Don't think this day can get any weirder...

What a morning! I might as well preface the story by saying that for the past few days I have been getting up at dawn to cook for a medical gira that has been going on in site and staying up late to practice for the "cascanueces" so I'm a little loopy from lack of sleep. It's good to be working but still... ANYWAY...

Today we were going to bring the recycling to Las Tablas and, in my fog, I'm getting it ready to go in the morning when I find that someone has disposed of a saco of garbage including vials of glucose and used needles. Gracias a Dios, I didn't get stuck but this is the second time in my life I've been THISCLOSE to getting pricked by some random dirty needles. (The other time was walking around Baltimore in my flip flops... I almost stepped on one. Freaky!) Even though nothing happened it makes you think about how random life can be. One minute I'm just cleaning up trash and then the next I might have had to set up an HIV test. Sheesh. And the Ministerio de Salud wouldn't even help me set up HIV screening for my site.

The insanity wasn't over though. On our way to Las Tablas the car's tire CATCHES ON FIRE! Not just smoking, no, IN FLAMES! Big ones. It turns out the brake fluid had leaked all over it and the friction caused a fire. My friend was able to put it out and make it to Tonosi but he was unable to repair the car in time for me to make it to the recycling plant because I have to be back in site to meet some Peace Corps trainees who I fully plan on terrifying with this story :-). Luckily we're all ok so it's nothing more than an inconvenience.

I'm looking forward to meeting the new kids. We will have a lot to do with the play coming up tomorrow and I'm going to make them help me with random projects once that it over... and also build my friend Franklin's house (just kidding). No relaxing on the beach for these folks! Well... we'll make a little time for that too.

Sometimes the Stars Allign Just Right

These past couple weeks have been just mind blowing. Super busy but paying off in big ways. I got word from my boss that our computer donation came through so we've got 15 computers waiting for us in Panama City!!! We still will have to look for equipment such as surge protectors and whatnot but this is huge! We've just got to coordinate the transportation and we're good to go. Next step will be classes in how to use and care for the equipment. Then the big hurdle, internet.

Our sea turtles are hatching!!! Last night, I got to count the babies so I actually got to hold them in my hands. It was amazing, to say the least. It's a huge relief that the vivero works because the first nest was slow to hatch so I thought the eggs might have been friend or destroyed by bugs or something but, no, the babies were just taking their sweet time.




We've also starting practice for the Nutcracker. I'm not going to lie, the 1st one was absurd and really not coordinated but who cares as long as people are having fun. I hope we get everything ready by the show date of the 27th... It's going to be an insane amount of work but its a great way to get people united and getting kids more confident on themselves. Truth be told, the girl playing Clara, the star, is a natural. For someone that has never acted or even been exposed to this kind of thing, she's really amazing. Her brother is playing the Nutcracker and they practiced the waltz even though he had gash on his foot from a surf injury. If that's not dedication, I don't know what is. Dude was bleeding all over the place.

I wish the best for you and yours!

In heaven everything is fine

I see some resemblance. Just call me the Lady in the Radiator... except this country doesn't need radiators.

Good times, owies and everything between

I hope you all had a great holiday and New Year! This year I decided to spend them in site and although I really missed my family and friends back home, I'm glad I got to see how Panamanians get down for Christmas. It was super-low key and the Church didn't even open but I tried to spread some cheer giving out Christmas cards. I think people liked it. New Years was a lot more interesting. An ex-pat friend threw a party for the whole town and asked me to help with games. Two friends from the region came to help and I'm so glad they decided to make it because it turned out to be a big job! We ended up being the life of the party and even the adults got in on the musical chairs action and what not!


(The calm before the crazy/ my community is now in love with Dylan and Kenny and want to have their babies.)


("Towel Dancing" More like Dirty Dancing if you ask me. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaw yeah.)


