Aquí en la lucha

The late John Belushi once said, "when the going gets tough the tough get going." This rings true for me lately.

Put simply and simply put, it is easy to be a fire starter, but somewhat less easy to harness the fire, keep it stoked and productive, all the while ensuring it burns clean and true to its original goals. As an eager young-buck-Peace Corps volunteer I have started more than my fair share of fires and my butt is hot. But in a good way. I won't delve too deep into the specifics because frankly, I doubt you have the time, but here is a tiddle-bit to put you on the wobbly abouts the stats.

The water project is going at a medium pace overall, but it is medium in the average, globally medium pace if you will. Look locally and you will find one side of town working themselves to the bone to prepare anything and everything to within a microfiber of perfect for when the project comes. For this side I must choose my words carefully for what I say today will be done en junta tomorrow by noon thirty. For instance, I may have said in an off-the-cuff sort of way that when the time comes we may need to create a small plano/clearing for the future tank. Before I could say a whole lot of nothing and a bo-diddlin' hot-n-tot I was being encouraged to pasear donde va el tanque. To my chagrin, up there I saw, beaming back at me through the machete smoke, a clearing the size of big mama's britches with the stumps still oozing sappy tree-blood. Note to self: do nothing to trigger the machetes of Bolivar and the super-charged boys. Flip the record to the b-side and thou shalt see the stagnant side. Ad nauseum, at the risk of nausea, I have suggested we put a river rock on the floor of the existing tank to curb the chip-chip-chipping away by the little falling cascade that enters the tank from above. Under minor personal peril and risk to my health, I selected such a rock from the river, carried it through town up and up to the tank and placed it lovingly on top. It is about 18 inches from its goal. To this writing, there it remains. I love my people. I will see this project through to whatever end befits it. But, I'll be a gawl-darn, hootin' and hollerin' pick-a-nanny crumblin' cookies from my flea-ridden bearded toucan if I can't get these folks to take it down or step it up a notch, whichever the case may require.

(Reese's Peanut Butter Cup TM break)

 

Lauren has taken up an entertaining little hobby. Every time Carmencita, our tag-along campo dog, does something that annoys Lauren to the slightest degree, she releases a torrent of curses that would make even the nastiest of dirty-mouthed sailors wither and wilt like frozen daisies. Carmencita typically responds by doing the same thing again or a slightly different, more annoying thing. This starts the whole process over again. Good times!

But in all seriousness we are having a dog problem. Ask Matt or Heather Bergren or possibly the ever-vibrant Aimee Hartwell which word or phrase first comes to mind when they think about the dogs in San Juanito. I highly doubt it will be a word or phrase you want to use around your grandmother unless she is herself a dirty-mouthed sailor. Early September was full of lovely visits from our friends, well-timed to alleviate our sore backs and blistered hands and boost our spirits, but ill-timed to catch Carmencita in heat. To make a longish story shortish there was a whole heck of a lot of noise, more than a few near misses with the lust-crazed males and two chiva departures from our entrada that felt more like busting out of a theme park overrun by flesh-obsessed zombies than our typical "hop on the chiva, see you later" goodbyes. Our only plea to our poor guests was, "we SWEAR it isn't always THIS bad." Coming soon to a campo village near you... A spay-and-neuter clinic... FOR FREE! Just do it.

(Reese's Peanut Butter Cup TM break)

In the face of such adversity and heart-wrenching developments, what say ye, the strong and the faithful? How do we overcome? Well, for tonight we are just focusing on enjoying some Reese's Peanut Butter Cups TM that just HAPPENED to ACCIDENTALLY fall in our most recent package from Mama Shelly. I have just happened to accidentally buy some ice from the store and just happened to accidentally rig up a campo-cooler using a five-gallon bucket and two Thermarests TM as insulation. All this so we can enjoy the treats here in the hot campo as if they were being pulled out of a trick-or-treater's bag on a brisk, Colorado Halloween night. Honestly, probably the best train-rumblin' bulldog-snortin' quarter I have ever or will ever spend on ice in my po-dunk little life.

