Currently I sit in Changinola awaiting my regional meeting with the other 30 volunteers within the Bocas Del Toro area. Sadly today we will hear from the Peace Corps Panama director about how we will not be able to continue with our desired growth plan for Peace Corps Panama given that the budget has not passed yet. Peace Corps Washington has asked all agencies to scale back their growth plans in fear that we will not get the budget increase we were hoping for. In effect, our Community Economic Development program is getting slashed and the intended implementation of a Youth Development program is not going forward.
Yesterday we did agency visits to get acquainted with potential stakeholders that we could work with throughout our projects with our communities. I continually questioned different agencies about whether they worked in the area of my site location. Playa Balsa sits in a difficult location. Geographically considered in Bocas Del Toro, but politically apart of the Comarca Ngabe-Bugle. It would seem that we should work more with the Comarca Ngabe-Bugle whose headquarters are in San Felix on the Chirique side, but given our distance, they most likely don't even know my community exists. Which is part of my role as a volunteer, trying to get my community more agency recognition.
I have now been in my site for three months and have come to the end of the reserved period of Proyecto Amistad (Project Friendship). I have visited every house multiple times, hauled lots of heavy vegetable bags, thatch roofing, and firewood (engaging in back breaking labor seems to have earned me the most respect among the community), and had three interactive community meetings (consisting of a community map, seasonal caledar, and daily activity schedules). I will present all that I have learned about the community on February 1st with my APCD (Associate Peace Corps Director aka Boss) present and engage my community in activities intended to prioritize their desires for the community. It seems clear that they will express wanting a better water system as the first project. But while the communities we work with consistently see the actual infrastructure as our biggest contribution to their communities, we consistently try to promote our lead role as capacity development and education. Pushing the health side of our assignment while recognizing that the infrastructure will ultimately be my legacy.
Most of time over these last weeks have been dedicated toward working on my home. Its been a struggle to understand and feel comfortable with the workparty culture in my community. I have struggled with the sense of entitlement my community members have in relation to workparties. Nobody will work unless they know there will be food, and everybody is always asking what kind of meat will be bought for the occasion. Looking back on my first month in site I remeber now that one work party never happend because nobody had bought meat for the occasion.
My supposed counterpart has been less than helpful in planning work parties at times. He always just asks me "You bring the money" in the wari-wari english that I barely understand. When I asked him what kind of meat I should buy for the work party he told me I should slaughter a cow. He was being slightly sarcastic, but I think he was hoping I would jump on the idea. So, I continue to struggle with trying to convey that I am not a rich American. I gave a very successful speech the other day about this. I explained that I am a Peace Corps VOLUNTEER, that I have left all options of making money behind in the United States and have chosen to serve this community for the next two years with only enough money to get by. I told them that unlike the government projects they are used to, the Peace Corps comes with no money. That I am not a financial resource but rather a human resource. I come educated and capacitated to look for funds for future projects from potentially all around the world, but that we will seek this together. And amazingly I think this speech really worked. Two nights later my counterpart started talking about how I am a gringo, but a poor gringo. Which really just reinforces my understanding that they have equated gringo with rich. So I hope that this struggle will lessen as I continue to articulate what my role as a volunteer is and bust their misconceptions of Americans.
My home is coming along nicely and I´m working hard to have it ready for Helen´s visit on February 12th. I have the panka roof almost entirely done and am hoping that my woodcutter has finished cutting the wood for the walls, so that "all we need to do" is haul it out of the forest and nail it up. Of course I will still need to hold multiple juntas (workparties) that require making food as the incentive for the men to come. Which I´ve become much more comfortable with after another volunteer and I discussed that helping out with manual labor like this is a day lost to look for food for the family and themselves, and thus, they need food in compensation.
I look so forward to having my own space after 6 months of host families. Being able to cook for myself and have some privacy. When I stand on my new floor and look out at the ocean I feel so content and excited, and I believe this private space will be a wonderful contribution to my effectiveness with the rest of my service. Once my house is done, its all forces ahead to work with the community on what I´m really here to do (improve and educate about water and sanitation).
On an exciting note I helped haul a boat out of the jungle the other day. Incredible! These boats they make here are just hollowed out tree trunks. They weigh a ton and we hauled this one up a huge hill and back down with about 10 people. Enjoying lots of chicha along the way and a dinner at the end (the junta incentive). I can´t believe how much that puppy weighed and it was just a little boat. Sometimes they haul out huge one´s with 40 people.
I can´t get images to load on here so please check out facebook!
