Sunday, October 31, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
The Month of September and Site Announcement!
¨The optimist says the glass is half full. The pessimist says the glass is half empty. The Peace Corps Volunteer says `uh, can I bathe in that?`¨
Bienvenidos,
I am baffled that an ENTIRE month has passed since my last post. Panama´s Group 66 Environmental Health Trainees have been busy! Time is flying by but I have been processing and reflecting throughout the experience. As my boss continues to reiterate, ¨it´s about people and processes, not projects and products.¨ So much has happened in the last month but today was perhaps the most exciting day of all for three reasons:
1) I touched a live sloth this morning. My host family showed him to me when I got home last night and I wanted to take a picture of him but they said, ¨don`t worry, he will be there in the morning. When it is light you can take better pictures.´¨ Sure enough, there he was when I woke up. I was petting him on the tree and he barely opened his eyes. What cool animals.
2) I received a lot of mail today! I got birthday letters, presents, and just normal updates. I cherish them all very much. It is really exciting to get contact from people back home because I feel so far away and removed. Thank you to everyone who sent me things.
3) I found out where I am going for my Peace Corps service!! The PC staff put off the announcement until we could barely stand it. It was incredibly exciting as the section directors rattled off each site and volunteer one-by-one from the east to west coast. I was eagerly waiting my name to be called when my boss said, ¨you know, I have always thought if you added a little snow to the mountains in this particular site, it would look a lot like Alaska. Come on Scott!¨ Each person, after being called, got to put their picture on a large map of Panama in the front of the room. Unfortunately, for safety reasons I cannot give my exact site location in this public blog but I can inform you that I am going to the Comarca Ngäbe-Bugle and will be living with an indigenous community for the entirety of my service. (More on the Ngäbe people in a later blog). I am bursting with excitement.
Other highlights of the last month:
-Technical week. As a group, the Environmental Health group spent ten days training in the Därien region in an indigenous community of Embera-Wounaan people. This was the longest tech. ¨week¨ever and it went very well. We built two composting latrines, two pit latrines, two community water taps, a PVC bridge for water, and fixed a leaky pipe. We also had technical classes througout and cultural sessions at night. My host family was absolutely wonderful and hospitable. They sold ¨duros¨which were sweet flavored ice in plastic bags. On a hot days after working in the sun, I swear there is no better use of ten cents. At the end of the week we had a ceremony which involved gifts, traditional dancing, and getting our bodies painted in jagua (a black fruit that lasts between two weeks and a month depending on how much one showers). After tech. week we went to a beach for a rest day and looked pretty awesome as a group on the beach playing frisbee painted from the waist up.
-matagallo: my new nickname. This means ¨kill chicken¨ which is exactly what I did. One day, I asked my host family about their chickens and if they use them for anything other than eggs. They said ¨yes, how about we kill one for soup tomorrow. Actually why don`t you do it Scott.¨ So that night, with their instruction, I killed and plucked a chicken with an audience of the entire family, some extended family and a few fellow trainees. My host mom then ¨cleaned¨ and cooked the chicken and we ate delicious soup. Another first.
-I moved into my host families house! After living thus far in a small 5`X7`zinc room built on the back of the house, I returned from tech. week to find a wall missing from my room and all of my belongings gone. My host family got a great kick out of me asking where my wall was but then, after noticing my concern, promptly showed me to my new, much larger room inside the house where all of my belonging were neatly placed. The room was available to me because the family who used to live there moved to their (almost) finished house next door, literally twenty feet away.
-SITE VISIT: The first week of September each trainee visited a current PCV for almost a week. I went to a small Ngäbe site in Bocas del Toro. The PCV and I took a dugout canoe up a river to his community where he had a monkey named Kong, a dog, and a cat all under one year of age waiting for us. It was adorable and fun to to play with them (especially the monkey) and see them play with each other, but three young animals not yet housetrained made for a smelly and dirty experience. But totally worth it. I had a very eventful trip which, when retold to my fellow traineed in a formal session after our visits, had people falling out of their chairs and crying they were laughing so hard. In a nutshell, my volunteer got sick and, after visiting a clinic a half hour away, realized he had to go four more hours away for treatment. I was to go to visit a different volunteer. But all of my belongings were back at his house. But when we tried to get there, the boat driver told us he wouldn´t leave for another two hours. Just as we were about to give up, a very intoxicated man came up to us and said he could take us. He then got into his boat, which was way too big to take us all the way to our community, and boated to pick us up. Just then our normal driver ran over and said he would take us, which meant the PCV had to tell the drunk man he didn´t need his help afterall. Then, in anger, the drunk man accidentally backed his boat into a bridge post in the water, then jammed the outboard into drive and zoomed up the river with all sorts of people screaming at him from the banks (where their houses were). During our boat ride to the community, we were told that the drunk man was a drug runner and that he is always drunk. Phew! Anyway, it all worked out well. The PCV ended up being fine and when he returned, I went with him on a beautiful hike which ended at two gorgeous waterfalls where we bathed and played in the water with the few children who came with us.
