Global Brigades in San Cristobal

My new year is off to a busy start here in Panama. The 4th through the 8th, my community hosted a group of univesity student who came through a student volunteer/development agency called Global Brigades. The idea of Global Bridages is that groups of students get together to form a club or "brigade" on their university campus. There are several different focuses a brigade can have including medical, architecture, engineering and buisness...it depends on the knowledge of the students. The group is then paired up to a project in a host country. Here in Panama, they have relationships with governmental agencies as well as Peace Corp. Different project proposals which outline the details of what the students would be working on are submitted to the group, who then decide what they want to work on. I wrote a proposal to have a buisness brigade come and work with my tourism group. My proposal was picked up by a brigade of 8 students from University of Pennsylvania. All and all they spent a week in my community during their winter break, the first part was talking with people to get an idea of what the needs were and they planning trainings in the second part. In addition to the training component, the brigade also brings a investment component of $100 per student. Throughout the whole week they talk to the group and me about how the money can be best spent then at the end of their time, they present the group with a detailed list of where the money is going to go. It was a lot of work on their part and mine but it was a great experience. My group as well as other store owners in my community recieved accounting training and they came up with new ideas of how we can improve tourism. They also invested in materials for a rainwater shower, flyers, a sign to put out front of the community and a donation to the school. Even though they have gone home they will continue to follow up on the project through me and my community.

Below are some photos from the week.

We also did fun cultural activities like making tye dye t-shirts will dyes made from plants. Super fun!

The group working on a sign to put out front of the community. It says "Welcome to San Cristobal. A Ngobe community."

The group giving an accounting presentation to the tourism group and to the other buisness owners in the community.

Welcome 2010!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday back home. I was thinking of all my loved ones and sending best wishes your way. I spent Christamas in San Cristóbal and made spiced cider and Swedish gingerbread cookies to share with my friends and neighbors. It brought a little of my holiday traditions here to the tropics. 2010 has taken me by suprise and I can´t believe that this is my last year here. Looking back 2009 has been an amazing time...I can only imagine what this next year will bring. So far, it looks to be very productive and I have lots of work ahead.

One great suprise that appeared in my inbox the other day was a copy of this article which appeared in a national newspaper here in Panama, La Prensa. It is a huge boost to my group and they were just as shocked as I was. The photo is of the hostel we are working on and was taken when the US ambassador came to visit my site last September. It even mentions there work with Peace Corp ( that would be me!). The headline reads ¨San Cristóbal and Salt Creek: Examples of Ethnotourism¨and the strip in yellow says ¨On Bastimentos Island, Bocas Del Toro, two indigenous villages proudly show their culture¨. It goes on to talk about what the community offers tourists and how they have recieved support from Peace Corp. It also mentions my counterpart, Esperanza by name and talks about her leadership. It was a great moment to see their hard work pay off!