On the plane back home...

Wow. One thing's for sure. It doesn't feel like two years have past. But they have. It doesn't feel like I'm an RPCV, done with my service abroad and headed for the States. But I am. It doesn't feel like we learned all we did, accomplished all we did and did it all in Spanish. But we did. Is it a sense of accomplishment I feel? Not really. I haven't tried and never will ft these last two years into a little check-box. This has not been a bucket list thang. I see it as a continuum in what I have grown to become and I've become quite a mixture of past, present and future. The privilege has been being able to experience two lives in my one because the rural campo lifestyle has been polar opposite from anything I have ever experienced. It was the hard work that changed me. It was the diet that changed me. It was living outside in nature that put humanity in perspective for me. Changing, changing and changing, but they were the smiles, common morals and dreams among cultures I lived in that kept me the same. But enough of that nonsense, what actually happened?!?!

Lauren and I closed our Peace Corps service on June 27, 2014 at the Panamá office with staff and fellow volunteers looking on. We closed a lot of things: two bank accounts, my aqueduct grant, Lauren's presidency of the Gender and Development Board and a whole lot of suitcases. We rented a car to facilitate the process and avoid the awful transport reality that could have been stuck in a bus missing our flight. A few hours after renting the car, the agency called us to inform us they had rented us the wrong car so if we would be so kind as to bring it back and exchange it. Little did the poor agent know how short our fuse was for Panamá's foibles. I demanded an upgrade to a truck, for them to drive the three hours we had just covered to personally exchange the car and a complete refund of all our money. Surprised, the agent responded in the negative offering us an unspecified "descuento" instead to which I replied, "CLICK!" Poor guy. Panamá's claws were grabbing as we slipped from them.

Our despedida (going away party) in San Juanito was the next afternoon. We showed our appreciation extremely vocally with a showering of affection and compliments and physically by preparing an afternoon of "campesino appreciation activities."

SCREEEEEEEEEECH!

I am going to be honest with you.

It has been nearly four months since I wrote the above message. I am sorry for that, but trust me, we have been keeping plenty busy. Has it been turbulent? Yes. Has it been great? Yes. Has it been difficult? Heck yes. This United States culture is some kind of animal. Who knew the biggest challenge would be re-integration? Any of the times described in the previous blogs, minus the one where Lauren limped across the Interamericana at one in the morning, barely able to walk due to abdominal pain, I would absolutely love to go back to. But you know what gets me through? Panamá is a part of me now. You can't beat me down U.S. You can't scare me with your gun laws and violent movies! You can't make me aspire to be a doofus athlete who beats his wife! You can't stress me out and suck my soul into an iPhone! You can't poison me with your so-called food! You can't addict me to your toxic lifestyle! You can't make us feel ashamed of our bodies! You can't road rage us, we don't want your money and television. "Panamá runs deep," as Lauren would say and I've got Panamá deep in my heart and mind. If I was sophisticated enough to update the URL, I'd change this blog's address to http://panamainalexandlauren.blogspot.com/ Our Panamá adventures are far from over my friends. Far from over!

I hereby declare this blog re-opened for business, come what may.

Can't stop, won't stop,

Alex ;)

Thoughts on leadership

I am a believer in the ideology of Lance Armstrong. I can't quote it exact, but he basically outlines a strategy to outpace his competitors in a race. When you reach a challenging section you match your opponents, stroke for stroke. As you peak that hill when everyone else is anticipating a breather you fortify your mind and body for a push. A little extra juice just when the going should be getting easier. Practice this enough and a mentality develops permitting you to pace through difficulties putting the intensity of your focus on how to augment your performance when you ought to be resting. As such, your game is elevated two-fold: (1) for the tranquil mindset you develop facing adversity and (2) for the method of pushing the envelope when the rest of the world has their dukes down.

I've been casting about for effective leadership stamina strategies and this philosophy seems applicable. As an involved leader you are not only suffering the hardship shared among the group, but also potentially wearing down mentally as the primary decision-maker. What happens if you pace your group through the hardship making the best decisions you can, but focus on what actions you will take during the lull after the immediate goal is surpassed? Like leading a hiking group over a pass finding the best route you can, but focusing on the moment when the terrain flattens out where you seize leadership opportunities to provide congratulations to the team. I think practicing leadership in this way makes the decisions easier. You shift your focus from over-worrying the decisions during the hard stretches, which are prone to natural human error no matter how hard you stress, and let you focus on decisions that are more pleasurable like deciding how to congratulate your team, which are less prone to error and more richly rewarded for extra thought. To go back to the hiking group example, during the climb, you just focus on the basics. Maybe pace, rehydration and route-finding. All the while, get yourself pumped up to do a silly victory dance and elaborate high-fiving once the terrain has flattened out and the going is easier. Your team likes it. You like it because you feel less pressure. With Lance Armstrong's approach, everybody wins!

I've just been thinking about this a lot with the water projects because even if I am not the only leader, I am an undeniable part of the leadership core and it is not something I have spent time doing in my life. Basically, it means I pop a lot of popcorn for meetings and work days. And when we are sealing up the last little chunk of the water source we hope to provide a town of two hundred clean drinking water for two decades, I just trust the concrete, remind myself of our careful planning and throw it on there. No sweat!

Ser mujer en Panamá

"Ser mujer en Panamá" translates to "to be a woman in Panama." This entry explores my experience being a married, white, woman living in a machismo culture. Please know that I am writing this blog with a smile on my face because I understand that my culture with its roots in the U.S. is very different from Panama's culture. Comments and noises directed at me as well as people's behavior when I am around are not intended to offend me, but rather a mixing and clashing of cultures. So I try my best to not take offense. I want to share some specific examples of situations that I have been in, to give you all a little insight into the challenges of what it is like to be a white woman here in Panamá. 

1) A common getting to know me question is: "¿Cuantos hijos tiene?" or "How many kids do you have?" Hmm... Actually, I don't have any children. "But you have a husband right?" Yes I'm married. No, there is nothing wrong with me. Then, to me, the follow-up feels something like: "Why have a husband if not to provide for childcare expenses?" or even: "Don't worry! You will have one soon so you too can feel useful and fulfilled." It's as if people feel sorry for me because I have no children. My U.S. cultural experience is that as a 24 year-old with professional goals not having a kid is entirely natural and highly preferable!

