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

Breezy Christmas Dreams

10 Month-iversary.

Internet, it's so hot here that I actually used the intracity buses today instead of just walking.  This Panamanian summer might make me melt.  Or just avoid any activity more rigorous than sitting in my hammock (unless absolutely necessary and "necessary" can become very negotiable).

Graduation
Snorkeling
Christmas

Graduation
The graduation ceremony for the 9th graders at my school was last Monday.  It's the first graduation ceremony that the school has ever had for pre-media students and the teachers and administration have been planning for weeks.

I had no idea what to expect. When I walked into my kitchen on Monday morning to make breakfast I looked out the window to find my neighbors getting their makeup and hair done by the same guy who did Manuela's hair and makeup for Mi Ranchito in November, and it suddenly became clear that this was going to be a much fancier affair than I had anticipated.

I spent the morning traumatizing my cat by cleaning my house (the spiders were starting to take over...), then Jenny came over and we had PBJ for lunch and spent the afternoon chatting and playing with Canela while I finished sewing Prima's Christmas present.

Prima's Christmas Present (the final version has two more snowflakes on it)

Canela and I spending some quality hammock time

The graduation was during the evening in the pavilion next to the artificial grass cancha (field) that they must have just finished because the floor was still dirt in November.  The stage was beautiful and all the teachers got really dressed up.  I really need to get a pair of heels, I always feel underdressed around these fabulous women.  The ceremony was lovely.  Lots of speeches.  My favorite part was that a band from a local IPT played each student onstage when the Principal called their name to receive their diplomas.  The song selection included "Bad Romance" and "Timber".  The fireworks made it hard to hear sometimes, but it was a wonderful joyous evening.  After the graduation Jenny and I went to the post graduation brindis dinner, which was delicious and then watched Hocus Pocus and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (for the want of Polar Express; I'd already watched Die Hard two days prior) while I continued my sewing.

Sun(burn), Sand, Snorkel   

The next morning we left for Santa Catalina, which is a really beautiful and popular surfing beach in southern Veraguas.  We had the most delicious lunch of shrimp and garlic butter (we think) with rice and lentils (of course) and spent the afternoon hiking and reading on the beach.  It was so relaxing.

Santa Catalina from my reading rock

The next morning we madrugar-ed (when you wake up before dawn) to get ready for our snorkeling adventure at Isla Coiba national park/nature preserve.  I'd never snorkeled before and it'd been almost 20 years since I'd been on a boat smaller than the ferry from Long Island to Connecticut (which is large enough to fit dozens of cars), so the prospect of getting on a lancha (speedboat) for a few hours was a little nerve wracking.  Armed with gatorade, a full water bottle, a peanut butter sandwich, and a bottle of sunscreen we set out.

I was hoping for some instruction.  I had the basic idea of "put on a mask and swim around looking at fish", but I wasn't exactly clear on the finer points of how.  The "instruction" consisted of being handed a mask and flippers when we got to the first snorkeling spot and being told that "most of the fish (including sharks) hang out by the rocks over there".

After about 20 minutes of some serious struggle (including losing one of my flippers and flooding my mask like 3 times) I took a water break to get some non-salt water into my body and switched masks with a friend.  The second attempt went much better than the first and I actually started to relax and have fun.

Our second stop was the ANAM station (Panama's Ministry of Environment) to pay our park entrance fee and eat lunch.  Peace Corps Perk: we only had to pay $5 for the entrance fee as opposed to the $20 that we thought it might be.

A shipwrecked cruise ship in the bay of Coiba.

They ran aground on some rocks and punctured 6 holes in the hull 

the morning before we got there.

Our third stop was for more snorkeling.  Less coral this time, more rocks, and much deeper water.  It was fun, but exhausting.  I saw some really cool fish and I am really glad that we got to practice a bit in shallower water earlier in the day.

The last stop was hanging out on the beach on another small perfect little tropical island.  It was so beautiful and the water was crystal clear, but I was so exhausted that after 20 minutes I was ready to start the journey back to Santa Catalina and spend some time in a hammock.

It was a long trip in the lancha to and from Coiba.  On our way there we sang/shouted Christmas carols, but on the way back everyone was much quieter.  That evening we ate at the fonda (small restaurant) across from our hostel and spent the rest of the night reading.

It was a wonderful, beautiful trip and I want to go back with the Veraguas wonder women, but I was so tired at the end of it.

Sunset at Santa Catalina

Breezy Christmas
Climate change is real.  It was 60 degrees on Long Island on Christmas Day.  It was much hotter than that in Panama (probably around 100, but I haven't looked at a weather report in almost a year), but it was beautifully breezy, which made it easier to deal with the heat.

I spent Christmas Eve making some Christmas phone calls, baking, and finishing Prima's present.  Prima lent me use of her oven and I made oatmeal raisin cookies and chocolate chip cookies without burning them too badly.

