Campesinos who Move and Shake

There are the city folks who've obviously up and moved from the countryside and are trying or have made a name for themselves in the city. What about the campesinos (Spanish word for a person who lives in the countryside) who move and shake? This post is dedicated to some of my favorite campesinos.

Out in the countryside, life is a bit more basic. More relaxed. At times, life is a bit too relaxed. Finding community leaders is a struggle. I've sat through several painful meetings in which some person, for example the treasurer, decides to step down from his or her duty. The result is that there is a void left in their departure. Those present at the meeting will sit, the last time for probably twenty minutes, going through a cycle of silence, throwing out a name of a potential person to take the position, him or her hemming and hawing then refusing, followed by silence. Eventually someone will accept the nomination and the meeting will come to a close.  While I respect those individuals that finally step up, this post isn't about them. This is about the people who jump at the opportunity to represent and lead their community, to make a positive change without being forced into doing so. 

I've already talked about one community member here.

In the community, there are only a few groups holding power. This isn't to say that there is some sort of a dictatorship but rather that groups for the most part are a process that is slowly developing itself throughout the countryside. Within my community, there are the parent teacher association, religious group, community representative for the government, and water committee. The first individual I’d like to mention is Gustavo, who is the leader for all four of these groups.

For the most part my interactions with him have revolved around the water committee and my water project. He has been the only community member who has shown up to every meeting and workday and the only time he has left early is because a family member was having a baby and he needed to head to the hospital. But he still showed up to the meeting! He’s a man that has demonstrated skills that would allow him to thrive in a larger community, but he remains and works hard to improve the living conditions of his neighbors. He is one of the people who I have relied on most as a crutch to get me through my service and not once has he failed me.

Women are a great resource in the community who work very hard to maintain the household but outside of the house generally do not have a voice. It’s a bit frustrating to have conversations where I address the room with a question, and the women will look to their husbands to answer. Only if he doesn't know will she then answer. I’m glad to say, this is changing, especially within my host family. I've sat and discussed the next person on my list with my host dad and I fondly remember him saying that women do a better job in office.

Maribel is the representative of roughly 30 communities. When I think of elected officials, I see lots of false promises during elections and then nothing after they arrive to office. Maribel is quite the opposite. She has made visits to the hard to reach communities and does her best to help out all the communities she represents. I remember having a conversation with someone, I believe it was again my host dad, about her. I had said that she’ll probably work really hard to get a road and electricity to her community and the response was that no, she’s going to help everyone and over the past few months she has indeed done just that.

The third person on my list carries on from Maribel both by being a woman and by being Maribel’s sister, Annabel. Annabel is the health post worker in the neighboring community who obviously cares deeply about the health and well being of her community members and those from surrounding communities. She has also been essential in helping to set up community visits from Peace Corps and Engineers Without Borders.  I respect that as a health care professional, she could move on to a larger town and earn more money but has decided to stay within her community running the health post.

I've met many other amazing campesinos across the country, leading amazing lives. I have much respect for them all and the work that they do to improve their respective communties. 

New Photo Blog

Greetings all,

I just wanted to make a quick post to say that I've moved my photo blog to a more easy to manage platform. You can check my Tumblr photo blog here or click the link at the top of the page under the header.

How-To Peace Corps

So you want to immerse yourself in the Peace Corps experience from the comfort of your own home? Cool. 

Step 1: Preparing your House

• Tell your internet, cable, and electricity providers that you're going on vacation for two years. Of course the first two don't really matter since you wouldn't have either of them wthout electricity. Now is probably a good time to clean out the fridge.For good measure, cancel your cell phone plan and get a prepaid feature phone.
• If your stove is electric, well, go buy a camp stove and propane tank from the sporting goods store. Stuff your oven full of rocks or whatever because you won't have enough money to make the original purchase of an oven with your move in allowance. Don't worry, you'll learn how to turn your stove into an oven.
• If you live in a climate where it's always hot or doing this experiment during the summer, time to leave the windows and all the doors forever open. For good measure, remove the screens as well. You'll probably want to purchase a mosquitto net to cover your bed, otherwise, good luck sleeping!
• If you've got a car, give the keys to a friend, public transportation only!
• Now is a good time to read up on how to hand wash laundry. Probably a good time to install a clothes line if you don't have one.
• Also a good time to start learning how to garden.
• Turn your hot water heater off. Boil your water or figure out how to heat it using the sun.

