Returned Peace Corps Volunteer

My time as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) is over. After 27 months of what some call 'glorified camping' in Panama I  can finally call myself an RPCV. Reflecting on two years is difficult -impossible to deconstruct in a short blog post- but some immediate thoughts have been swirling around my mind.

Peace Corps Service is a deeply personal experience full of contradictions. Generalizing any one experience is a waste of time and the contradictions inherent in being a PCV make understanding any one experience head-achingly frustrating. For example, during the months leading up to my departure I grew jaded and impatiently awaited the end of my service. On the day of my departure, however, I was filled with overpowering sadness as I came face-to-face with what I previously longed for. At the crack of dawn, loaded down with emotion on the final exit from my home these past two years, tears streamed from my face and leaving became a reality I no longer wished to confront. But confront it I did and my contradictory emotions only increased my weariness and confusion.

Finishing Peace Corps Service gives me a great sense of pride. From completing a latrine project and learning a new language to creating strong bonds within my community and living through conditions of hardship I will always look back on my time in Panama with fondness, incredulity, and awe. Complementing my feelings of accomplishment are some sobering but appropriate questions I believe most PCV's face soon after their service: Did I do enough? Could I have done more? Am I glad I joined the Peace Corps?

The contradictions I feel toward my time here are perfectly expressed by Bill Bryson in "A Walk in the Woods" as he reflected on leaving the Appalachian Trail. He writes:

“I had come to realize that I didn’t have any feelings toward the Appalachian Trail that weren’t confused and contradictory. I was weary of the trail, but still strangely in its thrall; found the endless slog tedious but irresistible; grew tired of the boundless woods but admired their boundlessness; enjoyed the escape from civilization and ached for its comforts. I wanted to quit and to do this forever, sleep in a bed and in a tent, see what was over the next hill and never see a hill again. All of this all at once, every moment, on the trail or off.”

I have come to accept the complicated feelings involved in being a PCV but one this is not complicated: Panama has changed me and the rest of group 66. My talented friends now throw a machete with expert precision, eat immense amounts of rice, speak campo Spanish with eloquence, hunt cockroaches with scary determination, and tolerate sitting on a "red devil" bus for hours with no personal space and surrounded by deafening Reggaeton music in 100 degree heat.

But Panama has also changed us in ways that we may be able to apply to our lives again. By definition PCV's persevere and follow-through with commitments. They are also entrepreneurs in the sense of succeeding with few resources. They have real experience in grass roots development, understand how to run meetings, and know where to find help. They are practiced in empathy, support, teaching, and patience.

Now that I am done, one question remains: what am I looking forward to? The answer starts with slowing down. The second year of Peace Corps Service is exhausting and full of commutes. Busing six hours multiple times per month, traveling to other PC sites for work seminars, and miles of hiking have made me feel like packing and unpacking (or thinking about packing and unpacking) have become my life. Going home and being a normal twenty-something year old with a job and rooted in one place again  sounds therapeutic; especially when combined with ample doses of warm showers, real beds, American food, cleanliness, and exercise. And the prospect of being with my family over the holidays -a two year yearning that has carried me through moments of weakness more than a few times- buckles my knees.

Unfortunately that yearning will have to wait for two more months. Until then five friends of mine and I will be traveling through Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay; traversing the continent by bus and visiting the Amazon, Macchu Picchu, Patagonia, the Iguazu Falls, and many other less famous locations. Strolling through beautiful vibrant cities, consuming spectacular food, taking part in as many adventures as possible, and connecting with friends along the way should make this trip an exciting cherry-on-top to an unforgettable two years.

Peace Corps Panama Quotes

The "Readers Paradise" post from last month listed some of the best books I've read while in the Peace Corps. That post segues nicely into this post: quotations. I've compiled a list of quotes that remind me of Peace Corps service in Panama in a variety of ways. Reading "A Walk in the Woods" recently was an especially surreal experience; there are strong parallels between hiking the Appalachian Trail and being a Peace Corps Volunteer. Bill Bryson perfectly captures the range of emotions one feels when leaving something that has pushed you and tested your resolve for a brief period in your life. Take a look below:

• “This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning the universe, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air of every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words  but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body” -Walt Whitman, “Leaves of Grass” (1855)

• “To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition, to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived- this is to have succeeded.” -Incorrectly attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson (author unknown)

• “With the best leaders, when the work is done the task is accomplished, the people will say, we have done this ourselves” -Lao Tsu, China, (700 B.C.E.)

