My New Home

I honestly don’t even know where to begin. I think I have just found my paradise. A place where I absolutely cannot stop smiling. A place where the people, the laughter, the nature, the flowers, fruits and seeds, and all the insects and birds remind me about a thousand times a day how incredibly beautiful this world is and how incredibly lucky I am.

I once heard that in the United states the average American sees a few hundred if not thousand advertisements a day. We may not be fully conscious of it, but just think about all the TV commercials, billboards, advertisements in store windows and on bus stops that you encounter every day. Basically everywhere we glance there is an advertisement for some sort of a product. More likely than not, something of man made materials, artificial, plastic, with a short usage life span but an incredibly long degradation period. Something that will soon be determined by its owner as useless and will just add to some pile of waste. I know, very cynical of me.

My point however, is that here I encounter tens of thousands of advertisements in a day too. However, they are slightly different. Well, significantly different. Here in my new community it is impossible not to acknowledge and appreciate the magic of nature. Everywhere I look living things are advertising for themselves. Flowers open their brilliantly colored and cleverly placed petals like open arms to lure insects in. Parrots and parakeets have no shame when it comes to showing off there well groomed and incredibly vivid plumage. Big beetles that have two glowing spots near their wings light up the area surrounding the hill upon which we live probably trying to attract their mates. Seeds of all shapes colors, sizes and patterns that are just asking to be put in the ground to burst into growth, or to be converted into gorgeous jewelry made by the artisans such as my host family members. Soap stone that over ages has compounded into a gorgeous solid stone that needs continuous moisture in order not to disintegrate, that is just asking to be carved into owls, and parrots, and other creatures of the area also begs the miners to be brought to the hands of an artisan. It is absolutely incredible. I walked around today with my host sisters and my mom and the have lived here for years. They still acknowledge and appreciate every butterfly every bird, every sound. I hope that every day that I spend here, I am equally if not even more memorized by this place. How can a person not fall in love with a place this incredible?

As we pulled up in the pick up truck to a small dirty road I quickly was shaken awake from my drowsiness that enveloped me during the short ride there. I noticed a tiny bridge off to the right side and realized that we’d be crossing it. It looked sturdy enough but I wasn't quite certain if it was wide enough to hold the wheels of the car. Here we go I thought, and as soon as we made it onto the other side it was like I entered through a portal into a green wonderland. All sorts of trees all around me, little creek, a dirt path up a hill, just absolutely gorgeous. Up I hiked with my heavy backpack on my pack, completely out of shape but it didn't seem to matter, the desire to see more and more of the gorgeous scenery was pushing me up the hill.

At the top of the hill was my new home - painted green as it would be in my dream world. The house had a huge outdoor space, almost like a very large porch. In it sat a man at a table painting parrots that were carved out of wood. He made it appear so effortless, but the parrots in there brilliant colors were incredible. When I first arrived I met part of the family but I soon learned that the family was much larger than I had expected. I noticed gorgeous artisan work all over the house. In addition to plenty of parrots just hanging around, there were calabaza shells beautifully carved and painted. It was all enchanting. From since my first site visit when I discovered the potential of calabaza shells I’ve been wanting to learn more about them. Now was my chance. I nearly interrogated my family, but I couldn't help myself, they were so beautifully done! I just had to ask them all about the process.

Then as I was sitting on the back porch overlooking the gorgeous green hills I noticed all the fruit trees. And so I asked my host dad a question and that soon turned into a whole lesson about all the different varieties of banana trees that exist and all the trees that they have all around their house. I literally had to grab my notebook and start writing because there are so many different types of bananas and tropical fruits that I have never heard of. Then as he began to put on his big black rubber boots, I asked where he was off to. He enthusiastically informed me that he was going to work in the soap stone mine. Before I knew it, I had invited myself to tag along. The mine was definitely different than what I had expected. It wasn't some huge underground system. Instead they were digging slowly, just taking out as much stone as they needed for their artisan work. My host dad was incredibly to tell me all about "la piedra de jabon" (which would directly be translated to soap stone) and this doesn't surprise me because it is pretty intriguing. Apparatly the stone needs to remain wet at all times, because if it dries up then it become incredibly fragile. Thy demonstrated this to me by putting two stones in the little creek. One was a dry stone that in a few minutes disintigrated. The other stone which was always maintained in a wet environment, just looked more beautiful in the water. However if you rub it with your fingers it does slowly rub away. Its almost chalky. Fortunately after they carve the figurines in it they varnish it and then it is protected

