A Merry Campo Christmas!

First off, Merry Christmas everybody! This is a time of peace and goodwill all over the world where people reflect, love and share like it were goin' outta style. ¡Qué bueno! We had the privilege to spend another campo Christmas in San Juanito with some of the best people in the world. They ain't blood family, but they are family in all kinds of other ways. A campo Christmas is a lot different than the Christmases we are used to, but if we have to be away from the comfortable norm around Christmas, we wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Here are some of Lauren and Alex's Xmas season 2013 highlights:

- The whole town was basically "en la fiesta" starting Christmas Eve afternoon through Boxing Day. Kids with fireworks, men with beers, women handing out plates of food, radios blaring full blast from all sides and everyone wearing their best dress and Christmas smiles.

- We marveled at how low the campo Christmas carbon footprint is. No planes, trains and automobiles are needed to bring distant family members together because, bueno, todos son vecinos...they're all neighbors! There were few presents and even fewer Christmas lights, but no one missed them at all.

- We broke down and splurged on some junk food such as Kraft Parmesan cheese, Bertolli Alfredo sauce in a jar, chips and salsa, Smartfood popcorn as well as some powdered and brown sugars we hope to turn into an apple crisp. All have been wonderful purchases!

- A Christmas Eve morning hike took us past a tree full of white-chested, little monkeys up in a pifa palm. When they sensed our approach they abandoned ship flailing and screeching into the jungle, but taking enough time to give us a good stare down...and us, them.

- The jungle heat seemed to be taking the day off too because Christmas was fresh and breezy with a beautiful, clear sky. You can't really wrap that up and it doesn't fit under the tree, but boy everyone sure appreciated it!

- Anacleto invited us up to his house Christmas afternoon to share a delicious meal. We talked and talked. It feels good to be thought of and cared for by someone so wise and upstanding. Our respect for Cleto grows daily!

- One of our dear campesino friends Clemente, a little bit tipsy, spent a solid fifteen minutes telling us how good-looking we are are and how strange it was that God decided to send such handsome people to San Juanito. We told him he was good-looking too and a great friend. He was waiting for his god-daughter's family to bring him el mulo de la gallina, which after great hilarity, we learned to be a cut of chicken including the breast and wing...we think.

- We dressed up and went to the "midnight mass," which has evolved here to the "8:45 pm birth of Jesus play featuring real babies!" This is an entertaining event in the great hall of the church where the youngest, within reason, baby of the town gets to be baby Jesus and the second youngest stars as Juan (John the Baptist and prophet/buen amigo of Jesus). Juan was extra big this year and it took both Isabel and Zacharius, every character is played by a child from town, to hold him up.

- All of our calls home went through and we got to talk to our families and know they were all doing great back home in the cold!

Yes indeedy, it is a different take on Christmas out here, but one we love a lot. We have done a lot of things out here that we have never done before on Christmas and will likely not do again...or maybe we will because after all, traditions are what you make them to be!

Happy Holidays,

Alex and Lauren

From the yellow bus

Happy Holidays every buddy!!!

We have been blog-slow lately...sorry about that. I have had lots of fantastic ideas for blogs, but none have come to fruition, which certainly doesn't count!

You may notice that my writing is more clear, concise, powerful and nearly grammaticalitacally correcto-mundo. This is due to my intense studying and preparation for my February 8, 2014 GRE exam! Hahaha! As Lauren and I want to hit the ground running in the states, we have to plan waaaaaaay ahead. This task is difficult for two people who typically cannot decide what have for breakfast until lunchtime has arrived. I've got my super finely tuned laser dialed on some more mathematical graduate study along the Colorado Front Range somewhere. Seems like a step back to the old me? It kind of is, but I feel the decision is very much informed by my time here as well. My theory is if one has the capacity and opportunity to study and get paid for it, the crime of not doing so is a serious one. I have also become an even firmer believer in "do what you love, love what you do" and Lauren will roll her eyes, but I love math. The ideal is continued study on large wild fire, an issue that persists nationwide back home.

Lauren wants to delve more deeply into social work be it in study or a job of some sort. Denver University has an intriguing program that incorporates internship, international study and emphasize Latinos and social work. To top it off, bless their hearts, the admissions department offers a tuition waiver to returned (or soon to be returned) Peace Corps folks. Worth a shot? Heck yes. As the new year unfolds our options are expected to clarify and we can gradually eliminate speculation and decide where to land.

Even though our conversations are peppered with talk about the future and what is coming up next for each of us, we blatantly ignore the immensity of leaving a community we have grown to love so much. Mayhaps because there are still so many activities left in San Juanito.

While December was a little bit ho-hum and slow, we relished the down days reading in la hamaca because we are anticipating a full, full calendar at least through April. San Juanito's aqueduct improvement project is at t-minus 5ish and counting. Approved by the community, then Peace Corps and most recently funding agency Waterlines the $5K worth of project funds arrived in early January. We're gonna make tanks, we're gonna work on new water sources, we're gonna work on pressure issues in the existing system and it is going to be fun, fun, fun until her daddy takes the t-bird away! The Environmental Health group has asked us if they can hold a field training in San Juanito for a newer group of volunteers in mid-February, an exciting prospect for everybody. What better way to train than on a living breathing water project?

We are not so patiently awaiting visits from Ken and Gillian as well as Vince and Kate. Lauren and I talk about it every day. Having friends and family stop by in the campo is super special for us, not to mention we get to knock around Panamá and site see a bit.

Somehow we have let far too many vacation days accumulate, a problem we hope to solve in March by setting down them machetes for a bit, lacing up the hiking boots and heading down south to Patagonia. A mountaineer's paradise, Lauren has already got her camera packed as we plan to trek around Parque Nacional Torres del Paine in Chile and Parque Nacional Los Glaciares in Argentina. Stay tuned...

Lauren's schedule is full of gender and development board stuff. She has organizational responsibilities in both the youth leadership camp and the women's artisan seminar. Folks are really tapping into her expertise as women's health and empowerment coordinator. Her goal is to prepare and polish some resources on domestic violence and women's empowerment to leave behind for future generations of volunteers to use.

How could I forget? Watch out dogs and cats of San Juanito and the surrounding communities! Spay Panamá is comin to get your testicles and uteruses! After passing the veterinary inspection, the school has been approved as the primary site and the casa communal as the secondary site for a free vet clinic sometime in early February. In terms if sustainability, it has kind of been an odd project. I think the idea of sterilization is awfully new for the community and their juries are still out. Many are convinced their dogs will die after the procedure, some can't catch their pets to get a leash on them and bring them to the school and still others don't really understand the benefits. Hopefully, the first round of pet sterilization will demonstrate the health benefits for Fido and Fida and start the tradition and attitude of pet care. By spaying and neutering 50-100 animals their will be a respite of litters and a brief period of population control, which should help turn the bark-volume down, reduce strays and make human life better too!

On the touchy-feely side of life, I have had tingling and poor feeling in my ring and index finger of my right hand for a few months...okay almost all of 2013. Under ever-so gentle persuasion from my peers I finally went to get it checked out. Four round trips to the city later the doctor finally concluded nothing is wrong. They gave me a brace and told me to go easy on the machete...hehehe! It was good to get it on my record and make sure it wasn't anything serious. Otherwise, we are in great health. Sometimes we get tired, but to combat that we usually just go to sleep.

On the touchy-feely sentimental side of life, our  friendships and connections in San Juanito get closer and more dynamic as time rolls. People open up to us more and act more normally in big groups when we are around. Not only is it nice not to be the elephant in the room for a while, we also feel honored to be accepted in this way and understand how unique our situation is. When else in life will we get to move to a random campo town and learn all there is to know about it? We often joke about how Peace Corps is ruining tourism for us personally because upon visiting new areas, especially new campos, we will wonder what lies beneath the surface. Do I see another round of Peace Corps in our future? Hmmmm...

But really...life is good. Real good. Maybe it's the big things, maybe it's the little things, but probably it's both. So if you haven't come visited us yet, grab your bags, leave your coat and GET HERE because this offer is running out!

Stay classy people,

Alex

6 roles of the voluntario...

The last little while I have been coming to a realization, breaking down yet another misconception. I imagined my Peace Corps service would be about helping others. I like to volunteer my time and I figured going abroad to serve could only be a notch up. In my personal experience, this has not necessarily been the case. On the contrary, Peace Corps service is helping me.

There are a handful of cases where I felt I have been a conveyer of information or a teacher. Those moments are kind of like a flash and typically don't come where I expect them. For instance, of all the giant water seminar topics we presented in San Juanito, I feel like the only real teaching moment I had was a tiny little sentence that described a way of electing a water leadership group with a secret ballot. It was the tiniest thing, but seemed to rock folks' worlds. Granted they didn't end up implementing any of the advice whatsoever, I still felt as though it was an "ah-ha" for many. Certain topics and certain auduences as well tend to seem more prone to these "ah-ha" moments. For instance, I've never seen such attentive listeners as when we did condom "how-to" demonstrations in Piedras Gordas and Vallecito. In fact, we are often rocking the boat when we touch on sexual health topics. But in reality, over my year and change in country I haven't been the revolutionary teacher I thought I might be.

So if we aren't playing a teaching role with daily revelations for all, what are we? In the Peace Corps jargon we play 6 roles as volunteers in development: mentor, co-facilitator, change agent, project co-planner, trainer and learner. That's training jargon for you, I'm going to let you know a little bit about my experience with each one.

