Roller Coaster

                So I’ve been in my site for a while and it’s been a lot of ups and downs, which was expected.  On the one hand, my community is so welcoming and is really excited that I am here.  I have been observing in the schools a lot (just observing so I can gain trust and learn how everything is done) and it’s been a life-saver.  Not only does it give me something to do and structure to my day, but I get along really well with the teachers and all the kids know my name and tell their parents how awesome I am.  And, of course, my host family is the bomb – they are so caring and welcoming (my host dad introduced me as his fourth and oldest daughter). 

On the other hand, this is easily the hardest thing I have ever done.   I know that I can do this, but I have no idea what I am going to do or how I am going to get there.  I don’t know if my radiant personality is able to shine through my limited Spanish.  I realize that a lot of my mood depends on my interactions with people in the community and how I perceive their reaction to me.  However, the fact that I don’t completely understand the cultural nuances here means that I’m not sure if what I perceive is what is being projected.  There is this thing called pena here, which kind of means they are really shy, but essentially means that those who have pena don’t really talk to you or answer your questions (at least at first), and for someone who is new and still struggling to understand the language and the culture, it makes me feel really insecure at times.  Being so far away from my support net with the daunting task of getting to know an entire community and help them build sustainable projects and incorporate environmentalism into their everyday life is an overwhelming prospect.  The only thing that keeps me going strong is the belief that everything will happen in time and I shouldn’t rush anything.  The first day I arrived, in fact, this lady said “a cada cosa, su tiempo” (to everything, its time).  Basically, everything has its season and timing and you shouldn’t try to rush it or prolong it.  She was talking about a baby horse, but I felt that it also applied to me, and this phrase has kept me going.

                Of course, most people here think I am crazy for leaving my family and are sympathetic to my homesickness, especially since they live with their parents until they are married with children, and even then they don’t always leave.  And there have been really good moments here.  The day before I arrived was my birthday and my host family called me to wish me happy birthday.  Then, that first day I arrived was a birthday party for my host dad, but they had made me a cake, too, and they put me up behind the cake and sang Happy Birthday to me in English.  It was the sweetest thing to hear my entire extended host family stumble through Happy Birthday to make me feel loved.  And the cake was delicious, too.  It was also really touching when the kids at school made me play baseball with them, or when one of the teachers showed me all the pictures on her camera. 

And there are little things, too, like the fact that after dinner my host family sits in front of the T.V. and watched telenovelas while eating ice cream (I’m becoming addicted to Una Maid en Manhattan).  It’s funny to see how the drama of the novelas contrast with the laid-back reality of their daily life.  One of my host cousins knows everything there is to know about birds and has been teaching me all the names and calls of the birds found around here.  Everyone here grows beans called guandú and they sit for hours peeling the pods and sorting through the beans.  The first time I played soccer, no one really talked to me (pena?) but they didn’t turn me away and passed me the ball a decent amount, and now a few of them are even acknowledging me and actually talking to me.

Because my community is so based in agriculture, I get to see a lot of how people get their food.  For example, my host dad picks a lot of pipas, or green coconuts, and using a machete cuts through the husk to create a small hole to drink the milk.  Then, you cut the pipa in half and eat the meat with a spoon.  There’s also a lot of cattle around here, and one morning someone brought me fresh, still warm milk, which my mom used to make arroz con leche.  Since she didn’t have cinnamon, she just broke off small branched from the cinnamon tree they have in their back yard, dried them, and cooked the rice and milk with them.  Or the other day I went to one man’s farm a grind sugar cane (moler caña – I don’t know how to phrase a lot of things in English anymore).  He used a machine that was run by a horse and pushed the sugar cane through twice to squeeze out all the juice, or guarapo.  You can either drink it fresh or cold (which I did – it was really sweet), but he then boils it down for 24 hours to make molasses.

