New Normal

My US “normal” was sort of out there already for people who don’t do technical theater/live event work. 

Until a week before I left I was working as a stage manager, house manager, theatrical electrician, with the occasional temp admin job thrown in for good measure (or a semblance of stability).  I lived a very public professional life.  I would get recognized or bump into a colleague pretty frequently.  I didn’t have much of a social life because I was always working and the little social life that I had was directly related to the work I was doing at a given moment (coffee before a show call, post show drinks, going to see a show at a theater I was hoping to start working for).  Sometimes I’d treat myself by going to the movies (usually alone), but that was pretty rare.  I didn’t have a smart phone, or a single stable employment.  I used WiFi to watch TV.

Peace Corps is the most stability that I’ve had in years and it’s exactly what I was looking for when I decided that I wanted a change. 

I still live alone, but I have a cat now (my first pet, ever) and I’m reteaching myself how to cook (after forming some very bad cooking and eating habits living the freelance life), I’m friends with my neighbors. 

Sometimes the water or electricity go out, and it’s annoying, but totally manageable.   The potential of not having water or electricity was a huge source of stress before I came to Panama, but it doesn’t really stress me out anymore, if it happens I deal with it.

I’m much less of a picky eater in Panama.  I’ll eat pretty much whatever I’m given.  The only exception so far was sau (pig feet).  I just couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t get past the consistency.  [I’ll do a post on food soon.]

I light my stove with a lighter (or matches), which used to scare me but now I get confused if I don’t have to light a stove that way. 

I throw my toilet paper in a trash can, which used to be really gross, but now it’s just life. 

I know what I can find in the local store (and how much things cost off the top of my head) versus what I need to get from a bigger grocery store in Santiago (and what I can find in each of those stores.

I’m getting better at budgeting money and I know exactly how much I currently have in my bank account.

I eat a fondas  (small restaurants) now that I never would have gone to in my pre-Panama life because their general aesthetic would have screamed “food poisoning”. 

If I’m out, one of my favorite things to eat for breakfast is fried chicken.  Which I’ve eaten with my hands sitting in the bus terminal waiting to go to my friend’s site.

I still use public transportation to get everywhere, but now I actively avoid traveling at night (what used to be one of my favorite things to do).

I could keep going, and maybe someday I will.

I just know that this is exactly where I’m supposed to be.  When I saw one of my college roommates in the US, she told me I was glowing.  I’m at my best when I’m traveling.  I like the challenge and the adventure of it.

Who knows how many “new normals” I’ll find.

Blogging Abroad's Boot Camp Blog Challenge: Starting January 2015

A Tour

The word that I always hear my gente (community members) use to describe my town is tranquilo (calm).  

Top Five Ways to Spend Time in my Site:

1. Visit the Church and adjacent park: 

There's a big Catholic church in the center of town (in addition to the Mormon and Jehovah's Witness houses of worship).  It's simple and elegant.  I can hear the church bells from my house, which is not terribly pleasant when they wake me up at 6am on Sunday, but also makes me nostalgic for the song of church bells floating through the air in my hometown.  The park is beautifully green with lots of trees (perfect for playing hide and seek) and has a lovely gazebo in the center of it (perfect for escaping sudden rainstorms and holding impromptu English lessons).  

Park!

2. Play with (or teach) the neighborhood kids: 

The majority of the kids in my site go to school in town and we're slowly becoming friends.  Sometimes they show up at my house and we play games like chess, hide and seek, or frisbee.  Chess and frisbee are new activities for them, but rapidly becoming highly requested.  Sometimes I "play cards" with my neighbors, but she and her brother are 5 and 4 years old, so our card games are usually based on shifting rules that she makes up and changes at will.  I never know what's going on, but it's always a good time.  New goals include teaching her and her brother "Go Fish" to give our card games some more structure.  Story time is also a hit.

3. Pasear to Prima's: 

Going next door to hang out with Prima's family is one of my favorite things to do.  Prima is willing to answer all of my questions about cooking and my site and I answer her questions about my life in the US and Peace Corps.  Her two youngest daughters are still in school (university and high school) and they're really fun to hang out with.  The visit will be full of laughter and probably food.

