Ka Ñüre (The Rainy Season)

It's now "Ka Ñüre," or The Rainy Season, for sure (say that "Kaw Nyoo-ray.") A thunderstorm rolls in about every day between 11 am and 3 pm, meaning that no events can be planned for the afternoon. The height of the rainy season lasts from October through mid-December. But October is also a time for seasonal celebrations: Bible Month, the annual rice harvest, and a big marching drum band fest at the end of the month. It's also the time when I'm wrapping up a round of meetings related to my upcoming latrine project and getting ready for the next stage of writing the proposal for the project.

Very cute and gentle, but her mother says "when she was younger she liked to throw live chicks into the cooking fire!"

My church organized a parade/walk down the main street of town to celebrate Bible Month or "Mes de la Biblia", September. Here we are, walking and singing with several other churches. It was fun! A handful of members from the local Independent drum band beat out the rhythm. (They're just warming up for a big drum-band event October 28th.)

The women are holding aloft their Bibles: "Quien vive? Cristo!" or "Who lives? Christ!"  

 

 

Teens share some tunes after the event

It is rice harvesting season in October. Many families plant a dry, upland rice on the steep slopes of our community. I had the chance to help out some friends in their field. The amount of weeds is pretty typical- after a few rounds of cutting weeds with the machete when the rice is young, the weeds or "monte" just grow up some. The heads of grain are cut with a small hand-held knife and gathered up in sacks. Later, the family will separate the grain from the stalks, dry it in the sun, toast it over a fire, and pound it to de-hull it before being able to eat it. Rice is a lot of work!

Here are some portraits to share with you. Some people, when they ask me to take their picture, succumb to fits of the giggles at this unfamiliar opportunity. It makes me smile. I try to convince them that they have nice teeth, not to cover their mouths, and that they look better smiling than serious. Ngabes generally prefer very serious portraits that look like those of our great-grandparents who had to stay still for a long time and couldn't smile. Bella and Miriam, pictured below, took several tries to compose themselves but it worked out nicely in the end. I am taking more portraits now that I've decided to do it, charging a small fee to cover the cost of printing.

Here's a portrait with a nervous bull. Stop tossing your head, you, and look at the camera!

We have continued with the latrine meetings; tomorrow is the last of a series of 5 meetings, that consist of an educational talk and some organizing details. There has been enthusiastic interest from the community, and as the meetings finish up, families are turning in paperwork and a small deposit to participate in the project. In this photo, participants take a look at a mock-up of formwork to pour concrete.


On October 20, I'll be celebrating my one year anniversary of swearing in as a Peace Corps volunteer. I've got one more year to go: halfway through my time here, I feel like I'm just getting started. And in a way I am, as far as projects and educational efforts go. I'll be celebrating with the other volunteers in my "group"- the 15 other Environmental Health volunteers that swore in on October 20, 2011.

Snapshots of September

I'd like to share some photos, briefly captioned, from the last few weeks. 

Visiting some neighbors and trying out a new tropical fruit!

 As usual, I do a lot of visiting "paseando" in Spanish to keep up with the neighbors and keep them updated on what I'm doing. One day, under a heavy rainstorm, I visited a house I hadn't been to often before. Raquel and her mother Otelia showed me some antiques they dug out of a pit: a beautiful stone mill and a clay cooking pot. I don't know how old they are: 50 years or more... or perhaps really old!! At any rate before hand cranked mills and metal cooking pots took over the scene. That was probably back in the days when people wore tree-bark loincloths, too...

Otelia shows off her antique cookpot. Note the charred sides from cookfires past.

Raquel and her aunt hold the mill: the grinding stone and the slab, a shallow basin with 3 sturdy feet (an unusual feature). Corn or chocolate would be placed on the slab and crushed with the grinding stone.

It's time to harvest corn! The beautifully colored "Indian corn" reminds me of fall in the States. Most of it is left to dry on the stalks before it is harvested.

My neighbor Federico loads up a rented horse to take grain down to the house.

After the corn is dried in the sun for several days, it needs to be taken off the cob for storage.