The remainder of the week I had the opportunity to get to know the other sectors of my town. My town is the largest CEC (Community Environmental Conservation) site in my group. It is populated by 2600 wonderful individuals, from what I can tell so far. It consists of 3 main sectors. The first one that I will be living in is the most jungle-like one. (Pictured above). Many artisans live in that sector. The second sector that I will stay in is the center of the town. It is the part through which the concrete road runs.  My permanent home will be in this sector 3 months from now. I will be living a 1 minute walk from the school that I will be teaching at. With 600 students, it is once again the largest school that we have in CEC. I told my director that I wanted a site with a lot to do, and I certainly got it. On Monday after the children sang the national anthem I had to go up and introduce myself to the entire school using the microphone. I must admit I was pretty nervous. First impressions are incredibly important here. Especially when it comes to the school staff. However, I think I  did well. Later in the day a few teacher complimented me on how good my Spanish was, and two little kindergartners ran up to me and gave me a huge hug! What a wonderful way to welcome me! I cannot wait to work with these children!

Every other Monday the school has a recycling day, run by the current volunteer. The kids are incredible and bring all the recyclables from their homes to the school, since Panama doesn't have a waste management system like we do in most places in the U.S. that picks up waste. Many of these kids walk with bags full of recyclables for 30 mins to an hour crossing little creeks and going up and down all the hills. I was shocked by how much recyclable material we collected that day. The photo below doesn't even have half of it. We were just getting started!

The third sector is primarily agricultural. There is no electricity in most of the houses. However, there is what seems to be an endless amount of energy coming from the community members. This wonderful man who will be my host uncle for a month, and hopefully also one of my counterparts has a sustainable farm with many wonderful projects started. He is incredibly knowledgeable and motivated. I already know that I will learn very much from him. Here he is standing in front of this ecostove that he constructed. It is a more efficient way of cooking food that requires you to burn less wood. Below is a picture of all the wonderful things that he has growing. He was truly an inspiring individual, who I believe has a lot to share with the rest of the community. Hopefully I will have the opportunity to facilitate some of that in the upcoming 2 years. 

The Shoemaker

03/26/2013

It’s day three here in the community that we are living in for Technical Week and I still cannot get over how beautiful this place is. Every morning I wake up and feel the cool refreshing breeze. I sit up in my bed and look out the big window next to me. I literally take a deep breath in of the air that literally smells like green trees. So earthy. I sit there with my arms wrapped around my legs and a smile on my face.

I share a bedroom with Lauren, a wonderful roommate and now friend. But this bedroom of ours isn’t just a bedroom, it’s really more like a tree house. This wooden room is built on stilts and right next to a tree, it has a nice balcony-like front porch and is painted blue and beige. On each side there is a window. Not a glass window or a net, but instead a big hole that was cut out in the walls. With a world as beautiful as this one right outside of my window, I couldn't be happier with the fact that there is no barrier separating me from it.

Tonight I’m sitting here with a huge golden moon lighting up the sky outside of my window. I hear thousands of insects chirping, the geckos calling, and I have to remind myself that I have to go to bed soon before the rooster chorus awakens and the cows start snoring ( I am being completely serious). However, I cannot help but to sit here and jut reflect for a while. I feel like for so long I’ve been anticipating anxiously waiting for this peace corps experience. The wait was at time so long, that I almost felt jaded before I even had begun.

But I can’t help but to sit here and just reflect for a while. I feel like I had been been anxiously anticipating this Peace Corps experience for so long that at times I almost felt jaded before it had even begun. But this week is serving as a reminder for exactly why I am here. Already I am facing little challenges that are allowing me to grow as a person. One project that we have to work on while in this community is to teach a hour and 30 minute long class in groups of three. My group received the first graders, fourth graders, and fifth graders. Since there are few teachers as well as students here they combine grades “multigrado” classrooms. This in itself can be a significant challenge because the teacher has to divide her attention among the three grade levels as she taught three different things each class period. In order to successfully teach a class we were first provided with the opportunity to observe the teacher as she teaches the class so that we could get a good idea of the class dynamics, as well as the teaching styles that are utilized here and that are effective with the students. But of course, since this is Panama, things didn’t exactly go as planned.