4. Cook Patacones (or "Peace Corps French Fries"):  

Fry: Start with some Platanos Verdes.  Draw a large kitchen knife down one of the ridges on the platano to break through cascara (shell/peel).  Peel the platanos and then cut them into roughly half inch wide sections with 2 flat sides.  Put all of those pieces onto a plate.  Take a frying pan and pour about a half inch of vegetable oil (or whatever kind of cooking oil is in the local tienda).  Set a empty second plate next to the frying pan.  Turn the stove on and put as many platano pieces as will comfortably fit (usually no more than 8 at a time, depending on the size of the pan).  Fry them on both sides until they're golden brown.  When they're done take them out of the pan and put them on the second plate.  Repeat until all the pieces are fried

Smush: Take your handy dandy patacon maker (or the flat side of your kitchen knife) and aplastar (smush flat) all of your fried pieces are flattened.

Patacon maker

Fry: After all the pieces are aplastado (flattened), fry them again for a few minutes.

To be enjoyed with ketchup or salt (or both).

5. Eat some mimbre in a hammock:  

Mimbre (or fruta china) is delicious.  We tend to call it "star fruit", which always makes me think of "star leaves" from The Land Before TIme.  

You could also eat some mamon, mamon chino, or an orange Panamanian style (cut a top section off and suck all the juice out).  

Hammocks are a perfect way to pass a windy (hot) summer afternoon (reading, writing, studying, sewing, or napping with a purring kitten).

Blogging Abroad's Boot Camp Blog Challenge: Starting January 2015

A Day in the Life

Peace Corps life is constantly changing and every day is different (but can still feel monotonous sometimes).  I'm slowly learning that there is nearly always more than one answer to even the simplest of questions.

So, here's a checklist of events that may happen on a sort of typical day.

Morning

• Wake up to the lurking shadow of Canelita at my bedroom door
• Open bedroom door, catch Canela as she dashes inside my room, take her into the kitchen to feed her breakfast.
• Take Canela's food out of the freezer (the only successful way to protect it from the evil biting ants) and fill her bowl.

When school is out of session

• Change out of pajamas and into house clothes (skirt and t-shirt) and cook breakfast (toast with jam and a cup of tea)
• Open front door to potential visitors
• Start checking email and whatsapp
• Migrate outside to my hammock once the sun shifts off the porch with my sewing or a book and a glass of water
• Get surprised by a parade or other celebration
• Fireworks
• Get mad at the chickens for pooping all over the porch and then immediately miss my Grandpa and his chicken sounds
• Prima knocking on my bedroom window to offer me breakfast

When school is in session

• Get dressed in school clothes (dress pants, collared button up shirt, and ballet flats), try to arrive at school by 7am
• Say good morning (Buenas) to everyone I see on my short walk to school.  
• Try to get the elongation of those vowels just right (Buuuueeeenaaaasss).
• Avoid horse poop in the street
• Arrive at school to bright excited student faces shouting "Teacher!" or "Kary"
• Participate in the acto civico on Monday mornings (a weekly school assembly that takes the place of first period) where we sing the Panamanian national anthem and get the school news for the week
• Say good morning to all the teachers, the principal, assistant principals, and secretaries
• Buy an empananda or two (fried ground corn tortilla  stuffed with seasoned pulled chicken) from the kiosko (small store that sells snacks, candy, and coffee) at school
• Head to the teacher's lounge or check my excel sheet of my English teacher counterparts' schedules to see what class they're teaching
• Spend the morning in the classroom with my teachers or in the teachers' lounge helping them with other projects

