, mangos falling from trees like rain, the beautiful view of the caribbean and I think ¨wow, I live here now¨. It is pretty amazing. Ups and downs though. My first real day in my community, I woke up bright and early, eager to head out with my rubber boots and machete for my first day pruning cacao. I tromped tromped down the trail behind eight other old Ngobe men ready to try and keep up with the day and pretend that I too have been weilding a machete all my life. But alas. I haven´t. And not more than one hour in, I sliced open my finger while filing my machete and made my best attempt at doing some emergency first aid and then hiding it. I threw together a peice of paper, a leaf, a stick splint and held it all together with a piece of duct tape that was previously holding my bag together. And then I proceeded, pretending like nothing happened and luckily no one saw. But a break time, it proved to be incredibly difficult to manuver on a very muddy and slick 40 degree hill while holding my machete and drinking a cup of juice while keeping my wounded hand hidden in my pocket. Quite awkward. but funny. and of course they got a kick out of it. But hey, at least I kept on working! After that experience, I have learned to carefully sharpen my machete and have started taking notes from small children who can control the machete better than I as we tromp through the jungle. One day in specific, a very happy afternoon, I found myself being guided down a trail by a group of four boys, ages 5 to 10, no shoes but so much energy. They led me everywhere, showing me what every plant was, cutting down mangos and oranges and having a grand old time. They even helped me collect seedlings to plant and now I have coffee, cacao, mango and lime trees growing! These people have amazing amounts of knowledge about this area and everyday I am learning so much. Lets see a few other notes. I have been eating lots of boiled bananas and rice, and now lots of this new amazing fruit called pifa or pixbae. Think of a fruit the size of a tomato, growing on a palm tree with spikes up the whole trunk, that tastes like a mix between butternut squash and popcorn and has the nutritional content of an egg! Also, I got bit by a giant ant called a Golofa while harvesting coffee! Man it hurt like crazy. I still can´t feel my pinky! So much has happened and so much more to come. Over all, this community is beautiful and I am excited to be here.

Real volunteers now

2008-06-29T10:46:00.000-07:00

I am officially a Peace Corps Volunteer now. We had our swearing in ceremony this past Thursday at the ambassador's house with all the Peace Corps Panama staff, the world Peace Corps Director, Panama governmental representatives, many returning panama volunteers and our large group of 46 new volunteers. It was a wonderful ceremony followed by a great evening of food and dancing. And now, after a wonderful weekend spending time with my entire group, trying to hold on to those last moments that we can share, we each head out on our own to our sites. I am excited and very nervous. This is a big step forward in this process. A big step into the unknown, alone. But not really alone, because we all are in this together and are supporting each other as well as I know I have so much support from all my loved ones back home and around the world. So over these next few months, I would love to hear from all of you, through snail mail or even phone, since I have cell phone service at my site. So here I go, headed off into the experience of a lifetime!

A visit into my future life.

2008-06-18T09:50:00.000-07:00

I just got back from my week long site visit which was a really good time. My site is incredible and I am excited about all the projects that I am going to be working on. Of course, there were some awkward times and some exhausting times, but overall, really good. I arrived at the bottom of the very steep hill that I walk up to reach my community, with a lot of very heavy bags and began trekking upwards to my new home. Half way up I was greeted by a party of young men chopping the weeds on the side of the gravel road, all swinging their machetes in the sweltering sun. They offered to put my bags in the wheel barrow and push it up the rest of the ways. I stayed with an incredibly kind family. The second day in, I got to work with a few community member filling bags with dirt to start a vivero (tree nursery) with trees to eventually plant in the cacao farms to develop the agroforestry system. They all chatted away in ngobere and told lots of jokes in spanish. Pretty funny. And then I spent a day sewing with the women on the traditional dresses they wear (good thing my mom taught me how to quilt when I was young!) And I am going to work with them on managing their cacao, selling chocolate, putting in some fish tanks and estufas lorenas ( earthen stoves) and teach some english classes and help out with the school garden. I am incredibly excited!

2008-06-02T15:55:00.000-07:00

Here are just a few pictures of some of my adventures over the last little while. I will write more of the real stories soon!

The first tropical ailment

2008-06-02T15:28:00.001-07:00

Living in the tropics presents many possible health problems, everything across the board from dengue fever, to malaria, intestinal parasites, worms that grow beneath your skin or in your stomach, to bug bites that turn into flesh eating growths that necessitate 20 days of IV injection in a hospital. In short, life in the tropics is tough.

My first ailment, which I am sure is only the first of many, began the middle of last week, starting with a few bumps and within a few days, turning into a thriving rash threatening to take hold of my entire body and turn it into an itching, red, swollen mess. I tried everything from pills to creams, soaps, eucalyptus oil, oatmeal pastes, to three medicinal plants, one of which I followed a very old man on a crazy plant hunt for this perfect cure. Nothing worked. Sleeping was tough. I had to wear long socks on my hands to keep from itching, and if I managed to fall asleep, I would awake scratching and scratching.

Then my legs began to swell. So I decided it was time to abort the attempt just to ride it out. To the clinic I went and received 3 injections and 4 pills and a cream. And it is improving greatly. And now I just look like a burn victim with the aftermath of the rash. Man, I can’t wait to see what awaits me next. I think that it will be the flesh eating bug bites.