 

The horse mentioned above provided some nice compost to throw in my garden, shown here with my neighbor Romelio and my cat supervising from the window.

We have been continuing to hold meetings planning for latrines. I am expecting 40-50 families to participate. They need to put down a $5 deposit to hold their place and attend the meetings/health talks we are holding at the school. About 60 people have been participating each time.

Community members act out a skit about how disease is spread  In this story, the mother didn't wash her hands after cleaning up the baby's soiled pants and then continued cooking- making the rest of the family "sick." The skits were the favorite part of the meeting.

I also took Mechi, my cat, to an event with Spay Panama, a Panamanian non-profit with US ties that held a "Spay Day" in San Felix, a nearby town.  The operation took about 20 minutes and another 40 minutes to come out of anesthesia.   My friends and neighbors wonder why I would want to do such a thing when I could sell the kittens, but I'm pleased and Mechi seems fine.

Mechi baby, isn't this fun?! She just got the anesthesia shot.

Panamanian girl holds a kitten

Lindsey, another volunteer, strokes her dog while Mechi lies zonked out after the operation

Estados Unidos

I enjoyed a 2 week trip to the USA in August, celebrating my one year of being in the country of Panama! That means the next year is going to go  by really quickly! I'd like to share some stories and photos from the trip.


My first stop was in Portland to see my folks. With my parents, we attended two reunion potlucks for the extended family and enjoyed dinner with our cousins Bob, Mary, and Mindy. We also visited the family property near Corvallis to pick blackberries and apples. It's been a while since I've been in the Northwest for blackberry season. The smells of dry grass in the sun and fragrant blackberries are wonderful. We also visited friends Jon and Flip Anderson, who showed us a variety of wood-burning stoves at their house. The couple has promoted these stoves in Haiti as a way to reduce deforestation, as less wood is used to cook than on a campfire. They generously gave us blueberries as well!

Back in Portland, Mom, Dad, and I went shopping for new running and walking shoes together. I went on some bike rides with Dad and some walks around the neighborhood with Mom, their respective exercise routines. I also wandered around a huge grocery store with Mom, marveling at the size of the place, the dairy foods, and the bulk section. While in Portland I was happy to connect with a few college friends: Teal G. (on her way to U. Michigan for graduate studies in Statistics) and Tiffany and McKenzie S., and we went to see our friends Tommy and Jennifer H. and their band at a bar downtown!  It was also good to see friends at the Presbyterian Church of Laurelhurst, who have actively been praying for me. And yes, I did get some rest time.

It was off to Boston next, where my boyfriend Ken A. was to receive me. He was preparing for a new year of studying Computer Science at Harvard and also getting ready to move to a new apartment. Lots of transitions! Ken met me at the airport. He rented a car and we drove up to Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire that evening for 2 days of rest and relaxation- a little hiking, a little canoeing, a lot of hanging out. While canoeing we saw a strange sight: a red squirrel swimming between 2 islands- maybe about 50 yards distance. I've never seen that before!  Even though in Panama I live in the beautiful mountains and go on a small "hike" just about every day, New Hampshire is different- away from the responsibilities and hardships of my daily life. The only real difficulty was navigating traffic jams, which happened on both legs of our trip. Ken saw the traffic jams as a problem to solve with the help of Google maps, and I just got a bit stressed trying to figure out the phone to look at the maps.  We realized that we can think differently in many situations; how can that be an asset?

We returned to Boston through rush hour traffic and attended a practice session that evening for Aikido, a Japanese martial art. Ken has been involved with the Harvard Aikido Club since last year. Back in 2003-05 I was practicing Aikido in the University of Oregon club, and while I'm very rusty it was fun to get on the mat and practice with Ken's new friends.  Also at Harvard, Ken's research group (the professor and other graduate students he works and studies with) invited me to talk with them about my experiences. We went outside the building to sit at a picnic table under the shade of majestic campus trees and chat. It was good for me to learn more about the people and projects that form a great part of Ken's life, and also to share my experience with them!  Many people in the research group are international students with broadly humanitarian interests. They had many questions about my work in Panama.  The group's research projects have included creating computer programs that assist people in composing music or designing websites (Ken's project), land mine location software, and computer interfaces for the disabled. Much of this falls into the field of study known as "Human-Computer Interaction."

