The Greatest Adventure

Poem of Pain

2011-05-02T12:08:00.000-07:00

Each morning when I awake
I hope that this day
will be better than the last.
My sadness becomes physical pain...
a headache or a stomach ache
Lasting one day, two days, three
I sleep and apologize to my dog
for not walking her
Wait five minutes
so I don't cry in public
I am disappointed in myself
for having accomplished nothing
Maybe tomorrow will be better

So this is how oppression feels
Political prisoners jailed
for speaking the truth
Others would rather not hear
This is how people give up
Knowing their actions
make no difference

I thought I could make
the world a better place
'Be the change you wish
to see in this world'
But not here and not now
I have been silenced
Without my voice
I am immobile
Without good work
I cannot make change
Maybe tomorrow will be better

Women Flowers

2010-12-20T11:13:00.000-08:00

A flower is commonly thought the emblem of a woman;
and a woman is generally thought of something sweet, clinging, tender, and perishable.
But there are women flowers that correspond to the forest magnolia--
high and strong, with a great hold of root and a great spread of branches. . ."
--Harriet Beecher Stowe

Conditional Love

2010-10-11T21:19:00.000-07:00

I am the youngest child in my family and chose to leave home on the eve of my 23rd birthday. I could not live around them anymore because no matter what I do for work or fun will never be good enough for them. (Additionally, they still see me as six years old.) Nothing that I say could possibly be true or informed, because what does a six year-old know anyway?

Once my mother visited me in Seattle and I wanted to bring her to the library to see the friendly librarian who thought so much of me (and my mother did not). It quite literally drives me crazy to have other people in this world who not only respect me, but revere me, and love to have me in their lives. Yet the majority of the people to whom I am genetically related can hardly carry on a conversation with me. Sad, right?

My father used to be really supportive of my choices and made a point of telling me, "I am proud of you," for at least four recent years. Yesterday, via a very un-special phone call, I realized that the pride has ended. I have not asked for money since I was an undergraduate...I spent two successful years in the Peace Corps, and I am in my second year of graduate school, a mere 10 months from being a Master (in my father's field, no less). But it is not enough.

I LOVE my internship. I currently have the job that I have wanted for over five years. I help family farmers. I educate consumers about our broken food system. My father has a loving, giving daughter, successful in both her studies and her life. But it is not enough.

I am in love and hope and plan to be married next year. Most parents would (and should) be happy for their child. But my boyfriend is not enough. My father actually asked me about an ex-boyfriend from 12 years ago last month.

So last night I found myself on the phone, crying to my boyfriend of how my family hurts me again and again. Misael promised that he was more than just my boyfriend; that he is and always will be MY FAMILY. That's just what I have always wanted...a family to love me.

My father asked me if I loved what I did, then why was it important what he thought? I responded that his opinions matter because he is my father. I told him that (as much as I hate it) his opinions will always matter to me. However, the role of a parent should be to cultivate all things that their child loves and develop an interest in it themselves. My true friends (the family that I have grown and cultivated) always support my choices. They also love me unconditionally.

Long ago, a friend promised her unconditional love to me and I did not believe her because I had not had a lot of prior experience with true, unconditional love. I also did not want to believe that the people to whom I have been tied by blood my whole life, could not turn around. Maybe they were just hurting and they would soon remember how to love me. She was right about them and I was overly optimistic. My family will never love me unconditionally and I have had enough of their poor treatment.

Peace Corps Advice

2010-06-22T12:51:00.000-07:00

A friend wrote on behalf of a co-worker leaving in July for Peace Corps Cambodia. It was nice to counsel someone off for a surely amazing experience:

Cambodia sounds more exotic (and certainly farther away than Panama)...why would you be jealous? "Youth Development Advisor" leads me to believe that there will be more infrastructure where you are going than where I was, but I could be wrong.

I was culturally competent, but not confident, per se. I made mistakes and I learned from them. I continued to make mistakes and learn from them for two years. You can never know what the particular culture of your community will be. Our training took place in a community close to the capital (closer for the staff to visit us) so they were used to Peace Corps Volunteers training there and our funny American ways. Your future community may or may not be used to volunteers, and there are advantages and disadvantages to both situations.

Site selection isn't necessarily competitive, because you will probably have preferences different from your peers. I wanted to be in an "untouched" community, not a "commuter community," where young men left to work in the capital. Turns out they went to the capital anyway for work...it was just a lot farther away. I didn't want electricity but running water was important to me...and water features in general. My "APCD" (program director) forgot what I wanted but I had time to remind her before placement...so I got a community on a dirt road, 2.5 hours from the nearest city with running, cold mountain water, streams, a river, and a lake in the mountains. It was totally GORGEOUS but my community wasn't that interested in working with me. So I did a lot of projects outside of the community and became the Secretary of the Peace Corps Panama Gender and Development Committee. There is always something to do in the Peace Corps, just look for it and make it happen.

Be clear with your APCD what you want and do not want in your community. Hopefully, you will meet some current volunteers during training so you can begin to form an idea of what those things are.

In-country staff varies from country-to-country and also amongst individuals. They will help you out, but sometimes it takes some time. It depends on how busy they are, too. If they have families and lots of volunteers to manage, you may not get so much personal attention. You will get a feel for your staff during training. The medical officers are officially available 24-7 for medical emergencies. No one will ever allow you to remain in danger. You will always be safe, so don't worry about that. It's the other things that have slower reaction times and I personally enjoyed problem-solving on my own.

Don't worry about first-aid kits. They will provide you with a huge one when you get to Cambodia. Pack professional clothes...they expected us to be in business-casual clothes for most of the 10 weeks of training. Later, you can wear what you want (or what's appropriate for your community). You may want to dress semi-professionally in your position (English teacher and youth director sounds like a position of respect.) Bring photos of your family and friends, and maybe favorite places, too. I had a 25-page mini album that really helped out my homesickness. (Now it's filled with photos of Panama.)

Cambodians may have prejudices based on what they have learned in the media. I do not know what you look like but just in case I want to let you know that sometimes prejudices manifest themselves in that they think that all Americans are blonde and blue-eyed. My Mexican-American friend who served in Honduras referred to herself as "just another brown girl." My Nepalese-American friend who served with me in Panama was forever called "Chino" (Chinese) for his Asian looks. He worked with an indigenous minority group in a very rural area. I have always looked like someones cousin, no matter where I am, so that worked for me.

Take care. Good luck. Have fun!

Finally! An Update

2010-06-22T12:41:00.000-07:00

Graduate school is not nearly as exciting or notable as Peace Corps life, unfortunately. I also was soooo busy and stressed out at the end of my spring semester. I was taking 15 credits (that's FIVE graduate-level courses), writing five term papers, and working in my graduate assistantship.

Two weeks ago, I finally received my internship placement for next year and it is the one that I had been hoping for all year. I will be working with the Illinois Stewardship Alliance on local foods issues. Last week I took a day off from my summer job to search for apartments and was able to sign a lease at 5:05pm that day. The apartment is close to work, in a good area of town, has a back yard, and is dog-friendly. Then I bought a huge SUV--a 1996 Ford Explorer on Saturday. I am still waiting for the check to clear so I can get the title and license plates. So I can breathe again. Thank goodness! A friend wisely suggested that I take a deep breath.

Slowly but surely, I am uncluttering my current apartment and packing up my belongings so I can move to Springfield. I actually have a full week's work the week my current lease ends so I don't know yet where I will sleep that week but the idea is to have everything organized and moved before then.

Next year will be spent working full-time in my internship and writing my thesis. I am hoping that is less stressful than 15 credit hours and part-time work.

Da Da in the Spring

2010-03-28T21:51:00.000-07:00

Macomb, Illinois continues to surprise me. Last night I attended a Dada party at the Arts Center "downtown". Downtown is a small square centered around the courthouse, surrounded by shops and restaurants. Right now they have an exhibit of political art and last night the Arts Center hosted a fund-raising event, with a DaDa theme. We wore costumes, brought food and drink, wrote and performed poetry, and had a dance party in the end. It was a great event.

Many of the poems were words cut out of magazines. For my part, I looked for words I liked and then sat down with them to arrange them, kind of how one arranges Scrabble tiles they have drawn. Here is the poem I wrote:

In other news, spring has come. As this is my first spring in three years (since spring 2007), I am rejoicing in the blossoming crocuses and daffodils. The grass is so green and there are the first signs of leaves on the trees. Spring is such an exciting time of year!

International Bazaar

2010-03-07T10:57:00.000-08:00

I love to learn about different cultures. This passion of mine has brought me to Seattle for EarthCorps, volunteering in Mexico, Peace Corps in Panama, and several countries in between. I currently live in rural Illinois to attend graduate school and I am constantly surprised by how good a fit my university is for me.

This weekend, WIU held it's 37th annual International Bazaar. Hmmm...what should that look like in a town with a population of 18,500 and dominantly white-bread demographics? Surprisingly, it was BEAUTIFUL!

The university has a huge international program. Last night I learned that WIU demographics represent one-third of all of the countries IN THE WORLD! Isn't that amazing? I had personally noticed that I always had a lot of international students in my classes, but I thought that was due to my major of Political Science. They are actually involved in most majors here.

My colleagues and I represented the Peace Corps Fellows program here on campus. Our booth was decorated with two walls of handprints, a world map, Peace Corps slogans, and trinkets from various countries that we served in. Bangladesh, Armenia, Ghana, Niger, Cameroon, South Africa, Panama, and the Dominican Republic. Our participation is highlighted in the three goals of Peace Corps, this being the third goal, "Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans."

So many countries were represented in the International Bazaar! Beyond our booth there were also booths for Taiwan, Sudan, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Nepal, India, Japan, China, Korea, Philippines, Africa (the continent), the United States, Guatemala, Bolivia, and the Dominican Republic. There was entertainment both nights with music and dance from many countries. Indian dance dominated, and we all loved it! Last night each booth had two representative foods from their country. It was the only time all year you can eat good international food in our small town.

I loved looking around the room at everyone in their traditional dress. Everyone looked so beautiful! It was nice to share my Peace Corps experience with strangers, perhaps interested in applying. I got to see two of the actresses from The Vagina Monologues dance on stage. One danced salsa and the other bellydanced. I got to meet friends' children. One new friend from Panama dressed her daughter in a pollera the second night of the Bazaar.

The International Bazaar was a feast for the senses and I felt so blessed to be a part of it. Thanks to all the other Peace Corps Fellows who worked so hard to make it all come together!

The Vagina Monologues

2010-02-14T17:35:00.000-08:00

I grew up in the shadows of a large family. I had five older siblings, two parents, and often two step-parents who constantly offered unsolicited advice. So much so that I was not sure what ideas were mine or which came from other places. Some of my own ideas were squelched. Until I left Virginia and only allowed input into my life when I invited it.

I RAN AWAY FROM HOME...GOT PERMISSION TO BE MYSELF.--"They Beat the Girl Out of My Boy," by Eve Ensler

I have been getting to know the most amazing group of women over the past two months. This year's cast of The Vagina Monologues was a diverse group of women, with an age range of 33 years, many races, all types of personalities, career women, undergraduate students, and graduate students. It amazed me how much we evolved from a group of strangers into a loving, supportive family. I am so proud of the performances we did, but I want you all to know that the words that Eve Ensler wrote in the play "The Vagina Monologues" becomes a reality for the cast. We created a "culture of vaginas". People shared really personal positive and negative stories from their lives. I am so blessed to have shared my time and this experience with them. I'm so sorry that it's over. (For this year, anyway.)

My friend Cassie had a dream last year to put on a production of "The Vagina Monologues" (TVM) in our Peace Corps country of Panama. We did it, and I was so proud of us and of our cast. This year, I am in a completely different place, in graduate school. When I saw the emails about open auditions for TVM, which are my initials, in addition to the initials for the play "The Vagina Monologues", I wanted to participate. But I was scared. I was afraid that I would not have time and even more afraid that I am less bold in the United States of America than I was in Panama. That alone indicated that I HAD to participate.