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Monday, January 3, 2011
5 Week Stretch
I´m currently out of site after a five week stretch there. I must say I think it was at least one week two long. A lot of volunteers get out at least for the day to internet or a grocery store every two weeks, but I think three weeks is the ideal. By the time I met up with my friends I was so ready and so happy to see them. To have people to relate to, to process with, and to vent to. Being so cut off from my family and friends, with cell phone reception a hour walk away, and the added difficulty of having enough minutes and battery to talk, makes my site both a blessing and a curse. It´s a very unique and humbleing experience to live so cut off from the world. There is constant moments for reflection, hamaca, and getting closer with my community. But it also must be balanced with my own personal sanity. Which I realize now will require shorter stretches of time in my site without leaving, and more communication via phone. I´m going to try and check my messages once a week so if you wish to leave a message please call 6487-6131. I think this phone number is going to become my primary phone now so please try to reach me there.
My time in site has been very productive and intense. I came back from Thanks Giving after a spout of Giardia and moved into another host family´s home. So for the month of December I was living with one of four community members who actually has a consistent income outside of welfare. It´s a stark difference and only after having the ability to compare December with November was I able to realize just how difficult November had been. Rather than ñame three times a day, I was getting a fried egg with fried bread (oholdra) for breakfast, multiple vegetables for lunch and dinner (though still always too much starch because all vegetables are tubers), and often fish or chicken´s neck or beef. Its funny how chicken´s neck has become a delicacy for me down here so quickly. I had a door with a lock on it, and a wooden bed built off the ground to protect me from the cockroaches-all things I did not have before. I learned to simply pay $10 per week rather than come accross the difficulty I had last month after providing food. And with this arrangement I felt more inclined to buy chicken neck or eggs throughout the month as an extra little gift, rather than being constantly asked for more money-I was able to provide more by choice rather than awkward obligation. I enjoyed nightly cuentas historicas about the jackrabbit tricking the tiger or of the dog, how dogs became man´s best friend, how a dolphin saved a man by taking him on a ride on his back passed out over the course of three days. Many stories my host father asked me to believe without doubting his word, no matter how impossible they sounded. He is a great story teller though and a skilled wood cutter.
I have been accompanying my host father of this month into the jungle to cut the wood for my house. I must say that I fear my house will at least result in 4 large fallen trees to be molded into lumber by Julian´s chainsaw, and then hauled out of the jungle by my community members only with the incentive of coffee and Johney Cakes (bread baked with coconut milk) as reward. Its hard to have every element of help I need for my house require some food offering, but that is simply the culture here. And the work they are doing, I can contest is extremely difficult because I am always right beside them experiencing it first hand.
One of my tougher moments over these weeks occured on Christmas day as I walked through a small town on my way to cell phone reception already feeling homesick and lonely. I saw the casique (chief with very little modern political power) and asked him how he was doing. He said fine but that his kid was sick with a hernia and yellow fever. That the doctor had told him he needed to go to David to get him help but the man explained that there was no money to achieve this. I saw his son sitting there uncomfortable and with the white´s of his eyes yellow and struggled with what I could say, do, or advise. I talked to the dad about how a kid had died in his community 3 months before and how he really needed to do what he could to get his son help. He told me more stories of others who had died from not getting to the doctor and then explained that the health worker he had seen for his son had also recommended candy in exchange for getting him help in David. And over the last week I have tried to explain to him that the candy recommendation was second to real medical help, but he continues to buy candy claiming that its all he can do. In some ways I already find myself becoming slightly aclimated to events such as these. Knowing that I cannot be the one to lend or give the money, nor force kids to wash their hands after pooping, there is a part of me that looks at the state of these people and echos their claim of "this is just how it is." But when I take a step back and explain what I just saw to family or friends, or process these moments with other volunteers it becomes so evident how horrific much of what we are seeing is. That things should not be this way and that change must come. After talking to my mother and reading I believe that this boy did not have yellow fever but more likely Hep A after poop to mouth contamination. Which yet again proves the importance of proper sanitation and hygiene. When I left the family said the boy was getting a little better and I have tried to provide whatever advice I can from my where there is no doctor medical reference book, and will continue to check in on him.
