"Do not go where the path may lead..."

I couldn't decide which title was better. I started calling Eimer Zuluaga a month ago because he has the mold I need to make the seats for our latrine project. It always went straight to voicemail. Panamanians lose their phones like it is their job, so I was starting to get very concerned. To buy a new mold can be hundreds of dollars and to get my hands on another mold means a trek to Bocas which is nearly Costa Rica and who knows if their molds are available. So I really needed to talk to Eimer. When the phone calls didn't work I started asking around to see if anyone in my town knew him. A few people knew him or had worked with him at some point, but know one could give me his current whereabouts. My previous Volunteer had left me his phone number and told me he was a missionary from Yaviza, but that was all the info I had. With no other means of communication, I did the only thing I could think of: I set out to find this random Yaviza missionary. My fellow PCVs ...

Each year I celebrate the new year doing something new, and those new things always include my favorite people. Whether it is pizza and beer in a tiny rural Nebraska town, road tripping to another city, smashing myself into a basement (the halfway) with about 100 other people, watching space jam, eating a steak dinner with my family, or playing monopoly until dawn, I am not necessarily celebrating in the most glamorous way, but it is always new, different, and a total blast. The key to a great NYE celebration? It is not the dress, the music, the alcohol, the name of the club, or the cost of the destination. It is absolutely...wait for it, cuz I am about to get cheesy...the people you spend it with. This year I was at home, in the jungle. We were building both the 31 & 1, so running off to a beach wasn't so much an option. My friends Siobhan, Danielle, and Ben came in to celebrate with me. We had stewed chicken and fry bread for dinner at a neighbors house, then came ba...

In Spanish, if you are working with a machete it directly translates as throwing a machete. It is also, for the vast majority of purposes, a strictly male chore. My first few months in site, I had to learn the rules. I did laundry, learned how to cook, talked to the women, stitched their artesan crafts, and followed as many of the typical gender norms as I could, short of taking a husband and having lots of babies. I always had an unsettled concern though that when the time came to build latrines the guys were not going to take a woman seriously. In December, I started breaking the 'rules'. Now my community was going to see how I play the game. I am sure you are anxiously awaiting to hear how throwing machetes plays into this, so I will start there even though chronologically it wasn't first. My friend Ben was having trouble getting his house built. We had been in site nearly 6 months and he still lived with his host family. Each family in his community was sup...