I auditioned, reading aloud from the monologue "The Flood". I was shaking. When they asked me why I wanted to participate in TVM, I told them that I love the play, but also, that I have stage fright, and wanted to get over it. And I DID! Last night was our final performance and my voice was no longer trembling. I didn't forget any lines. I actually interacted with the audience. I was comfortable.

Life experiences are transformative. So is theater. Drink it up.

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.--Anais Nin

GLUTEN-FREE PESTO SPAGHETTI SQUASH

2010-01-14T19:51:00.000-08:00

GLUTEN-FREE PESTO SPAGHETTI SQUASH

Ingredients:

1 spaghetti squash

1/2 onion

2 cloves garlic

olive oil

pre-made pesto

salt

pepper

Recipe:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit

Slice a spaghetti squash length-wise

Remove seeds

Slice the half onion into long slices, as if for a stir-fry

Mince the garlic or use garlic press

"Score" the spaghetti squash, cutting lightly with a knife

Rub olive oil and garlic into the scored halves

Add salt and pepper, to taste

Place half of the onion slices into each half of the spaghetti squash

Bake 40 minutes

Remove squash from the oven to break the flesh into "noodles"

Add 2 Tbsp. pesto to each half

Bake 10 minutes more

Garnish with or mix in the onions to your "pesto pasta"

Enjoy with a fork, spoon, and your favorite red wine

Happy 2010

2010-01-14T13:27:00.000-08:00

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Here we are in 2010…the second decade of the second millennium. What a crazy trip 2009 has been for me. I both began and ended it in the same place…a small town in the mountains of Panama but have been many places in between.

I finished my two years (actually 26 months) of Peace Corps service in July of 2009, went home to visit my family in Virginia for two weeks, and got accepted into the Peace Corps Fellows program at Western Illinois University. The whole rhythm of my life changed that quickly. I was converted from a calm, pace-of-the-people Peace Corps Volunteer in Panama to a graduate student studying Political Science, with an emphasis in Public Administration and Public Policy. I am a fine student. I walked away from the fall semester with five As. However, I missed Panama. I went back for three weeks this winter, as my semester break was a generous four weeks.

Everyone was so happy to see me, and I to see them. I spent nine days of my vacation in my old village. They now have light, and the wealthier families have washing machines, televisions, and refrigerators. All remember that it was my persistence, which finally brought the electricity project to fruition. They now have installed five rice tanks, a technology that allows them to easier control weeds and obtain three rice harvests per year.
They did not implement the technology until May 2009, just two months before I left. However, the goal of sustainable projects is not what is accomplished in my time, but the seeds I sowed and what happens after I have gone. So far, I am impressed that so much has happened in just six months.

2009 Highlights:
January--Trip with my Dad across Panama--21 more days than I've ever spent alone with my Dad
February--Co-coordinated youth conference for 45 Panamanian youth
March--Health fair in Isla Leones, Veraguas, Workshop on how to make organic fertilizers
April--Organized two sex-ed workshops. One in my own community with approximately 150 attendees and one for 30 women from five volunteer communities. Co-produced "The Vagina Monologues" at the Universidad de Panama in Santiago, Veraguas, with my friend, Cassie. We also filled the theater!
May--My townspeople dug their first rice tank! Taught elementary school students at five schools to protect the environment. My character specifically taught them to protect wild animals. Eat chicken, not endangered animals!
June--Formed a group of Environmental Volunteers in my community.
July--Organized the painting of a world map mural in my town's primary school. Visited Virginia.

World Map, Escuela Primaria

Family

August--Moved to Illinois. Started graduate studies.

Panama House

Illinois Apartment

September--Attended a friend's wedding in North Carolina.
October--Visited Virginia again.
November--Visited my family and old friends in Seattle for Thanksgiving.
Grandma Garnet, 96 years-old

EarthCorps Housemates 5-Year Reunion

December--Went back to Panama to celebrate the holidays.

Wishing you all a happy and healthy 2010!

Love,
Teri
aka Theresa

Panama Revisited

2010-01-13T08:52:00.000-08:00

I left cold, below-freezing Macomb, Illinois just after finishing my finals (and earning straight-As in all my classes) for my most recent home of Panama. I left Panama in mid-July 2009 when I finished my Peace Corps service in rural Veraguas, Panama, but my heart stayed there with my sweetie, Misael. We have now been a couple for almost a full year. My father actually chaperoned our first date (of sorts) when we stayed up late talking after my birthday party in my village. (Here we are squinting in the bright Panama sun.)

The bandana around my neck is not a fashion statement, but evaporating water and some sun protection. I rarely wore sunscreen in the Peace Corps but there is nothing like a cold, mid-west winter to dissimilate one to the strong rays of the tropical sun. I got sunburned, just washing my laundry by hand for an hour in full sun. Whoops! I covered up the rest of my break. I also made sure to drink plenty of water.

Here is my friend, Yemiymah, with her host-niece from her volunteer village in the Darien. As a Volunteer, I had the extreme pleasure to work in and visit almost all of Panama's provinces: Bocas del Toro, Chiriqui, Comarca Ngabe-Bugle, Veraguas, Cocle, Herrera, Los Santos, and Kuna Yala, save one, the Darien, the largest province in Panama, also considered the most dangerous, due to its proximity to the country of Colombia.

My friend Yemiymah has extended her Peace Corps service twice now, and by the time she leaves, she will have lived in Panama for almost four years! Misael had to take a final exam at his University in Panama, so I got a chance to visit Yemiymah, and my final Panamanian frontier as soon as I got to the country. Sadly, this was the 20th anniversary of the United States' invasion of Panama, on December 20th, 2009. The man sitting in front of me on my 7 hour bus ride was quick to point out. Then some drunk on a stoop in the town of Chepo called me, "El Diablo!" (the devil) when I stopped to buy some vegetables. But I never felt threatened.

Yemiymah and I chilled out my first day in town and listened to the heavy rainstorm on her zinc roof. It's funny how I had missed that sound. The next day, we went around to three communities in the Darien. One was Latino and where she used to live. The other two were Embera-Wounaan communities. (Those are two separate indigenous groups with similar cultures, but different languages.) They were preparing for the naming of the next tribe chief, which would happen the next day, so they were painting their skin with the temporary tattoos of the tagua nut. (See the girl in the middle below.)

In one VERY long day, I rode one bus from Santa Fe, Darien to Panama City for 6 hours, then another bus from Panama to Santiago, Veraguas for 5 hours, and got a ride in a private vehicle (Misael's brother's car) to our town in the mountains. My arrival was odd for me. I had been sleeping in the car when we arrived and there was LIGHT. In the six months since I left, light has arrived to my town. I was largely responsible for organizing the community and constantly calling the office of Rural Electrification to bring light to our community, which ironically has supplied the water for the hydroelectric plant since 1975, but they had to wait until 2009 to receive their own electricity. There were lights in houses, refrigerators, washing machines, and televisions. What a change just six months makes! I preferred my old habits of entertainment, visiting friends, swimming in the river, and played a few games of Dominos.

This will be the photo for my holiday letter. Look how BIG poinsettias grow in Panama! It's a tree, and the photo actually cut out some of the height of it. Misael and I pose in front of the poinsettia tree at Sra. Cecelia and Sra. Secundina's kitchen, close to Trinidad's store. We were on our way to visit my host mother of sorts, Efigenia, and her daughters.

This is the view of La Laguna from Efigenia's back yard. Beautiful, isn't it? Everyone was so happy to see me and pleased that I "had not forgotten about them." I also had the glorious luxury to only visit the people I liked in the village. I no longer have to be "fair" to everyone. However, when I printed photos from the secondary school's graduation, I printed them for everyone, whether I liked them or not. When else would they ever have the opportunity to see their children graduate again. The graduation took place on December 28th, so I was able to attend. I also went to a 5th birthday party for Migdalia's son, Kendry.

My friend, Maggie, was in my training group for Peace Corps Panama, but she was medically separated after a year of service for her broken arm that the Panamanian doctor set wrong. Yipes! I was so excited to see her again and happy to show her around my site, which she did not get a chance to visit the first time around. We rented horses from my tourism-trained friend Tello and rode all around for four hours. Maggie is back in Panama for six months to build a library that she got a grant to build and stock full of books in her old site.

Next, we went to La Pintada, Cocle for a night to visit my friend, Lorena, who always had a place for me in her house when I was in Santiago. Her parents live in Panama City and Lorena lives with her sister in Santiago, but they have a little "country house" in La Pintada, so I got to see my Lorena and meet her parents, too.

Misael's family lives in arguably some of the most beautiful sites in Panama. His mother is originally from this site in Cocle but left with her husband over 30 years ago. This river is not only beautiful, but has great swimming areas within it. We went to visit his uncles in Cocle. He has also been deeded some land by his still-living mother, so we went to check it out. It's high in the hills and currently only accessible by foot. But it's pretty and has great views. Misael joked that we can put a house on it and fly to it in a helicopter.

Check out how strong Misael's uncle is! Misael guesses that he's about 65 years-old. He left me in the dust climbing the hill to the family land. (I claim weakness due to lack of hills here in Illinois.) He's got super strong biceps and abdominal muscles from his daily activities. Here Tio Elias and Misael pound corn so that we can eat fresh corn and coconut bollos for breakfast the next day! Bollos are ground corn rolled into a sausage shape and cooked by boiling in leaves to hold that shape.

Misael complained a little about being marched around to see my friends, but I explained that since my family lives so far away, my friends in Panama ARE MY FAMILY. I gave the same excuse to Tio Elias when we went to go see my friend, Stephanie, also from my training group. She's the Regional Leader of Cocle. We went to see a movie in the screening room of a local video store, because Cocle lacks a true movie theater.

I finally got to meet my friend, Juan!!! He's been my internet friend for almost two years. He's a Panama native who joined the organization EarthCorps in Seattle in 2008, I think. I was in EarthCorps back in 2004 and I demanded that our mutual friend Melanie connect us immediately. After many emails and online chats, I came to know Juan as a good friend, but sadly, he came back to Panama shortly after I left, on the staff at Peace Corps Panama! (I actually emailed him the job description in the first place.) I visited Seattle and my EarthCorps friends there asked me about him. But finally, I got a chance to meet him just the other day in Panama City. Now we are friends for real and took this commemorative photo to share with our mutual friends from both EarthCorps and Peace Corps.

I had a great trip! It was so nice to see familiar faces and places and to have a respite from this cold, cold winter. My love for Misael has only grown and I will probably visit again in another six months.

Nickled and Dimed

2009-12-13T11:56:00.000-08:00

Barbara Ehrenreich, the famous journalist and author of Nickled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (2001) spoke at my university Monday, December 7, 2009. I was excited that she had come. She had been scheduled to come in November and when her talk was canceled, due to illness, I did not think I would see her.

Her book, Nickled and Dimed has been heavily shared in my family, almost PUSHED, especially by my father. I spent several years in poorly-paid internships after earning my bachelors degree. I finally got around to reading it in the summer of 2005. I recall waiting to speak to the woman at Social Services in Nevada when I was applying for Food Stamps as an Americorps member collecting seeds with the Student Conservation Association. I realized the irony of reading that book while applying for Food Stamps and wished to engage the Food Stamps administrator in a conversation about the book, but she was all business and not exactly interested in discussing the plight of the poor.

