What do you DO all day?

People back home are always asking me what exactly I DO in the Peace Corps. Honestly, there is no real answer- it isn't like a 9 to 5 job. Half the time I don't know what I'll be doing from one day to the next. The first three months in my community were mostly focused on getting to know the people in my town, and them getting to know me. Building trust, I guess. It was also a lot about learning Spanish. I'm still learning but it gets easier every day and I've really started to feel like I fit in here (as much as I can fit in, with my blue eyes and 1st grade vocabulary).

Anyway, the job that Peace Corps lined up for me was working with a youth cooperative. As a business major, my primary assignment is to help the kids of an all boys private Catholic school with their chicken and pig projects. Basically, they buy baby chics and pigs and raise them, fattening them up, and then sell them for a small profit. Because the private school is focused on farming, this is a great project for the boys, relevant to what they will be doing after they graduate. My job is to help them learn to manage their books and offer advice/suggestions to improve efficiency, etc. I think it will be a pretty awesome job once I get into it but right now the kids are on summer break so I haven't met with them since early December.

In the meantime I work with two other youth groups. The first is an EcoClub that focuses on encouraging environmentally healthy practices at a very basic level, such as not throwing your trash out the window of the bus. Depressingly, Panama can be very ugly along most roads. We are, one step at a time, trying to increase awareness and encourage responsible living. They are a pretty great group of kids. They are between 13 and 17 and always friendly and welcoming. The community that I live in is pretty wealthy (relatively) and the kids have had access to a comparatively good education. Most of them understand a fair amount of English and some of them, though shy, are nearly fluent. There are definitely a few I wish I could take home with me, they are such amazing kids!

My third group is the Muchachas Guias (Girl Scouts). Working with them is more of a relaxed, playful job, though I want to step it up a little bit and start teaching the older ones about sex education and STI's, which are relatively untouched subjects in the public schools. As a result young pregnancies are heartbreakingly common and it isn't unusual for many generations of a family to live under one roof, with a (young) grandma helping to raise the little one. And, often, the mom drops out of school. Because my site is, like I said, more affluent (and, as a result, better educated), this isn't as common, but my site is also very Catholic and talking about sex can be taboo. Hopefully I'll be able to increase awareness without stepping on any toes. And with the little girl scouts I want to start focusing on self-esteem and leadership.

Because I work with kids my schedule works around their school schedule. Since the younger kids don't get out of school until noon and the older kids don't start until then, I usually have my mornings free. But since we're on summer break I generally meet up with the kids three or four times a week, depending on what projects we have going on. Like I said, I don't have a set schedule, which can be frustrating but also very refreshing.

They say that the job/life of a Peace Corps Volunteer is 24/7 and it is true. We are always "on". When you live in a community where everything you do sticks out because you stick out it can be exhausting. My door is always open and I always smile even if I'm having one of those days where all I want to do is scream. It's important to me that they know I want to be here and I want to be a member of the community. Because, at the same time, I need to know that they want me here. I need their support. I need to know that when I leave in two years they won't think back and wonder why I was even there.

This whole experience is so emotionally and mentally exhausting sometimes I wonder if it's worth it. I miss home. But, at the end of the day, I know that I will never regret the decision to come here or the (sometimes daily) decision to stay. This is where I live now. This is my community. And every day it feels a little more like home.

Feliz Navidad y Año Nuevo!

Last month I went to a rural village up in the mountains with my host family. I got a couple of really great pictures up there. The first is of my host mom, Gudelia, and her grandkids, Yosuet (the little boy) and Yuri (the little girl). It was a really great experience.

The day after we arrived was the final day of celebration for the Virgin of Guadeloupe. People in neighboring villages had come from miles around (some walking for as many as 10 hours through the rocky, hilly, winding roads) 7 days before and had camped for the past week in the shrubs behind the church. My host sister, Yaneth, took me through the “hotels” so I could take pictures. I felt like I was a National Geographic photographer and she was my guide. It was very awkward. But, for the most part, people were open to being photographed. They were definitely roughing it, though. There were at least 50 people sleeping in the bushes, on newspaper laid on the ground. There were no tents or tarps. What you see in the picture is exactly what each “room” was like, though they did have a little fire pit for cooking off to the side. As we were leaving the next day it was crazy to see all of the people walking home, knowing that they had many hours ahead of them in the 90 degree weather, with baskets on their backs.


For Thanksgiving I was also up in the mountains but in a completely different part of Panama. The volunteers rent out an entire resort every year and take over the kitchen so they can cook a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. It was a lot of fun, though I didn’t take many pictures. This one is of Andrew, Deborah, and me, with other volunteers playing touch football in the background.

Christmas here is a lot like it is in the states, at least it is in my part of Panama. The whole town was decorated with lights and nativity scenes. It was absolutely gorgeous. And my Girl Scouts group went to the local children’s hospital and put on a Christmas play for the kids there. They were really cute.