Favorite moment over my entire time living in Playa Balsa was when I went to the finca to harvest with my host brother and sister and met a medical man deep in the jungle who was working on his pineapple plantation. When he saw me he immediately began beaming and smileing largely, signaling for us to come to his home. There his wife worked on making michila (cooked mashed ripe bananas of some sort with coconuut milk). They gave us all michila, me with the largest, drinking from the gord. Everything my host brother explained to me from how Ngabes used to only drink and eat from gords as plates, bowls, and cups, or that the michila was made from maduro platanos cuadrados the husband and wife would immidiately hand me as a gift. " Take this gord, here take these platanos cuadrados, this yampi (purple root vegetable). He showed me what each plant could be used for that were planted around the house and explained to me that he used to live out here before a family member´s baby died out there three years before. So he moved closer into "town." They were the sweetest peoiple and that night I wrote in my journal that if ever I question humanity to remeber the generosity and kindness of these two. It was a beautiful day.
  Making Johney Cakes for Mother's Day  |
| Frame of my home |
My time in site has been very productive and intense. I came back from Thanks Giving after a spout of Giardia and moved into another host family´s home. So for the month of December I was living with one of four community members who actually has a consistent income outside of welfare. It´s a stark difference and only after having the ability to compare December with November was I able to realize just how difficult November had been. Rather than ñame three times a day, I was getting a fried egg with fried bread (oholdra) for breakfast, multiple vegetables for lunch and dinner (though still always too much starch because all vegetables are tubers), and often fish or chicken´s neck or beef. Its funny how chicken´s neck has become a delicacy for me down here so quickly. I had a door with a lock on it, and a wooden bed built off the ground to protect me from the cockroaches-all things I did not have before. I learned to simply pay $10 per week rather than come accross the difficulty I had last month after providing food. And with this arrangement I felt more inclined to buy chicken neck or eggs throughout the month as an extra little gift, rather than being constantly asked for more money-I was able to provide more by choice rather than awkward obligation. I enjoyed nightly cuentas historicas about the jackrabbit tricking the tiger or of the dog, how dogs became man´s best friend, how a dolphin saved a man by taking him on a ride on his back passed out over the course of three days. Many stories my host father asked me to believe without doubting his word, no matter how impossible they sounded. He is a great story teller though and a skilled wood cutter.
 |
| Hauling a 16 foot 4x4 |
 |
| That chainsaw will cut every board of my house |
One of my tougher moments over these weeks occured on Christmas day as I walked through a small town on my way to cell phone reception already feeling homesick and lonely. I saw the casique (chief with very little modern political power) and asked him how he was doing. He said fine but that his kid was sick with a hernia and yellow fever. That the doctor had told him he needed to go to David to get him help but the man explained that there was no money to achieve this. I saw his son sitting there uncomfortable and with the white´s of his eyes yellow and struggled with what I could say, do, or advise. I talked to the dad about how a kid had died in his community 3 months before and how he really needed to do what he could to get his son help. He told me more stories of others who had died from not getting to the doctor and then explained that the health worker he had seen for his son had also recommended candy in exchange for getting him help in David. And over the last week I have tried to explain to him that the candy recommendation was second to real medical help, but he continues to buy candy claiming that its all he can do. In some ways I already find myself becoming slightly aclimated to events such as these. Knowing that I cannot be the one to lend or give the money, nor force kids to wash their hands after pooping, there is a part of me that looks at the state of these people and echos their claim of "this is just how it is." But when I take a step back and explain what I just saw to family or friends, or process these moments with other volunteers it becomes so evident how horrific much of what we are seeing is. That things should not be this way and that change must come. After talking to my mother and reading I believe that this boy did not have yellow fever but more likely Hep A after poop to mouth contamination. Which yet again proves the importance of proper sanitation and hygiene. When I left the family said the boy was getting a little better and I have tried to provide whatever advice I can from my where there is no doctor medical reference book, and will continue to check in on him.
Favorite moment over my entire time living in Playa Balsa was when I went to the finca to harvest with my host brother and sister and met a medical man deep in the jungle who was working on his pineapple plantation. When he saw me he immediately began beaming and smileing largely, signaling for us to come to his home. There his wife worked on making michila (cooked mashed ripe bananas of some sort with coconuut milk). They gave us all michila, me with the largest, drinking from the gord. Everything my host brother explained to me from how Ngabes used to only drink and eat from gords as plates, bowls, and cups, or that the michila was made from maduro platanos cuadrados the husband and wife would immidiately hand me as a gift. " Take this gord, here take these platanos cuadrados, this yampi (purple root vegetable). He showed me what each plant could be used for that were planted around the house and explained to me that he used to live out here before a family member´s baby died out there three years before. So he moved closer into "town." They were the sweetest peoiple and that night I wrote in my journal that if ever I question humanity to remeber the generosity and kindness of these two. It was a beautiful day.
 |
Making Michila |
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