Afternoon

• Have lunch at school (potential meals include: fried hot dogs and rice, rice and pollo guisado-stewed chicken)
• Cook lunch (canned soup or a PBJ sandwich)
• Play with Canela
• Read or sew in my hammock until the heat of the day passes
• Visit with Prima or Loli
• Fireworks
• Pasear around my community (go for a walk and visit with my neighbors)
• Buy a duro (like a popsicle, but homemade in clear plastic bags)  popular flavors include Koolaid (usually purple), piña con arroz (pineapple with rice), and coco (coconut)
• Prima calling into my house to offer lunch or coming over to give me food like Platano Asado (roast plantain), pesado de nance (like applesauce, but thicker and made from nance), or fruit from their garden, like naranjilla (a cross between an orange and a lemon), naranjas (oranges), platanos (plantains)

Evening

• Cook dinner (pasta with ginger and garlic cooked in soy sauce and a salad with homemade vinaigrette is a popular choice these days)
• Prima calling into my house to offer dinner
• Eating dinner with Prima and family
• Shower (cold water feels so good after a day in the heat)
• Give Canela dinner
• Fireworks
• Check that my hammock is tied up (to prevent random people from sleeping in it, a phenomenon my neighbors assure me is a possibility) 
• Lock up the house for the night
• Finish dishes for the day and double check that all the stove burners are off
• Get my headlamp and pick Canela up, shut the lights off in the house and kiss Canela goodnight
• Shake my sheets out and check my pillow for spiders and scorpions
• Check my datebook and calendar for the next day
• Shut the lights off in my room and read until I fall asleep

Other things

• Wash laundry about once every two weeks
• Mop out the entire house with bleach about once a month
• Take the garbage out on Monday mornings
• Go to Santiago to facilitate LDGE (University level English classes about leadership) at the university with other volunteers
• Play with the neighborhood kids.  Chess is a current favorite.  Ultimate frisbee has some solid potential.
• Facilitate youth camps with other volunteers
• Teach community English classes
• Try to develop a literacy program/children's library
• Head to Santiago to run errands, have meetings, grocery shop, or meet up with Roxana and Kelly to hang out and talk about our lives
• Write letters
• Adventure to the Post office in Santiago (usually about once every two weeks)
• Write lessons and seminars, plan projects
• Listen to the pigeons running relay races across my roof and roosters crowing at all hours of the day
• Listen to the sound of rain hitting my tin roof (it drowns out all other noise and conversation)
• Stage personal dance parties (or musicals), sometimes with Canelita as my dance partner and co-star

Blogging Abroad's Boot Camp Blog Challenge: Starting January 2015

Home Sweet Site

Immediately before coming to Panama I was living in a studio apartment in a high rise in Washington, DC and I spent my childhood in rural suburbia on Long Island.  Before moving to Panama I always had access to electricity and safe (even hot) water.  It was never even a question because we see those as basic human needs when we talk about housing.  As one of my supervisors said during training "don't underestimate your ability to adapt".

I grew up in a small "one stoplight" kind of town, but it's nothing compared to the size of my community where the streets are paved, but don't have names, there are no traffic signals (but most people seem to have access to a car) and everything is located in relation to something else.  For example, I live "next door to Prima".  That's my address.

Before I came to Panama I had no idea what my house would look like or how people lived here.  From my research I thought I would be living in a wooden house with a dirt or concrete floor, a tin roof, and a latrine.  I would have a rain catchment system for water and I probably wouldn't have electricity in my house.

The reality is much different.

Training

During our first three months in-country Peace Corps volunteers in Panama live with host families in the training community.  In my host family's house they had electricity and running water, but the electricity was transferred from room to room via extension cords, depending on where people were during the day.  My 5 year old host sister spent much of the day watching comicas (literally "comedies", but in reality can be applied to almost any television show or movie) on their TV.  She loves cartoons.  

My room was a annex at the back with concrete walls and punch out windows in each wall, a tin roof, and a poured concrete floor.  I had two large plywood shelves for my things.  I used my mosquito net during training because the bugs were eating me alive (even though the windows were covered with screens).  Using the mosquito net made sleeping so much hotter, but not being covered in bug bites was worth it.

My host family also had running water from around 5:30am until about 3pm.  After 3 the water would go out until the next morning.  Some days the water wouldn't come or would come for less time.  We would save water in the dual basin sink for washing dishes (half for washing dirty dishes, half for rinsing them), and in bottles in the refrigerator for drinking.  I used hand sanitizer to clean my hands and rinsed my teeth with mouthwash when I couldn't brush my teeth at night.  