My community also has a lot of chickens everywhere.  In the United States, when you hear something rustling in the bushes it’s probably a squirrel.  Here, it’s probably a chicken.  They wander around everywhere, returning to their home only to eat and lay eggs.  And then when they stop laying eggs where you want them to, or you have a special occasion, the meat tastes better and is healthier and you know the chicken had a happier life.  They get into everything – my family spends a lot of time chasing them off the front porch, and it was quite a hullaballoo when they were nesting in  the latrine and my host mom had to chase them out with a broom.  They remind me so much of dinosaurs, feathery, tasty, harmless t-rexes.

So although it’s been really hard to be so far away from everything familiar and I wake up every morning missing home, by the time the day is over I have experienced a lot of generosity and hospitality, and some neat, new experiences.  I feel as though the entire community here has adopted me.  When I walk around with my guide, the houses we visit always give me things like plantains, fruit, eggs or beans, but they don’t give him anything.  I think it’s because I don’t have a proper family here to take care of me, so now everyone is doing so.

Saying Goodbye

This last weekend was our last weekend in our training community with our host families.  It was pretty low-key – we got back from our site visit Thursday, and aside from a goodbye party we threw on Saturday, not a whole lot happened.  I did make one last trip to swim in the river with all the kids from the community, and that was a little sad because I love those kids and I love swimming in the river.  I know that there will be more kids and another river at my new site, but saying goodbye is always a sad thing for me.  Goodbyes make me forget all the inconveniences and frustrations I felt about a site, such as the fact that I was mainly served fried hotdogs and rice while my host dad ate eggs and toast, or that my host mom never seemed particularly fond of me, and think only about the good fuzzy moments, such as the good conversations I had with my family or the fun times at the river.

                Saturday afternoon we had our goodbye party, or despedida, in our training community at the casa comunal.  We made arroz con pollo, basically the national dish of Panama with shredded chicken and rice with some vegetables, a Panamanian salad, which is shredded white cabbage and carrots with white vinegar, salt and pepper, and brownies.  We also gave the families certificates for hosting us.  And, of course, there was a piñata and stuffed it with candy and flour.  The kids loved it!  And I did, too.  A party here isn’t a party without arroz con pollo and a piñata, so we succeeded in that, but we did run out of plates so we ended up rinsing the used plates with water from a water bottle (there was no spigot) behind the casa comunal and reusing them.  Classy.

                Monday morning we met on the soccer field at 6am and loaded up a Diablo rojo (public transportation consisting of a school bus decked out with blinking lights, red feather boas and painted on the side) with our bags and ourselves.  Everyone’s host family showed up to show us off – well, my family didn’t want to leave the house that early, but everyone else’s family was there – and they were all crying and hugged us goodbye and waved as we drove away.  Honestly, it was cute and tugged at my heartstrings.

                We have now been staying at the Peace Corps office while we take care of last minute training and paperwork before we swear in tomorrow afternoon.  It’s a little surreal being here.  After 8 weeks of living with a latrine, rice and hotdogs, and surrounded by Panamanians, living in apartment-style dormitories with air conditioning, flush toilets, comfortable beds, no roosters crowing at 4am, and easy access to a convenience store seems like a luxurious vacation.  That and college, because we have been able to get together to hang out after dinner, play cards, and sit on the computer for hours at a time.  But this time will end soon, too.  Tomorrow we become official volunteers at our swearing-in ceremony, and then we have until Saturday to get to our site, when we will stay for good.  I know that everything is about to get real, but this little reprieve has been really nice and lets me forget for a few days the overwhelming change that I’m going to go through in a few days.

Thursday and Friday we are all planning on going to a beach on the Pacific for two last days of relaxation and celebration with good friends and without worrying about perceptions or misunderstandings.  We are basically renting out a few hostels to accommodate all of us, and since my birthday is Friday we are going to make delicious American brownies.

Tomorrow we have our swearing-in ceremony where we will become “official” volunteers, but really I have no idea what that means.  I feel like I have been a real volunteer this entire time, but now I can officially call myself that and it will mark the end of our pretend-study-abroad experience we have had and the beginning of a terrifying, thrilling and (so they say) life-changing experience.  Honestly, while I am excited, I am very overwhelmed by what I will have to do.  The past two months have been pretty crazy, learning how to navigate through a new culture in a new language with new food and a new environment, but at least we have been with a safety net of friends who are just a short walk away experiencing the same thing.  On Saturday we will be in a brand new community with new accents, slightly different cultural nuances, new food and no friends.  Well, that’s an exaggeration.  We will have friends we can call or go visit, but we have to do this for ourselves.  We have to engage with our community and make a new network of friends and support in our new Panamanian community.  Frankly it sounds exhausting and I have been coping by not thinking about it.