An improvised baking sheet out of a pot top

 

"No Bake" peanut butter oatmeal cookies 

(that were more like pudding because they didn't solidify, but still delicious)

Cookie dough

On Christmas Day I had a relaxing breakfast, skyped with my family, and pasear-ed to some families in my community with Christmas cookies.  Cultural exchange win.  Prima invited me to a delicious Christmas lunch of ham and rice with guandu (a kind of bean) and I spent the rest of the day watching Harry Potter movies and sewing.

Prima loved her present and her daughters want to learn how to bake cookies.  I also spent a lot of time hanging out with her family and eating fruit.  It seems to be a Panamanian Christmas tradition to set out a bunch of fruit (apples, pears, grapes, etc.) and sweet bread (reminds me of challah) on the dining room table for people to snack on during Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

On to New Year's!

I leave you with this:

Canelita in a frisbee, she thinks it's her bed

Two Months in Site! (and The Ominous Approach of the SECNA)

So, it's July.  I'm really not sure how that happened because I swear I've only been in site for like two weeks, which means it should be the end of May and I should have many many more than 9 days to complete my SECNA (School Entry and Community Needs Assessment) paper, but alas earwax.

Two Month Milestones (with jump links to sections because I'm verbose!)
-End of June: The longest amount of time I've ever been out of the US (to date)
-I sent 5 letters to people in the US
-I have gotten less terrible at pasearing in the past week
-I started the last of my observations this week
-I actually conducted SECNA interviews

Click your Heels Three Times...
I spent most of training waiting for my decision to serve with Peace Corps to "get real", to have the moment where it all solidifies and becomes reality that this is my life for the next two years.  For some people it was when they got on the plane that would take us to Panama from staging in Miami, for others when we were going through Customs in Panama, or when we moved to our training communities at the end of that first week in-country, or one of a hundred other small "firsts".

For me, it wasn't any of those.  During the past three years I became so used to transient theater life, to living in blocks of 8-10 weeks, to counting time in shows, to being completely comfortable with my entire worklife (which really was just my life) changing every 3 months, that I didn't have the moment until my third day in site.

On that day I realized that I would live in one place and have one main employment (the school) with a steady income for the next two years, a kind of stability that hasn't existed in my life since before I left for college.  I also realized that I really had no idea what I was doing or where I was supposed to start with the enormous amount of work that I had in front of me.  So, I decided to take a mental health break and go to Santiago to start working through the "To Do" list that I'd made to make myself feel like I had some grade of control over what was happening in my life.

I went to the pharmacy to get more medicine for my ailing tooth, got directions to the bank from there, saw an ice cream place from the bank, satisfied my craving for something cold, and ended up walking around the Panamanian version of a Home Depot (a "Do It Center") for a bit before going back to site (which I've since started calling "home" interchangeably).  I just desperately needed some anonymity (as much as could be afforded by Santiago), independence, and some normal monotony (the aisles of tools were also amazingly soothing; I really miss building things).

During training I kept thinking that I would have my moment when I hit the milestone of being out of the US for more than 4 months, but I haven't been homesick (or more likely I just haven't recognized some of my new coping behaviors).

Maaaiiillll (a-la Blues Clues)
When I was 18 I was crazy sick and bedridden for a week.  I watched a significant amount of Blues Clues, Dora the Explorer, and America's Next Top Model during that time.

Getting mail makes me disproportionately happy and writing letters is super fun.   Be my pen pal!

Lessons from the post office:
1. Mailing letters is crazy cheap (no word on timeline or reliability yet)
2. You have to glue the envelopes closed (they won't let you mail anything with scotch tape)

This second lesson threatened to bring out the overzealous kindergartener in me (I was the kid whose notebooks were always accidentally glued shut), but I managed to restrain myself.

Welcome to the Neighborhood
During training the staff spent alot of time talking about "pasearing" which is a beautiful Spanglish word for the practice of walking around the community and inviting yourself onto your neighbor's' porch when you see them hanging out in front of their house (or even when their front door is open-indicating that someone is home).

It starts with a hearty "Buenas!" as you're opening their front gate and it's totally socially acceptable to get as almost far as that open front door before you pause to wait for a response.  Once you've awkwardly inserted yourself into their physical space you introduce yourself and try to find things to talk about and they may or may not give you food/drink.

I was not too keen on this idea.

Rather, the idea of knowing my neighbors and other people in the community sounds really great, but the practice of having to go to other people's homes to talk to strangers about what I'm doing here (when I'm still figuring that out myself) was just daunting.  And I conveniently used the heat and some creeper-no-creeping incidents as excuses to largely avoid walking around my site for about a month and a half.

