Panama Firsts

WALT, THIS IS FOR YOU!!!


Things I Had Never Done Before Peace Corps (besides the normal speak Spanish/ meet Panamanians type stuff)

Eaten a turtle egg
Made hojaldres! YUUUUUUUUUUUM!!!
Been so excited to eat fresh black pepper. This actually goes for a lot of foods. MUSTARD!!! HONEY!!! BREAD!!!
Been so hungry that I didn't mind fake yellow cheese
Had someone offer to buy Maria cookies off of me
Seen that my cereal was crawling with ants but eating it anyway, after trying to sift them out, of course
Seen a cock fight
Seen a rodeo
Showered in a sink
Showered outside with a bucket in the dark but still in plain view of the Ngobe community
Desperately pooped behind a tree on the beach then wiped with my Spanish workbook
(In a related first) almost od'ed on antibiotics because the doc didn't say I should take each course separately
Been pooped on by a lizard
Been bitten by an iguana
Enjoyed being at a dance club
Had to wait by the side of the road for a good long minute because a herd of cows were passing
Played hand drums while we all jammed some tamborito tunes
Waded through calf deep swamp muck just because I was curious about where the path went to
Had so many 8 to 13 year old male friends... well... really they just like the SNES games on my computer
Swam in the Caribbean and the Pacific within the same month or so
Had bug bites on my privates

Moving Day!

We lost another good one but at least there is a nice picture of her eating some dreds.



TREE OF LIFE!



So I'm slowing moving my way into my new house/ office. Almost everything was set from the beginning which was great but I have to buy kitchen stuff and things like that. I need to buy gas for the stove because it was supposedly jacked by the people who administered the building last. Hmm... I'm really excited to have a place to sort of call my own.

I'm teaching a lot of classes and running an "English Club" at nights. It's essentially another class because people are too pena-ed to participate but we do more fun stuff like translate "A Change is Gonna Come" by Sam Cooke. Awww yeah. I used it to talk a little about American history and racism and stuff but nobody looked too interested. I need to get the hang of making stuff seem important. I'd like to blame my students and say they don't care but a good teacher can make anyone care about anything. ANYhow, I'm looking forward to putting a more cultural aspect on the English Club. As far as my classes at the school go, I'm hanging on. About half the kids seem to have attention/discipline problems so it means that the others can't learn even if they wanted to. If I hear the phrase, "Mire que el me pego!" one more time I might flip. At first I thought it was a cultural thing... in Peace Corps you try to develop different (sometimes lower, sometimes higher) standards for host country behavior... but then I did a guest teach in a neighboring town and the kids were so GOOD! Nobody even talked over me. I got through my hour long pronunciation lesson without ONE hitch, without anyone grabbing my stomach telling me to give a drawing assignment, without anyone just walking out of the room, without anyone hitting anyone else! My mind was blown. I'd like to sit down and figure out why my students are having so much difficulty paying mind but I think it's beyond little old me. They're great kids, I just don't have the chops yet to maintain a positive learning environment.

Well... That's about all that's on my mind. I'll leave you with some Spanish phrases I really like now.

Echar cuenta - to toss stories - to chat
Echar arroz - to toss rice - to serve food
necio - means bratty as far as I can tell
Acha? la vida, or my favorite, Acha la - Oh drat!
Estamos refrescando - we are refreshing - we are drinking beer

My favorite of all time: WAH! This versitile interjection is used to express joy, displeasure, anguish, surprise, anger EVERYTHING. It's wonderfully useful.

and one that gets on my nerves:
Mire que - kinda like lookit! It only is annoying because my studest always use it to preface telling me that someone is being necio.

I run on ritz crackers and nasal decongestant!

Im not really sure what to say here but I want to say something because a lot is going on here, but not all of it is good so part of me wants to just keep my mouth shut. Its not like you want to listen to me whine anyway right, internet? Too bad for you because Im at an internet joint with time to kill.