Needless to say, it was a birthday that I will never forget.
Bienvenidos,
I am baffled that an ENTIRE month has passed since my last post. Panama´s Group 66 Environmental Health Trainees have been busy! Time is flying by but I have been processing and reflecting throughout the experience. As my boss continues to reiterate, ¨it´s about people and processes, not projects and products.¨ So much has happened in the last month but today was perhaps the most exciting day of all for three reasons:
1) I touched a live sloth this morning. My host family showed him to me when I got home last night and I wanted to take a picture of him but they said, ¨don`t worry, he will be there in the morning. When it is light you can take better pictures.´¨ Sure enough, there he was when I woke up. I was petting him on the tree and he barely opened his eyes. What cool animals.
2) I received a lot of mail today! I got birthday letters, presents, and just normal updates. I cherish them all very much. It is really exciting to get contact from people back home because I feel so far away and removed. Thank you to everyone who sent me things.
3) I found out where I am going for my Peace Corps service!! The PC staff put off the announcement until we could barely stand it. It was incredibly exciting as the section directors rattled off each site and volunteer one-by-one from the east to west coast. I was eagerly waiting my name to be called when my boss said, ¨you know, I have always thought if you added a little snow to the mountains in this particular site, it would look a lot like Alaska. Come on Scott!¨ Each person, after being called, got to put their picture on a large map of Panama in the front of the room. Unfortunately, for safety reasons I cannot give my exact site location in this public blog but I can inform you that I am going to the Comarca Ngäbe-Bugle and will be living with an indigenous community for the entirety of my service. (More on the Ngäbe people in a later blog). I am bursting with excitement.
Other highlights of the last month:
-Technical week. As a group, the Environmental Health group spent ten days training in the Därien region in an indigenous community of Embera-Wounaan people. This was the longest tech. ¨week¨ever and it went very well. We built two composting latrines, two pit latrines, two community water taps, a PVC bridge for water, and fixed a leaky pipe. We also had technical classes througout and cultural sessions at night. My host family was absolutely wonderful and hospitable. They sold ¨duros¨which were sweet flavored ice in plastic bags. On a hot days after working in the sun, I swear there is no better use of ten cents. At the end of the week we had a ceremony which involved gifts, traditional dancing, and getting our bodies painted in jagua (a black fruit that lasts between two weeks and a month depending on how much one showers). After tech. week we went to a beach for a rest day and looked pretty awesome as a group on the beach playing frisbee painted from the waist up.
-matagallo: my new nickname. This means ¨kill chicken¨ which is exactly what I did. One day, I asked my host family about their chickens and if they use them for anything other than eggs. They said ¨yes, how about we kill one for soup tomorrow. Actually why don`t you do it Scott.¨ So that night, with their instruction, I killed and plucked a chicken with an audience of the entire family, some extended family and a few fellow trainees. My host mom then ¨cleaned¨ and cooked the chicken and we ate delicious soup. Another first.
-I moved into my host families house! After living thus far in a small 5`X7`zinc room built on the back of the house, I returned from tech. week to find a wall missing from my room and all of my belongings gone. My host family got a great kick out of me asking where my wall was but then, after noticing my concern, promptly showed me to my new, much larger room inside the house where all of my belonging were neatly placed. The room was available to me because the family who used to live there moved to their (almost) finished house next door, literally twenty feet away.
-SITE VISIT: The first week of September each trainee visited a current PCV for almost a week. I went to a small Ngäbe site in Bocas del Toro. The PCV and I took a dugout canoe up a river to his community where he had a monkey named Kong, a dog, and a cat all under one year of age waiting for us. It was adorable and fun to to play with them (especially the monkey) and see them play with each other, but three young animals not yet housetrained made for a smelly and dirty experience. But totally worth it. I had a very eventful trip which, when retold to my fellow traineed in a formal session after our visits, had people falling out of their chairs and crying they were laughing so hard. In a nutshell, my volunteer got sick and, after visiting a clinic a half hour away, realized he had to go four more hours away for treatment. I was to go to visit a different volunteer. But all of my belongings were back at his house. But when we tried to get there, the boat driver told us he wouldn´t leave for another two hours. Just as we were about to give up, a very intoxicated man came up to us and said he could take us. He then got into his boat, which was way too big to take us all the way to our community, and boated to pick us up. Just then our normal driver ran over and said he would take us, which meant the PCV had to tell the drunk man he didn´t need his help afterall. Then, in anger, the drunk man accidentally backed his boat into a bridge post in the water, then jammed the outboard into drive and zoomed up the river with all sorts of people screaming at him from the banks (where their houses were). During our boat ride to the community, we were told that the drunk man was a drug runner and that he is always drunk. Phew! Anyway, it all worked out well. The PCV ended up being fine and when he returned, I went with him on a beautiful hike which ended at two gorgeous waterfalls where we bathed and played in the water with the few children who came with us.
Needless to say, it was a birthday that I will never forget.