Mentor. Mentoring is a hard one to nail down when you aren't straddling cultures. Are you teaching? Guiding? Suggesting? To what extent? That stereotypical, "gee-Beav didntja ever think not to play ball near Old Man River's garage window" mentoring feeling is not really realistic here due to my frequent language stumbles and flubs. Today, I was trying to instill the value of hard work in some young whipper-snapper (a.k.a. I wanted help carrying some stuff) and asked him to poop the bucket instead of carry it. Dang "cargar" and "cagar" being so close. Fortunately,  to me mentoring has the flavors of teaching, listening and just plain hanging out. It seems most effective down an age gradient (older to younger) simply because experience accumulates over time. Getting that sort of mentoring feeling is not tough. Just being a good role model goes a long way. We listen way more than we talk for sure. And hanging out is the prescription for the day's activities just about every single day. I am a mentor when kids come to the library at our house because it pushes them to read and talk to me about books.

Co-facilitator. I see facilitating like teaching, but scored like golf. You try at all costs to avoid taking direct credit for someone learning something. The better you are at getting a group to teach themselves, the better facilitator you make. I believe in most of the little seminars and workshops we undertake, I play the role of facilitator. The "co" comes from the ever-elusive dream of working shoulder to shoulder with host country organizations to facilitate things. Panamanian agencies, in my personal struggle, have been tough nuts to crack and I have not yet had the pleasure of being a "co" with a Panamanian. I have been a "co" with fellow volunteers, which is both awesome and amazing. Lauren and I have been each others' "co" until we are blue in the face. I was a co-facilitator during the San Juanito water seminar because we studied a model aqueduct together to figure out the three laws of water flow and what happens when there is a hole in the line.

Change agent. We are told a change agent is like a catalyst or a kick in the pants. Someone who is looking to change a behavior may just have one tiny  barrier left and a change agent empowers them to just do it (TM). I give the person being changed just as much credit, if not more, than the agent because he or she has done so much work to get ready for that last baby step. I do not know how to wake up in the morning, say, "today I am going to be a change agent," get out there and do it. I do know being present (the literal definition of "in attendance") is a key ingredient to doing it. I also believe trying to be a change agent is enormously frustrating because no one can read minds. But, once you realize you were one on a lucky occasion you A of all, know it for sure and you B of all, claim it was the easiest thing in the world. If I have been a change agent, I haven't realized it yet, but trust me I have tried ultra hard. Lauren was a change agent when she and fellow volunteer Kelly spent less than a half-an-hour showing our friend Cleto how to use the agriculture leveling tool known as the Nivel A. We returned some days later and he had leveled and terraced his entire hillside, which is a gargantuan amount of work. Cleto had been waiting with his finger on the trigger to do something to improve his production for probably his entire working life. Lauren and Kelly barely broke a sweat and changed his working habits and thus his life.

Project co-planner. This is self explanatory. In Peace Corps we sometimes do projects and plan them to make them good. We strive to be "co" with community members or groups and in many cases flat-out refuse to work otherwise. I can imagine how irritating it would be to have someone roll into Fort Collins and say, "so...you all are eating with forks and spoons and that's pretty good. But, you've just gotta change over to the spork. Don't worry! I'll be here for two years to help you make the transition. I live off Drake and Shields if you've got any questions or anything." I'd tell that person to take their sporks and put them...well...elsewhere. I am a project co-planner with Señores Serafin and Boliver as we work towards a better potable water system in the Santa Cruz sector of San Juanito.

Trainer. A word closely associated with trainer for me is reps. A trainer helps one practice a skill so that it becomes as easy for you as it is for the trainer. You then exist on the same level in that skill as the trainer and as such can be the trainer for others. This is something I aspire to do in my remaing time here in Panamá. I feel ferrocement (steel reinforced concrete) is a hugely useful skill out here and I intend to offer training on it (as training was offered to me) in hopes that others will be able to feel the power of making thin, strong cement objects cheaply and let their imaginations run wild for applications.

Learner. Exactly. This is what I feel I am constantly, more than any of the other roles or the combination of them all. I've learned more than a class more than reading a book more than an entire degree. From knowing how to organize and motivate people to names of obscure plants to hand washing clothes in a river to making hand tools do the work of power tools to whatever other madness I have participated in I feel like during the rest of my life I am going to surprise myself with some bizarre skill and try to remember where I learned it. The answer will likely be Panamá.

So there you go. The roles I play in the official jargon and in practice. Keep it crazy people!

Until next time,

Alex

Aimee comes to Panamà!

In September, I had the opportunity to visit Lauren and Alex (I’m going to refer to them as Lalex) at their new home in Panama. What an experience I had! I give them mad props for what they are doing and how they have adapted so well to the Panamanian lifestyle. I am so grateful that I was able to get a peek at what they do/ have been doing for the past year and a half. 

Right after meeting up with Lauren, it was like we were back in college again, talking about the meaning of life and catching up on the past year and a half. Underneath this new Spanish speaking, program creating, independent jungle woman, I found my best friend that I met 6 years ago. We talked the whole 2 hour bus ride to Penenome ignoring the stares from the local people when we broke in to an uncontrollable laughter. I got to meet Lalex’s old host family from their first few months in Panama. Such loving and caring people who think the world of them. 

Lauren and I spoke to each other in Spanish! This was an incredible experience for me; to be able to speak in another language to someone that you have only ever spoken English to. 

After Lauren showed me a bit of the city of Penenome, we hopped on a “bus” (and hopped is an ambitious word...more like we waited 45 minutes on the street then waited another 30 minutes in the van) to their little jungle village of San Juanito! We made the trek to the mud hut! I got to meet sweet little Goma and Lauren gave me a tour and then we visited with the abuelos for a while. It was really amazing to see Lauren speak Spanish so easily and naturally with these people. She is going to come out of Panama speaking perfect “campasino” (farmer) Spanish. We went to sleep shortly after the sun but our sleep was soon interrupted by the pack of dogs fighting on the doorstep. Poor little Carmencita was in heat and she had many eager suitors. This is one occasion where Lalex’s kind heartedness came back to bite them. Carmencita likes to hang out around them because they are the only ones in town who don’t hit her and occasionally give her scraps of food to nourish her skinny body. So she wandered over to the mud hut in the middle of the night and brought all the noise with her. This went on all night! Growling, fighting, howling. Lauren had to get up multiple times to try and get them to go away but it just wasn’t happening. 

Alex got back the next day from the city and we all walked down to the river together to do laundry! I couldn’t believe that this is how they get laundry done! It is pretty amazing. Although I do have to admit that although it is a bit of a trek to do laundry and who knows how “clean the clothes really get, it sure is a nice view and an incredibly beautiful and tranquil place. After this we relaxed in the hut for a bit and I got to see just how popular Lalex’s library business is with the local children. They love it! There were kids coming by all afternoon to get more books! What a great program that they started, just out of the goodness of their hearts. Lauren and I hiked across town to a local farmer’s house to visit and deliver seeds. This is a farmer that Lauren works with and has educated about sustainable farming techniques. It was great to see how he relied on her and really enjoyed working with her. After this we went for a much needed dip in the river and returned to the house where Alex had made a delicious meal of rice and sausage! The dogs were at it again all night but this time we had Alex to try to handle them. I’ve never heard him sound so scary!! However it is pretty incredible the amount of noise that a group of about 9…eager…male dogs can make. Poor Carmencita.

The next day I got to see the beautiful local school that Lalex have worked with. They do lunch at school with chickens that are raised just a few yards away. There is a beautiful garden full of vegetables and even a small pond where they are raising fish! I was so impressed. 

The next day we left San Juanito (and the pack of dogs followed us all the way out of town which is about a 45 minute hike…). We made the journey to the Comarca Ngobe Bugle an indigenous community in Panama and stayed with a friend of Alex’s who lived with his mother. Alex’s friend Ruben surprisingly is very passionate about rock climbing and hiking and hopes to be able to make a living from it someday. This is another good hearted pursuit that Lalex are trying to do. They are trying to get Ruben’s name out there into the climbing community in the US and hopefully get some donated equipment sent to him. Alex has written letters to climbing magazines in hopes of getting an article about Ruben published. The next day, Ruben led us on a beautiful hike. It was long, (and I was incredibly out of shape for hiking as Lauren can attest to after witnessing my 5 or more falls on the way down), but it was full of beautiful views nonetheless. After staying 3 nights at Ruben’s house, we headed on our way to a very touristy yet beautiful part of Panama called Boquete.

It was a weird feeling going from dirt floors and bucket showers to a completely beautiful and luxurious bed and breakfast located on the top of a hill on a coffee farm. We took advantage of all the amenities like hot water, water pressure, delicious coffee, and restaurants with pizza and beer! We had no problem indulging like the good Americans that we are. The next day Lauren and I toured a beautiful coffee farm and learned a bit about all that goes into enjoying a hot cup of coffee. 

We thoroughly enjoyed our time at the Mañana Madera Estate ( and would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone planning on visiting Panama). We headed back to Penenome and stayed the night and I was off to the airport the next morning!

This really was an incredible experience for me and I am beyond words proud of Lauren and Alex for what they are doing. San Juanito is incredibly lucky to have them and it couldn’t be a more perfect match. They are making such a huge impact and are going above and beyond what is asked of them just because they are good, ambitious, kind hearted people that I am proud and honored to call my friends. 