• “Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.” -Robert Kennedy (1966)

• “The optimist says the glass is half full, the pessimist says the glass is half empty, the Peace Corps Volunteer says ‘Can I bathe in that?’” -My boss, Tim Wellman, during Peace Corps training (2010)

• “Difference is a blessing, not a challenge. We define ourselves by knowing other people. We know our world by learning about difference. What is the word we often use? Tolerance. Is that a positive notion? Not really. ‘For the time being, I will tolerate you’? I’m against that concept. It means difference is a blessing and you don’t tolerate a blessing. You embrace it.” -Islamic Scholar Mohammad Mahallati (2011)

• “[The three-year-old] wasn’t afraid of my white exterior, I later learned, because Kanyenda had assured him that underneath I was black like everyone else.” -Mike Tidwell, from his excellent Peace Corps memoir “The Ponds of Kalambayi” (1991)

• “And on the day when we finally stocked the pond, I knew that no man would ever command more respect from me than the one who, to better feed his children, moves 4000 cubic feet of dirt with a shovel. I had a hero.” -Mike Tidwell, “The Ponds of Kalambayi” (1991)

• “The hidden forces of goodness are alive in those who serve humanity as a secondary pursuit, those who cannot devote their full life to it.” -Albert Schweitzer, “Out of my Life and Thought” (1931)

• “He’s still going to make those hikes, he’s insist, because if you say that seven hours is too long to walk for two families of patients, you’re saying that their lives matter lass than some others’, and the idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.” -Tracy Kidder, writing about Paul Farmer in “Mountains Beyond Mountains” (2003)

• “If one is not in a hurry, even an egg will start walking.” -Ethiopian proverb

• “It is a long-standing peculiarity of Panama that everyone not only wants to be president but considers himself the best person for the job.” -R.M. Koster, G. Sanchez, “In the Time of the Tyrants” (1990)

• “The only true voyage of discovery would not be to visit strange lands but to behold the universe through the eyes of another.” -Marcel Proust (1927)

• “We imagine that when we are thrown out of our usual ruts all is lost, but it is only then that what is new and good begins.” -Leo Tolstoy, “War and Peace” (1869)

• “Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul” -Edward Abbey (1990)

• “A smile is the shortest distance between two people” -Victor Borge

• “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel” -Maya Angelou (2003)

• “The river was the same as it always had been. It wasn’t like the people, who had changed so much in my eyes over the course of the two years, and who would now go their own separate and unpredictable ways even as they were frozen in my mind, pinned by memory –making chaoshou, teaching class, standing motionless on the docks. But it was different out on the river, where my guanxi with the Yangtze had always been simple: sometimes I went with the current, and sometimes I went against it. Upstream it was slower and downstream it was faster. That was really all there was to it –we crossed paths, and then we headed off in our own directions.” -Peter Hessler, “River Town”, my favorite Peace Corps chronicle (2006)

• “A full moon rose in the pale evening sky and glowed with a rich white inner light that brought to mind, but perfectly, the creamy inside of an oreo cookie. (Eventually on the trail everything reminds you of food).” -Bill Bryson, “A Walk in the Woods” (1998)

• “I had come to realize that I didn’t have any feelings toward the Appalachian Trail that weren’t confused and contradictory. I was weary of the trail, but still strangely in its thrall; found the endless slog tedious but irresistible; grew tired of the boundless woods but admired their boundlessness; enjoyed the escape from civilization and ached for its comforts. I wanted to quit and to do this forever, sleep in a bed and in a tent, see what was over the next hill and never see a hill again. All of this all at once, every moment, on the trail or off.” -Bill Bryson, “A Walk in the Woods” (1998)

• “There is always a measure of shock when you leave the trail and find yourself parachuted into a world of comfort and choice, but it was different this time. This time it was permanent. We were hanging up our hiking boots. From now on, there would always be coke, and soft beds and showers and whatever else we wanted. There was no urgency now. It was a strangely subduing notion.” -Bill Bryson, “A Walk in the Woods” (1998)

A Readers Paradise

One of my goals coming into Peace Corps was to read more. Specifically, I set the goal of reading one-hundred books over my two years here in Panama. As I have recently passed that number I thought it would be wise to present my favorite books here as a guide for others -the multitudes from the "real world" who don´t have the amount of down time that I do- to cut straight through the mounds of book mediocrity and focus solely on books worthy of anyone´s valuable time.