Site announcement

2008-05-18T15:13:00.000-07:00

What a big emotional day. Today we received our assignments for our site and project. I went into this day not knowing what the next two years of my life will consist of. And now I somewhat have an answer.
I am headed to a site in the province of Bocas del Toro to work with a group of indigenous Ngobe-Bugle farmers with the production of cacao (otherwise known as Cocoa and used to make chocolate all around the world). I will also get to working on home gardens, mud stoves, an aquaduct project, and with a women's artisan group. Incredibly enough, I will have a view of the Bocas del Toro islands and Caribbean ocean. And I will get to learn a new language too! The people in my community speak both Spanish and Ngobere, so it will be quite an experience. I am so incredibly excited and feel that somehow I have received the most wonderful project and site assignment possible for me!

Training has been a riot!

2008-05-14T14:47:00.000-07:00

So it has been quite some time since I have had a moment to sit down and use the world wide web. And so much has happened in this first month and a half of living in Panama. To sum it up, it has been amazing, wild, adventurous, awkward, wonderful, and a riot.
I have been living in a small town about an hour and a half outside of Panama City. I live in a tiny pink cement house on top of a big hill with a wonderful host family in a great community. I look out and see mango trees and cashew trees and parakeets and parrots. I have seen bats and poison dart frogs and tarantulas. We have been taking language classes and technical agriculture classes six days a week for eight hours a day. I have been learning so much that some times I feel that my mind can't take it all in. But it is amazing. We have been traveling around the country, visiting volunteers and just attempting to learn what lies ahead for us. Some of my experiences follow. Playing dominoes late at night with the entire extended family which all live within yelling distance of my little pink house. Waking up to bumping reggaeton music every morning at 6am. Riding on public transportation called Diablos Rojos, otherwise known as Red Devils which are actually american school buses painted with outrageous murals and decked out with sequins and jems. Eating breakfast consisting of fried corn hockey pucks and fried hot dogs (not my favorite, but we are having a volunteer contest to see who consumes the most fried hot dogs over the next two years, winner might get a ride in the oscar meyer weiner truck back in the states). Winning ten dollars in bingo and twelve dollars in the local lottery. Busing over the grand canal and still feeling amazed every time. Swimming in the waterfall near by. Eating fresh mangoes as they fall to the ground like rain in the northwest. There are so many more stories and experiences, so more to come soon!

Staging: The surreal moments "is this really happening?"

2008-04-13T21:11:00.000-07:00

I have arrived! It has been a long day of travel, but I finally made it! To Miami, that is. I am at my staging in Miami, where we train for two days and take care of logistics. I suppose that I will really feel like I am joining the Peace Corps when we finally all meet up tomorrow for our first time. Maybe by that time, we won't be in shock, but I doubt it. I think that day won't come until we are each settled at our sites in Panama, some three months from now. But until then, we will just keep trying to grasp and hold on to those few things that make us feel like we really have set out on this adventure and that no matter how hard we blink, it will still be happening. But I made it and was welcomed into Miami on a shuttle bus full of a family on a classic Griswold vacation, who each gave me hi-fives for being a volunteer. And then went out to a great Miami dinner of seafood with a live latino band with the baseball game playing behind them on a big screen while drinking a beer (presidente to be exact). Bienvenidos!!!

Here is a journal entry that I wrote earlier today on the plane. I think I was in shock.

Today is the day where it all begins, where my life begins to change as I leave for this fateful journey. When my alarm went off at 4:30 am this morning, I first thought that I should go back to sleep and was suddenly jolted out of my bed by the reminder that this is a big day. As I fly across the US, I think how immense this country is sand therefore how large our world is. I won't be in this country for a while, but I will soon be representing the US and American citizens. How can I, just a small girl from the northwest represent all of this? I will do my best though. I really have no idea what will take place in the next few years, no tangeable thoughts to give me stability and security. All I can do is sit on this plane with an open mind and heart, excited for what lies ahead. I am currently in shock though and can hardly believe this is happening. but I am excited and truly believe this is what I want to be doing right now. So I will go in with a positive outlook as I depart on these adventures of Peace Corps in Panama.

The Commitment

2008-03-14T09:32:00.001-07:00

I have just committed to my two years of Peace Corps service in Panama, and I couldn't be more excited! I will be leaving exactly one month from today for my training and although it is coming fast, I can't wait. Now I just have to make sure that I am ready to go on April 14th 2008. I will be joining the Sustainable Agriculture Systems (SAS) program in Panama. I will work in rural Panama, anywhere from 2 to 16 hours away from Panama City. About 70% of Panama SAS volunteers work in rural communities where at least 70% of the population is under the national poverty line and the other 30% of volunteers work with a few of the nation's indigenous groups. I could be doing anything from helping local coffee and cacao farmers make their practices more sustainable in order to reduce harm to their workers and land and help them get into the fair trade and shade grown coffee market or chocolate market, to working with local womens groups raising chickens and home gardens, or helping with the native seed collection project. No matter what, I will be working by the sides of small farmers in rural Panama, wielding a machete every morning. While I am there I will most probably help to install water and sanitation systems in small communities. I will find out more throughout my training. For now I am just excited and passionate about what is to come! Please feel free to email me or even to come visit me! Panama has some beautiful beaches and it isn't that far away!