Semana Tecnica (Technical Week) y Otras Cosas

Less than a month of training left to go! We have a week and a half left in our lovely training community. The following week we spend visiting the site where we'll be spending the next 2 years (wow!). Our last week of training is meetings and such at the office in Panama City, culminating with a swearing-in ceremony as Volunteers on October 20th. Following that, our group of 17 trainees will be dispersing to sites all over Panama. The next time we'll all see each other will be for a week of additional training in March!

I'm both excited and nervous for the end of our training time. When I arrived in Panama in mid-August, I didn't know what to expect. Now, I have a routine that I'm somewhat comfortable with, with the other trainees I've been getting to know. In a little while everything will be shaken up again, as I leave for my new community.

A few highlights of the last several weeks:

We had a cultural day organized by our language professors. We were supervised in creating delicious Panamanian dishes: clockwise from right, chicken tamale (formerly wrapped in a big leaf), arroz con pollo (chicken and rice), and dulce de leche. I helped squeeze oranges for orange juice punch (chicha de naranja) along with my language classmates John and Eric, and our teacher Lidiany.  After enjoying our food with community friends, we got the chance to dress up in traditional clothing from several different Panamanian cultures, which our teachers brought for us. I am wearing a shirt called a basquiña and a full skirt called a pollera.  We also tried some traditional dances!

I've been coordinating with other students to hold a basic English class of four one-hour sessions. The first session was last night. We had about 35 students, split into two groups, older and younger. The younger ones had tons of energy! Next time we are going to try and engage the kids with more games so they won't throw as many wads of paper :) but I think those who wanted to learn got something out of the class.

We spent last week in a town in the Comarca Ngobe Bugle (a reservation for the indigenous Ngobe people). This is the same people group from my volunteer site visit a month ago, but a different location.  Many of us will be working in Ngobe communities, which are often remote and have water, sanitation, and health needs. During our week there we had technical classes all day. 

host family for tech week

The first language of the people is Ngoberi. Spanish is taught in school but many older community members know little of it. We each stayed with different host families. I stayed with a couple, their two daughters and grandma. Grandma knew only a little Spanish and I knew no Ngoberi, so we would talk at each other in our respective languages, each hoping the other would get something out of it.  Reuben and Damaris, father and daughter, spoke excellent Spanish and we had some good conversations. This photo is me with Damaris, mother Ceclia, and baby Gibeli. Everyone has both Spanish and Ngoberi names. Their one room home is humble but very sturdy. The floor is hard packed earth, and in general, I need to learn their strategies for dealing with the mud. I am a total mudball in just one hour in their town but they remain clean... "bien limpia."

We adapted to a different schedule of sleeping between 8 pm and 5:30 am (corresponding closely with daylight hours). It's the rainy season now, and it rained steadily for most days in the afternoon. Given that the town doesn't have electricity it felt pretty dark and gloomy during the rain. On the bright side I found the temperature pleasantly cool, or "fresca."

We also worked on adjusting to a different diet- staples are rice and boiled green bananas-Most people are subsistence farmers, growing bananas, plantains, yucca, and rice. We were given the most delicious bananas I've ever tasted; small ones with a peach colored flesh which a somewhat citrus- floral flavor.

As far as our classes, we focused on practicing some techniques that we may want to use in our future communities. There is a volunteer that lives in the town already, but she focuses on business development rather than water, so we hoped to compliment her work. We spent a few days making a sketch map of the town's existing aqueduct system, installed by the Ministry of Health, which is fed from a hillside spring. We surveyed the altitude of the main line using a water level. We also questioned households about their daily use of water, to understand times of peak use (morning, typically). We finished up with a community meeting to share this information.  Also, we made a cable bridge to carry the aqueduct pipeline across a creek, or quebrada, where it had been crossing unsupported and sagging quite a bit. Finally we made 3 concrete tapstands or "plumas."  This is my first time doing plumbing- great practice!

tapstand

Our time there was good preparation for what working in a community may actually be like. It was physically challenging, and it was socially difficult to drop into and out of a community in one week's time. I think the brevity of our stay made meaningful, substantial interactions with the community a challenge. It takes time to build trust or "confianza" and I respect it all the more in the Volunteers I've seen serving. It also will take time to adjust to a different routine, schedule, and diet.

Finally, we spent a free day at the beach... my first time experiencing a warm ocean!  I've been here a month, and I all the time I'm seeing that there's a lot to learn....