Taco Night

domingo 2.10.11

Taco night was a hit with our family! We served about 18 people and everyone loved it!

Nene, my uncle, eating our tacos.  He really loved it, he just didn´t like me taking the picture.

My sister, Martita and her tacos!

Site Announcement

Site Announcement

sabado 1.10.11 

After 6 weeks of training everyone finally found out where we will be placed for 2 years.  When the instructors brought the map onto the smart board in the office I saw there were a lot of beach sites.  Awesome!  But not for me… I am headed deep into the mountains of the Comarca Ngabe Bugle, honestly the last place I thought I would be going.  I will be in the site of Peña Prieta and to get there from Panama City, I take a bus and a chiva (a truck that people pile into the back of or sometimes a small van) about 5 hours to the entrance of my site.  Then I hike 1.5 hours.  My area of the Comarca is all mountains.  The Comarca is an indigenous area where they speak their own language Ngabere, in addition to Spanish, and the women wear traditional naguas.  Those are the dresses shown in my pictures from the last post.  The culture is a very important part of their culture and coming in as a white, outsider will be a tough task.

Some things I know about my site, I will have some cellphone reception, there is an aqueduct in my community and they use wells during the dry season but I don’t know the condition of them and there is some type of health building in town.  My site has roughly 150 houses with 700-900 people.  Some of the main sources of income are agriculture and raising chickens and cows.  The closest volunteer not in my training group is a 2 hour to 2.5 hour hike and the closest volunteer from my group is probably about the same distance.  There is a primary school with 265 students and 16 teachers.  The way the teacher system works here is that teachers with the most years pick where they want to teach and live first.  Therefore they pick latino sites or sites closer to bigger cities.  The teachers in the Comarca usually don’t want to be there as much and leave on the weekends and are often “sick” from school, which means that the children don’t have class because they do not have a system of substitutes.  There is also a secondary school of 345 students and 5 teachers. I will not have to build my own house it seems because there are about 3 houses that I can possibly rent after my 3 months of living with host families.  I am unsure of the latrine situation so I may not have one when I arrive and I will have to think of another alternative, such as a composting bucket. 

Many organizations already exist in my community although the structure and organization of the groups are not yet known.  There is a junta, or work group used for projects such as building houses, harvesting crops, or other major projects.  There is a club for fathers of the families, a water committee (each house pays $1.00 a month to be hooked up to the aqueduct), a health committee, a women’s group, a farmer’s group, another women’s group and baseball and soccer teams.  Now there are a lot of groups in the community already but do not get the idea that they run anything like in the United States because they don’t.  They are usually pretty dysfunctional and meetings can last for 5 hours or more accomplishing nothing. 

More information I received: My community is part of the mountains of the Cordillera Central and from many high spots of the community besides enoying the fresh mountain air, I can also see neighboring ridge communities and the Pacific Ocean in clear mornings (which is far from my site).  The people of my community cultivate the slopes for rice, beans, root vegetables, coffee, cacao, bananas and various fruit trees. 

Description of Potential Work:  “I know that you will be challenged by the remote location, severe weather at time and intense Ngabe culture.”  That’s encouraging haha.  So basically when I arrive to site in November it is the rainy season.  Therefore it rains just about everyday and all day.  My hike in will probably be very tough carrying my luggage, especially if it is in fact raining.  It gets chilly in the mountains when it rains and also at night.  Never did I think I would be cold in Panama.  So while some of my friends are on their beach sites, and one on an island, I will be cold in the mountains; although the mountains of the Comarca are a beautiful site.  My primary purpose as an environmental health volunteer is to develop water system improvements projects, initiate sanitation projects and assist in local health and hygiene improvement efforts while building community capacity to participate in sustainable project development and implementation.  Potential secondary activities include women’s, youth and artisan group development, sustainable agriculture techniques, introduction of practical nutrition ideas to families, and group sports.  I am the first volunteer in this site.

Whooo that is a lot to take in.  October 11^th I will be traveling and visiting my site for 5 days and then returning for the last week of training.  After that it is back to my site for 2 years.  The first week visiting site and the first 3 months in site are said to be the hardest times because it is the first time we are by ourselves.  For the first time we can only communicate in Spanish and we are the outsider of our community.  Integrating is the first and toughest task of a Peace Corps Volunteer.  That’s all I have for now about my site.  On a different note, 2 other trainees, Sergio and Sarah, and myself are cooking tacos for our families tonight.  We are cooking American tacos, my favorite food, for about 18 of us.  It is going to be an adventure!

Where everyone in my group is going throughout Panama.

The girls going to the Comarca, Erica, me, Sarah, and Susan with our Regional Leader Erin, and APCD Brandon.