Nickled and Dimed is a brilliant piece of investigative journalism written by Barbara Ehrenreich in several months that she dedicated to being poor...to seeing HOW people get by on low wages in America. She worked as a waitress and hotel maid in Florida, a domestic housekeeper and dietary aide in a nursing home in Maine, and at Wal-Mart in Minnesota. She attempts to live off of only her wages in each location she settles. Ehrenreich found the "unskilled" jobs physically as well as mentally challenging, and found that her co-workers often faced homelessness and hunger. They were not as well off as Ehrenreich. Imagine adding children into the mix of two low-paid part-time jobs. It would be a difficult life.

Ehrenreich described the embarrassment one has to go through to earn one of these low-wage jobs. Employers assume that potential workers are stupid and criminal so they have personality tests and drug tests, which Ehrenreich described as, "A ritual of humiliation to 'get you in the mood' for the job."

The low-wage jobs Ehrenreich worked were physically exhausting and mentally challenging. There was not a lot of training for the jobs. She put away clothes at Wal-Mart, which required memorinzing the exact location of hundreds of items rotated frequently. Ehrenreich will never again use the word "UNSKILLED" to describe any job.

Low-wage workers get $51 per week stolen from their $350/week salaries through "wage theft". Supervisors ask workers to clock-out, to not pay them overtime, but ask them to continue working. Workers are not necessarily given bathroom breaks on the job.

Being poor is expensive! Many workers do not have enough money to pay a deposit on an apartment, so they are forced to stay in residential motels, paying $250/week and have no access to a refrigerator or microwave. Thus, their diet consists of unhealthy and expensive foods, if they could afford food at all. Sometimes a pack of chips was all someone had for lunch. Some of Ehrenreich's co-workers were quite literally "homeless" but had cars, which they lived out of, so they did not consider themselves homeless.

Another sad piece of the story is that Nickeled and Dimed was published in 2001; six years prior to the sub-prime mortgage housing "bubble bursting" in 2007 and the resulting economic down-turn in 2008 and 2009. The U.S. unemployment rate is projected to reach 10.1% this month, as compared to 4.9% in 2001.

In 2009, people at all economic levels are losing their jobs and there are fewer low-wage jobs available. Think about it...waitress, housekeeper, retail...these are all areas where people are cutting back on their former luxuries. Low-wage jobs are scarce and it is unlikely that someone who formerly supported themselves on two or three part-time jobs has access to that many jobs in 2009. Blue collar unemployment is rising THREE TIMES as fast as white-collar unemployment. African-American unemployment is rising three times as fast as caucasian unemployment. More families are losing their homes and cramming more people into ever smaller spaces, from D.C. to L.A. Homelessness is increasing. More women are turning to sex work for money. Urban hunting, such as squirrels and raccoons for food is on the rise as people are less able to afford meat. Homocide and suicide rates are on the rise. People foregoing medical care and preventative prescriptions, leading to hospitalizations and death.

The government is responding so poorly to this crisis. They are helping out businesses and financial institutions, but not their citizens. There is "harrassment of the poor." Forty-three percent of employers require a credit check before employment. How can someone work themselves out of a financial hole if employment is based on financial solvency? Uninsured people are charged three times as much at hospitals as insured people. Credit interest rates can be as high as 33%. The average cost of bankruptcy is $2000. Where are they going to get the money to pay for that?! Underage truants out of school can be ticketed for as much as $500 in Dallas and handcuffing, bringing already troubled kids to the criminal attention of the police. You cannot legally sit or lie down on pavement. (A night in jail would actually be a blessing.) In Las Vegas, one cannot even share food with indigent people. I used to LOVE sharing leftovers in Seattle!

The U.S. government is showing a "pattern of cutting back on helping and ramping up enforcement," according to Ehrenreich. There have been cut-backs on public housing and on education. Currently there are 2.3 million people in public housing AND 2.3 million people in penitentiaries in the United States. That's a sad figure.

Ehrenreich ended her presentation hammering home that taking care of the poor is a MORAL ISSUE. While there are no references in the Bible to abortion or gay marriage, there are "Over 3,000 references to helping the poor." Anyone from a judeo-Christian upbringing should be aware of this and focus on this. Our country was not based on capitalism.

The preamble of the Constitution clearly states:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

We must promote the general Welfare, or as Ehrenreich said, "Don't kick people who are already down." It is time to unite again...to dig ourselves out of this whole we have dug so that we can once again be proud to be Americans. So that we all consider ourselves belonging to the greatest nation in the world.

The same night I attended this presentation, my father told me the four most common causes of the failure of a nation:

1. Overextension of the military

2. Debt

3. Abuse of the natural resources

4. Political or Ideological polarization

We are four for four right now. Wake up, America! We need to try harder and be united in helping Americans.

Sands of Time

2009-11-28T17:13:00.000-08:00

People age every day. Time is constantly passing. My grandmother, Garnet, daughter of an Irish immigrant and a very strong, determined woman is 96 years old. I left Seattle, Washington for Peace Corps Panama 2.5 years ago and was not sure that I would see her again. When one lives far from someone so elderly, there is no telling which visit will be the last.

Garnet fell and broke her hip in 2005. She was placed in a full-time care facility and shocking us all, learned to walk unaided again. She moved home to her three floor house where she lived alone. Another fall placed her in a senior living apartment, where she had been for some time.

Garnet had two bad falls in early October, breaking her arm one day and her hip the very next day. (Garnet has osteoporosis.) She is back in the full-time care facility, mostly on bedrest, but also learning to walk again, one step at a time with a physical therapist.

I visited Garnet on Tuesday and was shocked to see my feisty grandmother tiny and vulnerable. This is not the woman I once knew. I visited, verbally reminding her of who I was because she did not recognize my voice or see me well. I asked a caregiver about her condition because I was so shocked...is this really my grandmother? How much time does she have left. (I didn't really ask those questions, but I thought them.) The caregiver said that she was "sharp", that she knew everyone's name, and that she made them laugh. That DOES sound like Garnet, but still, I retreated to the restroom and cried.

A [drunk] friend urged me to return to visit her again and it DID go much better. I knew what to expect from my grandmother and bought her a flowering Christmas cactus to brighten her room. She was not a traditional warm, cookie-baking, knitting, spoiling grandmother but she's family and I love her. Now in her vulnerable state, she HAS transformed into a more loving woman, thanking me a dozen times for my visit and loving me forever. She has always said goodbye in the same, evermore appropriate way, "BYE FOR NOW," because this visit may be the last, or there may be many visits in the future for this tenacious woman whom I love.

Everything is Connected

2009-11-23T14:11:00.000-08:00

I left Seattle to go to Peace Corps Panama on May 12, 2007. I returned two evenings ago on November 21, 2009 for the first time in two years, six months, and 9 days. I still consider it one of my homes.

I was so excited on the plane ride on the approach. We were flying over Seattle and I began to think, "I'm almost there. I'm almost there." I still have many friends here and I was going to try to meet up with all of them...but fate, the cosmos, or what-have-you, have placed me in a technological hole. I forgot my cell phone at my friend's apartment in Chicago and my MacBook does not pick up internet in either house in which I am staying. Three and a half months in the United States has already accustomed me to technological "connectedness" but this week will be spent TRULY connecting with those around me.

My friend Khayah stokes the fire in her fireplace as I write this. Her house is filled with light, spices, and teas. I am also here to reconnect with my old friends from EarthCorps, an environmental nonprofit I worked with in 2004. My roommates from that time are all (save one) returning to Seattle and to have Thanksgiving dinner together. The phone and internet are not such a loss because most of the time will be spent face-to-face with friends.

Yesterday, I went snowshoeing with Dennis, his roommate, and two other friends of Dennis'. It turns out that the one he knew least well grew up near to where I currently attend graduate school. (Small town, Western Illinois.) How wonderful that I got to see snow for the first time in three years! The hemlock and fir trees were all covered with snow. We had multiple snowball fights and I got to smell and taste winter again.

In the evening, I ate dinner at Dennis' house. He had invited a friend and her boyfriend over. We spoke of natural healing and travel. I got to share my Peace Corps experience with all of them, including photos. Only after they left, Dennis told me a secret. The wonderfully conversational boyfriend with the excellent eye contact was none other than the lead singer from the band The United States of America. I was embarrassed that I had met him wearing sweatpants but glad that I got to know him as a real person rather than a celebrity.

Today I rode the bus from Dennis' house to Khayah's house...luckily just one bus from there to here. It got crowded and I began to think of the complaining coeds on college buses when it is only half that crowded and my work in rural transportation in Illinois. Someone was listening to Van Halen's song "Panama" on their headphones very loudly, and I smiled at the interconnectedness of my life.

Online Dating

2009-11-08T09:58:00.000-08:00

In my second month in small-town Illinois, I thought that it might be a good idea to find a local boyfriend. I created an online profile, paid my $33 dollars and began a search into local eligible bachelors. I am not going to say that online dating is a bad thing, and in fact, I think it is a nice solution for busy URBAN professionals who have the chance of meeting other busy urban professionals, then go on lots of dates, and eventually meet someone that they really like. However, I highly doubt that intelligent graduate students in a rural area will find the love of their lives.

I should have listened to my supervisor (who is from here) that unmarried men of my age (29) have some sort of problem. It's not like the young professionals in Seattle or Washington, D.C. who have been studying or working on their careers who simply have not yet found "the one". Rural Illinois shares this in common with rural Panama. Most couples get pregnant and get married in their early 20s, if not sooner. Many men my age have already had children and have divorced...that is why they are looking online. I found more than a few problems with these bachelors and thought I could share some of the things I have learned with you.

Problem 1--Distance: Rural areas have less population densities than cities so my computer-recommended matches lived from 30 minutes to 4 hours away from me. I don't have a car. It would be difficult to arrange a first date, much less an ongoing relationship with these men. Plus, due to my town's location, they are not even all in the same state! Some live in Illinois but others live in Iowa and Missouri.

Problem 2--Photos: Do you really think I want to see all of your muscles that you are flexing in the bathroom mirror while you take a photo with your camera phone? I really like that you cut your ex-girlfriend out of the photo...but I can still see half her face. Don't you have any nice photos alone? Why do you look like you want to harvest my kidneys and eat them? Why are you posing with children who are not yours? On the other hand, I kind of like the outdoorsman photos where they wear camouflage and pose with the various fish they caught...each fish larger than the last.

Problem 3--Age and Marital Status: I am 29. I am not an "old maid". I do not think that meeting an unmarried man, falling in love, marrying, and having a family together is a fantasy for me. BUT, the men on this service already have 1-3 children, have married and divorced, and that is why they are online. The 22 year-old who wrote me was unmarried but again, far away.
Sidenote: My boss tried to put in a good word for a widower we lunched with a few weeks ago. His daughter is in college.

Problem 4--They don't write coherent sentences!
"so am a fun loveing guy looking for love and like to trailver and go to the beach and ride my horse and go to the lakes around were i live and like hunting and fishing and i love kids to i have a litte gril so"

Same Guy: I LIKE SOOM ONE WHO WOULD LIKE GOING TO BEACH ANDWHO WOULD RAIDED HORSE AND LIKE GOING TO THE LAKES ANDLIKE TO HAVE A LOT OF FRINDS AND GOING CAMPING AT THE RIVERS AND I HOLP THEY LIKE KIDS BECASE I HAVE ONE IT A LITTE GRIL AND I HOLP MY MATCH HASE KIDS

"i should like prever to take rest in sweet areas that has a more preventage and get really love that can make me happy in that area..."
favorite hot spots:
island, and also in the mountain...sepecially in the road before arriving at place, on the traveling...
About my life and what I'm looking for: "wanna make love every i need"

my ethnicity:
"I am proud of who i am always..God is an Olson God!..."
(Did he mean awesome?)