I started teaching in the school. Thats going ok. Im a horrible teacher but, hey, no one is Joe Dimagio when they first pick up the ball. To my credit, Ive discovered I can change a lesson plan mid class and not miss a beat. This is really important because most of the kids I teach would sadly be labeled ADD back home. Theyre just being kids. The English teacher Im supposed to be supporting stares daggers at me everytime I ask to look at her lesson plans so I know what to teach the Thursday and Friday, the days she teaches elswhere. I really dont know what to do to break the ice really. She doesnt live in the community most of the time so I cant really pasear and get to know her. Im kind of at a loss. I started teaching night classes for the high school kids and adults. I had one adult show who can only attend once a week because hes in the finca. Two very bright kids from the high school and of course, tons of kids from the elementary school. DONT SEND ME YOUR KIDS WHEN IM ALREADY TEACHING THEM IN THE DAY! That was the whole point. It was lost. We are supposed to do more advance stuff here so if that means working intensely with the two high schoolers then so be it. I got the free time for it. Im at a loss here too. I dont want to have to tell those young kids that they arent ready for the material I want to cover but on the other hand its not fair to hold back the rockstars. Conjugate some verbs and then get back to me.

The tree selling project is at a stall. I want to make a work calendar to keep us on track. I hope that occurs.

On the personal front I did a very stupid thing and hung out with my hosts boyfriend when she wasnt there. In my defense she left me alone in the house, I was bored, and he was offering a showing of Slumdog Millionaire in English. I couldnt really refuse. Furthermore, we went to find her and invite her, and we did find her at her daughters boyfriends place, but she ran into the back room. Her daughter lied and said she wasnt there. We all saw her run so it was really awkward and we collectively said "screw it" and went to watch the movie. So for the past half of this week Ive been dealing with fall out of this situation, crying and feeling guilty about absolutely nothing, feeling paranoid... all that good stuff. My host and I talked it out and came to the conclusion that all parties share some guilt. She was CONSTANTLY finding excuse to leave me and the boyfriend alone and then being pissed about it later. For my part, I should have broke off the friendship and hidden at home alone because people dont believe men and women can just be friends here. (Ill admit that the situation wouldnt look very good on the surface in the states either). So, after talking and even HUGGING IT OUT!!! (my first Panamanian hug! Weve had problems, but I love my host) now things are getting back on the up and up. Im living with a new family anyway just because I switch every month. Its a pretty nice pad even though my student slash roomate cant stop rolling around on the top of the bunkbed. Hes a kicker!

The other issue thats come up is drugs. I was told that drug runners use my beach as a stop off point and then go on their merry way. This is not the whole truth. Some of the famers in the surrounding communities actually produce drugs and are affiliated with international shippers. I was really annoyed about this. Last weekend some folks nearby (not IN my community mind you) found about a pound of cocaine packed in those giant pixie stick wrappers on the beach. People say that Panamanians are anti drug in general. I have found this to be true for most. But not the guys that found the package. The friend who told me the story about all this was offered a pixie stick while disfrutaring in a cantina. Cantinas are bad enough I dont want to imagine one fueled by coke. This, coupled with the misunderstanding about the movie night, has made me really paranoid. Im terrified of people all jacked up, swinging machetes. Im terrified of bochinche being spread to get back at me for something I would never do. Im scared. High school level paranoia for those that new me back then. I dont know who to trust here. Somedays it feels like no one. Itll pass. Itll have to. Right now, Im just throwing myself into work for the classes, reading a lot, and not talking to anyone. I have Twin Peaks to watch on my computer but I just found out that its broken. Need the windows disk. Otherwise Id be watching that too. I need to keep a low profile for a while which is very much impossible here.

I really feel like Im this fount of negativity on this blog but at the same time I dont want to lie about the Peace Corps experience. We all have it rough. Today I found out another friend is leaving. She had stuff line up nicely back home so thats where shes going.

Ill end with this. I really like working with kids. They are hilarious. Even when they are laughing at me. ESPECIALLY when they are laughing at me. Now if the adults gave a rats patoot about the work wed be on our way.

And she said Ooh I'd do anything for you 'cause you're a ROCKER!

I´ve noticed recently that now that I don´t get to listen to my music all the time like I do back home, I appreciate it more. Nobody really listens to good ole rock and roll here. It´s almost always tipico with some salsa or club jams thrown in every once in a while. It´s good stuff for sure, but definitely not what I´m used to, coming from a blues tradition. Now that I´m starting to make sense of the Panamanian beats and getting into that, my own tunes seem urgent again, like good rock or hip-hop or blues should. Electric guitar sounds dangerous when compared to the tipico accordion!