But in all seriousness people. The little things maintain one sane. A little bit of breeze. Guitar strummin'. Cute babies that don't cry. A good hard belly laugh. An especially potent song lyric on a fully charged up iPod. Fabric softener. As his visit wound down Matt, unbeknownst to him until now, struck me with the wisdom, "Wow. I felt like we got a lot done," he said reflecting on our five or so campo days. Gosh darn a hay penny's worth of whiskey on a rickshaw Matt, we DO get a lot done 'round here! Aimee's turn came next. She told Lauren, "Props to you guys, I had no idea it was this hard." I don't know if she is here reading this blog, but thanks Aimee! A little bit of empathy goes a long, long way. Here we are in fightin' the good fight and it's a trumpet-bender of a hoot-n-nanny and yet we are livin' and lovin' as if the dirt under our nails was pixie fly dust! Heather had an observation of equal profundity as she exclaimed ever-so-politely, "Um. I think there's a cricket on my food." And by gosh-to-howlin' at Jupiter's moons there was! Sorry again Heather.

"It's peace through books!" -Lauren

"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!

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.

At the dentist

Hey all,

Life has been treating us well lately. We have been viajando (traveling) a lot in the last couple of weeks. To the point where I have even developed a campo home-sickness. In the four walls of the air conditioned hotel rooms we land in I feel claustrophobic and dream of being back home where the jungle is green, the air is fresh and my friends are all around!

At the beginning of last week I made an epic excursion into the western reaches of the country to collect stove molds in preparation for a stove project we are scheduled to begin on July 29. I met with Steve Bliss, the founder of the Bliss Burner stove that we make, and he was gracious enough to let me have anything and everything I wanted from his stock. Bewildered by the options I was limited by what I could carry: 3 stove molds. I carried away a lot of conocimiento (knowledge) too. He has various experimental stove and oven models on his property that gave me great ideas for the future (can you say "campo pizza oven"). He also runs a closed cycle hydroponic garden system where he grows any and all plants without a speck of dirt! He maintains a tilapia fish pond insure of a greenhouse with about 10 cement beds filled with gravel and these weird, imported German mineral ball things. The fish enrich the water with their waste, the water is pumped through the gravel beds to leave the nutrients with the roots of whatever he has planted there, the plants leave organic matter in the water which is pumped back to the fish to eat. Pretty impressive way to eat healthy! He also had lots of experience and observations about the country. I particularly agreed with his "teaching for application" and food security philosophies. I also stopped by San Felix to meet up with a fellow volunteer that left me another stove mold bringing our count up to 5 for the coming project!

Lauren's travel schedule has been related to the arrival of the new Peace Corps group in Panamá. She is participating in their training process like other volunteers helped show us the ropes when we arrived. I admire her a lot for her efforts because she is giving back to help others have the great kind of experience that we have had here. Her first job was to facilitate the community analysis training where people learn about how to use the Participatory Analysis for Community Action tools to start to get to know the community and the local needs. When she got back she commented to me that facilitating for a group of active, eager learners was quite different than doing the same work in the campo where you can literally hear a pin-drop sometimes when you ask for the crowd's input! She is mastering both worlds! This was all happening in our training communities so Lauren got to say hi to Mabel and her fabulous cooking.

The next travel for Lauren brought her to the city again to participate in a diversity panel for the new group. Turns out Peace Corps volunteers are as diverse as the country we come from and our uniqueness can have impacts in how we are received out there in our villages. Lauren represented the married couples and made observations about the advantages of never being bored with two workloads and the frustration of having most people, be them from the states or Panamá, tell her that her service has gotta be soooo much easier with her husband around. Funny, no one ever tells me that my service must just be a breeze because I have my wife here.

A day after Lauren left for the diversity panel, I left for another Coclé site to help a fellow environmental health volunteer with a water seminar. The town was called Vallecito and I had to cross the fast-moving Rio Indio to get in, a slightly unnerving experience for me. It is always interesting to get to participate in someone else's community in the Peace Corps volunteer capacity. I found myself learning as much as teaching, as always, during the seminar. Vallecito has a huge campo sprawl with kilometers of hiking between houses, something I learned as well getting lost on the way out!