2) During a meeting with our community's water committee we were discussing and organizing the next materials purchase for the project. Four men and myself. As things sometimes go down out here in the campo, we were having a pretty drawn out conversation about what types of faucets to buy. All of the sudden a very nice Señor turned directly to me and said something like: "You know Lorena it's like when Alejandro tells you to cook chicken for dinner, but without salt. Chicken with salt and chicken without salt aren't the same thing. Just like all faucets aren't the same." Okaaaayyyy... Thank you señor for describing to me that not all faucets are the same in the universal women's language of food preparation, but Alejandro rarely orders me to prepare chicken for him to his salt preferences! This story sounds made up or exaggerated, but it is real and sounds so zany because our gender cultures are different. In this situation was he was 100% serious and thought he was helping me understand what the men were discussing in a gender appropriate context. He doesn't have a single 'jerk' bone in his body, but if this was said to me under my cultural norms I would feel different perhaps even insulted.

3) In Panama the majority of the women cook. The women stay home, mind the house and prepare food.  If Alex isn't at home and someone comes around the house, they often ask me if I am busy "preparando la cena" or "preparing the dinner." Not to call me out or make me feel like a bad wife nor to be a macho asshole, just to strike up conversation and be their friendly, campo selves! People are just using what they know to interact with me. It happens this way to Alex too. If he is out and about near mealtime without me, people ask how I am and assume I am in the house cooking. I might be out on business on my own or traveling to the city or napping or hiking and if I do happen to be cooking, it might just be for me because I may have no idea if Alex ate or not. Through the U.S. cultural lens it would seem they think my sole purpose in life is to provide "la cena" for Alejandro. That, of course is not my sole purpose, and nor is the person at fault by assuming that I am at home cooking because that is what women do here.

Hablando de la cena...When I first arrived to my community and was struggling with Spanish, a nice young neighbor of mine offered to help me advance my language skills. She made me a notebook with basic Spanish words and phrases she thought were imperative for communicating in the community. Amongst basic phrases like "buenos días" and "necisito agua" was the phrase "¿Alejandro, quieres la cena ya? Which in English is "Alex, do you want dinner now?" Under the Panamanian cultural norms, asking my husband when he would like his dinner is just as important as "Good morning" and "I need water."

4) During a "junta" in el campo the work is very much divided in between men's work and women's work. The men do all the manual labor such as chopping down and carrying fire wood, digging holes, carrying cement, building houses, lo que sea. The women do all the cooking, cleaning, sewing and babysitting. During our last "junta" in San Juanito I was carrying firewood with the men. As always, the men gave me less wood and constantly questioned my ability to hike with 30 pounds of wood on my shoulder, BUT because I am a "gringa" I was able to work with the men, but they still never let me forget that I was doing "man's work." 

The women comment too. When I arrived  back to the house from carrying wood, all the women stopped and stared. Some said out loud "¡Ai me da lastima ver Lorena abajo esta leña!" Which translates to "Oh! It's such a shame to see Lorena carrying firewood!" They immediately pulled me up a chair and ordered me to rest in the shade. I then began to observe the women around me, cooking, cleaning and sewing. I wanted to jump in and help! After all it was a 'junta!' Only Now the problem became I am a 'gringa.' Gringas dont know how to sew sombreros or how to cook chicken and rice the Panamanian way. 

I was stuck. Stuck in between both worlds. In the man's word I was able to carry wood because I am a gringa, but I could only carry a little because I am a woman. In the women's world I shouldn't be carrying wood because I am a woman, but I couldn't sew or cook with the women because I am a gringa. 

In the junta I didn't belong with the women because I am a white woman and I didn't belong with the men because after all I am still a woman. Tricky how that works! 

5) It does make for a hilarious blast when we openly challenge the Panamanian gender roles and talk about it with people. Recently, Alex decided he would try to make lasagna. He stayed home cooking and I was out and about visiting people. One Señora found out and said to me "Ese Alejandro es un bellaco! El cocina Y lava!" "That Alejandro is a scoundrel! He cooks AND washes!"  The señora couldn't believe that a man knew how to cook AND wash and she thought it was the most hilarious thing! I guess its because in Panamá it's rare to see a man cooking and washing.

6) As in the United States, women often get cat-called or whistled at here in Panama, but It's a little different.  When I am outside San Juanito I get hissed at (yes, 'hissed at'), whistled at, hollered at, starred at, etc.  I have had trucks full of men literally stop in the middle of the road to look at me. I have yet to walk past a construction site without getting a "hey baby" from the workers. As you can imagine, knowing me and my values, this wears on me! However, when I am with Alex the men's behavior changes completely. I still get started at, but they wouldn't dare make a comment for fear of facing the scary wrath of the big, bearded man walking with the "gringa bonita."

Despite all these awkward situations, being a women in Panamá sometimes has its advantages even when I'm not with Alex. Take riding in taxis for example. I get picked up in seconds and charged reduced fares. Two of my Peace Corps girlfriends and I got a free taxi ride in the city just because! If we would have been with men, that would probably have not happened. 

Wow! What a complicated and emotionally-charged issue for me! With all of this I am not trying to say Panamá is a horribly sexist place, nor is everything perfect for women in the United States. I just wanted to shed some light on the subject and show some of the cultural differences when it comes to gender roles and a woman's part in the home and society.

Love, 

Lauren "bra burner" Hayes 

Updatios

Hi Everybody!

As you all know our time is winding down in Panamá and we even have a departure date for late June! Holy cow it has been a wild ride. I am not quite ready to give you closing reflections, but I think there is a lot going on that is worth updating because when we call and Facebook you all we just end up talking about going home!

Wet season has begun in semi-earnest spitting some pretty hefty aguaceros and leaving the trails muddy and our water tanks full. It has brought a great deal of heat too; that sticky, wet heat that makes you want to sit your butt down in a hammock and not move.

We do manage to move sometimes though! I am still in full maximum swing on construction doing a new water capture and the associated little tanks. The work is being coordinated amount nearly 40 houses, which makes the leadership aspect entirely different. Campesinos love the saying, "Share, share! That's fair!" So it means when 1,500 pounds of sand show up we need to measure it and divide it among everybody to carry. And con razón! Materials (sand, cement, bundles of tube, gravel) get dropped off at the church and need to make it up to the work site a solid 45 minute climb away that gains about 200 meters of elevation. Whew! A common compliment I am dishing out lately is, "la gente son tremendo!" Meaning they are tremendously hard workers.

