Wise Words that Supported me Throughout Year One

I think besides the family, friends, fellow volunteers, Peace Corps staff, and my girlfriend who helped me overcome the obstacles I faced throughout the year, quotes and books were another big help. Since I can't quite transmit the wisdom received from all but the last source, I thought I'd share some of the those quotes that have guided me best.

If I feel I've got some personal wisdom to add to the quotes, I'll throw it in, otherwise I'll leave them to stand alone.

"The thing about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, the thing that was so profound to me that summer- and yet, also like most things, so very simple - was how few choices I had and how often I had to do the thing I least wanted to do. How there was no escape or denial. No numbing it down with a martini or covering it up with a roll in the hay." - Wild by Cheryl Strayed

"Enjoy the little things."- Zombieland 

See this blog post. And this video.

"They say don't put off until tomorrow that you can finish today, I saw the rest of your life is only moments away." - Familiar Faces by Rhymefest

You've got that to do list, that thing to do, if you don't do it today, when are you ever going to do it?

"Realize, that when you're comparing yourself to others, you're comparing your behind the scenes to their highlight reel." - Unknown

"If you don't like it, change it. If you cannot change it, change yourself." - Unknown

"Con calma" - Fermin del Rosario (My host dad)

Translates as "with calm." What better way to do things than with calm? I remember talking to my sister about these words and I'd said "So like, chill the fuck out?" And she responded that I was missing the point. Truth.

I hope that these words carry over in to your personal lives and/or Peace Corps services and bring about a new lens through which to observe life.

So that's what that was...

It all began with mouse poop that started showing up on my floor throughout my house. For those that don't know, I did my best to close my house from the outside world but there's still a huge gap of several inches between the wall and roof, space under the door, and a 2" tube near the floor that is there in case there's a flood. With that said, mouse-proofing from the start was a bit of a challenge.

My original solution was OK until something showed up in search of those mice...

I went into a bit of a panic, in both the short term, and longer term. What the hell mice? What do you see in my house? I proceeded to remove any temptations such as hiding spots, treats, etc. for mice and, at the same time, for cockroaches, scorpions, bullet ants, etc. that I've seen scurrying about my house. I covered both trash cans, put food in 5 gallon buckets with lids, separated my bookshelves a distance from the walls, and sprayed Raid on all the legs of furniture that touched the floor, cleaned my house from top to bottom, and took several other preventative measures.

I was fine for a bit, and then the poop continued. Besides the late night snack in my bed, which I am very careful to clean up, and meals I eat at my desk, and never make a mess of, I felt there was no reason for their return. I was baffled for some time and did all I could which was to continue sweeping up their mess. (I also realize now that I forgot to mention that I set traps but the cockroaches kept eating whatever I set out before the rats arrived.)

I observed one day, after I'd been out of my house for some time, that all the poop was collecting in one corner. I couldn't find evidence of a home and didn't push further. It wasn't until a day or two later that I awoke to the chirping of the birds that also live in my roof (they're cool though) and observed something scurrying along the space between the wall and roof above the poop. I jumped out of bed to observe the rat in action but I looked close and realized it was in fact a bat. The chirping I'd assumed for MONTHS was a family of birds was actually bats.

I immediately grabbed what I had left of the Raid and started spraying it in the space, of course that quickly ran out. What also quickly ran out and then took off flying was a family of bats. Bastards flew out though, circled back, and tried to hide again in my roof. With the liberal use of bug spray, I finally got them to head off in search of a new home.

It's been almost two weeks since that happened. Was it the end of the war or just another battle in which we’d live to fight another day? Only time will tell.

Work Update

It’s been awhile since I've posted an update on my work, so here it is, divided by work type.

Water Project

About a month ago we finished measuring the current water system and the parts that will be added in the future. Measurements that were taken were of relative values of elevation and distance throughout the entire system. Combined with tube diameter, number of faucets in each house, and water flow in the system, I’ll be able to analyze the system and identify weaknesses. I’m currently in the process of doing that part.

Another issue we've been facing is that the land owner of our water source wanted to charge us monthly to use his water. Finding an answer to whether or not he could do this was a bit of a challenge since everyone had a different answer about how to resolve the problem. Eventually, we got the right answer and are now able to continue on with fundraising, since a land agreement was a requirement for requesting funds from a specific NGO.

Here I am presenting my water committee president
with a certificate for completing the water seminar.

During the days of September 5^th and 6^th I organized a water seminar in my community. This is probably the greatest tool Peace Corps has to offer. Over two days and about 4 hours each day, four volunteers and myself discussed topics including health in the house, system maintenance, how a water system works, and how to run a successful meeting. I ended up getting somewhere between twenty and thirty community members to give up their time to attend. All in all, it was a great success.

VAC (Volunteer Advisory Council)

I took on a year-long position of being the representative between the office staff and volunteers as the treasurer of VAC. Recently, I finished updating the Welcome Book which is what all new volunteers in country receive prior to arrival. Volunteers had expressed concern over several issues in the book and I set about resolving them. The process involved getting input from about 60 volunteers, and several office staff. With all the information, I set about condensing it down into a more conscience and helpful form. It’s being finalized now and new volunteers will receive the book starting in February.