As soon as the 5 of us walked into the classroom the teacher began with an introduction “Good afternoon everyone. Please welcome the Peace Corps Volunteers that are here with us today. Since today for English class I am supposed to be covering the environmental classification system and I don’t know what it is, they will teach your English class today.” And she stopped and looked at us with this look on her face clearly saying “Ok why aren’t you guys getting up to teach my class?” And we just stared at her, trying to be discrete about how shocked we were.

So I asked “would you like us to start right now?” And she answered “Yes” So I slowly gut up from my seat in the back of the class from which I planned to observe the class, and I walk over to her desk to get a better idea of what she wants us to cover exactly. She said, present tense and past tense while incorporating the environmental classification system, so speaking about things like water, plants, animals, as well as contamination. Just to clarify we only had 20 minutes to do this. So I quickly came up with a plan and with one other girl started by discussing water, and where it is found. I quickly learned that we will not be covering present and past tense, and all of these things that this very ambitious but poorly-prepared teacher wanted us to cover. These students didn't even know how to say “water” or even “go” in English. We had to think on the spot and we did an awesome job at it. I will not go into details but the the two of us successfully taught the class and actually covered all desired topics. Well.... we touched on them. The students loved us though, and the teacher was very happy with what we thought. Although, completely unexpected, I was very happy that this curve-ball was thrown at us. It could have gone horribly but I think we handled it like pro’s. Well first time pro’s if such a thing exists.

I think I also grew as a person just by meeting incredible individuals. My host sister was 9 years old and she was very silly and funny, but also brilliant, just extremely wise for her age. One day she picked up one of Lauren’s “cutarras”,  a traditional leather sandle that is made here in Panama, and started to tell us about how its made. After describing the whole process, and how the man have to do all these things to make this comfortable and well-made shoe, she finished by saying “Shoemakers are VERY Intelligent.” I honestly had to take a moment to just comprehend how brilliant she was. Here is this 9 year old girl, who not only knows more about shoe making than any other person I know, but she acknowledges how intelligent they are. I’m not sure how many people I know that have ever thought about how the shoes that they wear are made. I doubt many of us really take the time to appreciate the work and to praise the shoe makers. It was beautiful.

Here is a photo of my wonderful host sister who served as our guide around the community on the first day. She showed us all the beautiful places and told us all about the different trees.

Along the way we also encountered many cows and I couldn't help myself, I had to take some photos of them because I think they just have the funniest ears. I have never seen such cute cows. I'm a fan!

And here is the view of the gorgeous  sunset from the treehouse bedroom window. Can you imagine seeing this everyday before you end the day. Impossible not to be grateful for everything.

One evening after a day of training we all climbed on top of one of the big hills with some of the community members. Below are a few pictures of the scenic views. We also hiked up there one morning to watch the sun rise and the last few photos are of that. Absolutely gorgeous. Perfect way to start a day. Thank you to the birthday girl who proposed the amazing idea! I thought that it was wonderful that she was completing yet aother trip around the sun by appreciating the sun and watching it rise. I hope to do so on my next birthday!

 And finally a picture of me and my host family before I left the community.

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My thoughts from one of the nights while at Tech Week.

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I lie down in the grass and close my eyes. I feel the gentle breeze against my face as I hear crickets chirping all around me. I lie there trying to give my eyes sufficient time to adjust to the darkness surrounding me. As I wait, I think about how lucky I am.  Not just lucky, but also very content. There I am, with Lauren next to me. Not too long ago she was a stranger to me, and now, we are sharing this wonderful moment.

The dew has settled and so we lie with our rain jackets underneath us, with our heads in our hoods, and our clunky black rubber boots on our feet, hopefully protecting us from all sorts of little creatures.