Lauren and I are now reunited in the city once again getting the maquinas (machines) tuned up at our one year med check-ups. The city makes us miss the campo, but we have cooked some pretty good food in the hostel where we stay and I have been able to make great progress on some computer work I had building up.

Now I am sitting, waiting at the dentist, missing the campo, but knowing, with a good helping of travel luck, I will be back in the mud hut tonight.

Here's to no cavities!!!!!

Love,

Alex

Updates from el campo

Dear People,

You are reading this blog because you want to know about what we are doing or you mistyped when you navigated to www.laurenandalfredinpanama.blogspot.com, click the link to read about Lauren and Alfred in Panama.  Oh.  You're still here.  Well here's what we are up to!  (“How's that for a rocking introduction?” said Alex.  “Did you say that in there?  Only you think you are funny,” said Lauren.  Alex laughed.  “Here's my point, you're laughing,” said Lauren).

Lauren and six other fellow volunteers recently facilitated in the June 2013 women's artisan seminar. Lauren gave her very own charla (“talk”) on domestic violence.  She felt that it was well received and useful for the participants. The seminar was focused on empowering women through artisan work. Women from all over Panama were invited to attend. Other charlas included woman’s health, self esteem, sex education, basic business skills, and technical art classes like jewelery making and sewing. 

Alex is on the verge of finishing his rain water catchment system.  He brushed the edge of completion once before only to realize during the first rainstorm that the gutter spit water out the opposite side of where the tank is.  Damn slanted house.

Lauren is taking up office as the new Vice President AND Woman's Health and Empowerment Coordinator of the Gender and Development Committee.  She is really excited about participating in this dynamical, ultra-bodacious group.  She is brimming with ideas, and is currently working on domestic violence awareness month activities and HIV/AIDS activities leading up to World AIDS day in December.

Alex's most recent push has been the 2013 Community Water Seminar in San Juanito.  Four days of charlas covering water health topics, conservation of watershed and of water in-home, aqueduct topics and water system management.  Folks got the chance to attend either a morning or an afternoon session at the school.  We coordinated lunch with the valiant and amazing mothers of the family as cooks.  Everything went swimmingly.  Over 60 people attended at least one of the sessions and 8 champion campesinos attended all 4 and were crowned “Water Experts: First Class.”

The Papayal (neighboring community to San Juanito who hasn't ever had a volunteer) stove project grant pushed through and a scheduling meeting is set for after church on Sunday July 14.  We've tracked down a stove mold FOR FREE from our fellow volunteers Pete and Kelly, which is huge given that the guy wanted to charge us $125 a pop.

New books arrived with the visit from Andrew, Allie and Patty.  A humongous thank you to Margie Wright (Lauren's grandma) for picking awesome, brand new Spanish books.  Many an afternoon our porch is crowed with kids shuffling through the books, being careful not to rip that pages of course.  We do read aloud with the youngsters and check out gross snake pictures.  As a new challenge to our readers we are handing out book report forms with each book they check out.  They have to fill in the title, author, a summary, a recommendation and draw a picture of something from the book on the back.  In return for 10 complete book reports, they can choose a prize out of out the Random Prize Grab Bag.  We are awaiting the first round with books due back this Sunday and Monday. We have checked out over 50 books in the last 2 months.

The town is abuzz with the idea of the non-profit organization Spay Panama coming to San Juanito to provide their services for cheap.  Informational meeting is on July 14!  Be there or be square!

Lauren is to be traveling to the city to help train the new group that has recently arrived in Panama.  These eager trainees will have the pleasure of Lauren and her pretty face explaining all about the community analysis process.  She is excited to get to give back in a meaningful way to Peace Corps Panama.

Casualmente, we are currently in the presence of two delightful Peace Corps trainees named Paul and Sara.  They are spending the weekend out is San Juanito getting an idea of our life.  It is pretty fun to share our town with them and it has been a great excuse to cook some good food as they are currently wading up to their necks in rice with their host family.  They are going to be awesome volunteers wherever they end up!  We are excited to learn, along with them, where their site will be for the next two years.