I love everyone in my training group.  We have managed to stay cohesive without being cliquey, and despite our differences we work well with together and support each other through everything.  I’m going to be sad to say goodbye to them on Saturday morning.

Mailing Address

Hey if you want to send me letters or packages, this is the address:

My name

Entrega General

Chitré, Herrera

República de Panamá

It helps to put on religious stickers to deter curious people.  This is not where I live, just the closest post office to me.

Changing Standards

I find it really interesting how quickly standards can change.  Before I came to Panama I tried to eat a variety of vegetables of different colors and nutrition at every meal and snack.  Now I’m grateful for any sort of vegetable I get that isn’t a starch.  I don’t need dark leafy greens.  Now bens will suffice because at least they have fiber.  This past week when we went to a different host family, I was so excited about the flush toilet and indoor shower with running water throughout the day.  If I have any sort of cell service, even if it’s not that strong, I’m excited because I can have unplanned phone calls without having to hike up a hill.  This is supposed to be the Peace Corps experience, right?  Getting used to new norms and not really even noticing?

This Saturday I go to my site where I will live for the next two years.  It's definitely not a luxurious site, but considering it has running water, electricity, cell phone signal, and is really close to a big city, I already have more amenities than a lot of my fellow volunteers.  This has created a bit of a conflict for me.  Am I going to get the “Peace Corps experience”?  I remember someone telling me before I knew in which country I was going to serve that Panama was really Americanized and they hoped I didn’t go here.  I have friends from college who will be in Africa and I can imagine that they will have a completely different experience from those of us in Panama.  Now that I’m here I know that there is need in this country.  The disparity of wealth is pretty sad and this country is trying to develop faster than the rural areas can keep up with, especially with regards to the environment.  So it’s kind of neat to be playing a role in a crucial part of this country’s development, but I still can’t help but think of the perception that I’m not really going to get the “Peace Corps experience.” 

I’m reminding myself, though, that I didn’t join Peace Corps for a rugged, out-there experience.  I joined because of the cultural exchange and the opportunity to help people, and Panama is not so Americanized that it doesn’t have a lot of need and a not-American culture.  In fact, the Panamanian culture is extremely strong and I’m excited to get to know this country and the latino culture in which my dad grew up.  I’m curious to see how Peace Corps is working and what I can give to and learn from the people I am about to meet.  But the fact that I am having a relatively luxurious Peace Corps experience and the perception that I am not actually doing anything is something I think I will be struggling with for a while.

Getting to know my new home

This week I spent my first week in my new site!  We only came to visit for a few days to get to know it and the people.  We still have two more weeks of training, discussion about the site and the next two years, and closure, but it has been a really great week.  Before I arrived, all I really knew about my community is that it was big (around 1200 people), had electricity, running water all the time, and cell phone reception.  I also knew that it had a lot of agriculture, but I was worried that with all these amenities I wouldn’t have the real “Peace Corps experience” – you know, roughing it in a poor foreign community with no water or light.  Now, after visiting my site, I’m not worried about having that experience anymore.

                My community is extremely rural.  When they said agriculture, they meant it.  Pretty much everyone has a farm, cattle and at least one horse, and everyone has chickens and fruit trees.  It comes complete with latrines, unreliable water, cockroaches, and free fruit every day.  For four days I walked (and one afternoon rode horseback) around my community with my community guide, a man who was designated to help me get to know not only the people but how to get around without getting lost or offending people.  After four days of walking around, I still don’t know everyone, which is a little overwhelming.  The first day I spent getting to know everyone, I walked all day, spoke Spanish until my brain went numb, and came back cranky and really overwhelmed with all the names and faces I was forgetting, but I felt like it would be ok because I thought I had reached half of the community.  The second day, Monday, I went to visit the school.  On the wall is a large painted map of the community, and I realized that instead of walking around half of the community, I had really only met a fourth of it.  This place is huge!  And it’s really spread out, because all the houses have land that they work.  I’m still a little concerned about the size, but mainly because I want to get to know everyone as well as I can, and I’m worried that won’t happen.  But, as I told everyone I met, I love my community because the views are beautiful, the people are friendly, and everything is tranquilo.  Dental care and hygiene are lacking, but generosity and familial love are in abundance.