The finished system over in the Santa Cruz sector is bumping along nicely. The water itself is on cruise control and their 850-gallon tank fills to the brim at night for use during the day. Nothing leaks at the intake either, which is always a fear because repressing water is a difficult task. The bumps that have come along so far are on the management and teamwork side. Heated discussions about how much to charge monthly have led to threats of quitting the project entirely! Most folks want to charge $1.00 per month, that's right a whole dollar, while some folks see that ideal rate to be $0.75. Can you imagine paying that kind of rate for water in the United States?!?!

Lauren has had the foresight to start prepping for our homeward trek. We have decided to close down the library and she is managing the return of all the books. Some books need to be searched for and others have been damaged within repair and beyond. We did our best to instill a sense of book-care, but that culture doesn't really exist in San Juanito because they simply have never had access to books. Our library is an incredible treasure and we will pass it on to another volunteer with the hope that he will do the same.

We will also be selling the majority of our possessions yard-sale style as a find-raiser for the Health Committee in San Juanito. Lauren is organizing and sorting as we begin to put prices on all the items to sell. We are pretty proud of our minimalism an notice how we have lived for nearly two years in good health an relative comfort without having a bajillion things. It is a practice we want to take with us back to the U.S. where overbearing advertising cranks up your consumerist side to buy, buy, buy!

Except the bed. Hahaha! Our bed will be one thing we will not miss whatsoever. It is a wonder we sleep as well as we do on such a moldy, saggy, tiny and uncomfortable bed. We will not be taking a minimalist approach on our next bed. In fact, I think we will be going opposite and taking a maximalist approach. Maximum comfort, maximum size and maximum cleanliness!

On Lauren's calendar is the Healthy Women's Artisan Seminar in June. She has been working real hard on coordinating and planning this annually awesome event in Chiriqui. She's got the whole town collecting chip bags to use for a recycled wallet project where the ladies will weave the bags together to make some pretty sweet wallets. She will be presenting the domestic violence series again, which is something she basically invented from scratch here in Panamá.

I had the chance to observe a watershed conservation meeting in action. Cerro Verde is a preserve that gives water to over eleven communities. They were startled to find large machinery trails being opened into the conservation zone. It doesn't affect San Juanito so much, but it is great to see campesinos taking organized action against illegal development and protecting their water.

We bought Carmencita for five bucks.

Not much else to report! Its going to be awfully nice to see you all very soon!

Love,

Alex

Panama has taught me...

1) 10 people can share two bedrooms and two twin beds. 

2) Just because your neighbors have electricity, doesn't mean you do. 

3) You can eat anything with a spoon, even a plate of spaghetti and rice. 

4) Children don't really need to be potty trained because they can just go to the bathroom anywhere. 

5) Just because there is a telephone in your town doesn't mean it will ever work. 

6) "A las 4 y adelante" really means 10:00pm. 

7) Being called 'gringa' can be endearing or offensive, depending on how it's said. 

8) A television can work in a town with no electricity as long as there's a old car battery and aluminum foil. 

9) Two year olds drink coffee on a daily basis. 

10) Never leave your house without a machete and sombrero. 

11) Eating a few bugs every now and then won't kill you. 

12)  Cow feet soup is actually delicious. 

13)  In the rainy season you accept your damp clothes for dry enough. 

14) You can eat plain white rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. 

15) Panamanian women own three pairs of shoes; flip-flops, rubber boots, and high-heels. 

16) Campesinos truly believe that getting your head wet when it's sunny outside will make you sick. 

17) You can eat birthday cake out of a cup with no eating utensil.

18) Roosters crow allllllllll dayyyy looooooong. 

19) Two people can shower with less than 5-gallons of water. 

20) You can give yourself bruises if you scratch your bug bites hard enough. 

21) There is nothing better than a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice on a hot day. 

22) Panamanians will judge you on how you dress. (and how clean your shoes are) 

23) Laying in your hammock all day is acceptable. 

24) You can survive without Internet and cell phone service. 

25) You can fall asleep anywhere. Hammock, moldy mattress, concrete floor, and public transport included. 

26) Customer service is relative. 

27) Plastic bags will be the reason for the end of the world. 

28) It is possible to get sick of fresh ripe bananas whenever every person you see gives you 10 of them. 

29) It is NOT possible to get sick of fresh oranges. 

30) You can be happy with very little possessions in your life. 

31) Panamanian women think I don't know how to wash clothes or dishes or do anything else related to housework. 

32) Eating Panamanian style tamales is not the same as eating Mexican tamales, and they make my stomach hurt. 

33) My stomach is a lot stronger than I thought. 

34) "Ahora" really means anytime but right now. 

35)The lines on my abuelas face are beautiful. 

36) Campesinos aren't poor. They just don't have money. 

37) Campo children are way more well behaved than American children. 

38) Living in close quarters with snakes, tarantulas, and scorpions really isn't that bad. 

39) Humans are very adaptable. 

40) I have learned more from Panamá than Panamá has from me. 

41) Yes, Peace Corps is tough, but it is the best decision I have ever made. 

Bloggy McBloggersons

A little known, but much speculated upon, fact is what actually goes on inside and around our mud hut in the jungle. What little is gleaned from craned-neck glimpses and overheard snippets is mysterious at best. I am pleased to publicly inform you all that Lauren and I keep a hilarious residence, which ranges in seriousness from just plain silly to thought provoking banter to ranting tirades to comfortable silence.

Unfortunately for Lauren, living in such close proximity to me puts her in close proximity to my repertoire of five jokes (roughly estimated). Sure these jokes evolve over geological timescales, but their fundamental content and, in my opinion, knee-slapping comedic genius remains perturbingly steady. In fact, little did you suspect you have already been subject to one in the title of this blog! It is the practice of taking a noun, verb, adjective or adverb (or I suppose an entire adverbial clause) and repeating it twice over. The first time round you annex an "-y" or "-ie" suffix. On the second repetition you add the prefix "Mc-" to the original word (or a slight variation thereof) and then finish off by placing the suffix "-sons" at the very end. So one may have a raucous breakfast of flap jacks referring to them all the while as "pancakey mccakersons." Or suppose some offending dog has trespassed the threshold of our inner sanctum. It may be shooed away using, "Hey! Quitate! Snoopy mcsnoopersons." Some various grammatical substitutions do apply such as in the case "stupidie mcstupersons," but I am working on a multi-volume guide to the subtleties of this timelessly classic jokey mcjokersons.

