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.