Milestones

August. I knew this month was coming closer with every flip of my calender, but it snuck up me as it usually does. This year, August has brought with it many important milestones in my life. First and foremost, the 17th meant turning 29. Scary to think about entering the last year of your twenties. The twenties have been good to me and I don't want them to end. Secondly, the 14th meant exactly two years here in Panama. Those of us from my group (62) who have stuck it out, got together to reflect, talk about where we go from here and to celebrate our accomplishments. It is sad to think about leaving my community and not seeing the great friends I have made here on a regular basis. Third, and maybe the most exciting is that my mom is here visiting! She came to celebrate my birthday with me and see Panama. We spent some time in the mountains, three nights in my community and of course are seeing some of the beautiful beaches of Bocas.

A highlight of the visit, was that my Mom and I planned an small afternoon workshop for my women's group. Being an artist and teacher, my mom really wanted to do something creative with them, Spanish or no Spanish she was pumped. We put on a workshop she taught them how to make fabric beads out of fabric scraps and straws, knot buttons, and a new wrapping technique that they can use for their necklaces and bracelets. It was great and the women were pumped that my mom actually came. Below are some photos of the visit and the activity with my mom.

Hope everyone is well! Sorry I haven't gotten to some of the questions that have been left, Erin...wink, wink....but I haven't forgotten!

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.

Burning Questions Answered

In response to my request for questions on my last blog, I received a handful of great ones from my great friends Erin and Daphne! Hopefully the answers will give more insight into what my life is like here in Panama.

- Do you have a daily routine or is every day very different from the next?

When I first got to my community, this was one of the hardest things for me to get used to. Sometimes I would wake up and think "What am I going to do today?" and have a feeling of dread. I was used to working hard, being busy and having very little free time. Now I would say there are routine things I do everyday but the "work" part varies quite a bit. Everyday things like cooking, laundry and cleaning also take more time because I don't have running water or electricity. When I am in my community I also spend a lot of time visiting with my neighbors, walking around...just being out. Sometimes I have meetings with my groups, will hang with the women while they are doing artisanry, in the afternoons I usually end up at my house reading, helping the kids with their English homework, lending out games and books. Some days I have nothing to do and other days I don't have time to everything I planned. All bets are off when it is pouring out. No one leaves the house, including me!

- It sounds like the locals can be very silly. Are the types of things that make them laugh very different from what makes us laugh here in the States?

Ha! This is a great question. The people I live with have a great sense of humor and are not afraid to laugh at themselves. Some of the same things that make use laugh at home most definitely make them laugh here. Kids doing funny things, bodily functions, sex, life in general...they aren't ones to hold back. The type of humor that I often find myself missing is sarcasm, play on words, humor that only is only understood by people who are English speakers or from the same cultural background. Something things strike me as funny and I am left cracking my own self up! One example is the crazy t-shirts people wear...see example below. How do you explain why this is funny? You can't. It just is.

- What's the best local meal you've had in Panama? Most memorable?

There are some common foods you will find out throughout all of Panama, like rice, chicken, plantains and yucca (kinda like a potato). You might think the food is similar to Mexican, but it is actually very different. A tortilla here is a small cornmeal cake and you have to search to find things that are spicy. Since we are bordered by both the Pacific and the Caribbean you can also get fish, shrimp and other seafood. Bocas del Toro (the province I live in), you can find lots of fish, lobster and lots of foods made with coconut. One of my most favorite local meals is Rondon, a fish stew cooked with coconut milk, onions, peppers. Add some curry in there and serve over rice. Amazing. Most memorable food experience was probably eating boiled green bananas and white rice everyday for almost three months while living with a host family. Hard to believe but it kinda grows on you after while!

- What surprised (or continues to surprise) you the most about where you work?

Hmmm. I wouldn't say it was was one thing, everything was a surprise. I have never started a job where I didn't have at least some point around which to orient myself. When I arrived, I knew nothing about the culture, was learning the language, didn't know anything about the project I was going to help or understand the thinking of the people who were running it. At least when you are new on the job in the states, people speak English, you understand the business mentality that drives our culture and when all else fails there is usually someone there you can talk it out with.

- Daphne would like to know if you've finally met Carlos, your Latin lover? Also, did the two of you get married in a small, quaint island ceremony, where you exchanged starfish and promised to be together forever?

Sounds so romantic! Unfortunately I haven't had the experience of actually dating a

local, but I still have time, so who knows! I feel like it would complete my cross cultural experience. Don't worry Daph, my ladies will be the first to know when I meet my Latin love.

Thanks for the great questions, keep them coming!

Forgotten what I look like cause it has been so long? Here is a photo from a birthday party I went to last week for the girl in the photo, Amy. Food, cake equals good times.

Vida Volunteers

June is rolling right along here in the tropical paradise that is Bocas. Today the sky is a brillant blue, a slight breeze is blowing and the water looks like there are thousands of little mirrors floating on the surface. Had a fresh mango smoothie for breakfast with a few friends and life is good!