 As you may have seen on Facebook, Lauren is rescuing our host family's dog Turco.  While they lived in San Juanito they cared for him, but since they have moved to Penonome he has fallen through the cracks.  It became unbearable to see him dying of hunger in the streets so we led him to the house and tied him up in back and started feeding and treating him with medicine.  Our decision was justified when we learned he has the dog version of AIDS and that it is a curable disease in animals.  Furthermore, there is a dog rescue in Panama that will cover his medical bills and look for a new home for him.  Our only job is to get him to Penonome, which we hope to accomplish soon.  I think The Fray said it best in “How to Save a Life.”

It started to rain.  That's good.  We have water back in the house.

The next topic is Lauren's parents' visit.  Lauren's fam came to visit and we spent some time in site, some time in the mountains and some time at the beach.  It was great to show them around our current lives.  Look out for a blog from them with their reflections.

We handed out Fourth of July hot dogs to our neighbors and our stomachs.  It was awesome.  The hot dogs were a hit, the pickles were not.  We sent many a kid retching into the jungle with that one.  Even Benigno said, “Ugh, gringo food.”

Okay that's all the topics for now!

We love y'all!  Be good.

Science tidbit, etc...

Hello everybody who is anybody! This is a miscellaneous update. Life goes on in the campo of Panamá. I would say everything is going swimmingly. Our popularity with the local children increased a notch when we opened our in-house library. We have amassed an oddball collection of books, which we loan out two-at-a-time for a week. Kids are always welcome to come read on the porch too. I guess it is presumptuous to say kids because even our Abuelos come up to read and Abuela Chola checked out “Descubre los insectos,” enjoying it so much that she was overdue. We have solicited a book donation from an organization out of Pennsylvania and the Hayes family is planning to bring some books so we are expanding our repetoire. Our plan is to copy fellow volunteers George and Soraya and hand out book-report forms that eager readers can fill out, ten book reports earns you a prize from the prize bag... pretty cool! Reading is cool.

On the construction side of life, I am busy at work with our personal reserve water tank. It follows the Peace Corps ferrocement design (metal encased in concrete) and will hold, I'm guessing here, about 100 gallons of rainwater, which we will catch in a gutter-tube from the zinc paneling of our roof. The idea is thrice-fold (or quad-fold). A of all, avoid those terrible moments when we open a dry faucet on a sink of dirty dishes knowing they are going to stay dirty and attract cockroaches. B of all, to ease our use of acueduct water for the daily usages that don't necessarily require treated water: washing clothes, cleaning the floor, etc... C of all, because I am sick of trying to explain what a ferrocement tank is to folks, I am just going to show them. D of all, it is a very cool project and I am happy to report increased confidence-in-self as each step completes more or less successfully. I have quite a few skeptics as to the ability of this laborious contraption to hold the water I claim it will hold, but we shall all see pretty soon I guess.

We recently passed another Peace Corps milestone: the Project Management and Leadership seminar. The basic idea of this weeklong event is that a volunteer has formed a strong working relationship with someone and wants to help them enjoy success in their mutual project ideas. The training is an excellent opportunity for both volunteer and community counterpart to organize, present and lead our communities. Lauren and I had our invites settled months in advance. On my side, Anacleto Sanchez, our fearless community guide who has been so great to us, juggling his own work, carrying for his parents, tending his horse (named Owl) and serving on the church board AND aqueduct committee. On Lauren's side, Guadelupe Guerrel, a darling and wildly successful mother of four who stands every bit of her 4 foot 2 inch stature in being a community leader, example and all-around sweetheart. Unfortunately, the overworked and underpaid Anacleto fell ill in the days before the seminar and could not attend, but Lupe went and had a blast. She was a star of the seminar and Lauren and I have certainly noticed a change in her self-confidence around town. As this seminar comes around with every Peace Corps group, I am hoping to attend another chance with Anacleto so that his dreams have a chance to benefit from the seminar.