There is a desperation to rock that tipico doesn´t have. Even when the lyrics are about desperation itself, losing a mujer usually, the songs just sound sad, not impassioned. I´m not saying that tipico is emotionless, in fact, the gritar can be very emotive. I think the bottom line is that, in the songs I´ve heard, tipico is afraid to be ugly. Apart from gritaring there is very rarely anything dissonant or uneasy about the rhythms or melody, which makes sense considering it´s dance music. You can´t change up the rhythm too much when people are trying to dance to it. I had a bunch of Radiohead songs come on my music player and they serve as a perfect example. What makes most of their songs so interesting is that they give you something really pretty to hook your ear but then the rhythms and melody always sound like they are about to fall apart but they never do. I´ve missed that tension.

On the other end of the spectrum, I´ve missed the swagger of old school rock. T-Rex, Thin Lizzy, and Immortal Technique all drove that home for me. They make themselves sound dangerous not so much because of tension but because of pure attitude. Tipico definitely has a difference attitude, a different worldview. Tipico is about keeping tradition and the past alive and strong while rock is about punching it in the face. Both very important projects.

Well, thanks for putting up with that. Let´s talk about work. I had a general "so what do you want Peace Corps to do for you" meeting since I last wrote. Way more people showed that I thought they would. 21. Wah! Nothing too surprise came up, people are scared (with good reason) that investors are going to steal all their land. People say they REALLY want English classes. Looks like I´ll be actually IN a classroom about 16 hours a week. With the time I need for planning lessons I´m not sure if that´s asking too much or not. Doesn´t sound like it but on the other hand I´m not here to teach full time. We´ll see how it plays out. I´m very excited to have something to keep me busy.

I thought I had killed all the trees we want to sell for the vivero but they are recovering from being transplanted. The worm compost idea went over well so that´s another thing to wark towards. The last thing that came up was and artisan´s group. I´m not really sure who all wants to do that yet. We´ll see.

When do I get to go home?

Let me preface by saying that I have hit one of the natural low points of Peace Corps service. This post is going to be on the negative side but I think it´s only fair to take the downs with the ups. Besides, today, I´m pretty upset so I could be a lot more negative.

This week has been nuts. First off, I think my community guide thinks I´m trying to steal her boyfriend. I´m big enough to admit that this is my fault because I went to a cock fight with him and probably shouldn´t have, knowing how jealous she is. I should have respected that. I really wanted to speak some English though and see what cock fights are all about. (They are pretty horrible by the way but it was a good cultural experience. At least if the loser dies it gets eaten... more human than KFC.) We talked a while the next day and at first I got vibes that she was upset but as we talked I think she was more upset about things not going well with him in general and her daughter got hurt on a horse so she was worried about that.

Then yesterday I woke up with a 103 fever and the worst diarrhea of my life. When I get fevers I can´t really think straight so I just kept tossing in bed thinking I was going to die in Panama, a 7 hour flight and 7 hour bus ride from my friends and family. I went to the doctor which meant an almost three hour chiva ride with a fever trying not to poop myself. It was pretty brutal. Turns out it was just a bacterial infection and I will be fine.

NOW the icing on the mierda cake that has been these last few days is that I get a text message from one of my best friends in the region. Turns out he fell off a 50 foot cliff Sunday, doesn´t remember two days, and now is heading to the same hospital I just left. I really wish I were still there to offer support. I really wish it were easier to communicate so I could see how he´s doing. I really wish that these things weren´t happening all at once. Gracias a Dios he´s still alive. I just don´t know whether or not he´ll medically separated. I don´t know if he´s had any permanant damage. It would be heartbreaking to see him have to leave after all this. The most frustrating thing is that there is nothing anyone can do. It´s all up to luck now.

Santa Maria, Madre de Dios… Santa Maria, Madre de Dios… Santa Maria, Madre de Dios

This is where I will live after homestay time... I´m pretty sure it´s the nicest place in Peace Corps. You might notice the air conditioner. Sigh... I feel like I´m missing out on the suffering aspect of this job.




My Deutsch-Panameño buddy Jaime at novena




My best friend and hunting partner Jonathan. He later chased me around with a piece of cow shit. ¡COCHINO! "Pero es SECO" I don´t care... it´s still gross. This is why we tite son.









This pretty much sums up my site.




