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.