Rules of the house also require some explanation. Our in-home security program involves various spheres and levels. In our immediate perimeter, namely the space we typically visually observe from the inner sanctum or patio, we permit just about anyone or anything. I say "just about" because peeing male dogs and venomous snakes are not permitted in our immediate perimeter. I claim our patio is a wrap-around veranda because if you balance carefully on the foot-wide piece of cement plancha that extends the foundation of our house inspecting the side wall for scorpions and garden section for snakes, you can easily make it to the back without mortal injury. Dogs deemed friendly are permitted in all patio areas, but your security clearance is revoked if you begin to fight or roll in the flowers and a harsh, "Hey! Quitate! Dañary mcdañarisons" is inevitably coming your way. (If you didn't get that last little bit, not to worry, more on that later). Children are permitted to pass the patio and enter the inner sanctum. Should you fail to take off your shoes or begin touching and handling everything (toothbrushes especially) with your dirty hands later announcing you have a fever, you risk being excluded from any forthcoming presentation of juice, popcorn or other snack. Dogs are rarely permitted in the inner sanctum. Our Lordess Empress Princess Ruler, Goma the Cat, is of course permitted in the inner sanctum and patio, but strongly discouraged under penalty of Lauren carrying her back inside to broach the immediate perimeter. Lauren is developing a motion to create another secure zone called simply "the bed inside our mosquitero" and proposes excluding me from it because it turns out my side is toxically foul-smelling. Gosh, I guess I am just a sweaty mcsweatersons in the jungle heat! Our Lordess Empress Princess Ruler, Goma the Cat, will of course be permitted in this future zone.

The official language of our home is Spanglish in all its beauty and affront to both respectable tongues of English and Spanish. We conjugate Spanish verbs in English; a prime example of this being "regalaring" as in, "I heard he is regalaring yuca." We inexplicably terminate English sentences in Spanish; for instance, "The pipe route had to be changed to the other side of the rock porque, bueno... hay que hacerlo." This practice affords excellent communication among the two of us, but I fear will affect our transition back to the states dearly.

I don't think there is a topic Lauren and I haven't talked about. Sure there are comfort topics like our future Vanagon/toaster van plans and how Lauren is, "gonna get a German Shepard puppy and feed it raw meat," but as the old saying goes, when life gives you lemons you are gonna have to talk about 'em! World hunger, water rights, speculation on sexual habits of our campesino neighbors, theories on kindness and justice and progress, rants about environmental degradation and overpopulation, plans for haircuts, tragedies of child soldiering and trafficking, drug movement through South and Central America, stochastic programming, gender roles, religion, minimalism, pop culture and freedom float through the conversation in the inner sanctum and on the patio. Those walls have seen our best joys and our worst attitudes. Inside we have changed and stayed the same, reflecting on both prospects. Cooking, washing dishes, washing clothes and then cooking, washing dishes and rewashing the same clothes. Rarely can we decide what to eat for breakfast in less than twenty minutes. We listen to, play and write music. We sing and dance and dodge the widows naked after showering because everyone can see in! Our campo home is one of the happiest places on earth for me and I think Lauren likes it too...as long as it is swept and organized.

Although it has its secrets which you may never know (such as the high level of accuracy to which I impersonate Marc Antony's performance on the music video for "Vivir Mi Vida"), after reading this blog, you kind of get the gisty mcgistersons.

Love,

Alex

Dark days

Date this one back to December 21!

"¡El diablo, ese bicho nunca se duerme!" -Herminio Guerrel, Regidor, San Juanito

December 21 is the shortest day, the darkest day. I certainly feel it this year. It seems as though I am always running up against the far edge of the day recently. Arriving to my house in the dark or cooking in the dark or reading by headlamp. As a disclaimer, this blog is a bit of a downer today. It ends on a positive note and we continue doing great and thriving despite the dark days.

San Juanito has had a crime rate of about 0.0001%. The campo is perhaps the safest place to be. All one needs to do is watch their feet for snakes and one can enjoy a vibrant, safe life. Friends and family abound in the campo and folks are too poor to rob anyway. With the construction of the road two yeare ago the seeds of crime were sown. More travel means more temptation to accost someone and make a quick buck. It means more strangers around. In early November, a group of three masked men built a rock roadblock and robbed a fish truck outside of town that enters San Juanito to bring some delicious protein and assorted veggies. They succeeded in taking $300 and significantly scaring the poor pueblo. In a possibly related incident, three masked men robbed an elderly man, his wife and daughter in mid-December after a "día de pago" where the government distributes $100 to those above 70 years old. This 78 year-old tried to defend himself with his walking stick only to be thrown to the ground suffering a knock to the head that took four stitches to fix up. The daughter was pushed down and suffered a severely sprained ankle. Don't get me wrong, we are talking about very minor incidents in the face of the violences perpetrated worldwide every day, but I think it is affecting me because everyone around is so shocked and frustrated. We love these people so much and when harm comes their way it feels like an attack on all of us as a community. People are mad, sad and embarrassed that San Juanito is getting a bad reputation, frustrated as the culture of fear touches them in their tranquil campo.

My view on the issue...pardon the French here, #$!* people who rob people! The worthless and morally void folks who prey upon the weak and vulnerable are behaving like the scum of the earth to lazy and weak to pick up a &@>%#+<?! coa and earn a living like the rest of us. Get help and stop making good people fear the road where they once tread in peace. That aside, the whirling suspicion is that the suspects are youth, which cries out "at-risk" in my mind and makes me sad.

Unfortunately, we got swept up into the fear frenzy too. All over a six-by-eight, blue tarp. It is common for volunteers struggle with little things here and there being taken around their homes. For us it has been a piece of wood one time, a bag of avocados another and most recently in late November a plastic tarp I use to make small mixes of concrete and such. When the tarp showed up at our neighbor's house with the back-story that some kids had sold it to this 80-something year-old, I thought to myself, in this growing local atmosphere of unpunished crimes and loose ends, justice should be pursued. Long story short, after much and much deliberation between Lauren and I we went with a local option and called on the local sheriff to help us get to the bottom of it. The suspect kids only stood to make $2 off the sale and I would have honestly prefered my old neighbor to keep the stupid thing, but hey. We confronted the kids and their parents. They denied everything and said, in fact, the old man had offered to sell it to them for $2. Awkwardly, the kids, their dad, the sheriff, Lauren and I all marched to the old man's house, but he barely understood what was going on and when asked directly about the tarp, did not accuse the kid at all, instead claiming the kid had stolen $20 from him. It was all too jumbled and direct in a world that revolves around indirect communication. The sheriff ruled we should take tge taro back, no harm, no foul style. The whole hassle leaves a sour taste in my mouth. It stinks of agism and bent truth. Should we have left well enough alone? Was there a different strategy that would have solved it better?