1) Best Development Book: 
"Pathologies of Power" -Paul Farmer 

It is extremely rare to find a book that changes the way one sees the world. "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond did that when I was in college; "Earth in Mind" by David Orr did that fresh out of college; now "Pathologies of Power" has done it in the Peace Corps. If you are concerned about poverty -this should be everyone- you must read this book. This book is in my all-time top three.

• Runner up: "Poor Economics" -Esther Duflo, Abhijit Banerjee

2) Best Fiction:

"East of Eden" -John Steinbeck

 

My favorite novel by one of my favorite authors. Some say his more famous "Grapes of Wrath" is the great American novel. To that I say "bah". "East of Eden" lingered in my mind longer and was more interesting. I think it's Steinbeck's masterpiece.

• Runner up: "Atlas Shrugged" -Ayn Rand
• Runner up: "Blindness" -Jose Saramago
• Runner up: "Confederacy of Dunces" -John Kennedy Toole

3) Best Writing:

"All the Pretty Horses" -Cormac McCarthy

 

Probably the most beautifully written book I've ever read. McCarthy is another favorite author of mine -the master of simple sentences. The way he can bring a setting to life is incredible. 

4) Personal Experience:

"Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" -Barbara Kingsolver

 

By far my favorite book by Barbara Kingsolver. This is the story of her family's attempt to only eat food locally grown, much of it by them, for an entire year. It also features excerpts from her scientist husband and her daughter in college. Beautiful, educational, inspiring, and great recipes!

5) Best Non-Fiction:

"The Lost City of Z" -David Grann

The absolutely engrossing incredible true story of Pery Fawcett, a real-life Indiana Jones, only more badass. This reads like the most thrilling fiction.

• Runner up: "A People's History of the Unites States" -Howard Zinn

6) Best History:

"Cod" -Mark Kurklansky

 

This short history of cod is great. Cod, as much as I hate to admit it, is definitely America's fish. Cod was one of the reasons the American Revolutionary War broke out for gosh sakes. An infinitely more interesting history than I could have imagined. A must read for history nerds.

• Runner up: "Path Between the Seas" -David McCullough

7) Best Reporting:

"The Big Short" -Michael Lewis

 

Widely considered the best book about the recent US financial crisis, it explains complicated concepts a midst a surprisingly engrossing tale chock full of fantastic characters. Good luck putting this one down.

• Runner up: "Where Men Win Glory" -Jon Krakauer

8) Best Sports Book:

"The Book of Basketball" -Bill Simmons

The best book I've read on the history of my favorite sport. I've followed Mr. Simmons' columns for a long time. He is a true fan and this book is a hilarious delight. 

9) Best Peace Corps Chronicle:

"River Town" -Peter Hessler

 

A thoughtful and immensely reflective story. Hessler served in China in the 90's just after china re-opened it's country to the world. I learned a ton about China's history and culture. Most PC chronicles tend to be -unlike "River Town"- tragic and inspiring, full of painful and incredible stories. Most PCV's have an experience more like Hessler's. These other two great PC chronicles fall into the former category.

• Runner up: "The Ponds of Kalambayi" -Mike Tidwell
• Runner up: "Monique and the Mango Rains" -Kris Holloway

10) Best Collection of Short Stories:

"Interpreter of Maladies" -Jhumpa Lahiri

 

Lahiri's Pulitzer Prize-winning first book is also the best collection of short stories I've ever read -with the possible exception of "Unaccustomed Earth," her third book. Her understanding of the human condition -told through the experiences of Indian-Americans- is more real and honest than anything else I've read. I can't wait to read more from this perceptive author.

11) Best Collection of Poems;
"The Prophet" -Khalil Gibran

Gibran, the third best-selling poet of all time behind Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu, is most famous in the English-speaking world for, "The Prophet." First published in Lebanon in 1923, this collection of poems can be seen as Gibran´s guideline for living a good life, drawn from christian and sufism teachings and infused with Gibran´s values.  If you are looking for spiritual guidance, this book is an equally beautiful alternative or supplement to the Bible.

Wilbur's Big Day

As many readers of this blog know, I purchased a piglet from my neighbor back in February for the hefty price of $29.50 and carried him to my house in a large rice bag so he wouldn't remember the trail. Then I named him Wilbur.