Here comes the science tidbit, as promised. Science is great. I love science. But, I am not sure it belongs out here in the campo in large doses. I refer, of course, to the arduous process of conducting my aqueduct elevation survey. As a gravity-fed aqueduct system, meaning water falling downhill through guiding water lines, altitude is driving the bus. The higher the water is the more pressure will build up in your tubes on down the line. As such, it is good to know quantitative facts like “how much pressure will build up?” which offers itself under the guise of “how high is the water tank above my house?” All this is divined from an elevation survey. The tool of choice is called a water level and is a super-precise method to measure elevation changes along distances of tube. The result is a beautiful profile map of the entire system and the data to run water pressure simulations to try out every little detail. To put is bluntly, my campesino friends don't value any of this process, consequentely neither does Lauren (she says laughing). I have to give them a lot of credit for showing up for my workdays to cavort up and down hills around the jungle with me and the unwieldly water level without the slightest idea of what the hell it's all good for in the first place. They smile, nod, crack jokes and deservedly ask for coffee as I scurry around with my notebook and compass calling out numbers for hours on end. And yet, on the brink of finishing a scientific project together, we remain on such different pages, but the effort is unified. This won't be MY map, it will be OUR map. I am not sure who is crazier... me for understanding the map or my faithful co-workers for not understanding it. Science has never been foggier.

Oh boy. The cats. Once small, innocent and imobile, they are now whirling devils of energy and leave nothing unclimbed and uninvestigated. Starting at 4:30 am they run a vigorous schedule of mayhem until around about 10:30 am, when they milk and pass out for a good 5 hours, only to wake up as the day cools for another three hours more of mayhem. They fight each other, steal food from the table, climb the mosquito net, which they also use as their personal sleeping hammocks and knock over their water dish at least ten times per day. They are about 75% consistent at using the makeshift litterbox we have set up in the corner, which means a quarter of the time we are... well... you know. We have become our worst nightmare those dirty cat people. Through all of this, they ARE cute, they DO make us laugh, they are RIDICULOUSLY good hunters and as such, Lauren is thinking of keeping all three. To our credit, the issue is slightly more complicated than just keeping them around for fun. We know how Panamanians in general treat the animals they call their pets. It is very hard to give up one of these kittens to a place where they will likely be hungry and in jeopardy of being harmed by other animals, domestic or wild, and in extreme cases subject to accidental decapitation by a sheet of zinc (yes, this is tragic and yes, this actually happened). So there it is. An ongoing moral, pet dilemma. Being the baby animal lover that she is, Lauren loses much sleep over all this. Please comment with your guidance because we are STUCK!

We are excitedly counting down the days until Andrew, Patty and Alexandra Hayes come to visit us in Panama. Lauren has a strigent list of cleaning duties prepared for me as she will be participating in a women's seminar in the week leading up to the visit. Needless to say, the house will be spotlessly clean (hahahaha, a mud-hut... spotless... hahahaha) and everything will be in order to have an absolute ball with Lauren's fam. Lauren will be ROCKING a domestic violence session at the women's seminar, which she has meticulously prepared over the last couple of months with help from fellow volunteers and resources from the lovely ladies of Crossroads Safehouse in Fort Collins.

And I cannot think of a single other thing that won't involve a hugely long paragraph of explanation. We love all of you! Great job at doing the things that you are all doing!

Alex

Reflecting on a year

So the beginning of May represents one year into this super-cool adventure that is Peace Corps. As there isn't enough space on the internet to fit all of our experiences we will report the one-year status updates by category.

Tolerance of hot weather... major increase. We sweat and sweat, day in and day out, and lately we haven't felt the constant baked noodle feeling we seemed to have at the beginning.

Alex's athletic fitness... significant decrease. He loves running, he will continue to run in the future, but at the moment it is TOO HOT! He likes to save his energy for carrying heavy things, Spanish and spontaneous adventures.

Lauren's tolerance of rice and beans and oatmeal... generally increase. Lauren is a gal that likes her food with texture and flavor. Rice and beans and oatmeal have neither, but she eats it.

Our clean clothes standards... major decrease. If it doesn't knock you down when you smell it and the primary visible spots still maintain their original coloring, then it is not worth going down to the river to scrub it on a rock.

Bug fear... decrease across the board. Our late-night cockroach hunting missions have been replaced by calm exclamations such as, “Dang, I don't like it when the scorpion I am chopping in half stings my machete” and “Look at the ants carrying out their larvae when we spray them.”