Problem 5--Lack of Common Interests:

Bachelor #1-I spend alot of time training in MMA (cagefighting) Dont let this bother you i dont have a temper. I just like to fight in the cage. Plus its a great work out.
What I like to do:I train 4 days a week for cagefighting

Bachelor #2-Last read: "Home Buyer's Guide, I enjoy catalogs."
(That's the one who looked like he wanted to eat my kidneys. What was someone in Spokane, Washington doing looking at my profile, anyway?)

Bachelor #3-"I'm a geek love to game either tabletop live action roleplaying or computer I like comics or any book and enjoy science fiction shows like Dr. Who and Primeval"

Bachelor #4-for fun:
"Hunt, fish, ride my dirtbike, work on my truck"

Bachelor #5-"Well I love to play video games and stay home and be with the one I love! I love long walks and country music. My match would have to like the same things as well! She must love to cook and would love to have children as well!"
(That was his entire ad)

Bachelor #6-favorite things:
"i listen to metal mostly but i do listen to some rap and a lot of country too."
Wow. Those are my least favorite genres of music. Amazing combination.

Bachelor #7-
"i love to ride my harley and four wheeler. im also a big hunter and fisher."

Bachelor #8-favorite things:
"my favorite tv shows include the o'reilly factor, and any sporting event"
last read: "platoon leader"

Bachelor #9-for fun:
"I love to do pretty much anything that involves being outside. I love to hunt, fish, go four-wheelin, and target shoot with my dad and my friends."
What about hiking, camping, and canoeing? I guess you don't get to destroy stuff that way.

my job:
I am currently employed by [omitted] although I am laid off right at the moment.
How he can be both currently employed AND laid off at the moment?

Problem 6-Damaged Goods:

"Well to start off I feel like I am trapped and not going anywhere in life." (That's his opener)

"I've been through a lot the last couple of years stemming from my divorce from a cheating unappreciative woman"

"i dont want 2 b controld i have already been there."

"I am known as being the man with amazing potential but rather chooses to let precieved great opportunities pass me by."

Headline: "Tired of being lonely and I dont want to be hurt."

In the end I have decided that it is better to have a boyfriend, whom I love, who lives 2,283 miles away from me than to have one of these online applicants.

Autumn 2009

2009-11-02T10:04:00.001-08:00

Having spent the past two years in a semi-tropical environment, it is both exciting and saddening to spend my first fall in a temperate zone since the fall of 2006. The leaves change from green to the brilliant yellows, oranges, reds, and purples below the oft-seen greens. I have four gingko trees in my neighborhood and gingkos seem to have the most brilliant and long-lasting yellows of all of the species. The fan shapes of the leaves and the symmetry of the trees themselves are so beautiful to rest my eyes upon. Even when one tree dropped all its leaves one day, the fan-shapes on the ground were still spellbinding.

Each day forward from September 21st, there is a little less light than the 12 hours I was accustomed to experiencing in Panama...and CERTAINLY less light than I experienced in Macomb, Illinois than when I first arrived in August of this year. We just "fell back" with daylight savings time and yesterday the sun set at 5pm. Harsh. With the decreased sunlight, increased rainfall, and increased wind, we all know that the dark days of winter are approaching.

Panama has roughly 12 hours of sun and 12 hours of darkness each day. It is nice and predictable. The "winter" would be better referred to as the rainy season and is marked by heavy rainfalls, but it is never COLD, just comparatively cold, with temperatures sometimes falling to the upper 60s.

My skin is so dry right now that a little bump this morning turned into a bleeding cut on my thumb. I must constantly carry lip balm and moisturizer on my person. Thank goodness I am going to Panama for three weeks in the winter, effectively skipping the winter solstice in the United States.

The economy is big news here in the United States. Apparently, there is some concern that people re-used Halloween costumes and decorations this year because their budgets are tight. Why does our economy need to be based upon the buying of unnecessary junk? People in my impoverished community in Panama did not have money to decorate for Christmas at all.

I am glad to be back in the United States because I now have time to reconnect with the family and friends whom I have not seen over the past two years but a large part of me misses Panama very much.

Tofu Stir Fry

2009-10-03T17:47:00.000-07:00

So, I am readjusting to having more food choices and also the fact that I have refrigeration and a freezer. I used to cook big meals and eat them for three days. But I forgot over the past two years when I was in Panama. I had vegetables for my first two days in site and lived off of my hen's eggs, tuna, pasta, and ramen the rest of the time. (That, or visiting neighbors for more variety.) Something I had really missed was tofu. It is too perishable and not popular in Panama. There was soy protein, otherwise known as textured vegetable protein (TVP) but that is not nearly as delicious as tofu. I actually got sick to my stomach the last time I TVP.

Last week I bought a lot of vegetables that I still had not eaten today and then went to the Macomb Farmer's Market to get even MORE vegetables today. So, I made my first tofu stir fry in two years. It was delicious!

1 package of tofu, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/2 red onion
1 medium red pepper
1 medium yellow pepper
4 cloves garlic
1 medium bunch of turnip greens
1 large tomato (I used yellow)
3/4 inch piece of ginger
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 tsp. curry powder
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil

Dice all the vegetables
Keep turnip greens and tomato separate from the others
Heat the oil in a large skillet or wok on medium-high
Place tofu in first
Add garlic, onion, ginger, and peppers
Add spices (salt, pepper, cayenne, curry powder)
Stir when tofu begins to brown
Add tomato when more liquid is needed
Add turnip greens last
Turn off heat when turnip greens are wilted

Serve hot over rice, if desired
Refrigerate your leftovers for later!

~Teri~

Complicated Life

2009-09-22T19:54:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe I left Panama and started classes three days later. What was I thinking?! It was a brilliant idea and I am intellectually challenged every day. I LOVE SCHOOL and class discussions. It's just homework that is the difficult part for me. I did not really have deadlines in Peace Corps Panama. I did not have a schedule. I tried to create a schedule at first, but it did not work because nothing happens on a regular basis, except for church and I am not a Catholic or an Evangelical so I did not go to church.

My schedule was flexible and free. Work happened on a boom and bust basis and was usually planned weeks in advance. Earth Day, Captain Planet, The Vagina Monologues, Youth Conference, World AIDS Day, health lessons...one time activities in one or various locations. One high energy, productive day with planning preceding it, but no SCHEDULE.

Every time I was in Santiago, Veraguas, my regional capital, I would pass by the offices of the Ministry of Education and the Office of Rural Electrification to see if I could advance progress for my town by having a good teacher and electricity. That was unscheduled, as well.

I had routines. I woke up, fed my dog, made coffee, ate breakfast, and read a book or a magazine almost every day. No everything and everyone has a fixed schedule. Students are all "plugged in". They all walk around either listening to their iPods or talking on their cell phones to people who aren't in front of them and ignoring those who are in front of them. This is the origin of the breakdown of society. This is probably the origin of attention deficit disorder, as well. We do not focus on the things right in front of us and our technology is creating the impression that we can interact with people with small snippets of words, such as "Laughing Out Loud" (LOL). Here I am, typing on a computer to get my thoughts across to a captive audience who CHOSE to read my thoughts.

I am having a little trouble concentrating on my homework. Specifically, reading textbooks while I am at home. Is it really a surprise? I lived in a village of 150 people without a cell phone signal, with one public phone, two dry goods stores, and no electricity for two years. There were no distractions, except for face-to-face visits with friends.

Now I have a cell phone and a 13" laptop with internet in my apartment. I have my living room light on, my clock radio plugged in, my computer plugged in, two lamps plugged in (not on), a printer plugged in, my cell phone charger plugged in, a night light plugged in, two pilot lights on my stove and one on my oven, and the constant hum of my dehumidifier.

The internet is the key to finding out what I have missed these past two years while I was living the simple life. Who is on facebook and what are they up to...recent photos and occupations. Hulu brings me television, both old and new. I need to talk to friends and family to get caught up on our lives. (I have to admit that in Panama I was mostly broadcasting and not listening to what was happening back in the USA. Thus, the blog.)

I feel as though I am on the cusp of being able to focus on my studies. The newness of everything has worn off. My house is mostly in order. I feel comfortable and understand my professor's expectations. I also suspect that something will seem new and distracting many times in this readjustment process. Hopefully, I will remain aware and open although these things are available to me.

Tonight, I returned from my night class ready to study. I just had to walk my dog and get down to business. The following Instant Message script will give you an idea of what happened instead.

My online status is set to "Busy: Studying"
Friend: are you studying now?
Sent at 9:47 PM on Tuesday

me: are you trying to prove my status wrong?
no. I'm not studying yet. I just got home from class at 8:30pm and took Sugar for a walk.
I was just going to check facebook and email and get to work...
but then Misael called, Cassie texted, and you IMed me.
Sent at 9:52 PM on Tuesday

Exactly an hour later, I find myself ready to hit the books, mesmerized by modern technology.

Life was a lot simpler in rural Panama.

News from Panama

2009-09-14T10:07:00.000-07:00

The other day I was watching the movie "Pollyanna" and I began to wonder if I had modeled my life after hers. I began to cry when she fell out of the tree and turned sour because she had lost her cheery spirit. I cried even harder when all of the townspeople came to see her off before she headed to Baltimore for a mobilization-saving operation. It was clear that Pollyanna had changed many peoples' lives for the better. I think that is what my hope had been in joining the Peace Corps and I was not sure that I had met my own goal. This morning, I received an email from a friend in Panama showing me that I had...

"You cannot imagine how much people miss you and they always ask me about you. We miss you so much! I traveled to town and everyone asked me about you. They send you greetings and thanks."

Hola,
No te imaginas cuanto te extrañan y siempre me preguntan por ti, te extrañamos muchisimo, viaje al satro y todos me preguntaron por ti, te mandan saludos y agradecimientos.

"Our town misses you and they are begging that you come back some day. Minga said that the people from the government organization that controls school funds came to visit the school and teach the parents and teacher how to use the money. They said that they came because you [Teri] sent a note. Minga said that they are very thankful and send you greetings. You sowed love and work and you are harvesting all that you sowed. They love you very much."

El satro te extraño y te pide a gritos que algún dia vuelvas, dice Minga que la gente del FECE fue a Visitarlosy orientarlos en el uso del dinero, y le dijeron que fueron porque tu enviaste una nota, ella dice que están muy agradecidos te manda saludos. Sembraste cariño y trabajo y estas cosechando todo lo lindo que sembraste, te quieren mucho.

When I left Group Health my boss gave me flowers and a note which read, "Thanks for getting us organized and for planting enduring seeds. Plant everywhere you go and we'll miss you." It's amazing how even the language of the two friends matches. I guess I have more in common with Pollyanna than I thought.

Homebody

2009-09-06T12:41:00.000-07:00

About five years ago, I finally figured out the importance and sanctity of HOME. I suppose that I had always had a sense of it, as a sassy 13 year-old telling her recently divorced father that his house was, "My HOUSE, not my HOME." How does one create a sacred space, to which we are eager to return?

First, you must feel comfortable in your own home. If you don't do that, you'll be one of those people who creates their sacred space in a coffee shop instead. That's fine...you can have a coffee house family and warmth and comfort there as well. That is just not my personal choice.

I am forever grateful to my Seattle roommate Andrew for teaching me to cook five years ago. I was always able to follow a recipe but he taught me the ease and importance of improvisation. That also enabled me to use the delicious products from farmer's markets. We gardened, harvested blackberries, and experimented in canning at that house AND became neighborly with Cathy across the street. That was a good home, but my own room was cold and damp. My bed actually GREW MOLD and I had to pull it away from the wall every day.

My Panama home was wonderful and ever improving. It was scary moving in because no one had lived there in two years and there were infestations of various animals around the cinder block walls of the house. Two weeks of steady cleaning got it livable and over time it became one of the prettiest and most comfortable houses in town. I dug a garden and spread ground covers on the hilly and rock-strewn grounds. The front garden was a mess, falling forward from the termite-weakened boards that had once held it in place.