(Limbo time)


(Burn mother phoenix, burn)

Other than that, things have been a little slow with the holidays around and all. I'm still trying to get an HIV prevention talk in town, still trying to put on the Nutcracker, still planning the environmental feria, still working with the turtle group. The New Year promises to be a good one, loaded with activities. The only other news is that I got my wisdom teeth removed yesterday. I look like a chipmunk. Everything seems to have gone well and I'm fine besides being awake at 4am posting to this blog because I can't sleep because my face hurts. The stuff they gave me for the pain works about as well as baby aspirin but I'll soldier through, like a real PCV. :-) The whole thing went by really fast. I remember being really nervous in the dentist chair, then they knocked me out The next thing I know I'm being shoved into a cab going back to the hotel, then the cabbie is shoving me inside, then the doorman is shoving me into my room. I don't really remember much of it. Respect to the other volunteers who checked in on me and everything that day. It means so much to me! You guys are great!

Until next time.

Soy un playero pero no hay playa. OH MY GOLLY! OH MY GOLLY!

Hey HEY hey! These past couple weeks have been an emotional roller coaster and super busy! It started on a bittersweet note with Thanksgiving. The sweet part was that I had a great time with my fellow volunteers in Cerro Punta enjoying the cool mountain weather and GREAT food. I could have bathed in that vat of mac and cheese. Seeing everybody again was cool, I wish we could have spent more time to catch up. I got to call my family too! My friend from the mountains of Chepo, Deidre, came back afterward to my site with me and helped us look for turtle eggs. We didn't see any but she got to see eggs that the other group found at least. Plus she got to hang on the beach!

T-Day Dinner


There was some bitter afterward though. I had been working on getting the Centro de Salud to do a talk for World AIDS Day (Dec 1st). I was hoping that they could actually do testing in my town. They said they couldn't so I came to terms with that. Then they were too busy on the 1st. Fair enough, I accepted that as well and we made plans for them to come on the 2nd. On the 1st I ran up and down town inviting EVERYONE to the talk but what happened the next day? No one showed up. No explanation, no nothing. I took it really hard because I had been doubting my work and am starting to feel like I'm running out of time here. I tore myself up and got all angsty but when I chilled out and got proactive and gave the hospital a call, it turns out that there was MASSIVE flooding in Tonosi and not only were they in emergency mode, the road to my site was underwater. Wow... so there was a very good reason that we got stood up. We'll just have to reschedule for later. At least I have a giant box of condoms from my homeboys at NIDA.

A wonderful ex-pat and I partnered up like last year for making mothers day cards. It was a lot of fun. SO MUCH GLITTER! It's wonderful to see the kids (and parents too) getting creative. The ex-pat has the idea to put on the Nutcracker for Christmas. I think it's really ambitious but a wonderful idea. It's asking my community to go completely outside their comfort zone but I think that might be a good thing. I hope I can be a help! I did direct "No Exit" in college... same thing right?




My neighbor volunteer, Katie, and I are also being ambitious. We're trying to arrange a sort of environmental festival in Tonosi, the capital of our district. The idea is that we invite our respective turtle conservation groups, the government agencies, and eco-tourism business owners to do talks for the community so they learn about conservation and learn what groups are doing in our district. While that's going on we'll have fun games for the kids like a toss the recycling carnival-style game, dramatizations of a turtles life, and maybe a bob for seaweed game with grapes or something for actual seaweed. To finish the event we're thinking a movie showing. I'm thinking "Finding Nemo" but we'll see what works...

Speaking of the turtle group, we're doing ok. We have 15 nests in our vivero and one is Leatherback eggs! Very endangered, and in terms of the groups success, the fact that we have Leatherbacks will definitely get big, well-funded, international conservation organizations interested in us. I hope we keep finding them. I have yet to see an actual turtle in my site but I set a batch of eggs in the vivero myself! I hope I did it right and that the turtles don't die.