Wilbur relaxing behind my house, three months old

Over the past seven months Wilbur consumed literally hundreds of pounds of pulverized corn feed and grew to be quite a large pig. Whenever we ran out of food he got us into trouble by wandering into my neighbors yard to dig up and eat his prized yucca, a nutrition-less yet omnipresent root vegetable. But overall, Wilbur was a good and entertaining pig.

Here's an example: Wilbur used to sleep beside my palm-thatch hut and snore all night, except, that is, for the few times each night he woke up to scratch his hind parts on my 12'x12' house. The first time he did this when a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer named Jake was sleeping over, the 2am shaking of the hut really spooked him. I had long ago learned to sleep through such noisy activities. So Jake was alone and afraid sleeping on my dirt floor without a mosquito net and exposed to all sorts of creepy-crawlies. I am surprised he didn't wake me up. In the morning he told me of his wretched night and I explained -between fits of laughter- that Wilbur is quite the passionate scratcher.

Some people thought it insensitive to raise a pig for slaughter. "You're going to kill it?!?" they asked incredulously. You can't get the meat without the slaughter, I told them. And as I'm not yet prepared to give up meat I figured I might as well embrace the whole carnivorous process that comes with being an omnivore.

Sadly, though, I did grow fond of Wilbur (it doesn't help he has a name). He used to oink at me as if he knew I was his owner. I rewarded him with soothing ear scratches, for which I received more oinking.  A fair trade I would say. Friends also grew fond of my second favorite pet (after my dog, Osito, who loved to chase Wilbur around our yard to everyone's amusement). When my friend, Andrea, a PCV from Texas, found out I was raising him for slaughter she told me that I was worse then the witch from Hansel and Gretel -"she only fattened them up!"- and that if she were Wilbur she would definitely mess up my yucca.

I responded, politely of coarse, that a livestock-loving-tree-hugger-Texan is a contradiction in terms. To which she quipped, "I know. As much as I feel for Wilbur's plight, I'm too much a sucker for bacon to really have his back. Unless that back comes in the form of juicy ribs." My first convert!

The months passed. One day we pinned down Wilbur and my host-dad, Samuel, castrated the poor guy then poured alcohol on the wound. I was temporarily deaf for two days after that. Luckily we operated on a full moon because, as Samuel explained to me, if the moon is not full the pig will likely bleed to death. He was proven right: Wilbur lived!

For a few more months, that is. On September 4th -the day before my birthday- I killed Wilbur. Fellow PCV's Andrea, Jess, Jake, and Kelsi (my follow-up PCV, from Hawaii) all came to join me and my host family for the celebration. In her eagerness Andrea asked, just after Wilbur died and we were removing the hair from his skin, "Is it wrong that he looks delicious already?"

Yeah, a little bit. But she was right, just a little early. Nearly six hours after the slaughter all eighteen of us sat down to enjoy some much-deserved pulled-pork sandwiches. We decided it was a great opportunity to share some of our favorite American food with my host family. They loved it.

The following day my host-mom, Lela, made some of my favorite Panamanian food, arroz con puerco, for my birthday. The rest of the meat we ate throughout that week and shared with our neighbors. The intestines and bones we left for the dogs and vultures.

Wilbur was the first -and hopefully last- animal whose death came about as a direct result of celebrating my birth. It's not fair, I know. Especially because he gave me so many memories and laughs. So aside from immense amounts of food and the occasional scratch, the last gift I have for him is a public expression of gratitude: Thanks for making my 26th birthday oinkingly unique and unforgettably special, Wilbur. You are missed.

Omar guided me through the slaughter

Wilbur's last minutes

Shaving begins (using boiled water seen right)

Jess helped me move Wilbur to his shaving station

                  

Wilbur shaved, Samuel started cutting

Samuel the artist. Lassie watches, excited 

Jake, Kelsi, and of course, Luiz, preparing the sandwiches

Sunshine in the Comarca!

From April to July of this year the communities of Quebrada Plata, Quebrada Carrizo, and Quebrada Frijoles have accomplished a backbreaking amount of work. The measurable accomplishments are as follows:

• 46 completed latrines (at approximately $100 each)
• Improved sanitation for over 300 people (not including the school latrine we build which serves roughly 200 children).
• Improved health awareness and increased knowledge of healthy personal hygiene practices to over 40 community leaders and promoters.