I built a rock wall and my landlords took a new interest in their old home. They brought in good soil and new plants. I cared for their plants and added more of my own. I got a dog finally. I have wanted one my whole life and in college I used to say, "My leash arm is ticking." It was not my biological clock, but a yearning for a furry friend. I happily brought Sugar from Panama to my new home of Illinois.

My space is not the greatest of places. It is a dark basement, which smells moldy with the midday sun. However, it is mine, close to campus, and dog friendly. I moved in on August 2nd and affectionately call it the "Care Lair". It was filled with moving boxes for the first week. I was out of town the second week in August and went out of town for a wedding the last weekend in August also. I could not even find my dishes the first week in town!

Creating a home has been slow work. Hours of graduate classes, a graduate assistantship, and hours of reading compete with my home time. I still have not gotten in the swing of cooking again. I have not made the time for it yet and I cannot find the easy ingredients (tofu and tempeh) that used to bring me so much joy in the ease of cooking. Meats are too precarious for one person.

I needed a kitchen table but the one I bought was black and STICKY. I stripped the paint immediately, unfortunately getting high off of the fumes. Spray paint failed and classes interrupt my painting sessions of the enamel paint. I think it's done now.

My lease had a part that stated that residents must deep clean their apartment weekly. I highly doubt that my apartment has ever received deep cleaning from anyone. Some enamel paint dripped onto the kitchen floor. I scrubbed it without the aid of any cleaning product. I just used elbow grease and the off-white floor appears to be WHITE below the grime.

All of my friends went away for the Labor Day weekend but I am happy to be here alone and without distraction to make this house a HOME.

Trains, Planes, and Automobiles

2009-08-31T20:36:00.000-07:00

I went to the most lovely wedding this weekend. My friends Steve and Jamie got married on a farm in North Carolina. These friends are academians, not even my farmer's market friends, but sustainability is happily a catching passion. Jamie and Steve met in Seattle in 2005 when they were both in Americorps. Steve was my roommate for a month but I moved away from Capitol Hill to the U-District. (I have always preferred comfort to trendiness.) They always had great events with good people and good food...as they did for their wedding as well.

At first I was nervous that I only knew the bride and groom but then felt honored when I realized how small their event was and that they had hand-selected friends from the various places they had lived in their lives...and I am one of them. Their vows were more like stories and ideas than vows. It was a personal ceremony held outdoors at the "golden hour". The groomsmen got the brunt of the setting sun and we all giggled when a donkey braying nearby penetrated our concentration. A rooster crowed and goats frolicked nearby.

The flowers were zinnias and wildflowers placed in jelly jars. The guests found their seats at dinner by locating a jar of homemade strawberry jam with their name and table number on it. The reception immediately followed the ceremony and seeing as how I was on a farm, I danced barefoot on the dance floor and walked on the grass like that.

The following day I met up with three friends from Peace Corps Panama. They attend Duke University and we had brunch at a "locally grown" cafe. I guess it was the theme of the weekend. Also, a number of the groomsmen knew another volunteer from Peace Corps Panama. They had all grown up with Steve near Boston. Sometimes I think my world is ruled by degrees of connection rather than degrees of separation. Tom and Meghan dropped me off at the airport.

I spent the night with Judy's parents. They are Mexican and I do not think we spoke a word of English. They met me at the "L" station with a jacket because it was cool out and Senora Gloria cooked me some dinner and gently woke me in the morning. We left the house at 6am so I could catch the train from Chicago and make it to my 2pm class today.

Today, I discovered that two dear friends live in Chicago but I still think that I had a perfect weekend. I will see them on the next journey. I can walk just three blocks to get to the train station but I must take that train four hours to Chicago if I want to fly anywhere. It's okay. It used to take me eight hours to travel from my town to get to Panama City. I can travel patiently and read or nap along the way.

Homesick or Culture Shock?

2009-08-16T18:47:00.000-07:00

I have had some very exciting weeks since I left the Peace Corps. A visit to Northern Virginia to see friends and family, a quick jaunt back to Panama to bring my dog to the USA, a cross-country drive from Virginia to Illinois. Upon my arrival in Illinois and Western Illinois University, I was slammed with 100 pages of reading per night. It took me days to unpack my kitchen even. I had trail mix for at least one meal a day.

Although I went away last week for a Community Development conference...Mid-West Community Development Institute, year one of three, I am much more settled now. A yellow labrador retriever named "Honey" even moved into the house next door. So although I am sure that my dog Sugar is missing her old best friend, Capitan, she is making new friends here.

The good news is that I chose the right graduate school program for me. I have seven peers who also served in the Peace Corps. I can still speak "Spanglish", thanks to another Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV) from Panama and a RPCV from the Dominican Republic. We are studying community development, and apparently, that is what I have been non-traditionally studying for the past seven years with the Peace Corps, community organizing, environmental restoration, and farming. Even my psychology degree has suddenly become relevant again! It is a really great program and I feel lucky to have found it. At the end of two years, I will have a graduate degree in Political Science with an emphasis in Public Policy and Public Administration.

Something is nagging at me though. I miss Panama. I miss strolling over to neighbors' houses whenever I want and always being welcome. I miss people having the time and emotional energy to be a good friend. I miss hugging elderly women. I miss feeling so welcome and esteemed everywhere I went. I miss early morning walks in the pine trees. I miss knowing everyone around me. I miss sitting on porches listening to transistor radios. I miss sharing coffee with unexpected visitors. I miss the community to which the United States does not subscribe.

As the Way Opens

2009-08-05T15:32:00.000-07:00

I left Panama on July 17th, 2009 after two years, two months, and one day in the country as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I did not know what my next step would be, but I knew to visit my family after a two year absence. During my time back in my hometown, I got accepted to an excellent graduate degree program in rural Illinois at Western Illinois University. What better transition than studying with other returned Volunteers in a Peace Corps Fellows program?

It has been a whirlwind! I was stressed about not knowing what I would do next and got accepted to WIU just a week before classes began. I had only enough time to fly back to Panama, get my dog, and drive a U-Haul cross-country from Virginia to Illinois with my mother.

The program has been great thus far. We have a Community Development Economics course for three weeks, a week-long seminar in another town next week, and regular classes begin on August 24th. I am simultaneously moving into my apartment, studying for ECON, doing administrative things, and reestablishing my life in the United States. Thank goodness we have Friday off!

The title of this blog comes from a Quaker quote my mother told me about on the ride to Illinois. I tried for four months to find a job in Panama and even with my education and language skills, I could not find anything. I applied to Western Illinois University and was accepted within four weeks. Now I am here with a new apartment, new friends, and my dog. Sometimes the way opens and that is the path we are meant to take.

Love, Teri

Despedida (Farewell)

2009-07-16T10:14:00.000-07:00

In Spanish, a farewell party is called a "Despedida". The verb to say goodbye (forever) is "despedirse".

I do not like saying goodbye. I prefer my grandmother´s method of saying, "Bye, for now." Because really there is no telling when and where you may meet up with someone again. With so many volunteers leaving Peace Corps at the same time, I say goodbye and then bump into them again. So really, although I do like hugs, why go through all of the drama of a formal goodbye?

Yesterday I finished all of my paperwork in the Peace Corps office. Medical, legal, financial, documents describing my site and my service. An oral Spanish test and interviews with my bosses. It was exhausting! And in-between I filled out job applications and graduate school applications.

I am sad to go, but just like my last day in site when I was busy packing, I am too busy to actually feel sad.

*************************************************************

My town threw me the most beautiful despedida party. I told them that it was all of the most beautiful parts of Panama without any of the bad parts. I wanted my party to be calm, so it was sponsored by the Parents and Teacher Association during the school day last Thursday, July 9th.

I did not want to go because I did not want to say goodbye. I waited until I heard music to know that the party had begun. I nervously greeted people when I arrived and set up construction paper, crayons, and pens, with a shoebox so that people could write little notes for me. Then I took photos of the children in front of the huge world map we had painted.

The students were dressed in the typical folkloric dress--the girls wore "polleras" and the boys wore nice shirts, slacks, and handmade leather sandals called "cutarras".

We walked into the main classroom--I was escorted by two little girls to the teacher´s desk to sit. My dog (who normally runs and plays) sat at my feet. They had organized an entire program for me. The children danced. Some men from the next town up the road sang songs in the "decima" style for me. The President of the PTA had written a song, which was sung by Carla Vasquez. I had never before been honored with so much special attention.

I cried for much of the presentation and especially when it came to be my turn to speak. I thanked them for such a lovely despedida and told them I was glad that Peace Corps had sent me to their community.

We ate the typical party food--arroz con pollo and potato salad, took more photos, and I returned to my house to read the things they had written to me and to continue the hornerous job of packing.

As it stands now, I actually did not finish my packing. There are still toiletries and books in my little house in Panama. I will go back to take care of them on July 30th when I go to collect or visit my dog.

Tomorrow morning I fly to Washington, D.C. to visit friends and family for the first time in two years.

Final Week

2009-07-07T18:08:00.000-07:00

My eyes have been leaky today. It is not allergies. It is not a cold. I hate endings and have now come to the end of Peace Corps in Panama and I am sad. Luckily, I have only run into people who mean a little to me, instead of a lot to me on my last day in my regional capital of Santiago, Veraguas. Even the mundane is turning into a tear-jerker today.

The man who always hassles me to travel to Panama when all that I want to do is stay in Santiago put in an extra effort today. The man who works outside El Poderoso smiled at me twice. The vet assistant, the secretaries at Panama`s answer to Planned Parenthood, two actors from the Universidad de Panama, one of whom acted in The Vagina Monologues. Apparently, they have already set up a meeting tomorrow to receive the photos I developed for the group.

I mistakenly thought that I could focus enough to apply to grad schools and jobs today. I was wrong. I fought off tears and could not write a "Statement of Purpose". Words like those usually come so easily to me.

I have school photo-sized or "passport photos" to share with friends. I felt like a schoolgirl when I ran into Ana, who I brought from town for the Vagina Monologues, sex education, and domestic violence education, at the end of April. I gave her my photo and she shared one of her own with me. We never did talk about that day but she must have learned a lot, and being a poor girl of just 18 years old, I think those were important lessons that she learned. That`s why I chose her to bring. She also made me really happy when she told me that her mom really trusted me, so she did have permission to come on the overnight trip.

At our close of service (COS) conference back in April, they told us not to take on any new projects. I was so excited about the new teacher who arrived to my town in April that I immediately suggested we do the World Map project, and paint a map of the world on the school wall. It looked as though we may not finish, but I spent all weekend, July 4th and 5th painting with teenage boys in the school. They did a great job and put in two full workdays, skipping lunch, to bring the map to fruition. I was also happy to spend time with them before I left town. Teenage boys from all over the world can be a handful, but I got to spend time with them painting and learning geography. Is it any wonder I am weepy?

The new teacher did another great thing. SHE organized my going-away party. On top of packing, moving, and deciding what to do with the rest of my life, I am really thankful that throwing a party for myself was not something I needed to concern myself with this week.

Padres de la Familia

2009-06-25T16:26:00.000-07:00

Saturday, 6 June 2009, Rural Veraguas, Panama

Every first Saturday of the month, the Padres de la Familia (the Parent`s Association) has a meeting in the primary school. The do yard work around the school grounds, talk about the school, school funds, and "et cetera". I always use that last category (Asuntos Varios) for extra announcements, such as trainings I have planned and action items. This time I had prepared two letters: one for electricity in the the school and one to solicit the Ministry of Education to appoint Maestra Amarilys Guevara the teacher for the next year as well.

I grew embarrassed when the discussion turned to my going-away party. They are going to ask everyone in the community for $2 each to make arroz con pollo. We laid out a grid for what will be my last project...a huge world map mural inside the school. The other parents worked in the school garden.