I'm finally settling into my site. It's been quite the roller coaster. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking but I do have one odd story to tell. This week was Novena, the celebration of la Virgin del Carmen. The story goes that in 1998 Santa Maria saved some people from drowning on the beach here. Well, every night there has been church services with songs and fireworks. Usually the women and children go inside the church (well… the kids usually run in and out yelling) and the men stand outside and talk. On the final night, the night of the procession, the Padre came to deliver a more formal mass and he was furious about that tradition. He told the congregation they were disrespectful and that he was ashamed and then he left. Keep in mind he got paid for this. Maybe you had to be there, but it kind of reminded me of a Marquez novel in the sense that some pompous authority figure comes in, takes the money, insults people and runs. Instead of the procession being led by the Padre, people would randomly spit out Hail Marys and sing whatever parts of the songs they knew. So, in the end, the Virgin got an awkward spin around the block. It was quite the topic of conversation the next day. Some people thought the Padre was really unprofessional, and some people were ashamed that we couldn't be more respectful of the service. It was a little of both really.

The next night was a baile and I'm happy to report that I'm alive. I live next door to the cantina so I was really apprehensive about the craziness. Luckily I managed to get some sleep. The two bailes I've been to follow a formula so I think they all go like this: first off there is one band but nobody really dances. Men use this time to get really hammered. A few women participate but mostly they just sit at the tables looking super pissed and checking out what everyone is wearing. Then comes the Panamanian version of freestyling. Last night's topic was whether women or men are better. At the other baile it was a straight up diss contest that ended when one dude killed the other with a line about his gallina sitting on his huevos. After this comes the main event. People push the tables out and a new band takes the stage and people start to get down. Usually there is a fight in there somewhere.

I was considering leaving at the first part of the baile because the singers' mics were up WAY too high. You know if it's too loud for me, it's too loud. I was really tempted to go up and help them mix that janx. The thing is… in most típico music, at least around here, you begin each verse by doing a modified gritar (yelling/yodeling) so if you have people doing that at the top of their lungs… while choking the mic… while it's turned up WAY over the guitars, it's going to be painful. And it was physically painful. But anyway. I'm glad I stuck around because the dancing part was fun. People were patient with me not knowing or caring what I was doing. The whole town was having a blast and it was great to see everybody tear it up.

Last night's fight was way better than the one last week. This one guy pushed the other off his chair and spilled a bucket of ice on him. There was only one really good punch but it cracked off the dude's chest like a whip. Other than that there was mostly a big show about throwing chairs. There were no police in town last night so my Brazilian (meaning he's a lot bigger than most Panamanians) buddy and about four others helped hog tie the offender until they could get there. As long as you keep your distance, it's all part of the entertainment.

On the work front, I'm going to start teaching in the school next month. I'm giving English classes Thursday and Friday because Maestra isn't there those days. On Wednesdays I want to share lesson plans with her in order to make it somewhat of a learning experience for the both of us since she won't be able to observe me. I'm planning the all-important first meeting of the tourism group. I think the most sensible avenues for this town would be to have an artisan group, figure out what services we can offer surfers, and/or sell plants, trees, and compost to gringos. Well see if the community in general is down with all that or if it's only the people I've been talking to who like the ideas.

Some is rich and some is poor and that's the way the world is

I GOT TO VISIT MY SITE!!! First I want to apologize for not taking pictures. I was thinking it would be better to hold off in order to avoid coming off like a tourist. They'll will be plenty soon. It started with a conference in Coclé; we got to meet our community guides there. Miriam was great and she really made the awkwardness of it a lot less awkward. I'll spare you the details of the conference other than the fact that it was pretty useful. We had some really long bus rides (It's about a 7 hour trip from the city) and when we got to Las Tablas, the biggest city near me, we were set to take another bus but fortunately, Miriam's boyfriend was in town with his buddy and he was able to give us a ride. I was really relieved because I'm finally starting to feel poor. The boyfriend is a gringo and I was surprised at how many there are here. Brody seemed really friendly and useful in terms of clueing me in on the ex-pat drama. There is a lot of it. I'll think I'll have to keep some distance from Brody in some ways, sadly. If I'm over there aprovecharing his hot water or guitar, how would that look? Not very good. I came away from this week realizing that I should just stay away from the gringos here. Word on the street is that the best ones are naïve about Panamá and the worst are mentally unstable. Not many people are acting with the communities interests in mind. Granted, some of the problems may be due to poor communication. For example, there is a law that you have to wear a shirt in town but the gringos are thinking "Hey I'm coming back from a tropical beach. No shirt, no shoes, no problem" so they go without and the corregiadura doesn't enforce the law for them. Both of my counterparts take it as a serious lack of respect though. If anything, I'll see if the tourism group wants to improve communication with the hotel owners or just do their own thing. (Hmm… I smell a UNION! …just kidding Peace Corps please don't send me home)