This last Saturday, my community hosted Vida Volunteers, a huge group of medical volunteers who were traveling throughout Costa Rica and Bocas Del Toro. They often work with Peace Corp because we work in areas that they target, so it works great. We can do a lot of the leg work and small details they are not able to. My community was the only stop they made out in the islands so it was a big deal. The week leading up to it was hectic as I worked to coordinate cooks, promote the visit and figure out where they would work. The group consisted of medical students from Wisconsin, a group of dentists from England, and even a group of vets who came to spay, neuter and deworm animals in the community. There were also doctors from Costa Rica and Panama in the mix so it was quite a group. They pulled up at around 8am in three boats, set up the equipment and got down to work within a half and hour! They were very experienced and while the day was exhausting for both them and me, it was very sucessful.

The doctors worked in the community center and formed groups of three to four with a translator.

The dentists worked both inside and outside (as seen in the photo) of the health center. Most of my time was spent helping out here translating and getting the kids to open their mouth! They did a lot of extractions, some fillings and a lot of showing kids how to brush their teeth.

I love this picture because the girl standing in front had two teeth pulled and doesn´t look very happy about it. Perfect poster child for the Glasgow Dental School!

While I avoided going to the school classroom where the vets were working, it was probably the most popular place to be. Everyone was crowding around the windows and door to see their poor dogs being imasculated! The jokes were flying all day. Someone even asked me where the bag of balls ended up at the end of the day and I almost peed in my pants I was laughing so hard.

As compared to my first year here, I feel like something blog worthy is happening all the time! Do my readers have any questions about my life here, Peace Corp, Panama in general? Any special topics I should cover? Please feel free to leave a comment with questions and I will answer them.

Maps Galore

I have recently started working on several tourist information signs which will placed around the community. They will have the history of the community in English and Spanish, a map of the community and a map of the islands. This will help make San Cristobal more tourist friendly, help orient them while walking around and provide some much needed information in English.

So, I was sitting in my hammock the other afternoon, making a few sketches of the community, when I had a moment of inspiration. Why not have a competition among the 3 middle/high school classes to see who could create the best community map? I went to talk to the three professoras and they loved the idea. I was pumped because the kids hardly ever get to do anything creative and I was excited to see what they would come up with.

We started by brainstorming the important things they should include on the map, such as the artisan houses, the small stores, the hostel, the local centro de salud, the Christian and Evangelical churches, the schools, athletic fields and cemetery. Each class then divided up to work on a rough draft and once it was approved by everyone then got to work. Below are some photos from the three days it took us to complete the activity.

Above, one of the rough draft sketches. Below, the kids working to color in the final version.Professora Ida's class won first place with their version of San Cristobal, pictured above. The winners were chosen by the tourism group I work with. Most of the community is centered along a central walkway, so the maps begin at the public dock in front and go all the way to the cemetery which marks the beginning of jungle and people's farms.Professora Lilybeth's class took second place with their map.

Third place went to Professora Gloribeth. I was a hard choice and I will be using all the maps on two signs and the third will be posted in the hostel. More photos of the finished signs to come!

Cast of Characters

I have decided to start a new series on my blog highlighting some of the my most favorite people in San Cristobal. My first profile is of one of the grandmothers in my community named Isabel. But no one actually calls her that...¨Ma¨is her nickname of choice. I will say that most of the abuleas, grandmothers, are called that so if there is every confusion she also goes by Isa Cri. Cri literally means ¨big¨in their dialect and since there are also two Isabels, she is the older of the two hence big Isa. She is a member of the artisan group and mother of two of the other women I work with.

When I first arrived, I thought she hated me. She would sort of shout to me in dialect, and when I didn´t know how to respond, she would stare for a minute, give me a wave of her hand and give me a frustrated Ahhh! and walk off. Slowly but surely, we bonded. I could say a few things, and my spanish/dialect combo seemed to win her over and even thought she doesn´t speak any Spanish, but that didn´t seem to hinder our hilarious converstions. She teases me about boys... especially when cute tourists are around, worries about me when I am away, and calls me her hija. I in turn bring her banana bread or brownies and love to be around her cause we always end up cracking up about something.

The other day I was eating some chicken soup that the women´s group had made and just hanging out with the ladies in the artisan group. It was really hot that day, which in Panama means the perfect day for soup. We were all sitting around sweating, some us laying on benches, just talking. Ma, happened to be eating her soup aross the table from me, when she looks down at the chicken foot she had in her hand. She starts to chuckle to herself and when I look over, she holds up the foot in the air, points to it and then points to me. I give her a look of confusion, then she points to her own arm, then me, then the chicken leg again. At this point, she is near the point of tears she is laughing so hard. I realize she is saying that my arm is so white it looks like the chicken leg.
All of the other women start laughing to and I am in tears. Ma, can hardly breathe she is laughing so hard. I happened to have my camera on hand, and we decided to document the moment. I developed this picture for her a week ago and when she saw it, we cracked up all over again. Spending time with her reminds me of my own grandmothers and I will miss her gentle teasing and her laugh.

Stayed tuned for the next installment of cast of charaters! Shout out to former PCV´s Jay and Julia who inspired this blog.