These results sound good but knowing actually how good is hard if you don't live in poverty. This is because it relies on the more human -and as a result, less measurable- aspects of improved sanitation. I've lived here -in the poorest district of the poorest province of Panama- for two years and yet I can only partially empathize with the struggles my neighbors face. 

When I think about the immeasurable effects a latrine project might have here three memories are triggered. First, I think of the moms who, sick of their children being sick (and looking like miniature men with shoulders held back to accommodate their "beer bellies", which are instead filled with worms) not only paid $5 to join the project but broke traditional gender roles at numerous meetings by speaking out (normally the women listen patiently to the men). In an impressive display of solidarity, once one woman did this it set of a firestorm of competing female voices that all but drowned out the male ones. It was the males turn to listen, and they did. Project plans were changed -for the better I might add- on multiple occasions because of this.

I also think of the Ministry of Health worker who I witnessed tactlessly and shamelessly berate a group of Ngabe's for defecating in rivers and the jungle, completely oblivious to the social and historical realities of living in extreme poverty and being exposed to modern industrial society just a half century ago.

Lastly, I think of my two closest neighboring families which, between the two of them, have buried three children before they turned four years young. My hope is that this latrine project will help alleviate some of their unjust suffering.

Although I have suffered though debilitating bacterial infections and intestinal amoebas much like they have, I have access to sanitary, clean hospitals; most of my neighbors don't. They visit underfunded, under supplied, and understaffed health clinics; and these only under grave circumstances (they tend to use natural medicine first, although this trend is changing with the younger generation). And because intestinal "issues" tend to not fall under the "grave" category for anyone over three years old, gas, diarrhea, chronic upset stomach, distended bellies, malnutrition, a lack of energy, and an increased risk of getting sick as a result of a weakened immune system have become normal parts of life.

Samuel Salinas (left) and Martin Santo Pinto, the leaders of the latrine project, in front of Martin's new latrine

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Completing the project was a difficult and time consuming process because we could build only two concrete latrine floors per day. Once they were built, however, the families constructed their "little houses" as we say in Spanish, in quick fashion. (The excitement as we neared the end gave everyone a needed last boost to finish). Once they were done there was just one thing left to do... Celebrate!

The inauguration ceremony was held after all the latrines were completed. I purchased a large amount of food, asked some women to cook it (they got to keep the leftovers!), and on July 19th a group of fifty or so people met and listened to a series of speeches. Many spoke about how grateful they were for their latrines. Some explained how nice it was for someone to follow through on a promise (the government representatives here infamous for not following though). A few even said I would be in their hearts forever and that they hoped they would be in mine. I assured them they would. When it was my turn to address the group I spoke of the two year process we went through, congratulated them on their incredibly hard work, and thanked them for opening their homes to me and treating me like family. I finished, "back in early 2011 you decided a latrine project was your number one priority. Not that you have latrines you get to decide what your next priority is and take it on. In this slow way you can improve your lives step-by-step."

After all the speeches were given, we sat down and enjoyed rice with chicken and veggies, juice, bread, and coffee. We told each other stories and took breaks to snap photos (one woman wanted a picture with me to make her husband jealous. She was going to tell him, "see I don't need you, I have a gringo boyfriend"). Later, just before I left, a young guy I'd never met approached me and while shaking my hand proclaimed, "Choy, bueno, esa proyecto demoraba mucho pero siempre vale la pena. Estamos muy contento." ("Scott, well, this project took a long time but it was definitely worth the effort -we are very content."). 

"I couldn't agree more," I replied. And with that said I left and walked home in the rain watching -waiting- for the sun to peek through the clouds. Fleetingly, I was sure it did. But then a light bulb flickered in my head and I quit watching, for I now know that if you are patient enough the sun will always follow the rain.

Happy new latrine owners at the inauguration ceremony

Quebrada Plata Latrine Project Begins!

Peace Corps Volunteers quickly learn that although two years seems like a long time to carry out a project, it is often not enough. This is especially true for Environmental Health Volunteers because we tend to undertake physical projects like building latrines and aqueducts. Most Peace Corps work is education, capacitation, and leadership based, and require little funding. Physical projects, however, do require funding, and that is the primary reason EH work tends to take longer.