Gracias a Lorena y Alejandro por la experencia y que sigan haciendo que están haciendo. El pueblo de San Juanito les va a extrañar cuando ustedes salgan pero sus amigos y familia en su hogar no pueden esperar hasta que regresan. Les amo mucho y estoy tan orgullosa de ustedes. (DEMASIADO BENADO!!) 

Matt and Heather speak!

A blog post from our friends Matt and Heather who came to visit us for 10 days. Enjoy!

Getting ready for our trip to Panama, we had a mixture of excitement, comfort and uneasiness. We were excited of course because were going to have a 10-day break from work and we got to travel and see our friends we missed so much. Not to mention the place we got to visit them just so happened to be a country blanketed in rainforest. It’s always hard not being around close friends like Alex and Lauren for long periods of time and so we just couldn't wait to see them and get the chance to experience their Panamanian lifestyle (there’s a good spoof on a Cake song in there somewhere). Since we had just recently taken a trip to Costa Rica for our honeymoon, we felt comforted by the fact that we thought we knew what to expect. We had already had to live in a hut with no electricity or amenities, and we knew we could survive on our limited Spanish. The uneasiness stemmed from the natural nervousness you get when you are traveling somewhere foreign. There are always things that can go wrong, and those possibilities increase when you leave the country.

For the most part though the nerves only lasted until we had made or 3am bus to the airport and we got through airport security and made it to our gate. From there on we didn't have bags to worry about or missing a flight as we had lots of time in our layover. Plus we knew there wasn't much to worry about once we made it to Panama since Alex and Lauren are considered diplomats at the airport and would meet us at the gate. Then we would be in their hands and we wouldn't have to worry about anything. The one thing we learned however about Panama, is that it always keeps you on your toes and you will find yourself being surprised countless times. The surprises weren't always bad, they weren't always good, but they definitely made for some good stories and we would like to share a few of them.


The Weather in Santa Catalina

Matt says "The first thing we did in Panama was to go to this cool little surf town called Santa Catalina. When we arrived by bus we went straight to a scuba dive company and booked a trip out to Coiba Island to go scuba dive the next day. She was a very enthusiastic woman who got our hopes up to see some really cool fish, including possibly seeing a whale shark that has been spotted in the area recently. Full of excitement we then went to find a place to stay for the night, which required walking down one of the two roads in the town and stopping in a few places until we found what we liked. The first one we looked at was pretty neat with little bungalows and an ocean front view. Heather and I thought they looked really cool but Lauren and Alex were not impressed saying, “Don’t worry, you’ll basically be living like this back in San Juanito for the rest of the trip” and so we said no and continued on our search. We ended up deciding on a place that had air conditioning, comfortable beds and wifi (also with an ocean view) that felt like a cross between an American hotel and somebody’s house. After dinner was when our first Panamanian surprise hit us. We were back at the hotel, and we had decided to just relax for the evening, take some showers and Heather and I read the books we brought with us while Alex and Lauren surfed the web to catch up on the latest world news or check emails/facebook. When Alex (being the last to go) was about to go take his shower the lights flickered and then eventually went out. We all kind of chuckled and Alex decided to go take his shower anyway in the dark. His shower was very brief however because it turns out there was no water either. Alex and Lauren explained to us this is what they call being Panamanian’d, which simply meant things never go as planned in this country. Heather and I laughed at the situation, not really fully understanding how precious simple things like a hot shower, electricity and A/C meant when you are used to living in San Juanito (we’ll talk more about that later). Apparently the thunderstorm that night knocked out the power to the whole city. It was out for only and hour or so, thankfully, and during the interim we were able to sit out on the porch and look at the dark night sky which was full of stars.

The next morning we woke up early to gray skies and rain, leaving us wondering whether or not we would still be going scuba diving that day. After breakfast we headed down to the dive center where we were advised that today would not be the best of days to go diving since it was an hour and a half boat ride to the dive site and the waters would be really choppy. We all decided we would wait until the next day, with the hopes that the weather would get better. This turned out to be a great decision because we were still able to go play in the ocean and the next day turned out to be a gorgeous sunny day without a cloud in sight. We had a fantastic adventure out in the ocean scuba diving where we saw schools of beautiful fish, sharks and a HUGE sea turtle! Unfortunately we saw no eels (they must have been tired from recharging during the thunderstorm the previous day – A good Abuela-ism you all should ask Alex and Lauren about). We were very thankful that Panama decided to alter our plans; it made for a great trip out to the little surf town."


San Juanito living

Matt says, "We weren’t sure what to expect when we arrived in San Juanito. We both had our own visions of what it would be like in our heads, but they never quite match the real thing. We knew we would be living in a mud hut. We new there would be a lot of farmland around, though the word farm in Panama is drastically different than the typical corn and hay fields you find in Colorado and we knew we would be living in close proximity to a lot of bugs (Heather was really excited about that part). What really surprised us was how hard, and yet calm life was in the campo. Most mornings we would get up early and make breakfast and then do the dishes before heading out to work. The work would be anything from digging out a rice tank (more later) or hiking in/out sand and concrete that would be used to make a clay stove or just simply hiking around to talk to someone in the town to help plan an event coming up. After working during the hot and humid day we would usually come home and shower. As Alex and Lauren have mentioned before, the shower is an outdoor shower, which was always cold. On a hot day the cold water was welcome but it was still always hard to initially step into. It was also pretty weird being able to see into the Abuelo’s “living room” while you were soaping up. Even though we seemed to work hard during the day and feel exhausted by the time we got home to make supper, Heather and I agreed that we have never felt so well rested. This partially might have to do with going to bed when the sun went down and not staying up until all hours of the night, but it was also due to not being so plugged in to the rest of the world. Without our calendars and busy schedules or our phones with constant news or sports updates to constantly check in on, I think our brains were at ease. They were able to just think about the day or maybe the next one to come. We weren’t constantly visually stimulated by computer screens or iPhones. This is something I strive to incorporate in my life back home and it’s something we should all try and do. Heather says,"Yet as soon as we got back to America, the Panamanian lifestyle slipped out of grasp. Almost immediately we returned to emails, texts, phone calls, over-booked weekends, and in generally hurrying everywhere. Just look how long it took to write this blog. While we both talked about “putting a little Panama in your day” it is so much harder to do than we thought, we were both surprised in fact how immediately the Panamanian lifestyle vanished.

Another surprising thing about life in San Juanito was how enthusiastic the kids there were to read. I swear they must have just sat around waiting all day for us to get home because it felt like every time we got home, the kids swarmed. Do they stake lookouts and signal the village? How do they do it? Every kid in San Juanito is shy, and incredibly polite. Several of the little boys preferred a handshake on arrival, and wouldn’t turn their books in until they greeted every one by handshake. The kids were so cute and patient, they waited their turn to turn in their books, have their homework reviewed, and pick out new books. One day both Alex and Lauren were gone, but the library had to stay open of course! I received their books and checked them in with my broken Spanish and they never batted an eye. I could read the younger kids’ homework, but Matt had to take care of some of the more complex ones. My favorite was counting with them from uno to diez to see if they got a prize for turning in ten homeworks! While we were out helping build a stove we even saw a mom (Maria) eagerly reading the books and wearing the hair clip her daughter had picked out from the prizes earlier that day! The library is such a huge success that the new books we brought were in the hands of the first five eager kids to arrive and got picked out every time they came back. I’m pretty sure there are kids that have read every book in that satchel!"

Peace Corps

Heather says, "On their wall, Alex and Lauren have the goals of Peace Corps. We were shocked to learn that two of the three goals involve getting Panamanians and Americans to know each other better. I don't know what I expected but it wasn't that, that means visitors are important to fulfilling their goal. All of a sudden I really wished I spoke Spanish. The more you think the more it makes sense because people who understand each other don't tend to fight each other. We were pleased that our presence as well as our labor would be used to promote peace. Another surprise? How hard it was to dig a rice tank and how out of shape we were compared to a sixty year old local. Not only were we drenched with sweat, but I found a need to stop more often than I thought Clemente did. I was really thankful for my big Panamanian working hat (thank you Abuelo!) in that hot bright sun. A whole day of digging passed and the progress was stunning and disheartening simultaneously. You could see the immediate impact but there were clearly plenty of man-hours left in constructing the tank. For those of you who don't know what a rice tank is, you should Google it. It doesn't seem like much until you dig one by hand. Another shock. All of this came with great surprises. Wherever we worked or visited we were fed fresh squeezed juice, delicious lunches, and coffee juice (coffee with lots of sugar). The people were so curious about us, so eager to pitch in, and genuine. Yet for being eager we would sit and wait to start a project while they made coffee juice and just... sat. It was a strange contradiction that these hyperactive Americans had a hard time adjusting to. In a week we saw so much progress. One stove built and one rice tank started but there was so much to do. The patience Alex and Lauren have to build these working relationships but wait for the locals to take action is incredible. Who knew two people could make such a huge difference in the world?"

Matt and Heather both say,"Holy cow we had a lot to say! If this all makes it into the blog, well, sorry it’s so long. Turns out when you wait a month and a half to write you think of a lot more things to say! In conclusion, we are thankful our puppy has no functioning baby-making parts and she’s clean and pettable. We are thankful our food is cricket-free (still one of the funniest things that happened, don’t apologize!). But we loved Panama to the bone and found ourselves (Heather) crying when we left Alex at the bus station. Thanks for a great trip guys, keep up the good work, you make us proud!"