                In Panama, there exists the custom of pasear-ing.  Pasear is where people go to other people’s houses to visit, and they typically do more than one house because everyone sits on their front porch and everyone knows each other.  It is also customary that when someone pasears at your house, you offer them food or drink.  This is typically how a typical visit would go for me in my first days in my community:

                I walk towards a house with an open door with my guide.  We shout “Buenas!” (hello) and wait for someone to appear and tell us to come in (typically their front porch) and they either stand up and offer us their seat or they find a seat to give us.  Sit down, they say.  They themselves lean against the wall or the door frame.  Everyone who is in the house stops what they are doing to come join us.  We shake hands and I tell them my name and that I am the new volunteer here.  Luckily for me, there were two other volunteers here about 10 years ago and one of them was very loved and walked around a lot, so they know what Peace Corps is.  How long have I been here, how do I like the community?  I say yes, it’s very beautiful, very tranquil.  They agree, but it’s so hot!  It’s so sunny here.  Aren’t I from the cold?  Well, I say, I’m from Texas, and it’s a lot like here: hot, dry, with lots of agriculture.

                It’s true, this place has a lot of hills with brownish grass, since it hasn’t rained since December.  There are a lot of trees, also fading to brown because of the summer here.  There is always a breeze, though, which helps alleviate the heat.  I mention this to my host, and they agree.  We then lapse into a silence, in which my hosts lean against the wall or door and stare out into the distance.  I, too, look out into the distance, look at the trees, try to think of something to say, or, more commonly, let my mind wander.  It’s quiet because there are no cars and the houses are spread out.  Some houses have music or the TV on, but mostly you just hear the wind blowing strongly through the trees, the clucking of the chickens, and birdsong.  A child that’s too young for school peaks out from behind the door frame, but when you ask their name, they are too shy to tell you.

                My host then tells me that there was another volunteer here, what was her name?  Oh yes, Amy, similar to my name, Emily.  Amy, she was so caring, she did a lot for the community.  She helped build the communal house, she was always walking around.  I ask if they knew her well.  Oh yes, she spent a lot of time here, many years.  My guide says she was here for two years.  My host agrees, adding again that she was so caring. 

We lapse into another silence.  It’s hot out, but we are sitting in the shade so the breeze takes the heat away.  Dogs are scattered about, lying on their side.  Hens and chicks of all ages and sizes wander around, pecking at the ground.  I ask about their families.  How many children do they have?  What about siblings?  Do they all live here still?  What are they doing now?  They answer, but the silences keep coming, more comfortable each time.  They like to just sit with each other for hours, sometimes with long, deep conversations, other times not saying anything.  Eventually, my host will either ask if I want something to drink and will give me water or chicha (juice) or soda.  Finally, we say we have to meet more people, and they say, oh yes of course.  But before we leave, they give us something to take with us, either a bag of oranges or guandu, the bean that happens to be in season.  Next time come and stay longer, they tell me.  Come spend the day, and we can cook food.  I say, of course, I look forward to it, and we move on to the next house.

I’ve actually gotten a lot of food this way.  Every day I have come back to my host family carrying bags of plantains, oranges, guandu, and eggs, pieces of cakes or cookies, bottles of coke, or boxes of juice.  If I keep this up, I won’t have to go to the grocery store.  Everyone here is so caring and excited for me to be here, and they all seem to want to take care of me.  I’m definitely not complaining – I feel really welcome here and I love it!