A secondary reason for this delay is common to any PCV anywhere: sustainable development work is slow. This is true for a myriad of reasons. Just imagine yourself learning to do something you´ve never even heard of from someone speaking neither their nor your first language and you might have an idea why these things require a hefty dose of time and energy.

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Back in early 2011 I began visiting six communities within an hour hike from my hut. This was to introduce myself, make friends, share cultures, and hold a series of meetings to brainstorm potential ways to improve their lives.

After a few months one community emerged as both needing my help and willing to work within the PC framework to accomplish their goal of bringing a latrine project to their community. Quebrada Plata is the name of the community and their name -which translates as "money stream" - is sadly ironic; they live in the poorest district of the poorest province of Panama where many suffer from malnutrition, insufficient healthcare services, a lack of education, and nonexistent sanitation services.

After organizing a group to lead the project we held a series of meetings to discuss the project timeline, mutual expectations, and to finalize numbers. Finalizing the number of beneficiaries proved surprisingly difficult as many people wavered in their interest. We repeatedly postponed the cutoff date for individuals to join the project but eventually, in late September, we couldn´t wait any longer and set the final number at 46, which included the community school and meeting area.

I got to work writing the funding application which, when finished, made its way to the PC website where the project awaited donations. Luckily I know many generous people (including not a few followers of this blog) and found an NGO called Synergy willing to fund half the $4696 I hoped to raise.

By late February the money was raised and sitting in my account and after a series of lectures covering disease transmission pathways, latrine construction and maintenance, and healthy personal hygiene practices we at last set dates for the delivery of materials in early April. In doing so we checked the final item off our to-do list.

After getting a quote from Supercentro San Felix, the company who would be delivering the materials, I traveled two hours to David and got a bank managers check to actually buy the materials. The next morning, April 12th, I met the loaded delivery truck and we set off for the first drop off. To my pleasant surprise the "truck" was actually more of a tank: a ten-wheel WWII era Jeep. We packed it full of sand, rock, rebar, nails, and cement bags then putzed off down the road to our drop point. I sat straddling the stickshift between two very latino Panamanians. The windshield was flipped outward like old-school sunglasses because it was too cracked to see through. Through my sunglasses - which I wore because sand was kareening off the hood and stinging our faces - I could see that none of the gauges worked.

This didn´t matter though, because the driver, Eric, knew the truck like the back of his hand. Also, we were driving laughably slow as the truck was not capable of exceeding 40 km/hr. We hugged the shoulder and semi´s passed us like sports cars. It felt just like I imagined riding in a tank would.

When we finally got offroad in the Comarca the truck came to life powering up steep and muddy Comarca hills seemingly without effort. (It actually seemed to get stronger throughout the day, feeding off the workout like Strong Guy, the Marvel Comics superhero who absorbs kinetic energy to enhance his physical strength). To keep things sufficiently dangerous our friendly driver Eric incessantly honked the loudest horn I´ve ever heard at every child, woman, and person on the phone we passed. He paid more attention to scaring people in this way than dodging the large rocks and ruts in our path.







Around noon we arrived the drop point and met the patiently-waiting residents of Quebrada Plata. We unloaded, divided the materials, then watched people haul one-hundred pound bags of cement over a mile to their homes. That´s just how things are done here. When you don´t have horsepower, you use manpower.

The following day was effectively the same and after two long days we were finally in a position to begin building concrete latrine floors. After a year and a half, it was really happening! As any PCV here will tell you, Panama has an exceptional ability to test one´s patience. This time consuming process reminds me of an Ethiopian proverb I once heard, "If one is not in a hurry, even an egg will start walking." Indeed.

Guna Yala Independence Day 2012

"Gaspar, why are you tagging all those trees?"

"So we don`t get lost. Don`t you worry."

Three years ago Gaspar de Leon Smith fell thirty feet out of a tree onto a concrete floor, breaking his arm, wrist, many ribs, and puncturing a lung. He barely survived the fall but credits his impressive recovery to natural medicines his family procured from the "campo", what Panamanians call the jungle. Gaspar is from the indigenous group Guna and he is our guide over the cordillera mountain range.

Our group in Pigandpí at dawn, just before departing (pic by Mateo Johnson)

Fourteen Peace Corps Volunteers and three Returned Peace Corps Volunteers have hired Gaspar and another guide, Fernando, to traverse the twenty-eight miles over the mountains with us. Our goal is to arrive the Carribbean Sea in time to participate in the Guna celebration of independence.