The turtle group, CTTC, made it through their first trial by fire when one of the directive members misappropriated funds. Really blatantly... like... really stupidly... shockingly... wow. What happened was that we are working with Conservation International and they wanted us to make some food for their workshop and they needed a place to stay as well. The directive agreed to sell plates at $2 but the individual proceeded to make a separate arrangement with CI for $4. So half the money essentially disappeared. The member maintains that she moved the money around for lodging and a separate, second meal, and that none of the extra went into her pocket. This was supported by a handwritten "receipt" written by herself. I like to think she really was acting with good intentions and was ignorant of how bad what she was doing looked from the outside, especially since she is the one who essentially set up the reformation of the turtle conservation group. In the end her "crime" is not so much robbery as acting in secret, which is something we will correct at our next meeting when we write the bylaws. The icing on the cake was that Conservation International actually offered to pay the CTTC what they should have received on the $4. In other words, not only were they misled, THEY OFFERED TO PAY FOR OUR MISTAKE! This was super embarrassing for all of us and we declined. It was quite a gesture though. They will not let us fail. They are inviting a national news channel to do a story on us too! Look for us on your Panama stataion, I guess.


Working hard has gotten me through the spazz-out I had over the AIDS day event and things are going well. On top of all of the stuff I've mentioned I also met with my community to choose a course from INADEH, a government agency that offers a wide variety of classes within communities. The people have spoken and they chose beauty classes. Good for me because I just gave myself a pretty terrible haircut.

I was going to go around and sign more people up for the class yesterday but I had another one of those migraines and couldn't get out of bed all day. I'm fine today I just wish I knew why I keep getting them. I thought it was connected to this sinus problem but the last Dr. I saw gave me some medicines that cleared up my sinuses so now I don't know... Also, my top left wisdom tooth has broken through the gum and that's kind of hurting too so I'll probably get those yanked out when I'm in Panama the 13th to do PML training. In funny (sort-of) health-related news the last time we went to look for turtle eggs, I had to walk barefoot because of mud and I stepped on a giant thorn. I thought I had taken the spine out but it was still hurting a week later so I grabbed a pin, tweezers, and matches to do some campo surgery and when I started digging around in the pad of my foot it started pussing... A LOT! Like a tablespoon or more there. It was pretty awesome. I squeeze and then all of the sudden a quarter inch long piece of thorn shoots out!!! How did I walk around on that for a week? I felt much better. Not as cool as bot-flies or anything but I wish I had video so you all could appreciate the wonders of the body's immune system.

Anyway, as I mentioned I was selected to help with PML (Project Management Leadership) for the new group. I'm really excited because when I was a participant, it totally turned my service around. It might have helped me even more than my counterpart in terms of getting confident and getting priorities straight.

I hope everything is going well with all you readers. I'd love some comments about what's going on with you. Until next time, much love. I'll leave you all with a picture from Hailey's birthday celebration. We're watching a trailer for an awesome movie about aliens and cowboys and I like that everyone it laughing. I don't know... it's cute

Life is Calling

[An essay I'm going to try to get into our volunteer magazine "La Vaina"]