Over the weekend Ken and I prepared several dishes to share at a potluck with church friends. We enjoyed dessert on the rooftop of Latasha B.'s elegant Cambridge apartment building, overlooking the Boston skyline.  We also tried out Disney songs on karaoke- "The Bear Necessities" and "I Just Can't Wait to be King" were hits. Psalm and Tasha are great at karaoke- I never knew. I also saw many friends at Citylife Presbyterian's Sunday service and enjoyed lunch at the Chinese Dumpling Cafe afterwards.


I was also glad to be able to catch up with former roommates Lessie T. and Minwah L.  Lessie is living in a Christian house in the inner city neighborhood of Dorchester and among other things led a month-long theater camp for disadvantaged kids!


Minwah was suffering under a deluge of fruits and vegetables from her weekly farm-share distribution. Several weeks of tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, basil, dill, cucumbers, and peaches were awaiting attention. We delved in and made several dishes to stock Minwah's fridge including this delicious and simple Thai style eggplant. Yum. As usual Minwah is involved in many different outdoors activities, organizing efforts, and future plans for lengthy bike adventures and grad school. She said my backpack didn't weigh much, which just means she's really fit from hiking a bunch of winter gear around with the Outing Club.

All of the above was just 14 days, and it went by really quickly. I was honored by the reception and care that friends and family gave me during my stay.  I know you (friends and family reading this blog) are sending me your well-wishes and your prayers and I appreciate it! When Mom and Dad, Ken and I parted, we began considering when they can visit Panama themselves. If you yourself are itching to visit Central America, drop me a line!

Acción Comunitario

We are finally moving from community analysis and needs assessment into community action!

What, action? Heeheehee.

My community will be working with me on a latrine project in the coming months. Few of the families have latrines (25% have latrines, but most of those are just holes with sticks placed over the top which can be difficult/unpleasant to use). Latrines help prevent intestinal worms and diarrhea, both of which are really common here and are transmitted by contact with feces. Most people here currently "do their business" in the bushes or in the creek, which make feces more prevalent in the environment (people wash their clothes and bathe in the same creeks, at least in the section of the community that doesn't have an aqueduct water piping system). Working with Peace Corps Panama's Environmental Health program, we are searching for outside funds to help with the cost of making simple concrete pit latrines. These are basically just a small slab topped with a concrete seat over a pit, and enclosed with an outhouse that the family will construct. Community members will be doing all the labor and contributing many of the required materials for the project. We are hoping that half the monetary cost of latrines will be funded by a nonprofit organization with which Peace Corps Panama collaborates. The other half is for me to raise.

Constructing formwork for a latrine slab in another community, which I visited to gain more practice with latrines.

We are currently holding meetings which cover logistics and educate about using latrines to prevent diseases. The idea is also to give community members practice in grant-writing and organizing a project. We will be putting together a proposal in October once we know how many families are interested (probably between 20 and 60). Around December, if things go as I hope, I will be able to send a link to the Peace Corps website where interested people can donate to the project. We hope to construct in the dry season, January through March. The goals of this process are: improving community health through accelerating cultural change towards latrine use, empowering the community to design and manage their own project, and hopefully, inspiring families in the future to continue building their own affordable latrines.

In addition to the latrines, I've had the opportunity to travel around quite a bit during the month of June, collaborating and learning from other volunteers. Here are some of the activities I've been a part of this month:

I've visited communities to help with water committee seminars. These are several-day seminars put on by Peace Corps volunteers, to train the citizen committees that run Panama's rural water systems. Our trainings include skits, visual presentations, silly games, and food. I've helped out with 3 of these trainings and plan to organize one in my area with nearby volunteer Erica in September.