Entire EWB Group

Engineers Without Borders Tour/Conference

Engineers Without Borders hosted their international conference this year in Panama. My bosses selected me to represent Peace Corps at the conference and also to lead a day long tour to a neighboring community that has had volunteers in the past to show what Peace Corps does. Everything was a great success and I got to meet many awesome people and share a bit of Peace Corps with them.

Victoria leading an introduction to
 agriculture with Peace Corps

 Agriculture

My community is very interested in improving agriculture practices. Since the water project is generally pretty slow, I took this opportunity to disperse some agriculture presentations between workdays in my community. We’ll be having our first presentation the 14^th and 15^th of October covering coffee. The following month we’ll discuss traditional crops. From there, we might have business and fish and rice tank presentations.

Hobby Update: This Blog, Photography, Spanish, and GMATs

Since this blog falls under the header of hobbies, I'd throw that in with this post. I've decided to update the layout a bit and make this page and the other blog linked above, which I'll talk about later, my "website", Whatever that exactly means I'm not sure yet. I'm hoping to get back into regular writing and will try to aim for a post a week. Slow and steady instead of trying to unload 3 posts at once and nothing for another month. 

To continue on, about the other blog, I've setup a new page to document my best photography. That link is at the top of the page under "My Photos Of". I've also submitted a photos to National Geographic which you can check out here.

This past month, I lucked out and got the chance to take a language proficiency exam mid service to help the language instructors as Peace Corps get recertified. There are ten rankings in total. Beginner, intermediate, advanced, and then 3 sub levels of each of those 3 levels being low, medium, and high. Finally, superior is the highest level. As of today, I am officially ranked as advanced low. It'll probably take me another year, or years to achieve the next level but it's great to have come this far.

Finally, I've been eyeing business school as a follow up to Peace Corps. Committing way too much of my free time to reading, doing problems, making flash cards, etc to prepare for the GMAT but hopefully it'll all be worth it. 

Like I said, I've been doing a lot of picture taking recently. Here are a collection of some of my shots. Please check out my Flickr and 500px profiles as well!

 

My Travels in Peru: Part 3

Bit of a delay with getting these last pictures up, apologies.

So for the last part of my journey, and the reason for having traveled to Peru, was to do a five day four night hike starting just outside of Cusco and finishing at Machu Picchu. For about $500, we got meals, tents, hotel for the last night, entrance to Machu Picchu, men to carry our bags, a guide, and other things I'm currently forgetting. It was well worth it I must say.

Getting ready to start hiking.

Mint leaves. If I recall correctly, when smelled, smelled helped with respiration at such high altitudes.

There were beautiful plants everywhere.

Here is a well maintained aqueduct that was originally installed by the Incas.

Resting after the first day.

Hot Girl Seat

Apologies for dragging my feet with posts as of recently. I've been occupied with my photography as of late and haven't had the energy out of site to make blog posts as well. I'll follow up soon with some of my photography.

This post was inspired because I found myself sitting in the hot girl seat on my way home from Panama city. What is the hot girl seat you ask? It's one of the many peculiarities of the country I've called home for over a year now. I'd like to take the time to introduce a few of my favorites.

Hot girl seat: There are many types of public transportation offered in Panama, several of these have a seat next to the driver. This seat is typically surrounded by the only windows of a vehicle that haven't been tinted so that outsiders can still see in. Who better to put here than the hot girl to keep the driver company, or show her off as a trophy, or use her as a siren to lure men in. I'm still not exactly sure why this happens. Every so often I end up sitting here, because others don't seem to want it and I enjoy the spaciousness it offers. One time, the driver opened up the passenger side door of the pickup-truck-with-seats-in-the-back style transportation and beckoned my girlfriend and me to sit up front, probably due to the fact that, besides she's hot, I was decked out in Panamanian clothes, rocking my sombrero. Damn it feels to be invited to hot girl seat.

Forever lonely on the bus: If I'm not sitting hot girl seat, I'm usually sitting in the back of the bus where there is not enough space for how big I am. Luckily, for whatever reason, Panamanians refuse to sit next to me until the bus is completely full. Luckily, I'm not a leper or something and this happens to many other volunteers as well.

There are no Walmarts or Starbucks in Panama. The former is probably due to the fact that the former president owned the largest would-be competitor to Walmart.

Water quality: Surprisingly, for all the warnings I've been given about water quality and drinking untreated water, it's really not that bad. I've been to several volunteers' communities and never had an issue with the water. Nowadays, I'm actually more worried about treated city water which in one city is found to have chemicals that cause infertility, and I recently read about some place in Louisiana finding a brain eating amoeba in their water. As a final note, think about where all those medicines, cleaners, vitamins, etc. you pour down the drain end up? Not all of it gets filtered out.

Sunday not so Funday: What a clever rhyme. Keep it in mind if you ever think of doing anything besides relaxing on a Sunday. Just about everything is closed.

Panamanian Hour: Set all your watches an hour ahead so that you'll always show up an hour late to meetings. But it's cool, because Panamanians living outside of the city will typically arrive an hour late as well.

All Asian people are Chinese: If you're Asian, you're going to be called Chinese. My hypothesis for this one is that Panamanians do not know that all Asians are not Chinese (or they're racist). If I was to make a guess, outside of people I've met in hostels or through Peace Corps, I've yet to see a non Chinese Asian person in Panama.