Help out our Spay Panama Project! (and tell your friends!)

Hi everybody!

For those of you that don't know I am a Peace Corps volunteer in a rural Panamanian village called San Juanito (province of Cocle). I wanted to take a minute to let you know about this awesome project my community members and I are trying to pull off. We want to spay and neuter a minimum of fifty pet dogs and cats. We are working with a non-profit organization called Spay Panama to host a low-cost spay and neuter clinic in San Juanito. Spay Panama is an amazing group of veterinarians that travels all over Panama offering clinics where they charge $25.00 per dog and $15.00 per cat to not only spay and neuter, but also provide flea and tick treatment, de-worming, an ear cleaning and a vitamin injection.

Spay Panama's services are greatly needed by pet owners in the rural communities here. Spaying or neutering your pet, not to mention any other type of treatment or procedure is not quite as easy here as it is in the United States. Vets here are notorious for cutting corners on proper cleaning of their instruments and use of antibiotics. Many animals die after the operation. There are a handful of good vets in Panama, but they charge as much as $150.00 for spaying. As you can imagine this is literally impossible for my people to pay, because the average working wage is $10.00 per day. Even if they were to find a good vet and save the money, the good vet is still hours away in public transport. They would have to convince and probably bribe the bus drivers on at least two different buses to make the trip. How do I know all this? I have done it. Once for my cat and another time for a dog I rescued.

As you can see Spay Panama is probably the only way San Juanito will ever see their pets healthy, happy, spayed and neutered.

I held a informational meeting with my town to talk about the program and discuss their concerns. We talked about how their dogs don’t live long because they suffer from an STD. We talked about the chaos and noise when a female dog goes into heat and a dozen male dogs follow her and fight to mate with her for days. We talked about how its tough to keep your dog around your house and so many dogs are loose, pulling garbage into the street. We discussed how most female cats in the tropics are pregnant their whole lives and the male cats are known to leave home for weeks looking for a female only to come back injured and skinny if at all. We talked about when the pregnancies come to term and most of the litters die because there simply is not enough food. The sustenance farming lifestyle makes it hard enough to feed one's family, farm animals, and pets, let alone litter after litter of kittens or puppies. The community sees this as not only a problem for their pets, but also a human health issue. The meeting ended in a unanimous vote to try to raise money to bring the clinic to San Juanito.

To raise funds we cooked over 120 tamales and sold them for 50¢ a piece (some people bought theirs on credit because they didn’t have a spare dollar in the house). After covering our costs we earned $40.55. the project leadership group wants to use these earnings to put together another fundraiser to try to earn more money, but I foresee at $25.00 per dog and $15.00 per cat that they are going to need some help. That’s where you all come in!

If you do the math (fifty dogs at $25.00 a piece) our fund-raising goal is $1250.000. Spay Panama is offering us a direct donation option where they will earmark your donation specifically for San Juanito. This is great because as a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, your donation to Spay Panama will be tax-deductible.

To donate please navigate to http://www.spaypanamasanimals.com/index.html , click on “donate” in the right hand corner, fill in your name and information and make sure to specify that your donation is for San Juanito. Or visit www.spaypanama.org and click on the American flag in the right hand corner and follow the steps to donate. Also PLEASE take a screen shot and send it to spaysanjuanito@gmail.com so I personally can keep track of your donations.

Remember every $25.00 donation sponsors another dog's costs, which means another lucky dog will receive the health benefits from the spay and neuter clinic. For every $15.00 donation another lucky cat will stay closer to home reducing the number of stray animals in San Juanito. With every donation you are helping a community realize its health project and motivate more people to be responsible pet owners in the future. All of us here in San Juanito are thankful for your consideration and your support. There is so much compassion in this world for animals, all you have to do is reach out and you will find it!

Sincerely,

Lauren Hayes

Peace Corps Panama

San Juanito, Cocle

Aquí en la lucha

The late John Belushi once said, "when the going gets tough the tough get going." This rings true for me lately.

Put simply and simply put, it is easy to be a fire starter, but somewhat less easy to harness the fire, keep it stoked and productive, all the while ensuring it burns clean and true to its original goals. As an eager young-buck-Peace Corps volunteer I have started more than my fair share of fires and my butt is hot. But in a good way. I won't delve too deep into the specifics because frankly, I doubt you have the time, but here is a tiddle-bit to put you on the wobbly abouts the stats.

The water project is going at a medium pace overall, but it is medium in the average, globally medium pace if you will. Look locally and you will find one side of town working themselves to the bone to prepare anything and everything to within a microfiber of perfect for when the project comes. For this side I must choose my words carefully for what I say today will be done en junta tomorrow by noon thirty. For instance, I may have said in an off-the-cuff sort of way that when the time comes we may need to create a small plano/clearing for the future tank. Before I could say a whole lot of nothing and a bo-diddlin' hot-n-tot I was being encouraged to pasear donde va el tanque. To my chagrin, up there I saw, beaming back at me through the machete smoke, a clearing the size of big mama's britches with the stumps still oozing sappy tree-blood. Note to self: do nothing to trigger the machetes of Bolivar and the super-charged boys. Flip the record to the b-side and thou shalt see the stagnant side. Ad nauseum, at the risk of nausea, I have suggested we put a river rock on the floor of the existing tank to curb the chip-chip-chipping away by the little falling cascade that enters the tank from above. Under minor personal peril and risk to my health, I selected such a rock from the river, carried it through town up and up to the tank and placed it lovingly on top. It is about 18 inches from its goal. To this writing, there it remains. I love my people. I will see this project through to whatever end befits it. But, I'll be a gawl-darn, hootin' and hollerin' pick-a-nanny crumblin' cookies from my flea-ridden bearded toucan if I can't get these folks to take it down or step it up a notch, whichever the case may require.

(Reese's Peanut Butter Cup TM break)

 

Lauren has taken up an entertaining little hobby. Every time Carmencita, our tag-along campo dog, does something that annoys Lauren to the slightest degree, she releases a torrent of curses that would make even the nastiest of dirty-mouthed sailors wither and wilt like frozen daisies. Carmencita typically responds by doing the same thing again or a slightly different, more annoying thing. This starts the whole process over again. Good times!

But in all seriousness we are having a dog problem. Ask Matt or Heather Bergren or possibly the ever-vibrant Aimee Hartwell which word or phrase first comes to mind when they think about the dogs in San Juanito. I highly doubt it will be a word or phrase you want to use around your grandmother unless she is herself a dirty-mouthed sailor. Early September was full of lovely visits from our friends, well-timed to alleviate our sore backs and blistered hands and boost our spirits, but ill-timed to catch Carmencita in heat. To make a longish story shortish there was a whole heck of a lot of noise, more than a few near misses with the lust-crazed males and two chiva departures from our entrada that felt more like busting out of a theme park overrun by flesh-obsessed zombies than our typical "hop on the chiva, see you later" goodbyes. Our only plea to our poor guests was, "we SWEAR it isn't always THIS bad." Coming soon to a campo village near you... A spay-and-neuter clinic... FOR FREE! Just do it.

(Reese's Peanut Butter Cup TM break)

In the face of such adversity and heart-wrenching developments, what say ye, the strong and the faithful? How do we overcome? Well, for tonight we are just focusing on enjoying some Reese's Peanut Butter Cups TM that just HAPPENED to ACCIDENTALLY fall in our most recent package from Mama Shelly. I have just happened to accidentally buy some ice from the store and just happened to accidentally rig up a campo-cooler using a five-gallon bucket and two Thermarests TM as insulation. All this so we can enjoy the treats here in the hot campo as if they were being pulled out of a trick-or-treater's bag on a brisk, Colorado Halloween night. Honestly, probably the best train-rumblin' bulldog-snortin' quarter I have ever or will ever spend on ice in my po-dunk little life.

But in all seriousness people. The little things maintain one sane. A little bit of breeze. Guitar strummin'. Cute babies that don't cry. A good hard belly laugh. An especially potent song lyric on a fully charged up iPod. Fabric softener. As his visit wound down Matt, unbeknownst to him until now, struck me with the wisdom, "Wow. I felt like we got a lot done," he said reflecting on our five or so campo days. Gosh darn a hay penny's worth of whiskey on a rickshaw Matt, we DO get a lot done 'round here! Aimee's turn came next. She told Lauren, "Props to you guys, I had no idea it was this hard." I don't know if she is here reading this blog, but thanks Aimee! A little bit of empathy goes a long, long way. Here we are in fightin' the good fight and it's a trumpet-bender of a hoot-n-nanny and yet we are livin' and lovin' as if the dirt under our nails was pixie fly dust! Heather had an observation of equal profundity as she exclaimed ever-so-politely, "Um. I think there's a cricket on my food." And by gosh-to-howlin' at Jupiter's moons there was! Sorry again Heather.