In another minor victory, they added organic fertilizer to the garden beds. Robby, Chicho, Ursula, and I left after hours of work, hungry and tired. There is always next month to finish.

Red Cross in My Site

2009-06-25T16:14:00.000-07:00

Friday, 5 June 2009, Veraguas, Panama

I have always felt that my world was a little smaller than most, but I like it that way. The new teacher, Maestra Amarilys Guevara arranged for the Red Cross to give a talk in the school. The students were also instructed to invite two adults each to the presentation. When I walked up to the school in the morning, I found that I recognized the two younger volunteers. We had been in a seminar together in Las Tablas, Los Santos one year prior. Edward, with a grandmother about 30 minutes away, and Ariadna, both from Santiago, the regional captital. I was also very excited to learn that Ariadna, just 18 years old, is the Youth Coordinator for Red Cross in Veraguas.

I was happy and proud all day long. The Red Cross volunteers talked about the history of the Red Cross, HIV/AIDS, and First Aid. It was the first HIV/AIDS presentation I attended in which I was not a facilitator! And it was all because I helped the Parent´s Association lobby for a better teacher in our community.

What a great example to see, as I take my leave from the community...not only does the new teacher teach the children well, but she is providing educational opportunities for the community as a whole. My help of the Parent`s Association seems to be my greatest work as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

***Twenty days later*** Maestra Amarilys Guevara and I met up at the Ministry of Education to lobby for electricity in the school. It is so satisfying to have helped to put in place a teacher who actually CARES about the students and the town.

Sad

2009-06-25T16:06:00.000-07:00

A Poem
June 10, 2009

Why does it feel like cigarettes help me to breathe?
A habit once left now provides me relief.
What do I do? Where do I go?
What about my beloved beau?
There are jobs in the States which pay more.
If I stay, I will be poor.
What if I get a graduate degree?
Would that be the best for me?
And my dog. What do I do with her?
I escape awhile carressing her fur.
I like Panama. I am happy here.
Why is my family desperate to have me near?
Another sigh. Some more rain.
I am in transition again.

Thank goodness I`m past that depression. Fifteen days later I am in a much better mood, though still sad that I must return to the United States. I am in no hurry, though. My rent in Panama is only $25. It would be much better to be unemployed here than in the United States. :)

Final Peace Corps Report

2009-05-27T09:40:00.000-07:00

In the fiscal year, which began in October 2008, Peace Corps worldwide switched over to a trimester report of activities, which allows us to share narratives, although it is still an Excel spreadsheet. I would like to share my narrative entries from January to May with you all.

SUCESS STORY!
People always say that development is slow work. I came to Peace Corps Panama raring to go. I wanted to help whatever town they plopped me down into to produce all of their own food sustainably. I found that they did not really want to....

I kept trying. I always mentioned how expensive food was getting and maintained my own garden. I brought them trainings from the Ministry of Agriculture, the National Environmental Authority, and promoters from other communities. I talked about organic fertilizers, home gardens, and RICE TANKS...

Then it HAPPENED! Just two days ago, Fermin Concepcion came to my house in the morning. He told me that he and five others would be DIGGING A RICE TANK until noon. I marched myself out there, helped out, planted mani forrajero from my yard on their walls to prevent erosion, and took lots of photos. I was so proud of them!!! It just took them two years of gentle pressure to adopt a new agricultural technique.

COMMUNITY INTEGRATIONI am now fluent in campo Spanish. I am even told that I have an accent from my district of Calobre, Veraguas. However, I explain to every taxi driver, internet worker, and agency employee that I SHOULD be able to manage Spanish well after two years living and breathing it.

Cross-cultural integration takes time and patience, just like all development work. You must work at friendships and alliances in the Peace Corps, just as you must in the outside world. In the end, you will always be surrounded by the people you like the best and who like you the best.

CHALLENGES
SEXUAL HARRASSMENT is an ongoing problem in the macho society of Panama.

While I have been able to command respect in my own community, I have trouble with agency people. I can say, "That´s inappropriate," to them in a low voice but it does not seem to hold. Also, I need to depend on some of them to get things for my town. Do I smile and nod just so that they come out to inspect the school for electricity?

LESSONS LEARNEDI am an idealist from the womb, it seems. I believe in justice and equality and following the rules. I joined the Peace Corps to help impoverished people in a sustainable way. But I was placed in a community already tainted by paternalism. I could not get the people to decide to help themselves. Their rhetoric was clear in meetings with government officials, "We are so poor. We have no jobs."

I learned that I can make changes in individuals. I can model behaviors. But no one can change a person who does not want to help themselves. I found more satisfying work outside of my community than inside of it and as my time drew to a close, I worked as an advocate for my community. (Hopefully, they will see that as behavior modeling, as well.)

They were promised light three years ago and still have not received it although all of the infrastructure (posts, cables, switches, lightbulbs) were put into place before I ever arrived. I marched a group down to the office of Rural Electrification the same day the Parents Association went to the Ministry of Education to solicit a new teacher. That day was very important to BEGIN the process but one must keep visiting the government employees and calling the agencies to get anything done in Panama. That teacher STILL showed up the first day of school planning, but another trip to MEDUCA installed a new teacher. I call the Office of Rural Electrification every Monday. We should have light this month!

PLANNED ACTIVITIES
I only have 8 weeks left in Peace Corps! I can hardly believe it!

On Friday, May 29, I will be teaching about 60 primary school children in Cocle how to protect wild animals, with my Captain Planet team in an ecological fair. The new Conservation volunteers will be there to learn from us.

On Monday, June 1, we will be repeating our fair and teaching 60 more children in Las Tablas.

On Saturday, June 6th, I will begin a World Map project with the Parents Association and some teenagers.

If feasible, I will do another training for women (about 140) of the Red de Oportunidades (welfare) from my area. It will focus on self-esteem and human rights.

PEACE CORPS GOAL 2
"to help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served"I talked a little bit about the Panama elections. My father, now retired, was a civil servant my whole life as elections in Panama do. The winning party gets the jobs. The losing party loses jobs. I explained that the elections in the United States never affected my father´s job. Only high officers in the United States change during an election and congress does not change all at once, either. It must be very difficult dealing with so much uncertainty here, I said.

PEACE CORPS GOAL 3
"to help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of the American people"
I have recently gotten to know two American expatriots who live near Panama City. While they treated me to Subway and McDonalds, they grilled me on the socioeconomics of my community. Although, they happen to live in the same country of Panama as my small town of El Satro, we live worlds apart. Then they drove me to my house, drove up to the next town, and spent the night in the guest house of the Forest Reserve. My town does not have electricity, but the guest house does.

For the first time, they saw women "pilar maiz" (crush corn) with a person-sized mortar and pestle. Why do they do that? Is it because it is less expensive? Well, they grow the corn themselves. That´s why. I think it was a good lesson for all of us to realize what is commonly known and what is not by the others.

Gender and Development

2009-05-09T15:49:00.000-07:00

GAD for La VAgINA
SecreTeri Milstein
9 May 2009

Peace Corps Panama´s Gender and Development (GAD) Committee was thrown into a whirlwind and could have been lost. Victoria F. HIV/AIDS coordinator and GAD President had her Close of Service (COS)at the beginning of April, as expected. Lisa C., GAD Vice President was unexpectedly medically separated at the end of March. The Secretary, Teri M., and the Treasurer, Cassie B., are going to COS in July. The Men´s Health Coordinator, Robby A., will also COS in July. The entire GAD directive had to be replaced. We were hoping for some great leadership to emerge and we got it!

Results are as follows…

President Isaac J. (group 61)

Vice President will be a position shared between Dorine S. (group 62) and Andi N. (group 61)

Secretary-elect Lindsay K. (group 61)

Treasurer-elect Jodianna R. (group 62)

We are very happy to have such strong leaders joining us in GAD! We are also excited that we have a mix of volunteers from groups 61 and 62 so that the next GAD directive will not have to be replaced all at once.

Mission and Vision:
Worldwide, including Panama, there are difficulties and unequal ways in which men and women relate. GAD is a working group to empower volunteers and Panamanians toward positive change through education and workshops.

GAD Youth Conference:
Each year GAD holds a youth conference open to Panamanian youth to learn life skills, such as self-esteem, leadership, communication, working in groups, and health. Escojo Mi Vida (I Choose My Life) was held February 9-13 in San Felix, Chiriqui. This year's Conference theme was "Escojo Mi Vida," meaning that choices that youth make are self-determined and that there is always more than one answer to every situation. Funding for the conference came from GAD and from VAST. We taught 60 rural youth to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS.

This year's GAD (Gender And Development) Youth Conference was a great success! Kids from all over Panama came back from the conference with new friendships, new goals and a new sense of self-worth. Thanks so much to our facilitators for making the kids experience so great: Victoria F., Cassandra B., Teri M., Lisa C., Robby A., Brandy B., Isaac J., Melissa J., Stephen M., Kent M., Andi N., Kate S., and Matt S.,

Regional Representatives:
Regional Representatives have new roles and responsibilities. One of which is that they are to establish and maintain contacts with GAD-related Host Country Agencies and Non-Profit Organizations in their province/region, in conjunction with their regional leaders. This could include Health Ministry, Red Cross, the Panamanian Association of Family Planning, the Ministry of Social Development, the Public Defense group, training groups, domestic violence and substance abuse institutions. This information will be compiled into a Word document to be shared with provincial volunteers and sent to the GAD secretary, Teri Milstein to compile and share with the volunteers.

Representatives will be regionally appointed and elected at their regional meeting. However, since all volunteers have equal opportunity to attend the All Volunteer Conference meeting, Regional Representatives were nominated at this time.

Regional reps will:
• Attend the thrice yearly General Meetings (with partial to full travel reimbursements).
• Act as the liaison between GAD and their region.
• Provide regional support for the GAD charlas dealing with themes such as self-esteem, life skills and sex education.

Regional Updates:

Azuero: Regional Rep vacant—no attendees, no updates.

Chiriquí: Regional Rep elected Kalli B.
Angela O. was medically separated from Peace Corps. Allie H. was medivacuated. Lydia S. is now the acting Regional Leader of Chiriqui. Kalli had a successful women´s sewing exchange, supported through a GAD grant. The women are planning to learn more sewing techniques on their own dime! Chiriqui volunteers are organizing three 2-day charlas in colegios in different communities.

Colón: Regional Rep Elena P.
Domestic abuse charlas in the Chagres area are being planned.

Bocas del Toro: Regional Rep Jim F.
Bocas volunteers have taught 12 rural communities about HIV/AIDS, STIs, and family planning in Bocas. Funding from the VAST grant ran out but work has continued from help from MIDES.

Comarca Ngäbe-Bugle—no updates at this time.

Panama Oeste/Coclé: Regional rep Melanie V.
Brianna M. had HIV/AIDS education in her site. Melanie V. brought five women to HIV/AIDS and domestic violence charlas and “The Vagina Monologues” in Santiago on April 30th.

Darién/Panama Este: Rep position to be filled at next regional meeting
No updates at this time.

Veraguas:
Kevin and April C. held a health fair on their island of Isla Leones de Montijo and 118 people people attended! They coordinated with Cruz Roja Panameña, SINAPROC, INADEH, and PCVs Steph W., Jim F., Lee M., and Robby A. to put on the great event!

April 25th, APLAFA came to Teri M.´s site to teach about STIs, HIV/AIDS, and domestic violence. One hundred and forty participants filled the two-room schoolhouse!

