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
No comments:
Post a Comment