We were told it would get easier with time, and it has.  As more of the teachers and kids (and by extension their parents) have gotten to know me it's become much easier to approach people and I've had some really nice conversations with some of my gente (literal translation: "people", Peace Corps Translation: "community members"), especially as I've learned what days the bars are closed and the best routes to take to avoid them when they're open.

This week has been particularly successful.  On Tuesday I was supposed to help some first grade students learn a poem for English Week, but it rained, so none of them showed up.  Instead, I went for a walk to a part of the community that I wanted to check out on earlier walks around the neighborhood, but hadn't worked up the guts to walk that far by myself.  On my way back a woman left a house that I'd just passed.  After about 10 minutes of walking in the same direction she started a conversation with me (opening with: "Que Hace?", "What are you doing?"; I was loudly saying "Buenas!" and waving every time I saw someone in front of their house, but not stopping or giving any indication that I actually knew people).  I explained that I was the new Peace Corps Volunteer and that I was going to be working in the school for the next two years.

I was then treated to the familiar refrain of two previous PCVs who both married people from my community (everyone I meet tells me about the previous volunteers, inquires about my marital status, and expresses interest in helping me find a boyfriend, in that order).  I also met a few other community members and two of her friends as we walked down the street (It's so much easier to pasear when you're not alone!).  She invited me to her house at a future date, as did both of her friends.

The next three afternoons were spent teaching those first graders the poem and then playing games with them in the park next to the church.  I learned that "el escondito" is Spanish for "hide and seek" and I even got some of them to count in English while we were playing. Also, playing with kids in public space also makes you much more approachable, as does walking them home when you're done playing learning.

*Open staring* followed by *Nervous giggling and averted eyes*
I started observing with the teacher (Coralia) who teaches grades 7-9 this week.  I already have a relationship with Coralia because we've had a bunch of conversations and I've eaten a few meals at her house, but I hadn't "worked" with her yet, so I was starting from square five (or so).  When I'm observing I try to sit in the back of the room as unobtrusively as possible so that I can get a sense of how my CP teaches without distracting the students.

At the beginning of an observation period, the kids are usually distracted by the new person in the room (eventhough I've been at the school for two months).  By Friday the open staring and nervous giggling had given way to barrages of questions and a general acceptance of me lurking in the back of the classroom.

Today we did tongue twisters with the 8th and 9th graders.  Coralia was teaching the 8th graders "A proper copper coffee pot" and she asked me to read it so the students could hear the pronunciation.  I told her that there's another half to it and she said we could teach the 9th graders the rest of it.  When I wrote out the full one for her she told me that she thought it would've been longer, so I wrote out "Betty Botter" for her too, but that one was too long.  We'll get there, the students got "Proper Coffee" pretty quickly and I love tongue twisters (#TheaterKid, #RudeMechanicals).

Moving forward I'm really excited to work with the older kids at my school and to hopefully have the opportunity to explore the nearby secondary school next week.

Aprovechar (and Quitar la Pena)
Two weeks ago my CPs told me that they'd all be out of school the following week for a training in Santiago.  This threw a serious wrench (the most recent of many) into my observation plans.  With the looming reality of my SECNA paper being due on July 20th I decided to aprovechar ("to take advantage of an opportunity") and get some community interviews done while I didn't have a specific daily commitment at school for the week.

I was pretty successful in my venture to Quitar la pena ("get rid of shyness") and go find people to talk to in the community and at school.  I interviewed the principal and assistant principal, met the mayor, explored the community library, and have a potential appointment to interview the priest and learn more about the faith communities in my site.

I have some more interviews to do this weekend and next week (and a fantabulous SECNA draft writing date with another PCV this weekend), but I'm feeling pretty good about where I am in the process.  Checking things off my To Do lists is the best feeling (it's so good that I sometimes write things down just so I can check them off, #stagemanager).

SECNA is the paper and presentation about our community and potential projects that we might do in our sites during our two years of service.  It's based on our observations at school and interviews with school staff and community members.  At the "Three Month" mark the APCD (Associate Peace Corps Director; Program Manager in non-jargon), and PTS (Programming and Training Specialist, Assistant Program Manager in non-jargon) go on a country-wide tour to visit the new volunteers and hear about their sites and potential projects.

Final Thoughts
Congrats on making it this far! I know this was a long one.

1. It's rained two days in a row which has been a wonderful break from the heatwave we've been having.  I love the sound of rain (added bonus of it washing away the horse poop in the street!).
2. Go read "Como Agua para Chocolate" ("Like Water for Chocolate") by Laura Esquivel.  It's a fantastic book and so much better than the heavily fast-forward-edited movie that you watched in high school Spanish class.
3. Shoutout to my RL (Regional Leader, a 3rd year PCV) for making a rough week infinitely easier.
4. Apples and peanut butter is basically ambrosia