Cassie B. and Teri M. produced “The Vagina Monologues” in a combined effort with MIDES and the theater group of the Universidad de Panamá in Santiago, Veraguas. The play was performed on Thursday, April 30, 2009 at the Auditorium at the Universidad de Panamá. Donations for attendance were made to the Center which Attends to Abused Women of the region of Soná, Veraguas.
In attendance at the play were 30 women who will also learned about STIs, HIV/AIDS, and domestic violence at APLAFA by APLAFA and MIDES earlier in the day. Over the course of the day, the women grew evermore comfortable in the presence of the others who came from five communities in Veraguas and Coclé so that by the end of the day, they were comfortable sharing and seeking help for their own problems. One woman from Coclé was so fired up that she is organizing her own seminar for her town.

Muchachas Guías:
CoCo R. is working on a guide of how to work with the Girl Scouts in your site. The guide should be ready in July and Girl Scouts information is available from CoCo.

GAD GRANTS – Each GAD general meeting five $50 grants are available to volunteers for education related to Gender and Development issues. Congratulations to:

1) Andrea G. who asked for $50 to support Women Leadership and Empowerment Through Savings and Loans. The women will benefit 20 women who will learn health, family planning, and how to financially fund their futures. The money will be used for transportation for speakers and notebooks for the women to keep track of their goals.

2) Lydia, who asked for $24 for reimbursement for a community-wide health fair held March 28, 2009. The 24 dollars was used to make fliers and individual invitations as well as transportation for 2 Red Cross volunteers and 4 Peace Corps Volunteers.

ASUNTOS VARIOS
Vida Sana Pueblo Sano (Healthy Life, Healthy Town) was reprinted. This is a Peace Corps Panama manual which easily instructs volunteers to teach HIV/AIDS, family planning, and other important life skills to their communities. It is encouraged that all interested volunteers get a copy to use this great resource!

Hot tip from Jim, G59, Bocas del Toro: Pair up with MIDES (Ministry of Social Development) to invite participants of the Red de Oportunidades (Network of Opportunities) to your trainings, be them health-related, agricultural, conservation, etc. Women in this program must attend various trainings as part of their obligation to receive welfare money.

NEXT GAD MEETING: To be announced

GAD DIRECTIVA MEETING: Will be Sunday, May 17th at 10am in Santiago, Veraguas.

POSITIONS AVAILABLE:
Azuero regional representative, Panama Este/Darien representative (to be elected at next regional meeting)

As for me, I have really enjoyed serving as the GAD secretary. My participation in GAD has been some of my most rewarding work as a Peace Corps volunteer. It has been a pleasure and good luck to the next generation.
Teri

Quote

2009-05-09T14:12:00.000-07:00

I have a quote on my kitchen door at home which says, EL PERDON NO CAMBIA EL PASADO PERO SI EL FUTURO forgiveness does not change the past, but yes, the future.

Mid-Speed Chase

2009-04-17T17:53:00.000-07:00

This morning, I found myself caught in a medium speed chase all of a sudden. My friend Cassie and I are working with a University and a government agency MIDES (Ministry of Social Development) to produce Eve Ensler´s "The Vagina Monologues" here in our regional capital of Santiago, Veraguas.

We are both really excited about the play but found this morning turn even more thrilling when we were about to head out to deliver invitations for the heads of agencies around town. We had been driving for just one minute when a plain-clothes man flagged us down. He said, "He escaped, and took off that way." All of a sudden, Cassie and I were hanging on tight in the back seat of the car, with no seat belts or "oh shit" bars available to hang onto.
"Hang on tight," said our driver, beeping at a car we were heading straight for in the wrong lane of traffic.

We all survived and eventually a young boy was apprehended by two bicycle cops. From the drifts of conversation, I had heard that he was from San Miguelito, the poor, urban area near Panama City. They have the highest murder statistics and second highest HIV/AIDS incidence in the country. It´s a rough area.

When we returned to the task at hand, I asked what this kid had done. He was just 14 years old and still very much looked like a kid. He escaped from a drug rehabilitation program in our very own city of Santiago. I had no idea we had such facilities available.

Cassie, our chauffer, and I visited 18 agencies or businesses in all today to invite them to "The Vagina Monologues". It´s going to be a great show!

Close of Service

2009-04-07T08:29:00.000-07:00

The day I took my last exam in college was the day I cried. It was not my graduation day. If I was no longer a student, what was I? I did not need to go to the library to study that night. What should I do? I blankly went to sell some of my books for cash and immediately went to look for jobs. I am lost without a job, without a THING TO DO.

This explains how I tossed and turned at night, trying to figure out how to work in my site in rural Panama. If my townspeople did not want to work in agriculture with me and the teacher herself did not attend school regularly, what could I do? Little-by-little I taught people things they should know, especially about health, but realized that more than anything, they did not expect me to work. They wanted to be my friend.

I set out to be the best friend my town had ever seen. I baked banana bread and pumpkin bread from scratch. I attended birthday parties and took photos. My house became a photo studio and I also became the town historian with my photo albums I had put together. I became the cultural teacher of the indigenous groups of Panama, so that my rural friends could learn that there are many types of "indios" in their country. Oh, by the way, Columbus messed up cultural identification in Panama, as well as North America. Panamanian call indigenous people "Indians" and Indians from India "Hindu," although I do not know what percentage of Panamanian Indians practice hinduism.

Last week I had my "Close of Service" conference with the people from my group. We came to Panama together in May of 2007, trained together for 10 weeks, went to our sites, and now most of us will be leaving in July 2009. What have we learned? What will we miss? What are we excited to return to?

Well, for now I am trying to stay. I have the sweetest boyfriend in the world and I want to give us more time. Although last night, when I was feeling frustrated with beauracratic red tape, he told me that the most important thing to him is my happiness, so if I would be happier in the United States, I should go there. Plus, I like Panama. Hundreds of North American retirees have settled here because they also enjoy living in Panama.

So how do I manage finding a job as a foreign resident? How do I not sell myself short in the job I seek? I am a bright, organized, capable woman. I certainly would not be challenged working in an English call center.

Maybe my co-volunteers and I are still in the same boat. I felt ahead of the game when I attended the COS conference with my Peace Corps accomplishments already outlined and my resume up-to-date, having already called NGOs in Panama. But I think I need to know someone to get my foot in the door. Meanwhile, the economy has fallen in the United States. People have to return to that after COS. Jobs are firing, not hiring right now. To what should we dedicate ourselves next?

Transitions

2009-03-23T11:37:00.000-07:00

My COS Conference (that means close-of-service) is coming up in one week. I have been nervous ever since we received the invitation to go. I only have four months left in my Peace Corps service. It is definitely time to find a job. What can I do? Despite my heavy coordination between my town and government agencies as well as NGOs, my Peace Corps dream job was canceled for next year. That was the job as HIV/AIDS Coordinator of Peace Corps Panama. Sad, because I really like that work.

I have been in my site without cell phone connection and just a public phone, but somehow I still got the gossip from my own townspeople. They told me that my volunteer neighbor was leaving and the next day I heard that a couple in my province had gotten pregnant. I called one of the three to verify and it was true. All three are going home. They came in the group AFTER my group. Three months later. So they still had six months left in their Peace Corps service. It will definitely change the dynamics of the province and all the more drove home the impetus to prepare for the future.

I began to clean my house and reduce clutter. I began to get rid of clothes and gave them away to neighborhood kids. My house is pretty orderly. I just need to get rid of the quantity of things I own...mostly clothes and books.

There are only three other volunteers from my group in my province. My friend Cassie and I do not have cell phone coverage. Kevin and April are a married couple that live on an island. Needless to say, we do not get together a lot. However, last Friday, Kevin and April hosted a Health Fair on their island and I came down to help out. It was great!

The health fair began at 9am and ended at 3pm. People were there the whole time. Sessions lasted 55 minutes each, and attention and attendance lasted all day. April taught dental health, Steph is a champion and taught nutrition and domestic violence, Jim taught family planning, Lee taught teenage pregancy (how to prevent and why), Red Cross taught HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, SINAPROC taught First Aid, and I taught womens health. I had so many topics I thought that I would not have time for all of them, but I just did and women stayed after to ask me personal questions because of my knowledgability, as well as the trust I had developed during the lecture.

I got to hang out with friends from my group whom I literally have not seen in months. I also finally had the chance to try the excellent seafood I see in Kevin and Aprils photos. We got four lobsters and six whole corvinas. We each only paid $4 for the catch of the day. It was incredible!

After the health fair on the beach I have returned to real life where I still am dealing with my future and my present. This morning I visited the Ministry of Education to solicit light for my school. Then I called the Electrificacion Rural to see what is happening with electricity in my own town (under development for two years without result) and am working with my friend Cassie to plan our next (and last) HIV/AIDS event.

That´s Why We´re Neighbors

2009-03-03T06:01:00.000-08:00

When my father came to visit me in Panama, he made a special effort to thank three women in my community for always being so kind to me. He thanked each of them with a bottle of designer imposters perfume.

My next-door neighbors have always been champions in my mind. They have taken care of me, my house, and my pets for a year and a half now. My father loves to talk and made a point of giving a speech of gratitude for my next-door-neighbor, Matilde, through my translation. Matilde responded very simply, "That´s why we´re neighbors."

Matilde immediately followed up on being amazing when I came back to town, ran out of propane, and could not cook for two days. She came over to my house with three square meals, knowing that I could not cook. She is a really amazing person.

My phone rang two nights ago with a weird number "165". What could that be? It was Matilde´s husband, Cheño, using the contact system I had developed. In case of an emergency, they have traveling money, my house keys, my phone number, the vetrinarian´s phone number, Peace Corps´ phone number, and a phone card.

I had visitors before leaving town, so I did not sit on their porch and tell them my plans, as I usually do. Matilde was worried and had Cheño call me. I am really happy that I have people looking out for me. It feels warm and familiar. He told me that everything was fine there. They just wanted to know when I was coming home. I asked him if there was electricity yet? (A project that should have been completed two years ago.) No, the company had not returned for a month. "Well, I guess I´ll come home Tuesday," I told him, "to figure out what´s happening with the electricity."

Brownie Troop Q & A

2009-02-13T21:03:00.000-08:00

On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 5:02 PM, Lisa wrote:

Hi Teri,
I am a friend of your sister-in-law and one of the leaders of your niece's Brownie troop. We are learning about Panama for Thinking Day. I think your Dad will come to our next meeting (Feb. 20) to tell us about of his travels with you.

Our Brownies were curious about your daily life and had a few questions. They would love to hear your answers! You can email them directly to me, or to your sister-in-law. Thanks so much for sharing your experiences with us! Good luck!

1. What's it like living there? Courtlan
2. Why do they have mud floors? Katherine
3. What do you eat? What type of food? Nikki
4. Why is Baseball so popular? Camille
5. Do they like to go to the beach? Addie
6. What type of houses do they live in? What type of house do you live in? Grace
7. What type of clothing do they wear? Rachel
8. What are great tourist attractions? Annie
9. What kind of shoes do they wear? Paulina (who also speaks Spanish)
10. What is the climate like? Reagan
11. What do they wear in the rain? Anna
12. Do they have to pay to go to the beaches (like we do?) Katherine
13. What is the plumbing like? Do you have toilets? Annie
14. What animals do you see? Addie

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences with us! Good luck!

Lisa and Brownie troop in Virginia

Hi Lisa,
I called my dad and he told me that Ava was doing a project on Panama. How exciting!

1. What's it like living there? Courtlan
It's very interesting to live in Panama. I am always learning something new. From the language (Spanish), to the strong familial culture, to the indigenous cultures, to the differences between city dwellers and rural inhabitants, to the new plants and animals.

2. Why do they have mud floors? Katherine
Panama has upperclass and lowerclass (not a lot of middleclass) so most people have cement floors or better but poor people who construct their houses from local materials have mud floors and thatch walls or some have walls made out of sticks, mud, and grass. In my community of poor people, they have mostly cinderblock houses and cement floors. Rich people have nice houses like in the United States.