They had a nice tiled bathroom and a separate shower area around the back of their house.  The bathroom didn't have a light, so I always had my headlamp with me at night.  I took bucket showers  because the showerhead wasn't working well while I was there.  This involved taking a smaller tupperware (an old ice cream container usually) and dumping water from a larger basin over my head.  I repeated this process until I was satisfied with how clean I was.  

We washed our clothes by hand or in a small washing machine.  You fill half the machine with clothes and soap and then pour water in.  After the wash and rinse cycles you shift the clothes to the other side of the machine, which is like a centrifuge and wrings out the clothes.  You line-dry everything here.  Your soap-starchy, cleanish laundry is literally hung out for everyone to see.

Pouring freezing water over my head and showering outside by headlamp were difficult to get used to, but I survived training.

My host family's house in the training community

Host Family in Site

After we move to site we live with another host family for three months while we integrate into our communities and learn about the rhythm of life in our respective sites.  

My host family in site had TVs in every bedroom (including mine), WiFi, air conditioning in some rooms, and water and electricity at all hours of the day.  I never found a scorpion in their house and I stopped using my mosquito net.  They watched a lot of TLC shows about cars and building aquariums.

My House

After those three months we can move into our own house if it meets all the security specifications laid out by Peace Corps.  I was lucky enough to find a lovely, yeye (fancy) house and doubly lucky because it's next to the best neighbors in the world.  

My House

I live in a bloque (cement block) house that has glass slat windows that are covered with screens.  The roof is made of sheets of corrugated metal.  I have electricity and running water that is safe to drink at all hours of the day.  The floor is polished concrete.  We nicknamed it "The Ritz", mostly because I have a chandelier in my bedroom.

I have a yard full of fruit and other food bearing trees and plants.  My neighbors are farmers and I'm still learning what's in my yard.  I know that I (or "we", because my neighbors tell me to just take food from their trees and garden) have guanabana (a green spikey fruit filled with gooey white deliciousness), guandú (a kind of bean), plantains, oranges, peppers, and cilantro, but there are probably more things that I just don't know about.  There are chickens that roam the area (and poop on my porch, especially when it rains), stray dogs and cats, and a very talkative horse that lives across the street.

I still dry my clothes on clotheslines that we hung between the house and a neighboring chainlink fence, but now I wash them at Prima's house next door (or by hand in buckets if she's not around).

My landlady left a large bookshelf and dining room table set when she moved, so I didn't have to buy any furniture for the living room area and she also left a bunch of dishes and pots in the kitchen.  I've bought a few things, but mostly I use what she left in the house.

The house has three bedrooms.  I have a guest bedroom with an extra double bed for visitors, my room, and my landlady's bedroom.  My landlady doesn't live with me, but she keeps some things in the house for when she visits family in my town.

I spend most of my time at the table doing work or in front of my house sewing or reading in my hammock to beat the heat.

My Kitchen

I have a refrigerator with a freezer and a stove in my kitchen.  Unfortunately my oven doesn't work, but I just go next door to Prima's if I want to bake.  I fill up a propane tank at the store around the corner from my house so I have gas to cook with and I use a barbecue lighter to light the stove (I'm a little too chicken to use matches).  I don't have any shelves, so I just keep my dishes in a Jenga-like construction on the counter.  Most days I win, but sometimes I lose the Jenga game.  We have a formal trash pickup that comes once per week.  It's common in more rural parts of the country to burn trash, so I'm lucky that I don't have to worry about that.  

I have a blue-tiled bathroom with a shower, toilet, and sink, which is the norm in my community.  I don't have hot water, but if I shower at night the cold water is a welcome relief from the day's heat, as opposed to a rude morning wakeup.

I love where I live.  My house is perfect (though it's a little big for just me) and my neighbors are the most generous and loving people ever.

Blogging Abroad's Boot Camp Blog Challenge: Starting January 2015