"El unico requisito de morir es vivir" - Raul Guerrel Hijo, San Juanito

If god is up there, he sure worked a mystery on Christmas Eve in taking our friend, mentor and leader Brandon Valentine from our world. Brandon was Peace Corps Panama's young, vibrant training manager, a father and expecting another he was friend to all. His presence will be missed very dearly in the Peace Corps community. He welcomed me to Panamá, taught me to salomar and bark like a dog. He introduced me to pasear emphasizing how its better done on an empty stomach and made me think about using my radar. He said, "don't reinvent the wheel, just pimp it out" and me animó to listen to people around me. He never failed to give me a pat on the back and shake my hand when we crossed paths in the office or in Penonomé. One time he made me put on pants when it was only clean shorts left, a friendly reminder of the value of professionalism. Brandon's gone and its up to the rest of us to tread the waves looking for reason in this. It should be easier with such a brilliant torch to carry and though I expect to falter, I also expect to get back up because Brandon would have liked that way better than just sitting on my butt. Brandon man, you live on in my heart!

"No es el sol que mueve en los cielos, es la Tierra dando vuelta así." - Teodora Gonzalez, San Juanito

So there you have it. Dark, heavy events for short, dark days. How tempting it is to close up shop and hang up the sign. Retracing our steps to the comfy, safe middle class that holds its door open for us would be straightforward and the light has been left on. Wouldn't you? How easy it is to let the dark in and start to spiral. The little complaints get amplified on you: slow projects and slower transport, thinking you got through to someone only to watch them back-track, spiders and all those eye-rolling cousins of inconvenience out there. We are bothered morally too. After all, we are confronted with the barbarity of humanity in general on a daily basis. Our crimes against Mother Earth are many. Our money-lust leads us to kill our soils, push animals to extinction and hurt one another making daily wastefulness our religion. Hypocrisy can rule if you let, but she is a harsh queen. We don't persevere trying to believe in the positive here in Panama because its a goal or contract. We are here because this is our camino to walk right now as hard to explain as it feels. Adventure is about feeling all feelings and stamping out the numbness of ignoring something nasty. We stand for adventure. You will find methere  and for all it makes my heart hurt sometimes, it makes my heart full too.

Abuela came up to our porch on December 21, the darkest day of the year. She asked me to explain how the seasons change in Colorado. We talked about how it gets really dark in the extreme north and south of the planet. She said come June and July the days are very long again, which is something to look forward to.

Stay strong and follow your dreams,

Alex

Dear Panamanian Politico,

Lets go ahead and preface this one by reinforcing that the views in this blog reflect my own opinions and not those of the U.S. government, Peace Corps or any of its affiliates. I pose a struggle here between the rich and poor everywhere. The first world and the third world mix and meet often, but don't tend to average so well. There is some underlying reason why the lexicon ignores "second world," "first and a half world" and "second and three-quarters world." I don't understand the divide because we all seem to be human, of one image. Feel free to agree and disagree with this. Fearless? Fearless. Ahead.

Dear Panamanian Politico,

Let my first words be to wish you an overly wonderful morning with angels shining down upon your featherbed and hope everything you touch is turning to gold as you deserve. I say these things because I know greasing your ears is a necessary practice to get you to lend a fraction of your attention here. To me. Your people. Our issue is a general lack of respect and it is two-fold: (1) we tire of the apathy you demonstrate towards the content of your own progress-promising speeches and (2) we laugh, not so much WITH you as AT you, as we run your gauntlet, standing in line for our so called freedoms.

In the end we are smug, smirking outside and inside because the chokehold you thrill yourself in claiming upon the poor is actually not so incredibly uncomfortable. Sure we'd like the worms out of our bellies, but I think the black-lung of your cancers is not such a grand improvement as you might think. I live outside. I live with Mother Earth, God and the gods where their blessings are as evident as they are breathtaking. You fear the sun. You fear the cold. From the climate-controlled halls of your homes and institutions you have constructed a universe full of themes and objects with which no god is familiar.

Our interactions are increasingly awkward. We are invited into your world to earn the money that is only useful to buy your goods and perpetuate our bondage to make more of this evil capital. Money has started robbery in our village and for what? I can trade it for the chips, cookies and stale bread you offer but they leave me obese, with rotting teeth and missing the fresh bread of my grandmother's hearth. Yes, you built my road, but we begin to feel the motivation was to rob the working hours of our men to make you even richer. Toss them just enough bone to keep their teeth busy while we quietly open their jugulars. Your charity often barely values the trepidation we have to show to tolerate your presence. So little do you understand about our environment, both human and natural, that your attempts to help often precipitate more work for us and even conflict within our communities. And yet your jelly rolls continually spill out into our lives pushing false agendas and expecting a photo-op gratitude that we oblige with equal falseness.

You choose to laugh loud, but we choose to laugh long. After you've poisoned your water sources, corrupted your babies and cooked your eyeballs on the pocket-sized, hot skillet screens that supposedly respresent the pride of our civilization, I will fight for the old ways. I will remember the names of the plants and the motion of the planet. I will struggle to defend culture, tradition and teach my children to feed themselves from the earth's bounty.

Let me close with a brief thanks for stopping the practice of murdering us outright for speaking against you, but preface the gratitude with the observation that it was not all that long ago you perpetrated this as well. The parents and grandparents remember those days.

From,

El Campo

Spay Panamá Project

Finally! After almost 1 year of organizing and planning, The Spay Panamà vets made their way to San Juanito. On April 4th and 5th five veterinarians from the non-profit organization successfully spayed and neutered 86 dogs and cats.

One of the first dogs to get spayed

  

One of the vets hard at work

The clinic was equal parts crazy and cool.