The Guna are a immensely independent people located on the Northeast coast of Panama where they control 365 islands as well as 2.3 squared kilometers on the mainland. They achieved independence in 1925 with the help of the U.S. military. In Panama, the Guna are by far the most organized and economically successful indigenous group. They advocate for a completely closed culture and their celebration for independence is the one time each year they open their borders to outsiders and allow photographs. We were told to be extra respectful so as to ensure PCV`s can participate in the celebration in future years.
We heard rumors that because the Guna have been a closed group for so long they have a high rate of albinism. Actually it`s the highest rate in the world -one percent of the population is albino. We also heard of a legendary independence day party.

So it came to pass that on February 21st, with our interest sufficiently arroused, the seventeen of us met in the town of Pigandì, about fifteen hours from my site on the opposite side of the country. There, we discussed logistics and got ready for an early departure in the morning.
At the crack of dawn we downed some PB&J`s and set out for our campsite fourteen miles away. During the hike Gaspar periodically tagged trees with his red can of spraypaint. On one tree he drew a skull and crossbones. Another drawing said "G Unit," our team name, after him. One said "GY Feb. 22, 2012."

The hike was gorgeous and filled with all types of jungle critters and interesting plants such as an ant the size of my pinky finger. We arrived exhausted to a picturesque campsite at dusk, greedily eying the nearby stream for what became the perfect cool down. A dinner of rice, lentils, and snacks was followed by ghost stories around a campfire, skipping stones, then stringing up and drifting away into our hammocks.

The next day was much the same and we arrived the Carribbean shore at night, then boated to Ustupu, the island with the biggest independence celebration. Once there, we slep at Gaspar`s house.

Gaspar, our fearless leader, showing beautiful Guna Molas (pic by Mateo Johnson)

The 24th was our recovery day. We met with the Sila ("chief" in the Guna language) of the island who told us, "God wants you here and so you are free to take pictures and do as you please." The highlight of the day, though, was when a few of us had beers with a marxist revolutionary named Andrès who told us about his communist studies in Russia and Nicaragua and how he led an attack against a gringo trying to use their land. He also said that he feels solidarity with the Ngäbe people: "they are experienceing what we went through in 1925. I offer my guns, blood, and my life to them in their struggle."

At 6am on February 25th a parade passed Gaspar`s house. We all joined the stampede as it made its way through the island to a stream near a large drinking hut. For two hours graphic demonstrations were acted out depicting their struggle for independence eighty-seven years ago. Following the demonstrations everyone funneled into the sex-seperated drinking hut.

People watching the graphic demonstrations (pic by Omar Cardenas)

Males stood in lines of six and dance and chanted toward six other men opposite them offering bowls of a tasty wine-like alcohol made with coffee and some unknown ingredients. The men recieve the bowls, chug it, then whoop and yell together while getting out of the way for the next line of men.

Some PCV´s and a Guna man recieving drinks during the party (pic by Mateo Johnson) 

The organized drinking style displayed by the men was nowhere to be seen on the female side. Dressed in their beautiful traditional dress, they walked around passing out mini-bowls of the homeade wine to anyone who would take it. Almost each woman had a whistle in her mouth which they blew incessantly. They also passed out Menthol cigarettes (which they LOVE) and carried bottles of Seco, Panama`s sugarcane alcohol, to supplement the wine (which they did).

A Guna woman in traditional dress (pic by Mateo Johnson)

It didn`t take long to realize the Guna women were much more generous with the alcohol than the men. This was evident because the female PCV`s slowed down to the point that a few needed to leave -they´d had enough. Needless to say, the men gradually migrated to the female side of the hut and began recieving drinks from women who were about as tall as my belly button. They were a stumbling, whistling sea of red and yellow colors and they were determined to get an entire island trashed.

At 11am the alcohol ran out and hundreds of people stumbled from the hut arm in arm and blinking their eyes at the hostile sun.

The next morning  the adventure continued. We boated eight hours west in an uncovered skiff along the coast to the port town of Cartì. It was nothing short of miserable; seawater soaked us, winds froze us, and rough seas had many puking over the gunwale. Eventually we made our way back to Panama City for some rest before we began doing what I`ve done so many times in the Peace Corps: trying to figure out what in the hell just happened. Amidst our confusion and uncertainty, there remained one thing of which we had no doubt: nobody parties like a Guna woman.