Snake fear... increase. When they are as poisonous as they can be in Panama, your interest goes down and your wishing to never see them ever, anywhere goes up.

Knowledge of farming... increase. We knew borderline nothing about farming when we got here. Now we do it on a regular basis and find ourselves with preferences for specific tools and ideas about how to make whatever we are trying to grow, grow better.

Appreciation for water... major increase. To open a tap and have water come out fresh, clean, 24/7, 365, without even thinking about it is AWESOME! Here in the campo clean water can be a labor. In the community, the members are literally solely responsible for their water. It is not as simple as paying a bill. You have a million tasks from chasing cows away from the source to cleaning the dirt out of your storage tank to strictly enforcing the rules of the water system even when awkward situations arise among friends and relatives to keep your water and thus your life healthy.

Desire to have chickens in the states... increase. Farm raised eggs. They eat bugs and all your scraps. Enough said.

Hatred for roosters... born and raised in Panama. A rooster once was just a friendly guitar player for Robin Hood with intelligent commentary and witty humor. Now the rooster is the sworn enemy. The reason we hoard rocks on our porch and curse at all hours of the day.

Liking of coffee... increased. There is probably no way that we will become Starbuckers in the future, but there is something to love about the watered-down, sugary, cup of coffee with hojaldres in the jungle.

Lauren's ability to spell... slight decrease. It was never that great in the states, but now that she has two languages bouncing around up there it's pretty bad.

Patience... tremendous increase. Things move slow here. If you try to move fast, you just end up getting mad. We are perfectly content waiting four hours for a bus. Even communication that would take two short e-mails in the United States, takes five community meetings and ten months here.

Spanish language... increase. Though there are still some classic miscommunications, for the most part we get around just fine.

Alex's disliking of cats... surprising decrease. As the four well-treated cats that live in our two-room, mud hut will attest, Alex has changed his stance on our furry, feline friends.

Our liking of dogs... decrease. A year ago in the states we were as “dog people” as they come, let's just say that now there is no chance we will be getting a dog until we are back in the states for sure.

Doing yoga... sadly decrease. Our yoga mats grow mold, fungus and collect spiders called “chupa-sangres” or blood-suckers. Needless to say, that relaxing feeling in child's pose is non-existent here.

Appreciation for functioning internet... major increase. Why someone must call and repair person to unplug the router, we do not know. Why this process takes anywhere from two days to forever, we do not know. Internet in Panama is like a rhino climbing a tree, it just doesn't work. But hey, our patience has increased.

Lauren's fear of outhouses... decrease. She's not really scared of them anymore.

Our view on helping the world... we'll get back to you on this one. We have learned though, that it is much harder to help people than we thought. The world's problems are awfully large and big groups of humans are awfully tough to move. We are kind of a stubborn race, but positive change is possible, we just have to be kind of clever to trick ourselves into it happening

Alex's songwriting... decrease. Whenever Alex sets out to write a song it feels choppy and awkward. Perhaps there are too many life-changing experiences clogging up the works. It could also be we are not around a very creative, songwriting group at the moment because when Alex went home for his visit he was quickly back to his old ways. Strangely this hasn't yet extended to the writing of music tunes, it is only affecting the addition of lyrics.

Understanding and appreciation of Panamanian culture... huge increase. We were ignorant to this before, but this country is vibrant and buzzing with countless views and attitudes and lifestyles and traditions.

Health... increase. Where is some wood to knock on? Because we are in amazing health in Panama. We chalk it up to an open air environment and plenty of nature all the time. Sure we have had the occasional worm and food-related illness, but our health in Panama has been better than in the states, go figure.

Capacity for hard labor... increase. Alex could put in a hard couple hours digging in the sun or mowing the lawn or something before. Lauren just didn't do hard labor, there was no real need to. Nowadays it is extremely common to fill to the brim five or six days of the week with tasks of hard labor.

Colorado sports itch... as large as expected. We thought we might miss climbing 14ers, rock-climbing, trail running and riding bikes and “sho nuf” every other day or so our conversation turns to something related to the lovely outdoors of Colorado.