As you all know, Panamá has taught me to roll with the punches. The period leading up to the clinic was a great example of this... 

As if to set the perfect stage, the dog that follows us around everywhere, Carmencita was in heat in the days before the clinic. She was attracting 8+ male dogs at a time that would fight, growl, pee on everything and destroy our gardens day and night. To add tragedy to inconvenience and frustration, Carmencita lead the pack of male dogs to the main road outside my community, where a car struck and killed my neighbors dog as he was fighting in the asphalt.  (R.I.P. Tuto) Another punch was at the last minute we had to change the location of the clinic from the school to the casa communal because we didn't have correct permission from the ministry of education. In the hustle to make the casa communal an appropriate place to hold the clinic I arranged to run electricity from a near by house to the casa communal and spent the morning cleaning the muddy floors with my helper Maria. I waited for the veterinarians to arrive and when they didn't show I hiked up the cell phone hill and called. I learned they had been delayed and would be arriving the following day. 

My kettle reached a boiling point when I arrived back to my house to find the pack of male dogs on my porch. An especially scary male dog made a lunge at Goma ( my cat) and in her attempt to flee climbed my face as if it were a tree. Luckily it was just a small scratch and bruise but it felt like she had scratched my eye out. 

I was tired from chasing off male dogs, tired of the difficulties of scheduling anything on time, and just about ready to give up on the whole project. But when the vets arrived the next day I was glad I didn't. 

They arrived at noon and by 12:30 they had already set up everything and had 4 dogs operated and waiting to wake up from the anesthesia. That set the standard for the speed and efficiency for the rest of the afternoon and following day. 

Alex and I helped the owners push, pull, drag or carry their dogs or cats to the clinic. We used wheel barrows, sacks, baskets, ropes and anything we could find. Upon their arrival to the clinic, one of the vets would eyeball it's weight to the pound and give it the appropriate dose of anesthesia. The animal would then gently fall to sleep and the vets would get busy.

Abuelo bringing his puppy to the clinic

The "recovery room" was a 10x10 sheet of plastic where they would place the finished dogs and cats down to wake up. 

This whole process was completely new to my community members and many of them were sure the sleeping animals were dead. Once the animal showed signs of recovering the owner was free to carry it back to their house.

The dogs and cats recovering from anesthesia 

Abuelo carrying back his sleeping dog in a "motete"

A warm heartfelt thank you to everyone that donated and made this possible! After the clinic 6 year old Mitzuri told me she wants to be a veterinarian. Like they say "Rome wasn't built in a day!" Here's to a bright pet caring future! :) 

Humans Acclimatize

Hey all!

This blog is about acclimatization. Sometimes you get a reality jolt that makes you stop and reflect: "Hmmm...what occurrences in my daily life do I just shrug off as ho-hum used CD store got-it-alreadies?" Here are two anecdotes about getting used to things.

(1) What I should have named this water project was: "Control de flujo" with the key question, "how much do you want coming out of your faucet?" It has been a hassle to install the 1/2-inch PVC rings that calibrate gravity in just the right way to make equal flow around town. That fact doesn't surprise me. I am surprised by how much people's acclimatization to the norm has colored the result. Much to the complaint of my coa-wounded toe (a bit more down and to the left and I would have chopped it right off) I continuously monitor flow rates around town. One way is to ask the user about his or her perception of the flow. Another way is to go to the tap, stick my liter Nalgene bottle in and time the sucker. It is not guaranteed these investigative techniques yield the same answer and get this! Nobody is lying to me! When someone has bathed under 0.841 liters per second everyday for 8 years, 0.8 liters per second truthfully feels like you just can't get the soap off. So when this goofy, bearded foreigner comes around, messes with your system for four, dry days and sets you down at a measly 0.2 liters per second bribing you with popcorn to keep quiet, you start to feel your knickers twisting. People get accustomed to flow rates high or low. People down low receiving gravity's damnedest to blow their $2.95 red-handled, P.O.S. 60-meter rated PVC plumas get used to it. Buying new faucets becomes an incorporated expense and you just close your eyes tight when you get up in your shower so it doesn't blow your eyelids off. People up high struggling to get their hair wet as they hope the pipe doesn't start sucking negative pressure get used to it as well. They hit the magic wash trio: face-to-pits-to-crotch repeat-and-rinse changing their entire daily routines on how much water they get and when. And no one showers much at their friends' place. When I ask, "¿Cómo va el agua?" I've had some lead me to their showers turn on the faucet and leap clear of the exploding stream so as not to get their Sunday clothes soaked, then proceed to tell me: "Muy poquito." One man was celebrating that he managed to get his hair completely wet for the first time because the dribble he had has become a steady stream. I've examined my cultural lenses and realized no one is lying to me. A group of people have acclimatized to a pretty routine occurrence such as turning on the faucet and to them it has changed drastically. This clouds up the project goal to share water equally to a more personalized desired family flow, target practice game, which is considerably harder on my bum toe. Perspective is everything.

