Thankgiving!

Thankgiving is my favorite holiday. I love the weather, the chance to spend time in a cozy house with your family, the food, the leftovers...the list goes on and on. Every year here in Panama, a decicated group of volunteers organizes a blowout Thanksgiving. Last year I was unable to attend, so this year I couldn't wait. There aren't many places that fell like fall here in Panama, but the celebration was held at an amazing lodge high up in the mountains called Los Quetzales. It was beautiful, crisp weather and the lodge had amazing fireplaces and lots of couches for lounging. Over 100 volunteers came and we all had a great time relaxing, eating and having improptu dance parties. While it was hard to to think of my family back home, I was so grateful to be celebrating with my Peace Corp family for the holiday.

In Spanish, Thanksgiving is translated "Accion de Gracias", or literally the action of giving thanks. Like most Spanish to English translations, it struck me as funny. I found myself repeating it over to myself.....action of thanks...somehow it just wasn't the same as the "giving thanks". The more I thought about it, I realized that during the last year, I have been actively giving thanks for something almost every week, sometime more, sometimes less. Occasionaly the thanks is given out loud to no one imparticular or sometimes just reflected in my journal. So for this day of actively giving thanks, I thought I woud create a list of some of the thinks i give thanks for almost everyday here in Panama.

1. My friends and family. Sometimes you forget who you are here, and they are there to remind you.

2. On a great day, the opportunity and privledge to be here.

3. On a really bad day, that I only have one year left!

4. My health.

5. Being an educated woman.

6. Challenges to rise above and learn from.

7. A home cooked meal.

8. Music, Music, Music

9. Clean underwear. You can be dirty, but as long as your underwear are clean, things are good.

10. My mosquito net. It is the canopy bed I always wanted as a little girl.

I hope everyone out there had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

The world of Peace Corp work

As most of you can imagine, the focus of Peace Corp is education. Giving people information so they can use it to make choices and improve their own lifes. Knowledge is power right? Power to run a small buisness, power to improve community health, power to be a leader...whatever the project might be, the main focus is always transferring knowledge to empower people.

Most education takes place in a very informal setting. Whether it be in small meeting with your group or one-on-one teachable moments, most of the time it doesn´t feel like you are teaching anything at all. The question of how can we as volunteers most effectively transmit the information so it makes the biggest impact is always at the forefront of what we do. Aside from the informal settings, a popular way of transmitting information here in Panama is seminars. While Peace Corp puts on large scale seminars ranging from leadership to writing a buisness plan, individual volunteers also put on smaller scale seminars in their own communities.

Several weeks ago my friend Eli called me up and asked if I would want to come out and help with a water committee training seminar they were putting on in the mountains on the pacific side. Would I be interested in giving a talk about how to interact with government agencies and write professional letters? I had yet to facilitate anything in Spanish that was outside my own community so I jumped at the chance to see another part of the country and visit some other PCV friends.

The seminar was being held about a 30 minute chiva (covered pickup truck. think of it as a rural taxi service) ride up the mountain in a community called Corotú. The participants were members of about 4 local water committees all from over the area, some of whom hiked an hour and half one way to get to the seminar. Myself and the oraganizers, fellow PCV´s Eli, Gaurav and Dave stayed about a 40 minute hike away in Gaurav´s community. The seminar itself was over a series of weekends and I was participating on the last day of the training. In an hour and a half I talked about being professional and went over different kinds of professional letters. We did activities and I even had them get together and write their own letters which they then had to read. Below are some photos from the day.

Me playing the secretary at an agency. Brave volunteers came up and had to present thenselves and try to get past me.

A group photo of the participants with their certificates. Can you tell which one is me? I stand out like a ghost.

Below, a pic of my notes on ¨How to interact with agencies¨. Main points were things like confirm appointments, be early, dress nice etc...

The seminar ended with almost all of the particpants recieving 36 hours of training on how to manage a rural water system. Topics ranged from cleaning a water tank and protecting your water source to how to manage finances and write a letter of solicitation. For me it was chance to see something new, visit some PCV friends, and gain more experience working and presenting in Spanish. I can´t wait for the next one!