Saturday, June 25, 2011
PICTURES OF MY FUTURE HOME IN EL CEDRO
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Una Vaca Rockataca
Rockataca = a ghetto girl, more badass than a Chacalita, likes to dance Pasa Pasa
Vaca Rockatoca = A cow on the side of the road with a cool earrning brand. Very Rockataca, but not as bad as a Mariposa Peligrosa, that's another story.
Today I finally went to the finca (farm) with my family and Bianca. They have been talking it up for quite some time so it was good that we finally had a break in training to go with them for their weekly visit. About an hour into the "campo" we arrived at a beautiful hillside finca with horses and cows to boot. Wow! Very unlike Santa Rita were we live for training. The farm is cared for all week by a very nice couple from the Ngobe-Bugle comarca of Chiriqui, along with their adorable son. I tried to chat them up a bit, but they are charactaristically very quiet. I did get a few really good pictures of the mom in her beautiful traditional Ngobe dress and her toddler. Promise I will get them up soon. Sorry I am a slacker.
I did get to ride a horse and almost fell into some mud while trying to touch a cow. It's so refreshing to get out of the city for a bit, although the smell of burning trash is just as toxic. Due to waste management issues (or complete lack of programming) people are pretty much forced to litter or burn trash. Sadly, littering is better for human health. Sad state of affairs. This presents just one of the environmental problems CEC volunteers are working to imporve here in Panama.
ANYWAYS I am jumping ahead of myself. I completely forgot to share with you all my future site! I am heading to... (drumroll please).. Herrera Provence of the Azuero Peninsula! YAY! I don't know if that means much to you but for me it means being smack dab in the center of the cultural heart of the Latino population of Panama. While I will not be learning about the amazing indigenous populations across Panama, I will be learning to dance tipico, hopefully donning a Pollera (typical dress for tipico) and eating more rice and beans and arroz con pollo. My site is called El Cedro and it is an hour and a half chiva (2 chivas to be exact) from my regional capital in Chitre. Chitre and it's regional sister city, Las Tablas (although slightly smaller) are famous for two things; Baseball and Carnival. I have the best baseball teams in the country (Yes, Allie so happy you realized this before I could tell you, although I was very excited to share with you!!!) and the best party scene come Feb/March. Think Mardi Gras with squirt guns and Reinas dancing in skimpy costumes (sometimes these can be men to I have heard). All in all I am extremely happy and can't wait to visit my future site next week. My town has 750 people ("large" be PC standards in Panama), potable and available water and electricity. My school, while small, is quite strong and has an outstanding library and Infoplaza with 10 computers with internet! This is thanks to two previous Peace Corps Response volunteers who worked in 2009, 2010 respectively. The region is hot and semi-mountainous and I am about an hour to the closest volunteer already in site. Additionally I have 5 of my close CEC group 68 friends nearby and 5 more in the next provence over, Los Santos (also part of the Azuero Peninsula). While this is a short description of my future home, it is all I know after waiting for about 9 months (yes I feel like I have just given birth to my Peace Corps Panama baby, and it's pretty!), and I am pretty excited. Keep me in your thoughts and prayers, I will be meeting my community guide and future host family/community in less than a week!
Love to all! and Gooooo RED WHITE AND BLUE (Panama vs. USA tonight in Raymond James in Tampa... I support both teams by the way if you didn't know Panama's flag colors are the same as ours :) )
Monday, June 6, 2011
Listening to "I and Love and You" and drinking a latte....
Week 6 of training. Time is passing at a violent pace. I am not quite sure how I am keeping up. Life as an aspirante (PC trainee) is trying at times. I am leaning many things, especially about myself. But before I get into the deep stuff, I would like to take the chance to recap a bit with some hilarious hilights.
SCENE: Bird on a bus, SETTING: As we casually sit on the morning bus out of our technical training week in Cocle provence, we see an elderly woman board the bus with a young boy. She guides him to a seat near us and coincidently waves her clinched fist in our direction. Sticking out of the fist is a bird's head. A green parakeet to be exact. Apparently you can bring any number of animals on a bus in Panama, and carrying a small tropical bird in your hand is perfectly acceptable. I just wonder why? What is the purpose of this strange ritual? It only got stranger when we glanced back at her and had the bird balanced on the little boy's head. The mystery was never solved.
