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