When the John F. Kennedy administration created the Peace Corps on September 22nd 1961, the United States was suffering a major public relations crisis. That year, Fidel Castro's victory in the Bay of Pigs thoroughly embarrassed the country and solidified popular support for Cuba, which at that time, had few allies among the governments of Latin America. In response to this black eye, and to make less tempting Marxist rebellion in the region, Kennedy proposed the "Alliance for Progress", a $20 billion program for land reform and wealth distribution in the region, and the creation of the Peace Corps, in a move Castro called "a very astute strategy for putting the brakes on the revolution". By 1962, there were seven Peace Corps countries in Latin America alone. So, if the Peace Corps was created in part to kill Marxism, where does that leave patriotic, leftist volunteers who have asked what they can do for their country? Can a government employee be a progressive?
Firstly, it is important to acknowledge that the Alliance for Progress, although an ultimate failure, and the Peace Corps were concessions to the Left. This is why they were effective, for a time, in corralling Cuba's growing regional influence. While certainly as far as possible from Marxist, the Peace Corps is leftist in the sense that it is designed to address root causes of poverty by aiding the advancement of disadvantaged people and in that we work with local cooperatives as opposed to corporations. Further, we are internationalists as opposed to nationalists, inclusive and not exclusive, capacity-building and not patronizing.
Secondly, we must remember that we are here with a political agenda. Of course, it would be incredibly inappropriate for us as foreign professionals working in a sovereign nation to instigate political activities of any kind but, as staff reminds us, we are representatives of the United States. We are part of a public relations campaign to bolster the image of the US abroad and, we are symbols of the friendship between our home country and our host country. The fact that we are Americans volunteering in disadvantaged communities is designed not only to give community members greater capacity to improve their own lives, but also to make the point the Americans are awfully nice people, so maybe our political agenda is not so bad either. This is goal number two. This implicit campaign of which all volunteers are a part carries with it great responsibility (think of our compadres who have been sent home for inappropriate behavior) but it also presents us with unique opportunities.
As community leaders we are in the perfect position to seek out and aid those who would like to see Panama become a more progressive country. However, as a politically neutral entity we cannot do so directly. Just because Che was in the business of exporting his own Latin blend of Marxist-Leninism does not mean that we should. What we can do, and what we have the responsibility to do is support groups, programs, and events that advance progressive ethics. GAD's work with community counterparts in addressing Panama's immense gender divide is a wonderful example. And all volunteers who attack racism, misogyny, homophobia, lack of access to education, etc. are doing their part in the struggle. Every time we help a cooperative or community group make itself stronger and more independent, we are moving forward. The most revolutionary thing we can do as volunteers is helping campesinos appreciate their own worth and feel that they can control their own destiny. Slowly but surely we are encouraging the development of a culture that one day may allow real, fundamental changes to the economic structure that disproportionately rewards the already wealthy and funnels scarce resources away from the poor.
As hard as we work here in country, it would be a waste to abandon our efforts when we return home. The experience we are gaining ought to be used to bring about change in our own neighborhoods. We could organize organic community gardens to reduce our dependence on corporate agriculture, start literacy classes for the homeless, teach English to recent immigrants, start sewing clubs so we don't have to buy sweat-shop products, or an adaptation of any one of the great projects Peace Corps volunteers are involved in here in Panama. Taking our experience into more political territory, we could work with labor groups. Think of a PML with fruit pickers or bus drivers! Dare I imagine hosting a GAD-style camp with Baltimore's young gang members!
Marxists might say that these activities are nothing more than a band-aid on a severed limb because they do nothing to change the "system" i.e. the marriage between big business, the military, and the government. But it is time to expand our definition of a revolutionary. It is not just a group of bearded men in green hats running around the mountains. It is not only a cloister of priests setting themselves on fire or men in wigs signing parchment. Change can come peacefully and without a media circus or a place in the history books. In this age of constant police surveillance and a US military budget of $533.8 billion, we should not be tempted by militaristic reactionary action. Violence, even the illusion of violence, only provides the corporate establishment with an excuse to crack down on any progress in wealth distribution, making it futile. The murders of 19th century strikers at the hands of the Pinkertons, the 1968 Democratic National Convention debacle, the assassination of Black Panthers, and the attack on the Kent State protesters demonstrate that our government has no problem eliminating citizens that are even perceived as a threat. In such an environment, change can only come quietly from the heart.
We need to work calmly but tirelessly in order to advance our cause based in our own values. If nothing else, Peace Corps has taught us patience and the value of slow but sure progress, and we can outlast and survive the most frustrating setbacks. We are an endless fount of creative solutions. In this era of complacency, it is vital that we give as much as we can to as many as we can, that we animate as many as we can. I would encourage you all to practice what you learn here back home and never forget who you are, an agent of change.

Everything that happens will happen today

So much to catch up on as usual! I've had my bestest buddy from the states come visit. We had a blast although it was too short of a trip. I've gone back home and got my malieante on shooting with my fam and boyfriend. I went with my brother, sister-in-law, niece, and nephew to Busch Gardens and had one heck of a time! Sadly, I did not have a camera at that time so there are no pictures of how adorable they are. More recently, I've been traveling a lot this month. I spent some time in Pedasi, helping my NIDA friends establish a recycling program there. I think this thing will get easier as we go. I got to meet the famous Pucha, a surfer who came to learn about the project. I went to Isla Canas again (that place is like crack to me apparently) to help with a self esteem charla at the school fair. I'm not sure I'm the most qualified person for a self esteem talk because I'm not sure about... anything really... but it was still a great event and I hope I contributed something. I made some time for fun travel as well when I went to Guarare to enjoy the Mejorana festival, the prettiest party Panama has to offer. It's a celebration of the patron saint and a time to indulge in all thing tipico. It's supposedly illegal to play any music that isn't tipico in the town center during the festival. My friend Dave got himself a pair of cutarras and I even picked up my very own Panama hat finally! I also saw off two of my good buddies from the previous group who have finished their service. I'm sad to see them go but glad to have met them here. Good luck Azuer-bros!

