This past week we traveled to a town in Veraguas for tech week, an opportunity to put into practice everything we have learned during training. There is currently a Peace Corps Volunteer who has been living in the community for almost two years, so it was really neat to see how she had developed a relationship with her community and what projects she had done. The Volunteer had arranged with several families in the community to host us for the week and had also planned various projects, activities and events for us to do throughout our time there. Although there was one staff member there, our tech trainer who has been working with us for the past few weeks, for the most part the tech week was run by the host Volunteer and three others who came to help. Because we were in the lowlands near the coast (about a 10 minute bus ride to the nearest port), it got really hot during the day, but there was always a really nice breeze that helped mitigate the heat.
My host family was wonderful. When you first arrive, you walk through a large flowering bush that arches over the sidewalk leading to the house and enter onto a spacious patio with rocking chairs and an outdoor sofa. The house is pretty hidden from the road because it is surrounded by a lush, well-tended garden of trees and plants that keep the patio cool even during the hottest part of the day. My host family took in two of the trainees, so I got to share a room and a bed with one of my fellow trainees. Luckily, we are also friends, so that made it really easy to room together. The room where we were staying had been added on after the original house was constructed, so the door opened onto the porch rather than into the house. There was an open area in the wall where a window had been, and at night, when the front door was locked, we had to climb through the window to the next bedroom, where someone was sleeping, to get to the bathroom. Our family was so sweet and fed us amazing food. They gave us huge breakfasts that I and my friend couldn’t finish, so we would eat half of it and smuggle the rest with us to class. We were also given a snack of fruit to take with us and a salad every day for lunch. Basically, this week we all ate really well. I really enjoyed the family, as well. They were really friendly, educated and had an excellent sense of humor, and they insisted that we come back to visit and are planning on coming to visit us in our sites. They even gave us phone numbers of their relatives that live nearby our future sites so we could have someone to call if needed. I’m so excited to go back to visit.
During the days we had a series of activities that we worked on to give us hands-on examples of things we might do during the next two years. The host Volunteer had done a lot with trash management and had been pretty successful. Typically, rural Panamanians either burn their trash, including all the plastics that release toxic chemicals into the air that can cause long-term respiratory problems, or they will just throw it on the ground and wait for the rain to carry it away. So the host Volunteer, along with a concerned members of her community who wanted to make their community prettier and healthier, had developed education campaigns, provided trash cans, worked with the local politics to work on the problem. All around the town are signs and trash cans reminding people to throw away their trash or recycle it, and all the primary students could tell you what was recyclable. She was also working on building a structure to house recycling bins at the junior high school. She and the kids in her eco-club had collected plastic bottles and stuffed them with trash and were going to line the small structure, made out of wood and chicken wire, with these bottles to provide an example of an alternative use for trash. We actually got to help start the process by attaching a few of the stuffed plastic bottles to the house with wire. I think in the end it will look pretty neat.
We worked on setting up a garden for the primary school, we practiced cutting down branches and cutting up wood for firewood with machetes, and we learned about really cool organic, natural insect repellent, pesticides and fungicides. We designed and ran a youth camp for anyone who wanted to come. This was probably one of my favorite days. About 15 kids came, mostly girls between the age of 7 and 13, and we played with them all day and taught them about habitats. We talked about the four things every animal needs – food, water, shelter and space – and looked at different habitats that exist in their neighborhood. They chose a name for themselves (los chicos del ambiente, or the kids of the environment) and painted a large banner. They made headbands with their name and their favorite animal and made little books in which they drew the habitat of their favorite animal.
Working with kids is actually extremely rewarding. Over the few days we were there, the kids got to know us and would call us by name, give us regular hugs, and would hover outside of our technical class waiting for us to come play volleyball with them. In addition to the youth camp, we also observed the primary school and each taught a class. It was neat to see how the school system is different and similar to that of the United States. Public schools all require the exact same uniform and all the schools are painted the same way, so that they are really recognizable all over the country. School only goes from 8am to noon, and there is also a little bit more fluidity than what I remember. The classrooms are very open, like every other building in this country, to allow airflow and light from outside. Instead of windows there are spaces in the cement wall, and the classrooms open directly outside, rather than into a hallway. I’m looking forward to learning more about the classroom culture here. The teacher we worked with during tech week was extremely helpful, effective and open to environmental education. She took all of our ideas and put them together into one excellent, interactive and fun lesson for the second graders. The highlight of the lesson was a dramatization of a story we read about how even the smallest mouse can help a might lion. We got to paint their faces and give them masks and tails, and the kids students just ate it up. It was so fulfilling to find that at the end they had actually learned what we had taught them.
We also did some fun outdoor and cultural activities. We spent an afternoon swimming at a river. There was a bonding night where we all got together, ate homemade ice cream and talked about volunteer life. Another night I accompanied my family on a pilgrimage to Atalaya. Apparently, there is a wooden statue of Jesus that, when they tried to move it, could not be moved. So now it remains veiled except for the first week of lent, when people will walk for two hours from Santiago to the church and wait in line to see the statue, touch the tassels, and pay homage to the saint. We did not actually walk, but we did wait in line to see the statue and the church. It was a really pretty church, and there were a lot of people there to pay homage. There were also a lot of vendors around, selling everything from rosaries and framed pictures of the statue to sandals, purses and food. It was almost like a fair, but instead of loud talking and music there was a mass being projected and soft talking.
Another afternoon, the community had arranged a cultural fiesta and we exchanged dancing styles. We taught them the cupid shuffle and the electric slide, and they taught us how to dance típico. Two men played on drums while one of them sang with a chorus of women responding. It was really fun and everyone ended up dancing.
Bingo is also really popular all over Panama. There are different variations, but basically you have to pay a nickel for each card you have, and if you win you get the entire pot of money. They use rocks to hold down the cards, and then anything from stones to coins to seeds as markers for the card.
These are photos are of our trip to the nearby mangroves, a really neat and important coastal ecosystem that a lot of people chop down for wood or to develop. Mangroves are names for the trees that grow in soil and water that is typically salty and relatively shallow. Because of their environment, the tree roots act as props to hold them above the water level and also provide a really nice place for small fish to hide in. Because of this, mangroves are a really important nursery for fish that will later grow and move into the bigger, less protected ocean. Mangroves are also great places for snakes, frogs, lots of different birds, monkeys and other mammals. Not only do they protect animals, but they also protect the coast by absorbing a lot of water that comes in from ocean storms and preventing erosion and flooding. People are starting to develop mangroves as eco-tourist sites to protect them from being chopped down and provide income to the community. The community we visited for tech week had mangroves really nearby and we went and walked around and took a short boat tour through the river that winds through them. I love mangroves. There are a lot of bugs and mud, so it’s pretty gnarly, but they are also extremely tranquil and beautiful places. As one of my fellow trainees said, it’s like a fairy tale.
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