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
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