The tourism group is very promising. My first meeting with them was really awkward though, even for me, and I'm usually pretty awkward. I really hadn't put much thought into it so I just read a little speech. I choked on my Spanish but that always happens when I'm nervous. At least I expect it now. To be fair, my Spanish is way better than most gringos here. A few don't learn at all apparently. It’s a good confidence booster. Anyway, at the meeting I even forgot to ask people's names! Afterwards, things were much better talking to my counterpart Alexis and his brother. His brother spends most of his time in Germany but even he still seemed to take a real interest in the work here. There is a vivero set up to grow trees to sell to the hotel owners. It just needs some cleaning up before planting. The previous volunteer set it up as a way to combat deforestation while getting the community dollars. Genius! I wanted to do something with deforestation as a side project anyway. So, since the community has the motivation and material needed to do something good, it looks like my main task is to get the committee organized and set up a business model for the tree thing.

I also got to visit the school. The English teacher works only three days a week in my site and the rest in Tonosí. I'm getting the feeling that they will actually want me to teach in the school which is what I was afraid of. I have to ask myself how sustainable that would be to just teach the class myself but I suppose if the kids learn English they will still know it when I'm gone.


As far as where I'm going to live after my homestay, there are two options. One is actually the Centro de Communicación Ambiental which would be great because it's a modern building in the center of town with a flush toilet (for when there is running water). There is already a bed and a kitchen so I wouldn't have to buy all that much with my moving in allowance. Plus, I get to live where I work. The drawback is that I definitely would not be living like a community member, so it's not very good for pasearing. The other option, this house on a hill I have yet to see up close also has the same problem because it's so far for people to just drop in.

The people are really friendly here and they have lots of yummy fruit! Miriam's ten year old neighbor is totally in love with me so he brings me mangoes. He's this adorable kid with a hoarse voice that I assume he got because he yells all the time. He likes to catch pe'ca'o and play baseball and cards. I taught him and his cousin Slap Jack (he says it "Flep Jerk) and they wouldn't let me stop playing. I won him over when he saw I had a biombo (slingshot) I had made at culture week. We went iguana hunting right away. He hit one and made it made so it dropped its tail, fell out of the tree, and escaped. I'm glad it got away because it would have been too small to eat. We would just have killed an animal for no reason. I've noticed that my attitude towards animals is definitely changing. I kicked a puppy. Not hard though.

My host mom's niece invited me to watch a movie (Tropic Thunder… sorry Walt… again) with some of her friends. One of the friends was dog sitting for Americans so we watched it at the big house. It was super nice, even by my middle-class American standards. The owner also has a house on the beach! Mind you, we are already in walking distance. I don't think the niece understood why I was gritting my teeth when she told me that. I had been holding my poop, bathing in the creek, and bucket bathing because there was no water and now I'm watching a movie on a flat screen with Rock Band hooked up to it. You better believe the house had water too. I'm not complaining per se. The creek bath was really fun. It's just that my sense of justice was quite offended. My momma always said that life's not fair though. She's right.

I met an evangelical here who almost converted me. He's a good talker. Maybe I just liked him because he had a monkey.

The beach here is beautiful! It's black sand and I have to be careful because the waves are huge!!! I got knocked on my butt a lot. Also, every so often there are drug runners on the shore at night. I don't say this to embarrass the community (Peace Corps please don't send me home). They know it goes on. I don't say this to worry you back home. It's just the reality of life here. America's and Europe's bad habits are Panama's troubles. The truth is, there isn't anything to worry about as long as I don't do anything stupid like ask questions of a sketchy person. I feel really safe here already, in fact. The community is tight-knit and if I've got a problem, they'll help. Also, there are a lot of cars around so I can get out easily in case of emergency or illness. In Peace Corps you can't have a car but I'm mulling over the idea of getting a horse! It would be good for going to the beach. I think it's too far to ride out to Tonosí regularly but it would be nice not to have to rely on a bus.

That's about it for first impressions. I really lucked out with my site. I don't really feel like I'm in the Peace Corps, in a good way. Not that I want to rub it in the faces of my brothers and sisters in the Comarca and Darien but chances are good that I won't get amoebas. (Chiggers though… JEEEEEEEEEEEZ. I had a run in with them after my hunt for iguana. I woke up the next morning with my shirt bloody from scratching and my feet look like I have small pox). I'm just getting eaten from the outside and somehow that makes it seem better.