Here are some highlights:

                The first night I arrived to my site, my host family took me to the provincial capital (about 2 hours in bus) to attend the birthday celebration of a four-year-old cousin.  It was pretty chill at first, just hanging out, getting to know the family.  But when we went to the party, I realized they had gone all out.  As they say here, they had thrown the house through the window.  They had rented out a communal house and there were about 40 little tables set up for all the guests.  There were three piñatas, snacks, dinner and a cake, a popcorn machine, a hired entertainer for the kids, a DJ and sound system, fireworks and, since it was Carnaval themed, they had hired a band to play music while the birthday girl, decked out in a fancy, and probably pricey, Carrnaval outfit came dancing into the venue surrounded by her family.  I asked one of my host cousins if this was a common practice for birthdays to be this big, and she said that for the quinceañera, yes.  For four years, not so much.  It was pretty fun though.  The band is called a murga and consisted of a saxophone, two trumpets, two trombones, a snare and a bass drum.  The music is aggressively cacophonous, but contagiously festive.  It made me want to cover my ears and dance at the same time.  And of course everyone was family to this girl so everyone was supportive and loving.  It was a pretty good time.

I went to the river with a few people, though I didn’t swim because the pants I was wearing would never have stayed on if they were wet, so instead I sat on the rocks and watched the other swim.  We had popsicles with us and I asked them to put their trash into a plastic bag I had.  I only meant to throw away the trash that we brought in, but as we walked back eventually all the kids were running around picking up trash from the side of the road an putting it into my plastic bag.  When that bag was full, they found a plastic bag that was on the side of the road and started using that instead.  In the end I was carrying four bags of trash.  While this moment was extremely exciting for me as an environmentalist, I’m still realistic – the next day I saw them throwing the popsicle wrappers on the ground.  Poco a poco, bit by bit.

My host family has a latrine outside of the house, so they gave me a bucket to use to pee in during the night so I wouldn’t have to go outside in the cold.  Let me add that the walls in the house do not go all the way to the ceiling and that you can pretty much hear everything throughout the house.  So when I woke up in the middle of the night needing to use the latrine, after much deliberation I decided to try using the bucket...and quickly stopped.  It was so loud! I was certain that I was waking everyone up with the thunderous waterfall, so after more deliberation, I chose to just sneak outside and use the latrine.  But I knew that this would happen again and I needed to get used to using a bucket if I was going to live with them for three months, so when I woke up in the middle of the second night, I tried again.  It was still a thunderous waterfall, but it couldn’t be helped.  I was so embarrassed, but I just hoped that they wouldn’t wake up.  The thing is, they all do it.  I’ve woken up to the sound of someone else’s thunderous waterfall, but no one talks about it.  And if they do, it’s not a big deal.  I suppose that if you could hear everyone else in the house using a bucket all your life, you wouldn’t think it was a big deal.  Just me, with my need for an American private bathroom, felt uncomfortable by it.

As I was writing this post, I was sitting in my bed with the light on and computer in my lap.  I felt a tickle on my leg and, thinking it was one of the numerous little bugs in my room, I swatted at it…and felt the nice crunch of an exoskeleton.  I jumped out of my bed and there, right where my legs had been, was a dead cockroach.  I don’t know how long it had been dead, but ugggghhhh.  So I swept it off my bed with a book and inspected my bed for others.  Luckily there were none, but for the rest of the evening I felt imaginary bugs crawling all over me.

More Pictures

So food has been a very big factor that affects my mood.  This is my Spanish class and my Spanish teacher and the delicious chocolate cake that made my day…

…and this is the pizza I first made.  I ended up making pizza three times, so far, and each time it has helped mitigate my homesickness.  It tastes like Peace!

Carnaval!  We made these streamers to decorate the Casa Comunal in bright colors.  This is one of my favorite pictures.

This is a photo of the day-time portion, with culecos that spray water from gas-tank trucks into the crowd.  Note the big speakers in the bag, that played lots of music all day long.

This photo is of the stage that I helped decorate J

This is what the queens of Carnaval looked like, more or less.   The queen is on the left, her princess is on the right.  This is the purple queen, who won the entire evening, but there was also a red, a pink and a light blue.

Massive grasshopper!  It was so pretty, and about 10 inches long!