Step 2: Preparing your Food

• No canned foods. You wouldn't want to have to hike those cans out of your community to throw them away since there isn't a trash service in the community. Good time to stock up on dry bags of beans, lentils, rice, and pasta.
• Start expermenting with the validity of the statement "Refrigerate after opening".
• Go and get vegis and fruits, just realize you'll have to cook it or peel it to not get yourself sick. Or risk it, I do! Also, flies and other critters will attempt to eat your food before you get the chance.
• Think before you leave the grocery store, any liquids you're going to have to carry in bags or a backpack back to your house. Better to get powdered milk, Gatorade mix, and Tang packets. Farewell juice, milk, and other similar drinks.

Step 3: Play the Game 

Now comes the fun part of the random things that interrupt your day. Imagine you've got a random number generator (RNG). Each statement will assume a 1 out of Y chances of success with the generator.

• Driving: As you leave your house, check the RNG, you've got a 1 in 20 chance of getting your keys and driving around today. This is because someone is passing through your community and offering you a ride.
• Gas tank: As you go to start your gas stove, check the RNG, you've got a 1 in 360 chance that the tank won't start because it's empty. Now wait a full day until it's refilled. Enjoy nothing but peanut butter sandwiches in the mean time. (Because jelly likes to mold)
• Bugs: Tell your neighbor, for every day you're out of your house, check the RNG, they've got a 1 in 20 chance of leaving either a scorpion, sworm of ants, spider, snake, bat, mouse, or similar critter somewhere.
• River crossings: Assuming you don't have a job, you're leaving your community once every 4 days to go grocery shopping or whatever. During the rainy season, which is half the year, check the RNG, you've got a 1 in 5 chance that the hypothetical river that sits just between your house and public transportation is too dangerous to cross. Return home and start getting creative with just rice and beans.
• Internet and laundry: Today you're going to the internet cafe and to do laundry. Arrive to the internet cafe after traveling an hour and check the RNG, 1 in 10 chances the Wifi is down for whatever reason, continue on to the laundry mat, RNG says 1 in 10 chances there's no water. If you've managed two bad numbers, get on the bus and go home. What a day!

I don't want to get exhaustive and boring with my scenarios so we'll leave it at that. Of course, every day isn't horrible, most days aren't. I enjoy creating my own work, setting my own hours, being treated to lovely food from my host family and community members, consuming mostly very fresh food, learning to live with spiders, getting through the bad days, etc. Peace Corps and the life I'm exposed to here in Panama has so very much to offer and of course everyone would quit if the above list was all Peace Corps had to offer, but it isn't.

Peace Corps is a Roller Coaster

Typically when I meet someone outside of Peace Corps they ask me about my service. At some point I'll mention the ups and downs which make it difficult to answer question. At a given time I might be really up, and a week later, really down. Peace Corps is a two year long roller coaster that all volunteers experience to some degree. I realized today, after contemplating the last few days that I'd gone through were probably the most rapidly changing part of the ride in months. What better time then, to clarify what the ups and downs of Peace Corps actually means through a 24 hour example.

6:00am: Wake up for a meeting with the regional representative who lives in the neighboring community to discuss funds for my project and a few other topics.

6:30: Begin walking to the community, thinking, as a night owl, this is the earliest I've ever been awake for a meeting.

7:00: Arrive to the representative’s house and get offered a cup of coffe and some bread.

7:10: After having some lovely converstion with the representative’s sister and brother in law, I ask where the representative is and then learn that she doesn’t live here so I finish up my breakfast and head over to her house.

7:40: Finish a great meeting. I’ve got $200 worth of materials for my project. My second goal was to setup a phone call between the representative and the head of Engineers Without Borders in the region which I had been working on for a few weeks, for that afternoon at 1pm.