"It's peace through books!" -Lauren

"Placing her library books carefully in a plastic bag that her mom had saved from town especially for her, Eve made ready to begin the trail to the library. Checking once again that her book homework was safely tucked in the covers, she tied the bag closed and set off down the muddy track to the river and hopped deftly across on the stones her father had placed in the crossing for her, her sisters and brothers. The books bounced gently on her head along with each step as she held them high aloft from the river as if protecting a fragile treasure from a frightening dragon. She climbed the embankment steadily and took a left towards the road. Heat radiated from the rocks even though it was not yet midday; it was a good decision to wear shoes today, usually she made the journey to the library barefoot. She held the books up again to shade herself from the hot, hot sun. Through the old soccer field and past her friend Lori's house at the top off the big hill she chanted silently to herself, "I hope they're there, I hope they're there." Sometimes she walked the whole way just to find Alejandro and Lorena were not at home. She jumped to get up the big log across from the store and begun the trail to the library. Her heart skipped a beat as the three dogs from the corner house ran out barking. She knew they were harmless, but it gave her a fright all the same. The dog you don't want to meet is the one that always hangs out at the library. It doesn't belong Alejandro and Lorena, but it is often there and Eve heard it chased Andy away the other day. Clutching the books to her chest she smiled widely. The door was open! She was greeted by Lorena's bright smile from the porch, Alejandro smiled at her too as he softly played guitar in the hammock. Lorena signed in the returning books in a notebook where they wrote down all the books that go out on loan and noted with another smile that Eve always takes such good care of the books. Lorena carefully took her book homework out of each book, read them in turn and handed each to Alejandro. They told her she had handed in eight pieces of homework, but this she already knew because after ten they would let you choose a prize. She had chosen a pencil last time and had her eye on the pink and green toothbrush for next time. Alejandro passed the book suitcase to Lorena, she opened it and Eve began flipping through the books. She paused at many of them remembering when she had read them. Others she opened briefly to see if she might like them. Eventually she chose a fact book about whales and a storybook that had a duck riding a bicycle on the cover. Lorena checked the books out to Eve and passed her the pen when it came time to sign for them. Alejandro picked out two new pieces of homework and Eve tucked them excitedly inside the covers. As she turned to start back she remembered and turned back around. "Lorena? Are you going to be in the house tomorrow so I can come borrow more books?" Laughing, Lorena said they would be home in the afternoon. As she left to return home she called out, "See you tomorrow," even though she knew if she finished the books and homework before dark, she would make the trip to the library again today."

Although the names have been changed, this story and the happy feeling it brings are true. We started up this library thing on a whim without any of the tedious planning and community analysis that the Peace Corps volunteer should do. From April to date we have loaned out over 300 books to the dozens of kids that come to our porch to look for them. San Juanito loves to read! We have seen a book passed around the entire family before it is retuned. The ten homework/prize plan was developed to get some critical reading going on too, but we now realize it should be 25 or they are going to break our bank. The girl from the story read eight books in a single day one time, presumably walking from her house to ours to replenish. Kids who are too shy to utter a word around us have braved out porch to get books and submitted wonderful homework with answers like, and I translate/quote, "All the animals that appear in this book beautify our environment and we should care for and protect them. Their way of living is beautiful." Wow. During a meeting last week, a serious conversation about organizing a permanent library system took place. It was all men and Lauren. To sift through the cultural norms for you, THIS IS A BIG DEAL!

We need books! At the rate we are going everyone in town will have read everything we have in a couple of months. Books in Spanish are preferable. Lauren's grandma found that school book fairs are a gold mine and sometimes even have dual language Spanish/English books. Shipping boxes is indeed quite pricey, but you can wrap up a couple books in brown paper and qualify for a media shipping rate, which is more economical. Remember our address is:

Alex Masarie or Lauren Hayes
Cuerpo de Paz
Entrega General 0229
Correo de Penonomé
Panamá, Republica de Panamá

This is a call for books. Let's unite the world through reading!

Today

Here is our day in grueling, glorious detail.  To give you some context, we have just come out of a reasonably jam-packed work week with Lauren walking an hour each way each day to the neighboring Papayal to monitor a stove project there.  Alex joined three out of the five days and attended rope driven water pump seminar at the university in Penonome the other two days.  There you go.  Context. Enjoy!  Oh yeah, some of the entries are overlapping and simultaneous.

7:12 am – Lauren and Alex, your ever faithful voluntarios, awake in their mosquito net covered bed to the sound of Goma the Cat meowing.  Lauren notes, not for the first time, how close the bat poop on the mosquito net is to her head.  Alex grumbles and rolls over.
7:47 am – Lauren occupies the net style hammock and on request of Alex, who remains occupying the bed, looks up the word “bellaco” in the dictionary.  She finds it means rascal comma scoundrel, which causes an uproar of laughter as we think back to how our campesinos used it throughout the week.
8:21 am – Alex bajars (Spanglish for goes down) to the store and purchases $3.00 worth of breakfast items: a can of milk, 4 pieces of cheese, 4 hot dogs and 6 eggs.
8:29 am to 9:31 am – Preparation and consumption of desayuno (breakfast).  Lauren's artful cooking skills result in a lovely breakfast burrito with above ingredients as well as a spinach like plant called chaya*, onions and sweet peppers.  The milk is used with tons of sugar in their coffees.
9:31 am to 9:40 am – A discussion ensues about whether or not chaya* is poisonous because mixed messages have been received.  Lauren consults “Where There is No Doctor” and learns about how it is better to give birth standing up, but little is revealed about chaya*.
9:40 am – Estefani comes to the porch and returns PVC glue, which her mother Nilka had borrowed on behalf of her father Juan the evening before.
9:52 am to 11:22 am – In the net style hammock Alex reads “Yo, Robot” a Spanish translation of “I, Robot” and continues his marveling about how different the movie is from the book.  He learns completely useless vocabulary about robots.  Lauren occupies the cloth hammock and studies Spanish; she reviews the uses of the verb “decir,” which means to say or to tell.  She learns the phrase, “Dicho y hecho” means “no sooner said than done.”
10:16 am – A boy named Saul comes silently to the porch to return a library book, hand in his homework, check out a new book and receive new homework.  He doesn't speak a solitary word during this entire transaction.
11:13 am to 11:19 am – Alex briefly turns on his iPod to consult the tabs for the Sublime song, “Smoke Two Joints,” which he plans to cleverly alter to “Eat Two Yucas” as a parody of how much yuca we eat.  He makes little progress and ends up running through “Blame it on the Tetons” by Modest Mouse a couple of times.
11:30 am – Alex collects his computer and notebook to go down to use the electricity at the rancho but is stopped in his tracks when he notices Abuela Teodora is showering.  Not wanting to see a seventy something year-old naked, he delays his journey.  This happens often.
11:32 am to 4:15 pm – Alex bajars (again, Spanglish for goes down) to the rancho.  During this time period he sits at the table working on the aqueduct project designs.  This involves working with all the data he has collected in San Juanito about terrain and water usage, putting them in a freeware program called NeatWorks that can be used to answer various design questions about the system such as where and what size of control disks need to be placed as well as tubing sizes for proposed additions.  The work is tedious, but the company is splendid as Abuela Teodora is alone at home and in a particularly rambunctious mood.  Lauren comes and goes as well.  Throughout the day, a dog soap opera unfolds.  Abuela has Cucarchita tied up because she is in heat.  Her older brothers Pinto and the dog we call Super Ugly have taken to protecting her during this sensitive time and growl viciously at any and all suitors that come by.  Tuto manages to get close enough to pee on the kitchen wall, but that's it.  Alex finishes the “day at the office” drawing up a work schedule for the coming water tank construction at Santos Lorenzo's house with local NGO Cosecha Sostenible.
11:46 am – Sisters Yesi and Ida pass through the rancho with a bucket full of undetermined pig parts.  Upon questioning Abuela, Lauren learns that these were from a pig killed early in the morning.  Benigno left early to sell the rest of the pig.
12:02 pm to 2:40 pm – Lauren and Abuela dedicate themselves to the preparation of arroz con coco, fried guineos and Kool-Aid.  Much time is spent looking for a not-too-large, not-too-dull machete to open the coconut.  Neighbor Efrain ends up having the just-right machete and the coco is opened successfully.  Lauren and Abuela set about to grate and strain the coco.  Lauren notices that the tool being used in the process is a Mercedes-Benz hubcap with nail holes in it.  (There you have it folks, the combo coco grater and strainer brought to you by the luxury and comfort of Mercedes-Benz.  What more can we say?  Style in the campo is EVERYTHING.)  The result is absolutely delicious.
12:20 pm – Lauren notes an armadillo skin hanging outside the kitchen.  Apparently it was messing with Benigno's crops so they killed it and ate it.  Efrain cleaned it and saved to skin because Adrian wants to make a headdress out of it.
12:56 pm – Birthday girl Luzmilda comes by with her dad.  On her one-year birthday she has a fever.  Alex tries to take a photo of Luzmilda and her sister Katerin, but can't get a good angle that avoids having a dog butt in the picture.  This is actually an enormous challenge in our photo-taking (see Facebook for example, there is often a dog penis or butt prominently featured).
1:48 pm – First-grader Pichin runs through the rancho eating a guineo.
1:49 pm – Pichin runs back through, finishing up his guineo.
2:32 pm – Benigno shows up on the bus amarillo trashed.  Abuela comments, astute as ever, that he must have sold all the pig and used the money to get trashed.  He is super endearing when drunk and mentions several times that he is trashed and the only crazy in San Juanito.  He gifts Lauren and Alex a cold beer, but ends up drinking Lauren's.
3:02 pm – Alex goes into the kitchen to wash the dishes.  No water appears in the faucet.
3:03 pm – Alex walks happily behind the kitchen to turn on the water.  The Abuelos have 4 damaged faucets and have the conscientiousness to turn off their own water to conserve the leaks.  This makes Alex proud and happy.
3:11 pm – Benigno tries to shoulder a 65-pound saco of chicken feed and in doing so knocks over a table breaking the mirror it was holding.  Alex tells Benigno he can carry the bag up to his house later.  Benigno refuses, but asks Alex to help him get the bag situated.  Weighed down with the bag, Benigno walks surprisingly steadily across the street over to his brother's store.
4:01 pm – A gaggle of kids led by Madi walk into the rancho looking for a bunch of DVDs that her sister had last night.  After a short exchange with Abuela, who has no idea where they are, they deduce that the DVDs are inside by the DVD player.
4:08 pm – Jorge, the grandson of the Abuelos, comes back from work early, he has been working from 6 am to 6 pm for weeks now.  He becomes disgusted when he notices Pinto's spine is showing (Pinto is the dog).  This is a wound he recently obtained from Abuelo's machete at La Mula (Abuelo's finca or farm).  It is a wonder he is alive.  Lauren throws up a bit in her mouth whenever she sees it.  He suffers from the dog version of AIDS too.
4:18 pm – Back at the house, Alex washes a giant rock he collected from the river yesterday and sets out for the community's water storage tank.  The rock is to protect the floor of the tank from further damage from the gush of water that enters through the pipe in the ceiling, an integral part of Alex's 8-Point Aqueduct Improvement Plan, which was announced to the water committee in last Sunday's meeting.
4:19 pm – As Alex passes by the church Octavio sees him from the store and dashes over to ask if anyone is in house.  To this Alex replies yes because Lauren is still there.
4:20 pm – Lauren receives Luis, Manuel, and Octavio on the patio.  They exchange books and homework.  Manuel, a new addition to town as his family now lives with Octavio's family over in Santa Cruz, is more talkative than before with Lauren.  She asks if the books were good to which he replies yes and explains what they were about.  He also mentions that he wants to take some books for his sister, which is fine.  Octavio tells Lauren that his family is excited about the new spinach plant chaya*, but they just don't know how to prepare it.  He asks if they can just toss it in the soup.  Lauren replies yes and gives him an informational brochure all about chaya*.  Lauren agrees to pasear to their house tomorrow.
4:23 pm – Alex sees Benigno's chicken feed bag upside-down, but thankfully unbroken, in the middle of the trail on the way down to the creek.
4:38 pm – It starts to rain pretty hard, thankfully because it hasn't rained in 9 days.  Lauren brings in the laundry from the line at the house and above on the mountain Alex stands under tree.
4:44 pm to 5:22 pm – Anacleto receives a wet Alex on his porch.  He gets him a cup of coffee.  They talk about the rock and how it should be placed during the next tank cleaning.  Anacleto tells Alex that his worm compost now has an estimated 600 worms and he has learned how to move them from one side of the box to another by placing food to attract them leaving the other side free to harvest as fertilizer for his plants.  As Anacleto is renowned for being wise and fair, Alex asks him about a proposal Raul Hijo and the new health committee have made.  At the beginning of their time in San Juanito Alex and Lauren looked for a way to pay rent in the community, offering a small monthly sum to one of the successfully operating groups or the church.  These offers were refused, but now this new health committee, whose main goal is to make a community health center, could use a start-up boost.  The idea is to enter into a contract with the committee and pay them the rent as long as they are active.  Anacleto is skeptical at first, but upon learning who is on the committee, seems to change his mind.  He gives Alex much sound advice in the matter (in his indirect campesino way of course).
5:24 pm – On the trail back down Alex checks to see if all is clear and pees in the bushes.
5:31 pm – Alex sees Benigno's chicken feed bag under the roof on Santos Gonzalez's porch.  He breathes a sigh of relief that it didn't get wet in the rain.
5:44 pm to 5:59 pm – Lauren and Alex catch up on the time apart and decide to write a blog about the day.
6:09 pm – Alex takes a shower.
6:33 pm to 6:46 pm – This period sees the opening and consumption of a coconut and a package of cookies.
7:15 pm to present – Alex types on the blog (the computer is charged up from earlier) and Lauren helps from the bed.  Goma the Cat sleeps on Lauren's suitcase.  A bowl of popcorn is made.
8:53 pm – Alex wakes up Lauren, who has fallen asleep in the bed, to read the blog aloud.  She likes it.  They debate adding a conclusion.

