Paradise Found

For as much as I get tired of the heat and the bugs, living in a tropical paradise does have its perks. Rain forest, animals, beautiful beaches...the list goes on. Fortunate for us volunteers we get the chance to discover all of the out of the way places other tourists do not often have the time or know-how to go see. In between the business seminars that I wrote about in my last post, I took a few days vacation to head out to Coiba, an island that is a national park in the Pacific.

On the map below you can see Coiba just above where it says "North Pacific Ocean"

Coiba National Park has been on my "Panama must see list" ever since I read about it in my guide book. The n

ational park includes Coiba island, 38 smaller islands and the surrounding marine areas within the Gulf of Chiriqui. In July of

2005 the entire park was declared as a UNESCO world heritage site for the rich biodiversity.

It is part of the Galapagos chain of islands and Coiba is the largest island in central america with an area of over 50 square miles. About 80% of the island is untouched forest and is home to rare plant and animal species found only on the island. It is surrounded by one of the largest coral reefs on the Pacific Coast of the America.

If that wasn't enough to make you want to go there, a

penal colony was built on the island in 1919. During the years that Panama was under the Dictatorships of Omar Torrijos and Manuel Noriega, the prison on Coiba was a feared place with a reputation for brutal conditions, extreme tortures, executions and political murder. Nobody knows exactly how many people were killed in the prison during this period, but sources claim that the number could be close to three hundred. As such, the island was avoided by locals, and other than the prison, was completely undeveloped. The prison was closed down in 2004, but there are still police officers stationed there to protect the ruins, watch for poachers and to help the environmental authority protect the park.

Sounds pretty great right?! Scary prison ruins, snorkeling, undiscovered paradise. The only hitch, it is over two hours in a boat to get there, each boat is $500 dollars and the only place to stay is a few cabins that are near the ranger station. So when my friend Mateo organized two boats to go out, I said sign me up!

Me and 11 other volunteers spent two days snorkeling, touring the prison ruins, drinking pipas (young coconuts) and having a great time. We saw whales, dolphins, snorkeled with sharks, turtles, beautiful fish and incredible reefs. It really was the most beautiful and wild place I have been in Panama.

Rumbo al Exito

Being a community economic development (or CED) volunteer here in Panama is a job that has many parts to it. Obviously the bulk of our efforts and work as PCV’s is focused on one community and often one group and one specific business. The range of projects amongst CED volunteers is pretty amazing. Some of us work with fisherman’s cooperatives, chocolate producers, farmers, artisans, tourism groups, and community microfinance. Big or small, Latino or Indigenous, CEDers work to help people improve their businesses, by helping identify areas that can be strengthened and teaching them the skills to do so.

In addition to the work we do in our communities, we often participate in and facilitate seminars which are designed to help us with our work. For example, a seminar that all volunteers attend with their counterparts is Project Management and Leadership or PML for short. (Side note: a counterpart is our main work partner in a community. Often the president of the group or someone motivated to organize a project. My counterpart is Esperanza, the president of my tourism group). PML teaches basic project planning and management skills such as time and money management, organizing a group, running a meeting and problem solving.

Recently, there has also been a push to develop a comprehensive seminar to teach professional business planning. Over the years PCV’s have worked to develop and adapt material to most effectively teach the material to people who often have no formal business training and little or no computer skills. Last year, I was able to participate in the seminar "Rumbo al Exito" or "Path to Success". With the vice president of my tourism group, Sergio, we wrote a professional business plan complete with full qualitative and quantitative analysis of the business. It was a lot of work, especially in Spanish but we both learned a lot. This year, those of us who took the seminar we asked to serve as facilitators. We had over 40 participants...20 volunteers and their counterparts took part in the seminar which took place over two weekends...one in June and the other just finished up on July 9th. The first seminar focused on the qualitative information then in the month between they were required to gather information about all the costs. It was a lot of work, but a great experience. Below are some photos from the two seminars. Enjoy!

Pumping up the energy with some games or dynamicas. A favorite is a version of rock, paper, scissors called "hombre, tigre, rifle"

Maria, a officer from a IPACOOP (Panamanian government agency that manages cooperatives) and Ben G. talking about including salaries for your employees to your operating costs.

Teachers extrordinare! From left, Lisa S., me and Lisa A.

Part of the group hard at work. We divided up the room by type of business. This is the tourism table.