In site, I've been working my tail off, trying to compensate for the fact that I have been out of site so much. I held a recycling competition in town. It was a blast but one team missed the point and just started grabbing bags of trash from people's houses. I admire their will to win, but trash isn't the same as recycling so we ended up sifting through a calf deep pile of filth for about two extra hours. We took the recycling to the plant but it was also kind of a disaster because the plastic machine is broken so they didn't want to take our plastics... which was pretty much 2/3 of the trash. I also apparently misunderstood the definition of "carton" so we had to eat that too. Que va? In the end, we're raising consciousness and even though I'm fairly certain this project will collapse the day I leave, at least the town has heard the word "recycling".

In brighter news, the computer thing is off to a much better start. We're starting fund raising as I write this and have almost finished our proposal. We still lack a treasurer but I'm sure someone will step up. I'm going to propose that we sell snacks during Dia de Campesino so I might get to be one of those meat on a stick ladies I love so much! I'm starting to feel like my time is winding down so I'm getting a little panicky about getting things done. I feel like I'm just starting to act like a real volunteer but it's almost time to go... sort of. When people ask me about if I'll request a follow up volunteer, I've talked a lot of smack about my site not really wanting or needing one but things have changed. All of a sudden there is a lot of work to do and finally people are involving me in it. At this point, I'll probably want to request a follow up just to finish the stuff I won't get to.

The other day, guides from the Isla Canas turtle cooperative came over to talk in the school. It was fun to have such energetic and enthusiastic people around and they loved my site. They did a really great job but I got nervous when the talk went from teaching the kids about a turtle's life journey to talking with this one teacher about the failure of my town's cooperative. She just got unbelievably defensive... or maybe it's just her way of talking. Anyway, I really just wanted to get the thing back on track with the kids but it took about twenty minutes. Then a weird thing happened today that might have been fallout from the class. I don't want to be paranoid, but a grandmother here that usually is super nice to me (she made me sleep in her house when I was sick with one of my vomit-inducing migraines) saw me coming down the street and didn't say hi. I say hi and ask how she's doing and just shakes her finger no at me. I'm just not sure what that meant. It's possible that she didn't want neighbors to know she was passing by for some reason or that she was sick and didn't want me to be so loud and enthusiastic in my greeting. She is a dyed in the wool turtle egg hunter though and I'm afraid that she was offended that I offered her son a class that essentially said that it was wrong. She's pretty quick to get brava with people so I wouldn't be surprised. I don't blame her or look down on the family for poaching eggs. This family in particular has almost no options in terms of making money and so they do what they can. They also just like going out and seeing turtles at night. I think they may not see the connecting between selling eggs and seeing turtles though. Anyway... In a weird coincidence of timing, the turtle coop here is restarting and invited me to a meeting the day after the talk in the school. I hope it goes well.


"Classes" are going ok but I really shouldn't call them classes. When they are in the mood, kids ask "Hey when are you teaching classes?" and I almost always respond, "Come by in the afternoon" and we go from there. The thing is, I've learned there is no point in planning a class when the kids only come when they feel like it anyway. I've gotten better about putting something together in about five minutes and I usually just try to reinforce what they are learning in school so it's not so bad. My little buddy Maria has been a solid rock star though. She shows up everyday I'm home and she is amazing. She's eight years old and can form simple English sentances. Today we were working on "to be" using emotion vocabulary. I ask "Are you happy?" she goes, "Yes, I am happy". "Are you sad?". "No, I am not sad." WHAT??!! How does she do that!? She's a pretty amazing kid. She's super into animals and the other day a cat ate one of her birds. She said it was bad that animals eat other animals. I tried to explain that it's just how nature is and she said that nature is bad... deep yo. I'll leave you all to ponder that until next time.