*Context for the chaya: There is a strange happening right now in San Juanito that the local NGO Cosecha Sostenible has handed out dozens of these chaya plants to the campesino families telling them it is very healthy.  Some time later we were presented with Cosecha documentation that says the plant, while super healthy and amazing, is poisonous when eaten raw and when it is cooked in an aluminum pan.  We are trying to debunk the poison rumor because (a of all) we eat it raw AND cooked in an aluminum pan several times a week, (b of all) the only pans campesinos have here are aluminum pans, and (c of all) we just plain don't believe it.  Obviously the internet is needed... or Patty Hayes.

At the dentist

Hey all,

Life has been treating us well lately. We have been viajando (traveling) a lot in the last couple of weeks. To the point where I have even developed a campo home-sickness. In the four walls of the air conditioned hotel rooms we land in I feel claustrophobic and dream of being back home where the jungle is green, the air is fresh and my friends are all around!

At the beginning of last week I made an epic excursion into the western reaches of the country to collect stove molds in preparation for a stove project we are scheduled to begin on July 29. I met with Steve Bliss, the founder of the Bliss Burner stove that we make, and he was gracious enough to let me have anything and everything I wanted from his stock. Bewildered by the options I was limited by what I could carry: 3 stove molds. I carried away a lot of conocimiento (knowledge) too. He has various experimental stove and oven models on his property that gave me great ideas for the future (can you say "campo pizza oven"). He also runs a closed cycle hydroponic garden system where he grows any and all plants without a speck of dirt! He maintains a tilapia fish pond insure of a greenhouse with about 10 cement beds filled with gravel and these weird, imported German mineral ball things. The fish enrich the water with their waste, the water is pumped through the gravel beds to leave the nutrients with the roots of whatever he has planted there, the plants leave organic matter in the water which is pumped back to the fish to eat. Pretty impressive way to eat healthy! He also had lots of experience and observations about the country. I particularly agreed with his "teaching for application" and food security philosophies. I also stopped by San Felix to meet up with a fellow volunteer that left me another stove mold bringing our count up to 5 for the coming project!

Lauren's travel schedule has been related to the arrival of the new Peace Corps group in Panamá. She is participating in their training process like other volunteers helped show us the ropes when we arrived. I admire her a lot for her efforts because she is giving back to help others have the great kind of experience that we have had here. Her first job was to facilitate the community analysis training where people learn about how to use the Participatory Analysis for Community Action tools to start to get to know the community and the local needs. When she got back she commented to me that facilitating for a group of active, eager learners was quite different than doing the same work in the campo where you can literally hear a pin-drop sometimes when you ask for the crowd's input! She is mastering both worlds! This was all happening in our training communities so Lauren got to say hi to Mabel and her fabulous cooking.

The next travel for Lauren brought her to the city again to participate in a diversity panel for the new group. Turns out Peace Corps volunteers are as diverse as the country we come from and our uniqueness can have impacts in how we are received out there in our villages. Lauren represented the married couples and made observations about the advantages of never being bored with two workloads and the frustration of having most people, be them from the states or Panamá, tell her that her service has gotta be soooo much easier with her husband around. Funny, no one ever tells me that my service must just be a breeze because I have my wife here.

A day after Lauren left for the diversity panel, I left for another Coclé site to help a fellow environmental health volunteer with a water seminar. The town was called Vallecito and I had to cross the fast-moving Rio Indio to get in, a slightly unnerving experience for me. It is always interesting to get to participate in someone else's community in the Peace Corps volunteer capacity. I found myself learning as much as teaching, as always, during the seminar. Vallecito has a huge campo sprawl with kilometers of hiking between houses, something I learned as well getting lost on the way out!

Lauren and I are now reunited in the city once again getting the maquinas (machines) tuned up at our one year med check-ups. The city makes us miss the campo, but we have cooked some pretty good food in the hostel where we stay and I have been able to make great progress on some computer work I had building up.

Now I am sitting, waiting at the dentist, missing the campo, but knowing, with a good helping of travel luck, I will be back in the mud hut tonight.

Here's to no cavities!!!!!

Love,

Alex

Updates from el campo

Dear People,

You are reading this blog because you want to know about what we are doing or you mistyped when you navigated to www.laurenandalfredinpanama.blogspot.com, click the link to read about Lauren and Alfred in Panama.  Oh.  You're still here.  Well here's what we are up to!  (“How's that for a rocking introduction?” said Alex.  “Did you say that in there?  Only you think you are funny,” said Lauren.  Alex laughed.  “Here's my point, you're laughing,” said Lauren).

Lauren and six other fellow volunteers recently facilitated in the June 2013 women's artisan seminar. Lauren gave her very own charla (“talk”) on domestic violence.  She felt that it was well received and useful for the participants. The seminar was focused on empowering women through artisan work. Women from all over Panama were invited to attend. Other charlas included woman’s health, self esteem, sex education, basic business skills, and technical art classes like jewelery making and sewing. 

Alex is on the verge of finishing his rain water catchment system.  He brushed the edge of completion once before only to realize during the first rainstorm that the gutter spit water out the opposite side of where the tank is.  Damn slanted house.