SCENE: Go Gators/No Teeth, SETTING: While hiking up a mountain to tech week training classes in Cocle at 7am, I suddenly see a familiar sight passing me. An older campo soldier weilding a machete is approaching on my left. While this is becomming a daily occurence, this was not the familiar part. The crazy thing was that he was wearing a Florida Gators hat. Yep, campo farmer in a Gator hat. My man! I of course immediately freaked out and started doing the Gator Chomp wildly yelling Go Gators (which I don't really know how to translate... maybe VAYA LAGARTO! ) while I undoubtedly shocked the heck out of this guy by my sudden display of excitement, his response was even better. Coy campo smile... all four teeth he had. And he walked on into the morning mist. We never did get to discuss Tebow.
SCENE: Pee bucket, SETTING: No big deal, just thought I had to include this little incident. It is perfectly normal in Panama for your new host mom you met just hours before to offer you a delightful bucket to use in case you have to tinkle in the middle of the night. The latrine is a long walk in the dark. The best part was that I was sharing a room with one of my friends, and incidently we got to share one bucket. Luckily I was able to wake up, fumble in the darkness, find the right key on a ring of five, open a padlock, and hike up a hill in time. That bucket stayed dry :).
and one more ..
SCENE: Teaching Environmental Edu/Sex Ed, SETTING: Hi maestra, yes we will teach your class tomorrow as practice for our future careers as environmental educators. Oh and yes we can tailor most subjects to environmental themes. For example, if you are teaching religion or math, we can pepper in some talk of God's gifts or word problems involving subtracting deforrested trees. Easy. Wait? You are teaching natural sciences? Well perfect, that is simple, you see we have these amazing Env. Edu. guides written by your ministry of education. Simple. What's the topic? WHAT? SEX ED? Oh ... um... golp.. ok I guess we can do that. (Imagine this all in broken Spanish and you can get a better picture). So making a lesson reviewing reproduction systems and excretory systems is hard enough as it is... in Spanis. Now try to make it involve a message of environmental conservation. Yeah... we did it, and we did it game show style. My partner and I got creative and involved an overall environmenally focusses lesson at the end of each "system" review. Excretory system matched up with environmental health and latrine use, reporduction with pollution. Yeah that one was a stretch involing fish and pollution affecting sex hormones leading to all female offspring. A bit above 5th grade but it worked. Yes you do need a male and a female to make new baby fish! Win! By far the best part of this story was when we asked the final round question to the team... for the win, explain the difference between sexuality and sex. ..... yeah it's a real toughie, but it WASSSS in the book.
A smal boy raised his hand, stood up, and clearly expressed ( in Spanish) "A boy has a penis and a girl has a vagina!" "Si. Bueno, buen trabajo" (They really want us to stress positive feedback to students). We let the teacher step in and teach that part... but he was correct, just not in answering the question.
So yes, perfectly normal, yet perfectly strange. This is my life here. I adore most every moment and thus far the people I have met are beyond amazing. For example, this new host mom/family I had during tech week was amazing. Leaning about Panamanian culture through delicious meals and conversations on patios is an ideal way to spend an afternoon. My favorite meal so far was coconut rice with chicken asado (cooked in a traditional fagon stove, which is not an eco stove by the way), and plaintains. Oh yes and this was paired with something called arroz y pina or a frozen drink of sweetened pineapple and rice. It's creamy and amazing.
I find out this Thurday where in Panama I will spend the next two years. Words can't realy express the anxiety I feel right now. My training group has become like family and soon we will all be strewn across the country. Crazy to think we have already lost 2 potential volunteers. Statistics say we will lose more before the end of training. I hate to think like that. Honestly this training process has been very difficult. The highs are high and the lows are low. I get pangs of longing for I feel like sometimes I won't be coming home again, at least anytime soon. I can see myself fading into Panama....maybe it's just the start of a change.
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"the highway sets the travelers stage, all exits look the same, three words that became hard to say I and Love and You."