Our tree house not too far from us. Our tree house. Yup, we are indeed lucky.

I finally open my eyes, and I am surrounded by a sparkling space. Above me, a dark sky filled with bright stars. Around me, fire flies floating above the ground and getting lost in the grass. It’s almost impossible to differentiate one from the other as the two worlds blend together. The stars twinkle, the fireflies twinkle, almost as two kids imitating one another.

I wait anxiously hoping to see a shooting star. But as the clouds begin to roll in and cover the stars with a soft blanket I realize that I will not be seeing a star, and that is quite alright with me because I don’t even know what more I can wish for.

Hole Digging and Heart to Hearts

March 21, 2013

Today was just one of those days. You know, those days when you wake up with a lot of doubts, but by the end of the day everything just comes together beautifully. Typically my day here starts out with a 4 hour Spanish class, today however it started out with a interview in Spanish, which serves as our test to determine if we will be changing levels. Since I am already in the level that needs to be attained by the end of to training in order to be able to remain in the Peace Corps, I did not have much to worry about. So of course, I worried! Typical. I went into my interview nervous and I really did not like the first question which was a bit on the personal side, and after that, it just did not go as I would have hoped for. I came out a bit frustrated but at the same time I understood that this interview exam served no other purpose then to determine where I am right now so that I can be put in the appropriate group to be in the best learning environment for me. After the interview I had some free time in the afternoon for the second time since I have arrived so I was able to do all sorts of crazy things! Including; my laundry, and going on a little adventure to buy some ligit rubber boots so I can get nice and muddy next week during our training at one of the current volunteers sites. I returned home to a delicious taco lunch (delicious, sort of takes on a new meaning here after some time. Anything out of the ordinary, meaning not rice and chicken, is delicious. Though personally I do love myself some rice and beans as well).

During our technical class we got to do some planting of seeds in our semilleros (seedbeds) that we constructed the other day. Now if only I had a picture to demonstrate to you all how ingenious our seedbed was. The engineering was flawless! My group took some platano (plantain) tree trunks and split them in half. Then we took out a few of the layers of the trunk so that we had some depth. Basically it looked like a tube cut in half long way. We had a few of these and placed them on top of a grate that we created by

In addition to this, today we had our interviews with our APCD, basically the director of our sector (Community Environmental Conservation) Since tomorrow he will be deciding which site he wants to place us in for the next two years, this was a pretty significant interview. Unfortunately only about a third of the group was able to have the interview because we ran out of time. However our APCD says that he already has us figured out and so the interviews with the rest of the people wouldn't have been necessary anyways. Personally however, I am extremely happy that I was able to have my interview. It allowed me to express my thoughts openly about what I would like in my site. It also reaffirmed that my director really knows what he is doing and that he knows us better than we think. Also, because I was able to do the interview in Spanish and still effectively communicate my thoughts, I like to think that I redeemed myself from the disaster of a Spanish interview that I had this morning.

After the interview I got to dig some holes! Physical exertion was the perfect way for me to get rid of all the nervous energy I developed earlier in the morning. It was also very rewarding to see how our garden is slowly forming. I hope that the children of this school really enjoy the garden that we are creating for them. :)

To top the day off, I just had a serious heart to heart with my host mom. For those who don’t already know this, she is 23 years old, as am I. This proximity in age makes it very easy for us to talk. Even though we may have very different backgrounds and be in slightly different places in our lives we still share many values and beliefs on a whole variety of topics, including men apparently ;) as well as the affects of technology on our generation, pregnancy, and the importance of having personal goals, following your dreams (as cheesy as that may sound) and your desired career path. We agreed that one day when I’m pregnant, and just can’t handle everything anymore, she will be the person I will call. Although I am not excited for that day, I must admit that I would love to call her at that moment. I have no doubt that she would instantly cheer me up from thousands of miles away.

During our conversation we realized that by the time that I am done with my Peace Corps Service, Katlyn, my 1 year and 3 month old sister, will be nearly 3.5 years old. I can’t even imagine! She is going to be a dancing superstar by then! I hope she remembers me! I really hope that I will have the chance to visit during my service to make sure that she doesn't forget me because I will certainly not forget her, nor Mili of course.