8:10: I arrive home, and send a WhatsApp (3G texting) message to my sister, highlighting that I've already finished the day. More a highlight of how early my meeting was than a complaint about having nothing to do. Either way, she offered that I work on photography for a bit, good idea.

8:15: Camera's out and giving me a horrible mechanical sound every other picture. Everything is breaking, ugh.

9:00: Receive an email with attachments from a coworker that requires my input within 2 days. (Which is about an impossible deadline by Peace Corps standards)

9:01: Head out to a spot with better data signal to try and download the attachments. Spend, not exaggerating here, 30 minutes walking around in a cow pasture looking for enough signal.

9:31: No luck, give up.

12:00pm: Host family stops by with some lunch, probably a thank you for landing them $200 for the project.

1:30: Check my phone and find out that the representative was doing her banking when Engineers Without Borders called..

1:31: Decide to do nothing with rest of my day and just watch TV shows on my phone.

4:40: I find some inspiration to get out of bed and make a tasty dinner. Prepare some carmalized onions and peppers and toast the bread. I get eggs ready for the frying pan and realize tea and egg sandwiches sound delicious together so I put on the teapot. Drop the eggs into the frying pan and my gas tank runs out of gas. That's it for dinner. I end up eating toasted bread wth onions and peppers.

4:45: As I'm sitting and eating dinner at my desk, I look out my windo and spy a nice sunset, and force myself to go out. Turns out to be quite possibly the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen. A strong contrast between orange and dark blue, clear sky and storm clouds, light and dark, absolutely beautiful.

Not every day is filled with successful and unsuccessful meetings, failing electronics, and beautiful sunsets. Typically days and weeks are pretty mellow. But no matter how mellow, the roller coaster is still there, hiding a rise or fall around the next corner. Thankfully over time I’ve learned to minimalize the impact of life by preparing myself more and rolling with the punches. It’s is probably my most treasured skill that I hope to continue to develop and bring with me when I return to the States.

October Photos: Exploring Panama City, Engineers Without Borders Conference, Sombrero Festival, and Black Christ Festival

Exploring Panama City

During a breakout session at the Engineers Without Borders conference, we listed on the board all the places where people have projects.

Marching in the Sombrero Festival.

Marching in the Sombrero Festival

Attractions at the Sombrero Festival.

Pilgrims relaxing on their way to Black Christ Festival.

During our own little pilgrimage walk, we came across some cows that had escaped, Jacob did his best to scare them back the way they came.

Eventually we stopped walking and took a bus.

View from our hotel.

Pilgrims will walk the last KM on hands and knees, sometimes having wax poured on them.

At last, we arrived at the church!

Pilgrims discarding their robes at the entrance to he church.

Inside the church.

More pilgrims walking.

Ice cream man.

Diablo Rojos, public transportation in Panama City.

Technology

Pooping in a hole, living without electricity or hot water, and hiking twenty minutes waiting ten minutes and 20 more minutes on public transportation to get to a food store, hardly compared to my withdraw from technology. I've thrived with technology, teaching myself electrical engineering and computer science, using Wikipedia to teach myself whatever topic, using Google Calendar to keep my life organized, etc. Arriving to Panama was taking a large step back in my life, and an introduction to living much more basic. This post is dedicated to all the gadgets that have made living a bit less basic.

 

Kindle 3G - While the Kindle part is pretty awesome, the 3G part is much more awesome. Amazon has, through some sort of magic, managed to offer free internet access throughout the world wherever the Kindle 3G can connect. I've managed to connect to the internet, a very basic internet consisting of only downloadable books, Facebook, and Gmail while in my site and also while traveling in Peru, for FREE.

Battery Pack - Thanks to my aunt, this is probably one of the best purchases I made before arriving to Panama. While in a place with electricity, I can charge the battery pack. Once I return to site, I can charge anything that has a USB connection. This means I can charge my smart phone, headlamp, Kindle, and iPod, all from this battery pack. It's got enough charge to recharge my smart phone about three times which can get me through a week before heading out of site to charge again.