SCENE: Bird on a bus, SETTING: As we casually sit on the morning bus out of our technical training week in Cocle provence, we see an elderly woman board the bus with a young boy. She guides him to a seat near us and coincidently waves her clinched fist in our direction. Sticking out of the fist is a bird's head. A green parakeet to be exact. Apparently you can bring any number of animals on a bus in Panama, and carrying a small tropical bird in your hand is perfectly acceptable. I just wonder why? What is the purpose of this strange ritual? It only got stranger when we glanced back at her and had the bird balanced on the little boy's head. The mystery was never solved.
SCENE: Go Gators/No Teeth, SETTING: While hiking up a mountain to tech week training classes in Cocle at 7am, I suddenly see a familiar sight passing me. An older campo soldier weilding a machete is approaching on my left. While this is becomming a daily occurence, this was not the familiar part. The crazy thing was that he was wearing a Florida Gators hat. Yep, campo farmer in a Gator hat. My man! I of course immediately freaked out and started doing the Gator Chomp wildly yelling Go Gators (which I don't really know how to translate... maybe VAYA LAGARTO! ) while I undoubtedly shocked the heck out of this guy by my sudden display of excitement, his response was even better. Coy campo smile... all four teeth he had. And he walked on into the morning mist. We never did get to discuss Tebow.
SCENE: Pee bucket, SETTING: No big deal, just thought I had to include this little incident. It is perfectly normal in Panama for your new host mom you met just hours before to offer you a delightful bucket to use in case you have to tinkle in the middle of the night. The latrine is a long walk in the dark. The best part was that I was sharing a room with one of my friends, and incidently we got to share one bucket. Luckily I was able to wake up, fumble in the darkness, find the right key on a ring of five, open a padlock, and hike up a hill in time. That bucket stayed dry :).
and one more ..
SCENE: Teaching Environmental Edu/Sex Ed, SETTING: Hi maestra, yes we will teach your class tomorrow as practice for our future careers as environmental educators. Oh and yes we can tailor most subjects to environmental themes. For example, if you are teaching religion or math, we can pepper in some talk of God's gifts or word problems involving subtracting deforrested trees. Easy. Wait? You are teaching natural sciences? Well perfect, that is simple, you see we have these amazing Env. Edu. guides written by your ministry of education. Simple. What's the topic? WHAT? SEX ED? Oh ... um... golp.. ok I guess we can do that. (Imagine this all in broken Spanish and you can get a better picture). So making a lesson reviewing reproduction systems and excretory systems is hard enough as it is... in Spanis. Now try to make it involve a message of environmental conservation. Yeah... we did it, and we did it game show style. My partner and I got creative and involved an overall environmenally focusses lesson at the end of each "system" review. Excretory system matched up with environmental health and latrine use, reporduction with pollution. Yeah that one was a stretch involing fish and pollution affecting sex hormones leading to all female offspring. A bit above 5th grade but it worked. Yes you do need a male and a female to make new baby fish! Win! By far the best part of this story was when we asked the final round question to the team... for the win, explain the difference between sexuality and sex. ..... yeah it's a real toughie, but it WASSSS in the book.
A smal boy raised his hand, stood up, and clearly expressed ( in Spanish) "A boy has a penis and a girl has a vagina!" "Si. Bueno, buen trabajo" (They really want us to stress positive feedback to students). We let the teacher step in and teach that part... but he was correct, just not in answering the question.
So yes, perfectly normal, yet perfectly strange. This is my life here. I adore most every moment and thus far the people I have met are beyond amazing. For example, this new host mom/family I had during tech week was amazing. Leaning about Panamanian culture through delicious meals and conversations on patios is an ideal way to spend an afternoon. My favorite meal so far was coconut rice with chicken asado (cooked in a traditional fagon stove, which is not an eco stove by the way), and plaintains. Oh yes and this was paired with something called arroz y pina or a frozen drink of sweetened pineapple and rice. It's creamy and amazing.
I find out this Thurday where in Panama I will spend the next two years. Words can't realy express the anxiety I feel right now. My training group has become like family and soon we will all be strewn across the country. Crazy to think we have already lost 2 potential volunteers. Statistics say we will lose more before the end of training. I hate to think like that. Honestly this training process has been very difficult. The highs are high and the lows are low. I get pangs of longing for I feel like sometimes I won't be coming home again, at least anytime soon. I can see myself fading into Panama....maybe it's just the start of a change.
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