Lauren is taking up office as the new Vice President AND Woman's Health and Empowerment Coordinator of the Gender and Development Committee.  She is really excited about participating in this dynamical, ultra-bodacious group.  She is brimming with ideas, and is currently working on domestic violence awareness month activities and HIV/AIDS activities leading up to World AIDS day in December.

Alex's most recent push has been the 2013 Community Water Seminar in San Juanito.  Four days of charlas covering water health topics, conservation of watershed and of water in-home, aqueduct topics and water system management.  Folks got the chance to attend either a morning or an afternoon session at the school.  We coordinated lunch with the valiant and amazing mothers of the family as cooks.  Everything went swimmingly.  Over 60 people attended at least one of the sessions and 8 champion campesinos attended all 4 and were crowned “Water Experts: First Class.”

The Papayal (neighboring community to San Juanito who hasn't ever had a volunteer) stove project grant pushed through and a scheduling meeting is set for after church on Sunday July 14.  We've tracked down a stove mold FOR FREE from our fellow volunteers Pete and Kelly, which is huge given that the guy wanted to charge us $125 a pop.

New books arrived with the visit from Andrew, Allie and Patty.  A humongous thank you to Margie Wright (Lauren's grandma) for picking awesome, brand new Spanish books.  Many an afternoon our porch is crowed with kids shuffling through the books, being careful not to rip that pages of course.  We do read aloud with the youngsters and check out gross snake pictures.  As a new challenge to our readers we are handing out book report forms with each book they check out.  They have to fill in the title, author, a summary, a recommendation and draw a picture of something from the book on the back.  In return for 10 complete book reports, they can choose a prize out of out the Random Prize Grab Bag.  We are awaiting the first round with books due back this Sunday and Monday. We have checked out over 50 books in the last 2 months.

The town is abuzz with the idea of the non-profit organization Spay Panama coming to San Juanito to provide their services for cheap.  Informational meeting is on July 14!  Be there or be square!

Lauren is to be traveling to the city to help train the new group that has recently arrived in Panama.  These eager trainees will have the pleasure of Lauren and her pretty face explaining all about the community analysis process.  She is excited to get to give back in a meaningful way to Peace Corps Panama.

Casualmente, we are currently in the presence of two delightful Peace Corps trainees named Paul and Sara.  They are spending the weekend out is San Juanito getting an idea of our life.  It is pretty fun to share our town with them and it has been a great excuse to cook some good food as they are currently wading up to their necks in rice with their host family.  They are going to be awesome volunteers wherever they end up!  We are excited to learn, along with them, where their site will be for the next two years.

 As you may have seen on Facebook, Lauren is rescuing our host family's dog Turco.  While they lived in San Juanito they cared for him, but since they have moved to Penonome he has fallen through the cracks.  It became unbearable to see him dying of hunger in the streets so we led him to the house and tied him up in back and started feeding and treating him with medicine.  Our decision was justified when we learned he has the dog version of AIDS and that it is a curable disease in animals.  Furthermore, there is a dog rescue in Panama that will cover his medical bills and look for a new home for him.  Our only job is to get him to Penonome, which we hope to accomplish soon.  I think The Fray said it best in “How to Save a Life.”

It started to rain.  That's good.  We have water back in the house.

The next topic is Lauren's parents' visit.  Lauren's fam came to visit and we spent some time in site, some time in the mountains and some time at the beach.  It was great to show them around our current lives.  Look out for a blog from them with their reflections.

We handed out Fourth of July hot dogs to our neighbors and our stomachs.  It was awesome.  The hot dogs were a hit, the pickles were not.  We sent many a kid retching into the jungle with that one.  Even Benigno said, “Ugh, gringo food.”

Okay that's all the topics for now!

We love y'all!  Be good.

Science tidbit, etc...

Hello everybody who is anybody! This is a miscellaneous update. Life goes on in the campo of Panamá. I would say everything is going swimmingly. Our popularity with the local children increased a notch when we opened our in-house library. We have amassed an oddball collection of books, which we loan out two-at-a-time for a week. Kids are always welcome to come read on the porch too. I guess it is presumptuous to say kids because even our Abuelos come up to read and Abuela Chola checked out “Descubre los insectos,” enjoying it so much that she was overdue. We have solicited a book donation from an organization out of Pennsylvania and the Hayes family is planning to bring some books so we are expanding our repetoire. Our plan is to copy fellow volunteers George and Soraya and hand out book-report forms that eager readers can fill out, ten book reports earns you a prize from the prize bag... pretty cool! Reading is cool.

On the construction side of life, I am busy at work with our personal reserve water tank. It follows the Peace Corps ferrocement design (metal encased in concrete) and will hold, I'm guessing here, about 100 gallons of rainwater, which we will catch in a gutter-tube from the zinc paneling of our roof. The idea is thrice-fold (or quad-fold). A of all, avoid those terrible moments when we open a dry faucet on a sink of dirty dishes knowing they are going to stay dirty and attract cockroaches. B of all, to ease our use of acueduct water for the daily usages that don't necessarily require treated water: washing clothes, cleaning the floor, etc... C of all, because I am sick of trying to explain what a ferrocement tank is to folks, I am just going to show them. D of all, it is a very cool project and I am happy to report increased confidence-in-self as each step completes more or less successfully. I have quite a few skeptics as to the ability of this laborious contraption to hold the water I claim it will hold, but we shall all see pretty soon I guess.

We recently passed another Peace Corps milestone: the Project Management and Leadership seminar. The basic idea of this weeklong event is that a volunteer has formed a strong working relationship with someone and wants to help them enjoy success in their mutual project ideas. The training is an excellent opportunity for both volunteer and community counterpart to organize, present and lead our communities. Lauren and I had our invites settled months in advance. On my side, Anacleto Sanchez, our fearless community guide who has been so great to us, juggling his own work, carrying for his parents, tending his horse (named Owl) and serving on the church board AND aqueduct committee. On Lauren's side, Guadelupe Guerrel, a darling and wildly successful mother of four who stands every bit of her 4 foot 2 inch stature in being a community leader, example and all-around sweetheart. Unfortunately, the overworked and underpaid Anacleto fell ill in the days before the seminar and could not attend, but Lupe went and had a blast. She was a star of the seminar and Lauren and I have certainly noticed a change in her self-confidence around town. As this seminar comes around with every Peace Corps group, I am hoping to attend another chance with Anacleto so that his dreams have a chance to benefit from the seminar.

Here comes the science tidbit, as promised. Science is great. I love science. But, I am not sure it belongs out here in the campo in large doses. I refer, of course, to the arduous process of conducting my aqueduct elevation survey. As a gravity-fed aqueduct system, meaning water falling downhill through guiding water lines, altitude is driving the bus. The higher the water is the more pressure will build up in your tubes on down the line. As such, it is good to know quantitative facts like “how much pressure will build up?” which offers itself under the guise of “how high is the water tank above my house?” All this is divined from an elevation survey. The tool of choice is called a water level and is a super-precise method to measure elevation changes along distances of tube. The result is a beautiful profile map of the entire system and the data to run water pressure simulations to try out every little detail. To put is bluntly, my campesino friends don't value any of this process, consequentely neither does Lauren (she says laughing). I have to give them a lot of credit for showing up for my workdays to cavort up and down hills around the jungle with me and the unwieldly water level without the slightest idea of what the hell it's all good for in the first place. They smile, nod, crack jokes and deservedly ask for coffee as I scurry around with my notebook and compass calling out numbers for hours on end. And yet, on the brink of finishing a scientific project together, we remain on such different pages, but the effort is unified. This won't be MY map, it will be OUR map. I am not sure who is crazier... me for understanding the map or my faithful co-workers for not understanding it. Science has never been foggier.

Oh boy. The cats. Once small, innocent and imobile, they are now whirling devils of energy and leave nothing unclimbed and uninvestigated. Starting at 4:30 am they run a vigorous schedule of mayhem until around about 10:30 am, when they milk and pass out for a good 5 hours, only to wake up as the day cools for another three hours more of mayhem. They fight each other, steal food from the table, climb the mosquito net, which they also use as their personal sleeping hammocks and knock over their water dish at least ten times per day. They are about 75% consistent at using the makeshift litterbox we have set up in the corner, which means a quarter of the time we are... well... you know. We have become our worst nightmare those dirty cat people. Through all of this, they ARE cute, they DO make us laugh, they are RIDICULOUSLY good hunters and as such, Lauren is thinking of keeping all three. To our credit, the issue is slightly more complicated than just keeping them around for fun. We know how Panamanians in general treat the animals they call their pets. It is very hard to give up one of these kittens to a place where they will likely be hungry and in jeopardy of being harmed by other animals, domestic or wild, and in extreme cases subject to accidental decapitation by a sheet of zinc (yes, this is tragic and yes, this actually happened). So there it is. An ongoing moral, pet dilemma. Being the baby animal lover that she is, Lauren loses much sleep over all this. Please comment with your guidance because we are STUCK!

We are excitedly counting down the days until Andrew, Patty and Alexandra Hayes come to visit us in Panama. Lauren has a strigent list of cleaning duties prepared for me as she will be participating in a women's seminar in the week leading up to the visit. Needless to say, the house will be spotlessly clean (hahahaha, a mud-hut... spotless... hahahaha) and everything will be in order to have an absolute ball with Lauren's fam. Lauren will be ROCKING a domestic violence session at the women's seminar, which she has meticulously prepared over the last couple of months with help from fellow volunteers and resources from the lovely ladies of Crossroads Safehouse in Fort Collins.