Bluetooth Keyboard - With the hindsight that I have now, I would have gone back and purchased only a smart phone and keyboard in place of a laptop. The laptop is clunky and hard to charge. With a keyboard and smart phone I can do almost everything I'd want to do with a laptop. If you factor in the battery pack, which cannot charge a laptop, the smart phone and keyboard duo are perfect for Peace Corps living.

Waka Waka Solar Panel and Light - This is pretty awesome, it's got a light on one side and a solar panel on the other. Charge it through the solar panel during the day and use the light at night. It can also charge basic feature phones as well.

Smart phone - Oh smart phones. I try and think about the lives of volunteers before cell phones. I pay $1 for 30 minutes to call the United States, and can get international texting and email in my house. That's about it, no streaming Youtube or anything like that but the future is arriving to the countryside pretty rapidly. (My old Peace Corps neighbor could browse the internet from his house.)

Smart phone apps - I thought it would be interesting to list the apps that help me in the day to day. Feel free to skip this section if you don't have a smart phone or care about such things.

• Media Player - I can watch and listen to whatever and have a lot of storage to do so.
• My phone has word processing and spreadsheet applications which allow me to write posts like this. (I'm using my phone + bluetooth keyboard right now!)
• Gmail with offline sync - this allows me to check emails I've already received whenever, even if I have no connection.
• Wikipedia - Surprisingly, I can get Wikipedia in site. It's pretty slow and I generally cannot view pictures, but if I want to learn something, boom, done.
• Dictionaries - English, Spanish, English/Spanish, all useful.
• Google Translate with offline language packs - Google Translate is now available completely without internet.
• Calls/Texts Blacklist - Service providers in Panama love to spam at least a text or two a day. I can block those messages.
• Calculator/Converter - As an engineer I've got a special calculator and unit converter to help with my work.

And that's about it. Many others live a bit more basic or a bit more advanced like my friend who has a solar panel and cell signal booster so he can get electricity and great internet access an hour hike from the nearest road.

Whatever, Y.O.L.O., Crocs

Typically you travel to a place, observe the clothing, think "cool" or "weird" or whatever you think, and then you get on a plane and go home. Besides the fact that I still haven't gotten on a plane and gone home, I've also thought "hmm, that makes a lot more sense than what I'm wearing right now." And so I started wearing... (In order of my decision to start wearing them)

Sombrero and Man Purse

Sombrero - Month 3

This was an awesome unexpected gift from my host dad. I'd say in a store, it would have cost about $70 which is a pretty legit sombrero. Sombreros are pretty popular in many formal events such as dances, work meetings, etc. and I've used it on many occasions. Also important is the fact that I have a huge head and I've avoided hats in the states almost completely. However, this sombrero was custom made, as are all sombreros, and fit me perfectly.

Man Purse - Month 3.5

My neighboring volunteer during training lived just behind my host family's house. We'd typically have over the fence conversations, similar to Home Improvement, after classes ended. One day he arrived home with a man purse. I'd never imagined wearing one even though many Panamanian youth about my age wore one. I was jealous of his bag so shortly thereafter I purchased my own. It was amazing. Women, I need not explain to you, but men, oh my. Imagine all the things you need, in a bag!? For those times you don't have enough crap to fit in a back pack but don't want to fill all of your pockets with clutter, there's the man purse. The photo above has my first man purse.

Cutaras - Month 5

These are basically fancy sandals made of leather that are used in formal settings for Panamanians. For a while they were my default shoe. I went to shower, hiked, visited the Peace Corps office (Which is crazy strict about dress attire but these were cool, as well as most sandals), and walked around town with them. Socks suck. Also closed shoes suck. You have to wash the socks, by hand, and critters like to hide in closed shoes.

Man Purse Version 2- Month 12

I got myself a much cooler man purse while working in a friend's community. They are known as chacaras and typically they're woven together from a cloth-like material or old plastic sacks are torn apart and woven together. They're great since they never mold and if they get wet, no worries. They've served quite well for my work days on the water system where I'm typically getting pretty dirty.