(2) I have had a perspective shift too. Sometimes when I get in one of those good-old moods, I am able to spot the change, but it's hard. Today, walking home the thought crossed my mind that maybe this had been the spot Lauren had seen the jaguarundi this time. Hold up! Examine that sentence. A bleeping jaguarundi!?!? What do you mean THIS time!?!? Where is this exotic jungle creature and WHY IN THE HECK am I walking alone in its natural habitat! SO FREAKIN' COOL!!! But alas, I have been acclimated to the craziness. Today I worked in the jungle with my campesino friends and counterparts Misael, Bolivar and Santos. We were putting the finishing touches on the steel reinforcing for their future 850-gallon concrete water storage tank. I am flying by the seat to my pants on the ENTIRE project btw. We talked about the corrupt government and being proud to see their kids off to sixth grade that day, a day that never happened for them. The four dogs we were with cornered a gato espino (porcupine) and got ejected upon to the point that we almost just killed one of them because if we couldn't get the spines out, it wouldn't be able to eat and would slowly starve to death. Hog-tying it and forcing its mouth open by cutting teeth holes in a dirty rag, we managed to slowly extract all the spines from its gums, tongue and the roof if its mouth. It bled a lot, but it seemed to recover quickly and flopped down worn out. Wait! This one gets better. I told Lauren this story on the phone and she was like, "yeah, it will get better." The thing is, she KNOWS that from FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE because one day it happened worse to a dog when she was out working and it survives to this day. Other versions of myself would have received these experiences with polar opposite reactions. My college self would say, "WHAT?!?! You are actually friends with Central American campesinos?!?! You talk to them about the corrupt kleptocrats that bumbled in charge of the country?!?! YOU are going to have NO trouble getting a girlfriend my MAN!" I would have been drooling all over myself then to do what I just take for granted doing now. My scientific process-oriented self would say, "you are just making up tank designs as you go?!?! You MORON! You have to make a demo model, stress test a full range of loads, model the result and extrapolate to a sound design!!!" Given my training and background I shouldn't be just calling out the cement mixes to my team based on what is closest by, but hey! I can be quoted on this, "Got how many of gravel up here? What's 4:2:1 again? Aw heck...throw it in!" In regard to the porcupine injured dog, pretty much any of my selves before Peace Corps would say, "OH MY GOSH!!! Don't move her! I am going to call the emergency vet RIGHT NOW!!!" And yet, there I was today holding the dog down, trying to yank out the blood-slick needles and reminding Misael to let the dog breath through its nose because the blood and saliva was clogging its throat. I've gotten used to all this! Even what I once thought the most fundamental beliefs have been sent for a double loop-the-loop. Just now my neighbor fed me at her house. It was cumpleaños food and I asked whose it was. "Mine," said her daughter Diana as she nursed her 2-month old daughter Miladis, "I'm seventeen." It was just now reflecting on my old and new perspectives that I thought, wow, isn't that a little young to have a 2-month old?" I acclimated to my surroundings. I will be back at it tomorrow, which is Tuesday. Wednesday I will be try to arrange to travel 3 hours by bus to get my flu shot, to return 3 hours, luxuriate in a crappy hotel, wake up at 4:00 am Thursday to get back to making up tank designs and yammin' it up with all my favorite campesinos again! I wonder if I will get reverse culture shock and write this blog in 2016 explaining how my massaging shower head feels, wondering reverently at frozen vegetables and being terrified of the giant dogs when they are really just fed. "What?!?!?" I will gasp in disbelief, "This RedBox spits out MOVIIIIEEEESSSS?!?!?"

What I always do hope is that I will have those special moments where I can step back and be like, "whoa, look at all this!" Acclimating is bizarre.

El día de la entrega

Someone of some prominence must have said at some point, "your love is like a roller coaster baby baby, I wanna ride!" This quote fails to capture anything I want to talk about in this blog, but does mention the words "roller coaster," which are indeed of utmost importance in this blog. Poor introduction aside, I wanted to tell you all about today because it was particular full of triumph and tragedy, awkwardness and delight, good and slightly bothersome.

I remember the volunteer I visited way back when I arrived here in Panamá spoke extensively about the hassle that was "el día de entrega" or delivery day for a latrine project that he was orchestrating. Back then, oh so many activities ago, I thought I would never have a delivery day. Either I would not be capable to get a project going or it was just too far in the future to comprehend. Wellp, today was my "día de entrega" and I am in the midst of a whopper of a project. Who'da thunk? For me it wasn't so much a hassle, but it was sure a roller coaster.

With the alarm set for 5:50 I woke up at 5:00 rearing to go, excitement dominating my chances at sleep. I made my new speciality Dutch baby for breakfast and wolfed down todo anticipating mayhem. The mayhem that one can withstand with a powder-sugared, eggy and rich Dutch baby is significant. Lunch, pasta and sardines, was in a Tupperware already. All my things were laid out so as not to forget: cell phone, miscellaneous PVC parts, the project pickaxe with it's newly varnished handle, the receipts to prove I was the buyer, the laptop to show folks pictures of the trabajo que viene, hacksaw and extra blade, cement float and so on.

One thing you have to understand about this project is that it keeps an open door. Our pool of participants is everyone the new gravity-fed system can reach who does not have a connection to the existing community aqueduct. Among this group, the bag is as mixed as can be: some could care less, some could care medium and some care lots. So when one of my good campesino buddies, who is in the care medium group and still on the fence about participating, stopped me on my hike to the toma area, I heard him out. A slightly paranoid fellow, he is convinced someone cuts his tubes every time he connects somewhere. In his mysterious way of weaving the truth, I caught the paranoia fever as well. The rest of my hike I fell into dark thoughts of what to do if no one showed. With $1400 spent and gone, this was a dismal prospect.

I sweated profusely and when I rounded the bend into Papayal a cold wind and misty rain chilled my already cool thoughts. At the toma I looked around, stamping on this dirt and that dirt para ver if it was firma or not. I walked the salida over the hill, looked for Más Movil signal to call the hardware store later and sat down on a rock. Eight o'clock, the start time, came and went, I scratched Carmencita's ears. This was the low. Could it be that I had misinterpreted months of meetings and preparation work? Would I be stood up like a buffoon?

Both the president and secretary of the directiva brought horses. I was so relieved I could have hugged all four of them had tradition not dictated to be more appropriate a handshake among men and a general abstaining from hugging horses unless your that girl from National Velvet or tienes ganas de ticks. The thing you should to know about la hora panameña is that it is not the same as la hora norteamericana. You arrive late to just about everything and sometimes church too. As it got later, our numbers swelled and even paranoid campesino dude showed up with his two awesome daughters to participate.

Much relieved we rocked the excavation of the toma like it was going out of style. Our delivery was scheduled for 10:00 am. One thing I learned about la hora panameña is that there are few exceptions, sometimes not even church. As such we established the plan to work on the digging until such time as the materials arrived and then change our goal to the carga. I called at 9:30. Had they loaded the truck? "Hold please." So have you loaded the truck? "What's the name on the order?" The name is The Only Person Ordering 150 Lengths of Tube and Asking You to Deliver It On Time to What Most People Consider the Middle of Nowhere in the Jungle Today, is what I wanted to say, but thought better of it. I concluded the conversation by practicing my Spanish direct commands: "load the truck and bring the materials here."

Digging out the toma.

They actually made good time and at 11:30 or so paranoid campesino's daughters flagged down the truck. The muchachos were even nice enough to bring the thirteen bags of cement up to the caseta for us. I let them sweat it as I looked back across the valley at where we had to get everything, a good half a mile down to the creek and then back up, by nightfall or rainfall, which could happen a lot sooner.

A family carrying tubes.

Caballos to the rescue!