For Christmas Eve and Christmas day I wanted to be with friends, speaking English, so I rented a house up in the mountains with 9 other volunteers. To get there we hired a random guy to take us in the back of his pick-up truck (though I don’t think his wife, who was in the front seat, was very happy about it since it was a 3 hour detour on their way home from the grocery store). The house we rented was amazing. It was all by itself on the side of a huge hill and the views were breathtaking. There wasn’t a neighbor in site and all around us was. My mom sent me a package that I got a couple of days before Christmas (thanks, Mom!) and inside there was a miniature tree. I brought it with me and we set it up in our rental and put all of our presents for our White Elephant gift exchange underneath it. It was perfect.

On Christmas day a group of us spent most of the day in the kitchen cooking. In the very back of this photo are me and Mike. Then there is Shawn, Andrew and Coco, with Kelly in the front. We had a really great time.

These are some random photos:

The first is a shot of the canal from a bridge just outside of Panama City. I love going over the bridges and seeing all of the container ships. I'm kind of a dork like that.
The second shot is a cool flower I came across that was very photogenic.



The hand is Greg’s. I think I’ve mentioned before that all the men here carry machetes but Greg accidentally slipped and sliced his hand open on his. The worst part is that the first doctor didn’t do a very good job and it had to be re-opened and re-sewn. At least he’ll have a pretty cool scar.




The final photo is my friend Whitney. I’m pretty spoiled and have a washing machine in my house (no dryer), but Whitney lives in an indigenous village called Ngobe Bugle and has to do her laundry by hand in the river. I think it’s really cool, though I’m sure it gets really old pretty quick... ☺


That’s it for photos. In general things are going pretty well here. I miss home like crazy and it was especially hard during the holidays (this was my first Christmas away from home) but now that it’s January and I know I’ll be home to visit in six months I think I’ll be okay. This month is going to be pretty busy, which is always good for homesickness. Anyway, that’s all for now!

Can I Come Home Yet?

Don´t get me wrong, I love Panama, but I miss home so much lately. I´ve been in my site for almost three weeks and it is exhausting trying to process Spanish all the time. It can be so frustrating to know exactly what you want or need to say but have absolutely no idea how to say it. So I stumble out a mix of the words that I do know, fully aware that I probably haven´t expressed what I really intended. Despite whether it was true or not, I used to think of myself as a rather eloquent person with a decent vocabulary, but in Panama that is so not the case! As a result I´ve been burrying my nose in books far more than I should, although there could be worse things. I´ve read a lot of really great books lately (30 since I got to Panama). My two current recommendations are The World According to Garp and Under the Banner of Heaven. Definitely read them if you get a chance.

Anyway, so other than impersonating a mute and missing home, things have been pretty good. Our Halloween party at the beach was awesome and, as promised, I´ve got some pictures to share. Because my host family in Santa Clara always watched 80's music videos, I opted to go for the 80's look, with the ripped bright pink t-shirt, side ponytail, and big jewelery. Logan (in the picture with me) was dressed as a maleante.

Oy, the formatting is all messed up on this. Anyway- Greg and his wife Lisa were women´s doubles partners (and Greg played the role very well)

The other Lisa and her husband Matt went as a popular Panamanian dish- Arroz con Pollo (Rice and Chicken), which was pretty cute. (I made Matt´s shirt- it took amazing skill, as you can see). Jake was a cat but the funny thing is that Jake is 6'8 and he was all about playing the part. If only I had video...

We also had superheroes. From the left, Andrew was Captain Paternalism (long story), Franco was Batman (he shaved the bat symbol into his chest), Rebecca was Quailman (from the cartoon Doug) and Steve was Superman.

There were a ton of other great outfits but these are some of my favorites. Unfortunately I didn´t actually get any good pictures of the beach, which was very peaceful and the ocean water was like bathwater. It wasn´t, however, the crystaline blue that we´ve heard about. Apparently that´s on the Carribean side and we were on the Pacific side. Oh well, I´ll get there someday. I´ve got two years, right? :)

In Panama, November is the month of celebrations. There is a holiday at least once a week and generally more often than that. For each holiday there is usually a parade, where all of the participants dress in traditional Panamaian styles from different periods. Last Friday I marched with my Girl Scouts troupe in the celebration of the separation from Colombia. They were really really cute. The first three on the right are my cousins (I live with their grandmother).

This girl is really cute but she never smiles, ever. Her dress was beautiful, though her and the rest of the girls in similar dresses had to hold their arms out like that for the entire parade.

These two were my favorites. She kept trying to steal his drumstick. His outfit was the best, I thought. He´s wearing the traditional Panama Hat, white woven shirt, and leather sandals. But he also has a chakra, which to me makes the outfit. Chakras are ¨purses¨that are woven of a thick hemp like material and they are very common here for men and women (though mostly men). I plan on bringing back a lot of them. They're one of my favorite Panamanian things (though I think they aren´t specific to Panama).

That´s it for the photos. Next week my friends and I are going to the mountains to celebrate Thanksgiving. Every year all of the volunteers in Panama get together, if they can, to celebrate a traditional Thanksgiving. There is cold weather (by which I mean 70 degrees), turkey, football, etc. I can´t wait! We´re spending two nights up there, which is going to be a little crazy because I think there are over 120 of us going this year. And I´ll also hve wireless internet so I might get a chance to post to my blog again. So, until then, ciao! (Like in Ecuador, people answer the phone with English ('alo?) and say goodbye with french. I don´t think I´ve ever heard anyone say adios...