I helped Volunteer Laura F. construct a "toma" or water intake structure for an aqueduct. It was a long process and I was only able to come for one day, but what I saw was a valuable learning experience.  We had to build a concrete structure that would capture the water coming from a hillside spring. The first step was to build a low concrete wall on the downhill side, into which pipes are set to carry water to the community.

The water is flowing out of the layer of soil at the upper left side. It will run down this layer of bedrock into the structure.

Laura is building a clay dam to direct water into the pipe so that the concrete wall can be poured.

Good for art as well as aqueduct construction!

On another subject, but also related to clay/mud, I  learned about Lorena Stoves - made of clay and straw.  Here's one at the house of Jason C. (Iyo in Ngabere); he uses it to cook things that take a long time, like beans and baking bread in a cookpot.  I would like to help construct stoves to learn more about them. There are many different designs of homemade stoves that aim to increase fuel efficiency, helping both with deforestation and with respiratory problems caused by breathing smoke. If combustion is more complete, there is less harmful smoke. I admire the idea but don't yet know if it's the right thing to promote in my community. Others working with stoves include Aprovecho in Eugene, OR, and family friends John and Flip Anderson of Corvallis, OR.


I want to build a Lazy Circle compost pile in my house. That means sowing plants in a circle around my compost pile. I'll let you know how it goes. I'd like to grow hot peppers, tomatoes, string beans, okra, and millet.

Lazy circle of Alvaro, an organic farmer in Jason's community

I just finished a 4 day class on Ngabere, the native language. This latest training from PC aimed to get us more comfortable with the grammatical structure and even move into using the past tense(!) I have a long ways to go, but I look forward to improving more and more during my time in Panama. Spanish is the language that I speak most in-site but everything I can learn in Ngabere shows my respect for the people and their culture, and helps me understand what's going on around me.

In the coming months I'm looking forward to:

• Attending a 4-day Peace Corps seminar on Project Management and Leadership with a leader/organizer from my community
• Meetings to kick of the latrine project
• Doing some talks on nutrition and health topics
• A trip to the US the last 2 weeks of August (14-21 in Portland, 22-28 in Boston)
• Organizing a water committee seminar in my own area for September

As always thank you for your thoughts and prayers! The work is slow, but I hope fruitful.

"May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us;
    establish the work of our hands for us—
    yes, establish the work of our hands." 
Psalm 90:17

Puerco en la Playa

Every 4 months, all volunteers in a region get together for a meeting and, afterwards, a celebration.

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In our case we celebrate on the beautiful beach Las Lajas. This time around our coordinator Erin (a volunteer finishing up her 3^rd year of service) organized roasting a pig in a pit in the sand. It involved a lot of carrying logs for firewood the first night, chopping it up with an ax, digging the pit, building and monitoring the fire all night long, and epic cooking the evening of the following day. Once we exhumed the pig from its fire at 9 pm the second day we decided to debone it and stirfry it to ensure it was cooked all the way.  We dined at 11 pm on pork with BBQ sauce, seasoned salt, and boiled green bananas. It was a good thing to have a way to expend our efforts, but a challenge that I don’t think I’d want to organize myself. Once is enough for a meal that takes more than 30 hours of hard work to prepare.  This isn’t a traditional Panamanian way of cooking things either, so there were a lot of unknowns, but it turned out well.

Erin models a traditional bag

Some volunteers decide to stay on for a third year of service, either continuing with what they were doing in their initial site or doing a different project. Each region of the country has a regional leader. I appreciate the service of those who decide that they just aren’t ready to leave Panamanian food, music, and people behind after 2 years of service. I don’t think I’ll be in that situation, but bless those who do.  It means a lot to have a strong support system and leaders you can trust. Our regional leader and coordinator Erin will be taking off in a few months and this was something of a good-bye party for her.

