"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!
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Friday, August 9, 2013
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.
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.
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