Trading Spaces

I made it. As of right now the Volunteer that I have been sharing my community with, Moiz, is a RPCV. He's done. He's gone. As of now I no longer live with a host family, I am in charge of this project on my own, and I have my own hut. I am -finally- an independent adult once again. The first three months I knew were going to be hard. But they were harder in ways I didn't expect, and I think it all boils down to lack of control over my own life. Not that Moiz and I ever had any problems. I feel like we did an excellent job of creating a smooth transition between Volunteers for the community and I am incredibly indebted to him for a tremendous amount of knowledge and insight that only 2 years living with our people can bring. But I am so ready to kick my service into gear.


Over the last few weeks, I have filled my days with lots of reading, lots of journaling, and lots of counting down for this point. I still visited with other people in my community and such, but I was really in survival mode. Make it through the day to cross it off the list. Moiz and I also hosted an artesan workshop were another Volunteer came to visit and we taught the women how to make jewelry out of soda cans, magazine paper, chip bags, and beads. They loved it, and I acquired a new hobby. I have spent HOURS in site since then making magazine beads.


We taught sex ed to the elementary school. Yes, the elementary school. Grades 4-6. I know it seems young to you guys to be teaching 12 years how to put use and 'troubleshoot' using condoms, but over 90% of the girls in my community get pregnant between the ages of 13-15. Our first day we taught them about sexually transmitted infections, HIV/AIDS, and how to put on a condom. (My host mom was bewildered when I left our house with a dozen condoms and a plantain, and then came home 2 hours later with nothing but a slimy plaintain) Our second day at the school we talked about the physical risks for the mother and child in a teen pregnancy, the costs of caring for a child, and the importance of family planning and contraceptives or abstinence.


I worked with the artesan group to set a goals meeting where the women decided they wanted a workshop to work on their own artesan crafts together and to be able to share amterials, ideas, and market things better. To start a project like this we decided we needed funds. I helped them reach this decision by facilitating a discussion about what their values, goals, strengths and weaknesses were. At the end of the meeting we planned a fundraiser to make rice cakes to make $15. On the day of the event we made $25! It is a baby step, but it is a step nonetheless.


We officially received our grant from USAID to start implementing the 4 pilot composting latrines. Moiz and I met with the participating families to prep them and we will hopefully start building in January. Today, I went to meet with the Panamanian government agency, PAN, in the capitol. After seeing a number of secretaries, we found ourself waiting to speak with the executive director of the agency. Finally a woman came out to speak with us and gave us the most straight forward, honest answer that any of us (there were 3 of us PCVs there, each with our own composting latrine proposal) have received thus far. In the process of realizing a project with PAN, a project goes through the following phases: Solicitation, Project, Funding, and Execution. Our projects have been in solicitude for 11 months. As of today we got moved to Project, and we have a meeting with an architect next Friday to talk about what's next. Then she told us that it would either be 6 months (rough estimate, give or take a year) or possible more before we could ever get approved for funding, then we have to wait for the funding to come in, and then we have to wait for them to use the funds to buy the materials and haul them to our communities. So actually seeing a project happen through PAN will not happen in my service. But I am not going to give up. I think that it is really important for the Panamanian government to be funding and supporting their own people so I am going to continue annoying the hell out of this agency for the next 2 years just to see how far we can get with it, in the hopes that someday, somewhere, some future PCV might get an actual project realized through them. Or that maybe even someday a community could soliticit PAN on their own. Whoa, big dreams, I know. Poco a poco. I have a meeting with the architect that is the head of the Project department next Friday (just my luck, he is in the Darien this week, now that I am in the City. He returns to the city the day I have to go back to the Darien. So I will be making a super quick trip next Friday in...again.)


Moiz held a goodbye party last weekend to thank the community for their support over the last 2 years. I got up at 6am to help a bunch of the women make 3 pilas of arroz con pollo (a pila is a pot big enough to put a preschooler in; arroz con pollo is a rice chicken casserole). I hand shredded thirty pounds of chicken, peeled potatoes and carrots using only my fingers (boil them first), and was then in charge of watching one of the pilas so it didn't burn and stirring it occasionally with a wooden paddle. It was like a small boat oar. To be trusted as capable enough to help cook was a big step for me! And, my pilas tasted just as good as the rest of them! We all ate, played some games, raffled off some of Moiz's stuff, and then he left the next morning. The hut, the project, the community are now mine. I feel like I now finally get to start my service!


And that is life. I am finally actually really happy here in Panama. I knew I would be eventually, and I was always glad that I but myself up to this challenge, but I am, after an arduous 29 months of applying, 9.5 weeks of training, and 13 weeks of integration, comfortable here in Panama. It is still crazy and unpredictable but that is becoming the new normal. Going back to the city for a 'first world' break is nice, but the culture shock every time is very stressful. It throws into sharp contrast just how used to my jungle life I am getting. And I have a strong love/hate relationship with the internet. There are so many things I need, want, can, and should do, so many things to check, to submit, to find, to look up, to talk to, to send a note that it is overwhelming!


Life is so much simpler when it's just you, your hammock, the sun, a billion mosquitoes, and a bunch of other people just trying to make enough food to have dinner tonight.


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