Our love for one another... definitely decrease... just kidding! We have kept a very realistic attitude along this whole process from the beginnings of the idea to telling our parents to actually getting a marriage license to the reasonably long application and wait time to the initial stress of the new life to working with, living in close quarters with and relying so heavily on one another for emotional support. There has always been an understanding between us that we shoot awfully big for such a “pareja nueva” or new couple, but here we are. Joining the Peace Corps together has been the right decision for both of us and we wouldn't change anything.

The smiles Justin Bieber has brought us... increase. You all should see our host brother Baukti lip syncing to such Bieber hits as “Never Say Never” and “One Less Lonely Girl.” There is something truly magically awesome about hearing a super-serious, Panamanian five year-old accompany Sean Kingston and Justin Bieber on the lyric “Shorty is an eenie-meenie-minie-mo lover.”  See video below.

Boredom... decrease to zero. Some people say they are bored like crazy during their Peace Corps service, this is not the case for us at all, at all, whatsoever. In fact, we are anti-bored, if that is such a thing.

Urge to travel the world and see more places... slight increase. Panama is great, but it is not for permanent. This world is full and we have just begun to scratch the surface of traveling it.

Lauren's desire to never have kids... increase. Although she does love teaching a room full of kindergarteners who would just rather beat each other up and throw toys around, the thought of a baby bump still makes her throw up in her mouth a little bit.

Awareness of deforestation of the rainforest... increase. We thought we knew, but we had no idea. Humans are jungle eating machines. There seem to be no limits to what we will clear-cut and no bounds for our greed to make the land do what we want on the time-frame we want without regard to the planet. It is actually super-sad to see it first hand.

The ability to bite your tongue to keep from laughing... increase from zero. We never knew this was possible before, but now it is absolutely necessary in our day to day lives. It actually works and has come through on numerous occasions at critical moments for us here in the campo.

Driving rusty nails... increase. Just soap or oil those rusty, twice-used suckers up and whack 'em like your hammer is rocket-powered. Problem solved.

Tolerance of a cold shower... increase. The only reason we pursue hot showers these days is the for the hard fact that they kill more bacteria off your body.

Irritation with bug bites... initial increase followed by gradual decrease. We've gone from veritable pin-cushions and burning through liters of spray alcohol to a more informal interest in whether the bite comes from a tick, sand fly, mosquito or other.

Appreciation of having family and friends around... increase. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Even though we are pretty integrated in San Juanito, nothing beats being close to the people you love the most.

Washing of hands... increase. We go to incredible lengths to not touch anything until our hands are washed after such activities as digging in the garden, shaking hands with every kid at the school and collecting dry cow manure with our bare hands.

Attendance of church... increase. While we don't know any of the prayers, we are getting a better hang of the cadence of standing, sitting and bowing our heads in the chapel. We were never much church-goers in the states, but here it is a tolerable Sunday activity to get to see the smiling faces of all our friends at the same time. Being around such a devout people puts a refreshing spin on religion, Alex's reading of “The Shack” helped his understanding too.

Alex's perception of the importance of appearance... increased. After living his first 24 years as a borderline hoodlum when it comes to appearance, the 25^th year has seen the maintenance of a clean hair-cut and short beard. Partly because he scares children when the beard gets to long or the hair too unruly.

Understanding our impact on the environment... increased. We are basically long-term camping here. The mindset is more along the lines of “pack-it-in, pack-it-out” instead of the typical “waste-not, want-not” lifestyle we lead in the states. We see how mistreatment of the soil can affect the food it provides. We better know the implication of eating beef on the land. Without the government infrastructure of waste clean-up, it has been eye-opening to wrangle with our own waste products and the challenge of “leaving no trace” during your everyday life rather than just a day hike.

Commitment to the next year... major increase. We signed up for two years, it has been a year and our road to the finish looks all the more appealing than it did when we started. Big things are coming. Family visits, project and technical work, increasingly meaningful time with our friends as the language barrier drops, chances to explore Panama further and participation in Peace Corps Panama on a national level are all on the calendar.

Here's to living, loving and learning,

Alex and Lauren