Knockoff Crocs - Month 15

I swore I'd never wear Crocs. Until my flip-flops broke one day while I was away from home. I went to the store and I could get another pair of flip-flops, which were bound to wreak havoc on my feet, or buy a pair of crocs. Of course the only pair that fit me was pink. Whatever, Y.O.L.O. (you only live once), crocs. I instantly fell in love with them. They had cushion, didn't easily allow rocks to get trapped between the shoe and my foot (like cutaras did), offered more traction than flip-flops when walking back to my house after a shower, were great to hike in, etc. Besides the fact that they're not acceptable in the Peace Corps office, I wear them all the time.

Thinking to the future now, I’ll probably never wear this stuff after Peace Corps, but you never know, Crocs are just so damn comfortable.

September Photos: Water Seminar, Rainwater Catchment, and More

Preparing materials for the water seminar...

...and food...

...and 140 eggs...

Breakfast!

Breakfast!

Presentations given in the church about various topics related to water.

Hanging out around a plate of brownies after the first day of the water seminar.

Day 2 of the water seminar was a bit more hands on.

Presenting my water committee president with a certificate. 

Caught this little guy in my house. Took a quick rushed picture into the container before setting him free.

While working on the rainwater catchment system this cow came over to say hello.

Finished ferrocement tank for rain water. Currently testing it with some grey water from the washing machine.

Completed system. Holds about 60 gallons of water, or enough to water plants for an entire week. Cost about $60.

Friend got a kitten!

These flowers are everywhere in Panama in many different colors, absolutely beautiful.

[Insert Job Description Here]

During training, we are told, “your service is what you make of it.” If you want to be out of site all the time, hanging out at the bar, sure, you can do that. Or you can make something amazing of it. To remove any doubts that last sentence might have created; almost all volunteers opt for the latter.

I opted for the latter as well and there are days where I'm out and about in Panama, living another day of my Peace Corps service, and it will dawn on me that, I get paid (as little as I do get paid haha) to be doing what I'm doing. I had one of those moments today when I was in the middle of the jungle hiking up to a water source. A fellow volunteer, in a different sector than water systems asked if I could come and take a look at his system. After that simple interaction, I was now out hiking with him in his community, which is about twenty times larger than mine, to offer what experience and knowledge I have to help assess the water issues being faced by the community. I'm going on a tangent too far, let's steer this back in with some pictures of where I was working today:

Crossing a stream on the way to the water system.

Finally arriving to the water source.

I've also had other amazing work experiences such as when I helped my regional leader deliver some documents to a future volunteer's community. Besides the fact that the area was absolutely beautiful, we got to eat lunch and hang out with the future host family for a bit. The father of the household told us a very interesting story about the roof tiles which his grandfather had constructed over 100 years ago and still survived to this day.

Passing a large orange farm on the way to the community.

The rainy season is in full swing and mud is everywhere.

After taking public transportation to the end of the road, hiking an hour into the community,
we  now have a guide to take us the rest of the way to the host family's house.

Look at that beautiful roofing.

Then there was the time that Engineers Without Borders (EWB) visited a fellow volunteer's site and cultural/language facilitators were needed. I got to spent a few days hiking about my friend's community assisting EWB in their trip.

Community guide leading the way to the next house.

Back when I was a member of EWB at Rutgers University, I had seen a GPS map that was constructed by a group member and I was interested in making my own. As part of my first three months in site, I was required to make a map, so I ended up making a GPS map.

...and then writing a guide for other volunteers to do the same.

I also had interest in solar panels and the neighboring community's health post had some problems with theirs...

These are just a few examples of the many cool work opportunities that Peace Corps offers. Of course not all of my cool opportunities revolve around work. I also give myself some breaks to...

Attend the Black Christ festival.

Party at carnival.

Spend Christmas in Santa Fe with other volunteers.

Travel to Peru.

Watch the US-Panama soccer game.

Attend the Sombrero Festival.

At times it’s hard to justify my time here, typically when I'm sitting at the lowest of lows of a slump in my service. But when I'm not sitting there, life is pretty awesome. Of course you cannot have the bad without the good and the same carries over to life in the States. However, Peace Corps has some pretty awesome good times to offer and I think it has been well worth it. (And for you too if you're considering joining!)