Erin also organized a meeting with the ministry of health, specifically the department that works in water and sanitation systems (just like us!). The technician for my area happens to be holding a training for members of my larger community in a couple weeks, on June 13. He’ll be talking about how to make repairs to existing water systems as well as dropping off some supplies  for small concrete repairs to aqueducts. I hope to attend this and provide some more lasting follow-up and technical expertise in certain communities near mine. (Though within my exact community, we don’t yet have a water system at all.) I also hope increase my collaboration with the ministry of health (which I haven’t really done so far). Some volunteers choose to work more with Panama’s government agencies and some work nearly entirely with nonprofits.  Increasing collaboration with Panama’s agencies ensures that our work makes a more lasting effect, but the bureaucracy and tight schedules of the employees can be a frustrating challenge. As for me, I’m just starting.   

My Minchi

I have a new love: a cat, ("minchi" in Ngabere, the native language).

Her name is Mechi, a woman's name. She's about 7 weeks old now and is the daughter of another Peace Corps Volunteer's cat. I can babble on like a parent about her sleeping, eating, pooping, and playing habits. She's brought some spice to my life in the last few weeks. We like to cuddle, something I hadn't realized was missing in my life. During the day, the neighbor kids and the cat entertain each other. That's a very good thing for me, because they both have a lot of energy. Mechi likes playing with my shoes: she likes my sandals and flip flops for their straps, my shoes for their laces, and my boots for the cavernous space inside.

Cats and dogs are popular companions for both the locals and other Peace Corps volunteers.  They vary widely in their health and eating habits. Dogs are valued for barking at visitors and at night, while cats are valued for hunting mice.  I know some of the dogs on a first name basis: when I see them, I know their owner should be just around the corner! Other pets people have include rabbits, parrots, and parakeets, and one family has a "conejo pintado" or painted rabbit (similar to a nutria).

Mechi is the first pet  for which I'm solely responsible- a big step for me. And as with everything here in Panama, there's a cross cultural dimension. How much will I treat her like an American cat and how much like a Panamanian? How will that affect her future? A spoiled Volunteer's pet has a hard time in the Comarca once the volunteer goes home and leaves it behind. And for volunteers that choose to bring a pet home to the States, the pet has a stressful adaptation to a very different lifestyle.  At this point, I plan on leaving Mechi with my friendly neighbor Beni when I depart for the States. I can't say that I'll have a cat-friendly home or lifestyle when I return.

It's a bit of a fight to encourage Mechi to eat a varied diet: cat chow as well as  people food such as rice, beans, and pasta. It's essential for her to be a flexible eater. In the future, she'll have to eat people food, and whatever she can hunt up in the bush.

Some volunteers decide to neuter their animals, following the prevailing ethic in the States, but others don't, reasoning that one intervention doesn't matter much. Besides, future owners of female pets can sell the puppies or kittens. At this point I'd like to spay Mechi - I don't want to deal with kittens- and am looking into options in the next few months.  I am reminded of this story on NPR about a neutering culture-clash in Iraq.

Bath time with flea shampoo! It's for your own good, really...

Mi casa, su casa

Here I am, with the contents of my house spread out on the grass. (We treated my home with pesticide in an attempt to kill the little bugs that are eating my bamboo siding.)  My neighbors came over and observed, "Begui, you have a lot of stuff."  I do, compared with them, and I've always been a bit of a hoarder besides. As much as it may look like I'm living the simple life, I'm definitely not on the margin. Take a look at a similar series of photos from around the world.

I don't like things that emphasize the difference between me and the Panamanians., whether that's how much stuff I have in the house, how much money I make every month (something they can only guess at), or the opportunities that I have for education, travel, and career advancement.  I don't like people pointing out the gap between us. There's one man in my community for whom the United States, I think, stands for everything good; all golden opportunity. When I go over to his house he says things like, "You've come to see how the other world lives,"  "Over there they don't sleep on hard bamboo beds like this do they?" or "Over there you won't see babies playing in the dirt like ours, will you?"  The way he says it feels like an accusation.

 But it's true, we're not the same in many ways.  In other ways, our humanity and spirituality, culture and nation don't matter.  Part of the process of cultural adaptation, I'm told, is becoming more comfortable in your own shoes. When coming from one culture to another, I have to find the space I stand, in-between.


I just added some photos to the previous post so if  you've already read that one, take another look.