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