The thing you should know about campesinos is that they can work hard and carry the most ludicrously heavy bundles there are. Where I loaded up four tubes, they took ten wobbling off down the path like they were picking daisies. One strong campesino, mind you he is pushing sixty years old, took a 94-pound bag of cement on his shoulder and came back for another, mind you as well the horses are full up glistening with two bags. Strong campesino agreed to share the last one, his third trip, with a younger campesino who had been getting chided for taking a long lunch. "He's scared of the old man," strong campesino said. I contented my days heroics to not slicing my jugular as I careened down the mountain with a roll of barbed wire hopped up on my shoulder.

Teamwork gets the job done, two men share the load of a 94-pound cement bag.

Needless to say everything arrived safe and secure with amazing rapidez. We concluded strong with a plan to push forward la otra mañana, which translates "the other tomorrow" and means the day after tomorrow. As I walked back I felt a spring in my step combined with a sense of marvel at what my life has become. I thought about Brandon Valentine, my jefe who just passed away. There is a mass in Penonomé on Friday in his honor and I plan to go, but if folks want to continue working on Friday I might stay behind. Wouldn't Brandon have wanted me to be out there mixing it up on an awesome project instead of mourning? I stopped by at the few houses that had not been represented or otherwise accounted for during el día de la entrega. "Por favor. Put some clothes with better coverage on," I would have liked to say to the campesina who greeted me at the first house, but thought better of it. She has a young son and after all, the thing you should know about campo moms is you can never be too prepared to dar la teta to an infant the very millisecond it starts fussing. She gave some excuse and said her eldest son had wanted to come, but had been too scared. A problem easily solved by me passing by la otra mañana para rouse the youngster from slumber. The other houses gave me similar excuses, but I cheerfully gave my song-and-dance of the doors always being open to join the project since this is a matter of their future health and well-being.

Talk about an idyllic location to store the goods.

As I marched back home the darkness in my mind threatened to cloud up again. Should I really be inviting everyone and their scantily clad mothers to participate? What about rules and regulations? If I get the project full of apathetic people, it risks a serious future crash. How do we share the work? The directiva likes the idea of every household working the exact same number of days, but to me that is too communistic and a far-flung ideal. Where is the incentive for superstars to rise and lead in all the workdays if they want? If we were to put a minimum requirement it will give space for over-achievers to shine, under-achievers to be politely dismissed and medium-achievers to do a reasonable effort to obtain clean water, which I personally think is a right of everybody. Perhaps we will do that aka I will somehow try to talk our group into talking themselves into that.

I arrived home to puppies, which is a good pick-me-up. They aren't ours they just come visiting from time to time, which is an even better pick-me-up. I set about preparing to make macaroni and cheese, campo style. For some reason I have little money and am budgeting ninety cents a meal, with roll-over, until Friday. The thing you should know about the cost of living here is that ninety cents a meal is totally feasible, especially since I already have ketchup. Coming back up from the store, I heard a familiar voice saludando me from the rancho. My old host dad is in town. I miss his company and that of his 6 year-old son like crazy and I felt the cloud start to darken again as I thought about how much stronger our friendships could have been had his family stayed in San Juanito instead of moving to Penonomé in February of last year. A wicked accordion player, he invited me to a daytime concert this coming Sunday at the orange festival. More dark clouds as I realized I probably can't go, traveling on a Sunday is a vaina and with my dad and Gillian in town, it is not practical. I want to film a video of him playing in the daytime, a project he really wants to see to fruition too, but there always seems to be a conflict.

As I left the rancho Abuela gave me an awesome suggestion to paint the oven Lauren and I made on Saturday with ash. The house smells like a pigsty because the mud mix I used had sugar water, which is fermenting and exuding nasty smells. I hope the ash will help, otherwise I am going to have to take it down so our visitors don't throw up upon arrival.

Beginning to reflect on the day, starting this blog and the macaroni and cheese simultaneously, I felt pretty darn good with a whole lazy day ahead of me tomorrow and then more mayhem la otra mañana. Then I heard the sputter fuft of our gas tank running out. This usually happens when we have visitors so the fact that I have a whole lazy day tomorrow to: haul the tank out, begin in La Pintada because it is closer, check if they have gas, if so check to see if the ATM is working because purchasing that $5.95 refill tank with derail my careful ninety-cents-a-meal budget, if all is good, then go home with the full tank, if not, continue to hot Penonomé and try to get money and gas there. Not so lazy anymore verdad?

But, I am taking the sunny side of life. Look at it this way. The half-cooked, cheese and Doritos macaroni casserole was invented tonight. Albeit out of necessity, but isn't necessity the mother of all invention? Also, I harvested some Chaya, said a prayer to not get cyanite poisoning from it and am gonna slam it down with some ketchup, which thanks god I have already, as a tasty side dish. My entertainment shall be this blog and listening to our neighbors yell at their new puppy. To our immediate hilarity they named is Scott as a tribute to the  little dog that is on the toilet paper rolls, but the real rib-tickler is when they say it. It comes out "ES-CAUGHT." Good thing I love our neighbors dearly and a laugh at their expense is no gran cosa, may they have just as many at our expense.

One more deep reflection and then I will let you get on with your normal web-browsing. "Happiness is only real when shared" is an adage that I came to believe after I became aware of Scott McCandless's story and indeed even more so after my own time of solitude living in a van down by the river. This blog is evidence of that. Know why it's so long and involved? Because Lauren isn't here. It's not that she distracts me, well she does that too and cracks me up constantly, we share this experience on a very deep level. These are all anecdotes from the day that she would, and will when she reads this because I need her help getting photos in it, understand in perfect clarity and fluidity. I wouldn't trade any amount of marbles or gold coins or stocks for her presence in my life. Without our mixed-up Spanglish, inside joke embedded, half ADHD, constant dialogue, I would be a kettle boiling over. This life is crazy, all of it. And the happiness is real because I share it with Lauren Hayes. Love ya babe! Get home soon because my iPod is running out of battery.

Now it's off to tocar guitarra or do the dishes, but probably not, or spend a meandering half hour talking to slightly arrogant campesino dude who always comes by our house awkwardly in the dark about some sort of strange storm happening in the states, ovens and the politics of our damned carretera (this is what ends up happening by the way) or spend some time with James Michener's historical fiction called "Alaska," which is excellent and compelling by the way.

Much love,

Alex