And I cannot think of a single other thing that won't involve a hugely long paragraph of explanation. We love all of you! Great job at doing the things that you are all doing!

Alex

Reflecting on a year

So the beginning of May represents one year into this super-cool adventure that is Peace Corps. As there isn't enough space on the internet to fit all of our experiences we will report the one-year status updates by category.

Tolerance of hot weather... major increase. We sweat and sweat, day in and day out, and lately we haven't felt the constant baked noodle feeling we seemed to have at the beginning.

Alex's athletic fitness... significant decrease. He loves running, he will continue to run in the future, but at the moment it is TOO HOT! He likes to save his energy for carrying heavy things, Spanish and spontaneous adventures.

Lauren's tolerance of rice and beans and oatmeal... generally increase. Lauren is a gal that likes her food with texture and flavor. Rice and beans and oatmeal have neither, but she eats it.

Our clean clothes standards... major decrease. If it doesn't knock you down when you smell it and the primary visible spots still maintain their original coloring, then it is not worth going down to the river to scrub it on a rock.

Bug fear... decrease across the board. Our late-night cockroach hunting missions have been replaced by calm exclamations such as, “Dang, I don't like it when the scorpion I am chopping in half stings my machete” and “Look at the ants carrying out their larvae when we spray them.”

Snake fear... increase. When they are as poisonous as they can be in Panama, your interest goes down and your wishing to never see them ever, anywhere goes up.

Knowledge of farming... increase. We knew borderline nothing about farming when we got here. Now we do it on a regular basis and find ourselves with preferences for specific tools and ideas about how to make whatever we are trying to grow, grow better.

Appreciation for water... major increase. To open a tap and have water come out fresh, clean, 24/7, 365, without even thinking about it is AWESOME! Here in the campo clean water can be a labor. In the community, the members are literally solely responsible for their water. It is not as simple as paying a bill. You have a million tasks from chasing cows away from the source to cleaning the dirt out of your storage tank to strictly enforcing the rules of the water system even when awkward situations arise among friends and relatives to keep your water and thus your life healthy.

Desire to have chickens in the states... increase. Farm raised eggs. They eat bugs and all your scraps. Enough said.

Hatred for roosters... born and raised in Panama. A rooster once was just a friendly guitar player for Robin Hood with intelligent commentary and witty humor. Now the rooster is the sworn enemy. The reason we hoard rocks on our porch and curse at all hours of the day.

Liking of coffee... increased. There is probably no way that we will become Starbuckers in the future, but there is something to love about the watered-down, sugary, cup of coffee with hojaldres in the jungle.

Lauren's ability to spell... slight decrease. It was never that great in the states, but now that she has two languages bouncing around up there it's pretty bad.

Patience... tremendous increase. Things move slow here. If you try to move fast, you just end up getting mad. We are perfectly content waiting four hours for a bus. Even communication that would take two short e-mails in the United States, takes five community meetings and ten months here.

Spanish language... increase. Though there are still some classic miscommunications, for the most part we get around just fine.

Alex's disliking of cats... surprising decrease. As the four well-treated cats that live in our two-room, mud hut will attest, Alex has changed his stance on our furry, feline friends.

Our liking of dogs... decrease. A year ago in the states we were as “dog people” as they come, let's just say that now there is no chance we will be getting a dog until we are back in the states for sure.

Doing yoga... sadly decrease. Our yoga mats grow mold, fungus and collect spiders called “chupa-sangres” or blood-suckers. Needless to say, that relaxing feeling in child's pose is non-existent here.

Appreciation for functioning internet... major increase. Why someone must call and repair person to unplug the router, we do not know. Why this process takes anywhere from two days to forever, we do not know. Internet in Panama is like a rhino climbing a tree, it just doesn't work. But hey, our patience has increased.

Lauren's fear of outhouses... decrease. She's not really scared of them anymore.

Our view on helping the world... we'll get back to you on this one. We have learned though, that it is much harder to help people than we thought. The world's problems are awfully large and big groups of humans are awfully tough to move. We are kind of a stubborn race, but positive change is possible, we just have to be kind of clever to trick ourselves into it happening

Alex's songwriting... decrease. Whenever Alex sets out to write a song it feels choppy and awkward. Perhaps there are too many life-changing experiences clogging up the works. It could also be we are not around a very creative, songwriting group at the moment because when Alex went home for his visit he was quickly back to his old ways. Strangely this hasn't yet extended to the writing of music tunes, it is only affecting the addition of lyrics.

Understanding and appreciation of Panamanian culture... huge increase. We were ignorant to this before, but this country is vibrant and buzzing with countless views and attitudes and lifestyles and traditions.

Health... increase. Where is some wood to knock on? Because we are in amazing health in Panama. We chalk it up to an open air environment and plenty of nature all the time. Sure we have had the occasional worm and food-related illness, but our health in Panama has been better than in the states, go figure.

Capacity for hard labor... increase. Alex could put in a hard couple hours digging in the sun or mowing the lawn or something before. Lauren just didn't do hard labor, there was no real need to. Nowadays it is extremely common to fill to the brim five or six days of the week with tasks of hard labor.

Colorado sports itch... as large as expected. We thought we might miss climbing 14ers, rock-climbing, trail running and riding bikes and “sho nuf” every other day or so our conversation turns to something related to the lovely outdoors of Colorado.

Our love for one another... definitely decrease... just kidding! We have kept a very realistic attitude along this whole process from the beginnings of the idea to telling our parents to actually getting a marriage license to the reasonably long application and wait time to the initial stress of the new life to working with, living in close quarters with and relying so heavily on one another for emotional support. There has always been an understanding between us that we shoot awfully big for such a “pareja nueva” or new couple, but here we are. Joining the Peace Corps together has been the right decision for both of us and we wouldn't change anything.

The smiles Justin Bieber has brought us... increase. You all should see our host brother Baukti lip syncing to such Bieber hits as “Never Say Never” and “One Less Lonely Girl.” There is something truly magically awesome about hearing a super-serious, Panamanian five year-old accompany Sean Kingston and Justin Bieber on the lyric “Shorty is an eenie-meenie-minie-mo lover.”  See video below.

Boredom... decrease to zero. Some people say they are bored like crazy during their Peace Corps service, this is not the case for us at all, at all, whatsoever. In fact, we are anti-bored, if that is such a thing.

Urge to travel the world and see more places... slight increase. Panama is great, but it is not for permanent. This world is full and we have just begun to scratch the surface of traveling it.

Lauren's desire to never have kids... increase. Although she does love teaching a room full of kindergarteners who would just rather beat each other up and throw toys around, the thought of a baby bump still makes her throw up in her mouth a little bit.

Awareness of deforestation of the rainforest... increase. We thought we knew, but we had no idea. Humans are jungle eating machines. There seem to be no limits to what we will clear-cut and no bounds for our greed to make the land do what we want on the time-frame we want without regard to the planet. It is actually super-sad to see it first hand.

The ability to bite your tongue to keep from laughing... increase from zero. We never knew this was possible before, but now it is absolutely necessary in our day to day lives. It actually works and has come through on numerous occasions at critical moments for us here in the campo.

Driving rusty nails... increase. Just soap or oil those rusty, twice-used suckers up and whack 'em like your hammer is rocket-powered. Problem solved.

Tolerance of a cold shower... increase. The only reason we pursue hot showers these days is the for the hard fact that they kill more bacteria off your body.

Irritation with bug bites... initial increase followed by gradual decrease. We've gone from veritable pin-cushions and burning through liters of spray alcohol to a more informal interest in whether the bite comes from a tick, sand fly, mosquito or other.

Appreciation of having family and friends around... increase. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Even though we are pretty integrated in San Juanito, nothing beats being close to the people you love the most.

Washing of hands... increase. We go to incredible lengths to not touch anything until our hands are washed after such activities as digging in the garden, shaking hands with every kid at the school and collecting dry cow manure with our bare hands.

Attendance of church... increase. While we don't know any of the prayers, we are getting a better hang of the cadence of standing, sitting and bowing our heads in the chapel. We were never much church-goers in the states, but here it is a tolerable Sunday activity to get to see the smiling faces of all our friends at the same time. Being around such a devout people puts a refreshing spin on religion, Alex's reading of “The Shack” helped his understanding too.

Alex's perception of the importance of appearance... increased. After living his first 24 years as a borderline hoodlum when it comes to appearance, the 25^th year has seen the maintenance of a clean hair-cut and short beard. Partly because he scares children when the beard gets to long or the hair too unruly.

Understanding our impact on the environment... increased. We are basically long-term camping here. The mindset is more along the lines of “pack-it-in, pack-it-out” instead of the typical “waste-not, want-not” lifestyle we lead in the states. We see how mistreatment of the soil can affect the food it provides. We better know the implication of eating beef on the land. Without the government infrastructure of waste clean-up, it has been eye-opening to wrangle with our own waste products and the challenge of “leaving no trace” during your everyday life rather than just a day hike.

Commitment to the next year... major increase. We signed up for two years, it has been a year and our road to the finish looks all the more appealing than it did when we started. Big things are coming. Family visits, project and technical work, increasingly meaningful time with our friends as the language barrier drops, chances to explore Panama further and participation in Peace Corps Panama on a national level are all on the calendar.

Here's to living, loving and learning,

Alex and Lauren