3. What do you eat? What type of food? Nikki
I eat cereal, Ramen noodles, and omelets because I live in an area without electricity and no refrigeration. I also live by myself so I make things that are easy and quick to make. I love to cook so I look forward to visitors so I can make currys, Chinese food, and Thai food to share.

4. Why is Baseball so popular? Camille
I do not know. Why are basketball and football so popular in the United States? The most popular sports in Panama are baseball and soccer (called futbol). It's a chance to play sports and to support local teams. There is a lot of provincial rivalry, especially in baseball. Plus, I believe a major league team in the United States has a Panamanian player, so there is national pride in that.

5. Do they like to go to the beach? Addie
Rich people like to go to the beach. Some people live on the beach but do not swim in the water because there are strong currents there. Others make a living off of fishing from boats, either to sell the fish, or just to eat it.

6. What type of houses do they live in? What type of house do you live in? Grace
Panama has upperclass and lowerclass (not a lot of middleclass) so most people have cement floors or better but poor people who construct their houses from local materials have mud floors and thatch walls or some have walls made out of sticks, mud, and grass. In my community of poor people, they have mostly cinderblock houses and cement floors. Rich people have nice houses like in the United States.
My house is a VERY large cinderblock house, painted teal. I have a very large kitchen, and then four rooms in the main part of my house. I have smooth cement floors. They remind me of slate.

7. What type of clothing do they wear? Rachel
Most Panamanians wear "Western"clothes. Tee shirts and jeans. Jeans are considered professional wear so a lot of people wear polo shirts and jeans to the office. Women wear very tight jeans and very tight shirts, sometimes low cut. One of my favorite hobbies is reading tee shirts that have words in English. Most times they do not know what their shirts say! They just like the glittery writing. Today I bought a tee shirt that said, "I (heart) buns"and had a picture of a hot dog on it. Ha ha ha. I also bought one that said, "GIRLS SAVE THE EARTH. PEACE"
Panama also has seven indigenous groups. Two have noticeable fashions which they wear in public. The Kuna wear hand-stitched quilt squares on the front and back of their blouses and a sarong-style skirt. They also have colorful beaded bracelets and anklets stretching to their elbows and ankles. The Ngabes wear colorful, hand-stitched naguas, which are loose and billowy to hide pregnancies. They also have flaps for easy breast-feeding.

8. What are great tourist attractions? Annie
Most of the great tourist attractions are the nature and culture here. But Panama has lots of beaches (both on the Caribbean and the Pacific), coffee tourism, and of course, the PANAMA CANAL.

9. What kind of shoes do they wear? Paulina (who also speaks Spanish)
Hola Paulina. La mayoria de la gente que son humildes llevan chancletas (flip flops) pero tienen zapatos mas bonitos para la ciudad.
(Hi Paulina. Most of the poorer people wear flip flops but have prettier shoes for when they go to the city.) Crocs are also very popular here right now. But they have stores and all sorts of shoes like in the United States. I wear sandals all the time and some people do not think that they are attractive enough.

10. What is the climate like? Reagan
The climate depends on where you are and what season it is. The rainy season is May to December. The dry season is mid-December through April. Cities are HOT. It can be 90 degrees in the cities. Also, the southern part of Panama (the Azuero) is mostly deforested so it is hot there as well. My site is in the mountains. Right now in the dry season it is 82 degrees in the day and down to 68 degrees at night. I just got a thermometer but I felt very cold during the day in the rainy season. I wore fleece pants and slippers and a sweater. It was probaby somewhere between 60 and 70 degrees. The mountains in Chririqui get very cold (to us). Maybe down into the 50s.

11. What do they wear in the rain? Anna
A lot of people just stay in when it's raining. If they go out, they all carry umbrellas, rain or shine, because the sun is very bright here.

12. Do they have to pay to go to the beaches (like we do?) Katherine
Some beaches do charge for visits. Those are generally in tourist areas, but there are not a lot of tourist areas. Some only charge on weekends.

13. What is the plumbing like? Do you have toilets? Annie
Plumbing is pretty good but the toilets and sewer systems are not very strong so we cannot flush toilet paper. There is always a trash can next to the toilets for the TP. In rural Panama, some people have water, some people have water some of the time, and some people have to go to the creeks to fetch water. In my town, we have lots of cold, untreated water for bathing and drinking. I boil and filter my drinking and cooking water. Some richer people (3) have installed toilets and septic systems in their houses. I use a latrine. I only bathe in my shower (3 walls of tin and a shower curtain outside) midday because the mountain water is very cold. It used to take my breath away but I got used to it.

14. What animals do you see? Addie
Animals depend on the area you are in. At my house, I have birds and sometimes squirrels. But I have seen a tapir, monkeys (tamarins, howlers, capuchins, and spiders), toucans, parrots, parakeets, quetzal, lizards, flying fish, dolphins, sea turtles, a whale, a sting ray, coral, colorful tropical fish, poisonous snakes (coral and viper), and poison dart frogs in the wild. We also have foxes, anteaters, iguanas, jaguars, and smaller wild cats here in Panama. Panama has more bird species than the United States and Canada PUT TOGETHER! It's a very biodiverse area because it has species from both North and South America.

I hope you guys learn a lot! Let me know if you have more questions!
Teri

Over the Rainbow

2009-02-09T12:27:00.000-08:00

I was FRIGHTENED last week. We had really strong winds all over Panama. People in my site called it a "huracanera," a diminutive of hurricane. I was going to do errands Thursday morning and then found that a large tree had blown down in my front yard. As I have to hike for 40 minutes in the dark on a pine-lined dirt road, I decided that my life is much more important than errands and went back to bed.

When I finally reopened my door in the daylight, I was shellshocked. My large tree was down, various banana trees were down, and the wind was still blowing strongly. My dog was undisturbed, so I assumed that things must be okay. I wandered next door and found that Matilde´s kitchen roof had blown off. They invited me to sit inside the house. They have to replace the wood beams because the old ones were old and rotten. That´s too bad.

Things blew off my walls and I spent each night afraid that MY roof would blow off and I may wake up in Oz the next morning. I moved my dog´s bed closer to my own. The wind wore me out. I found myself in bed, waiting for the night to fall, just EXHAUSTED by the wind. I had to read by flashlight because the wind was much too strong for candles.

The wind stopped during the third night. The next day I took my dog out walking and there were lovely rainbows. I found a shower curtain to replace mine that had been thrashed to bits and finally wandered out to visit my friends and neighbors.

New Informe

2009-01-31T16:56:00.000-08:00

I have been stuck in internet cafe´s all day doing my "paperwork" for Peace Corps Panama. We all know that "paperwork" is a complete and total lie in today´s information age society. Anyway, we have switched over to a new reporting system called the Volunteer Reporting Tool. I´m not the biggest fan. I find it difficult to enter in projects I have done, which are unrelated to my primary agriculture project. Plus, we are now reporting four months of work instead of three months of work. (Good thing I was on vacation for almost a whole month.) But it does allow for a lot of creative writing. I am not sure how that will benefit the Peace Corps in their data collection, but rather than letting these "cuentos" go to waste, I am going to post them here for your reading pleasure...

Peace Corps Goal Two "to help promote a better understanding of the American people on the part of the peoples served"
One thing I find myself explaining over and over again is that Americans wait until they are older than Panamanians to get married and have children. Panama is a very family-based, primarily Catholic society and as such, individuals tend to get to have children and get married young. A 21 year-old trying to win me over was explaining that Panamanians like to have their children around 20 years old to be able to raise them while they are young.

I explain over and over again that Americans first like to get their lives SECURE first and then to have families. First we go to university, then we get a good job, then we found our "love of our life", then we get married, THEN we have children. It´s a much longer process. That is why I am 29 years old and still do not have children. "Maybe next year," they tell me.

Peace Corps Goal Three "to help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of the American people"
I always keep a blog, so my family and friends are always abreast of my activities here in Peace Corps Panama. However, my words and photos are not the same as someone actually experiencing my world. My father is retired and was able to come to Panama to experience the country and culture for 20 days in January.

It was great! We went on a 15 day organized tour to see all of the hot spots, nature, three indigenous cultures, and four provinces. Then I took my dad to my site in rural Veraguas, Panama to get to know what my life is REALLY like. He was bowled away by the stars. In a community without electricity up on a mountain, he said that he saw, "More stars in (my) village than ever before in (his) life." I was so proud of that. We went up and down hills and across a creek to visit my community friends. Although we lucked out and got an air conditioned bus TO my site we had to hike out in the dark and share the pickup chiva with 27 other people on the way out of town. "This is the REAL Panama," I said.

What have you learned in the process of integrating into your community?I always claim that the hardest part of integrating into my community was not the Panamanian culture but the small town culture. I come from the suburbs of Washington, D.C. and Seattle. You only know who you want to know and everyone is busy working or in activities. In a small town, everyone knows everything about everyone and the most interesting person tends to be the volunteer. Learning about Panamanian culture is great, but it´s also important to teach about living in small towns.

Question: If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?
Answer: No one knows
Question: If a volunteer falls going on a walk alone and no one is around, will people know?
Answer: Yes, they will see the dirt she tried to wipe off her pants and not ask her about it but then speculate together after she leaves.

Volunteer Success Story!I am totally excited right now because I finally have a major success in my community. Migdalia is my jet-set girl, even though she has a bedridden mentally and physically disabled 20 year-old who has been that way since birth, a 13 year-old son, and a 4 year-old son. She knows what she wants and is willing to go after it. She was the first in the community to want an estufa lorena, and is the only one using it. She is the most active person in my tourism and marketing group (secondary project).

I taught Migdalia, Arcenio, and Maribel how to make and sell food and juice for profit. We had two opportunities and two practice runs. I went on vacation with my father for two weeks, came back, and that day she was going to sell arroz con pollo at the baseball game. It turns out that that Sunday she made $39.50 and the Sunday before she made $34.50, making extra Tang the second week! So she made $74 in two days of work! This is in a community where men only make $4 for 8 hours of hard labor in a day. I am so proud of her!

ChallengesIt is almost comical to place a woman in a macho culture in a traditional community and to ask for her to work in agriculture. I have to admit that particular disadvantage entered into my head entering into the sustainable agricultural systems program in Peace Corps Panama. I had worked in agriculture in the United States. I had worked in trail work and always shoulder-to-shoulder with men. So I never imagined that I would never even enter into the field. Oh, okay. Just once I planted beans. Everything else was consultation work.

I had the dream in the beginning of my service to get to know each agriculturist´s individual plot so that I would know how to help him. I realized early on it was going to be difficult when one man´s wife told me that they had not invited me to go along with them because, "The path is ugly...for a woman." She had gone up and I had not. And that is how things remained in my site. I could talk about agriculture all I wanted but I would never be able to do it except for in my own yard.

Lessons LearnedEarly on, things were incredibly difficult. My host family, intended to help me enter into the community and culture left me alone at home all the time. They went to church four times a week and would arrive home as late as 2am. They went out to visit friends and family and would not invite me. They eventually were not home for meals, either. I visited a friend in the community every day and ate lunch there. I attached myself to her and to her family because she was the most loving and accepting person I had met in my community. BUT she was on the outside. Her husband lived in the city and she had a small family. She was as insecure as I was. Eventually she left to the city, too and in one sense I was alone but in another sense my entire world had just opened anew.

I now have seven houses in my community that I simply MUST visit. I am expected and fed there. Three families have called me part of the family and our greetings are growing all the time more intimate. Anais Nin once wrote, "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." I think that is what happened to me in my community.

Letter from my Dad

2009-01-27T15:16:00.000-08:00

It´s nice to have a fresh perspective once in a while. This is my Dad´s impression of his visit to my Peace Corps Community...

Hi Family!
Theresa-Teri and I just returned to Panama city from a trip to her home village in Veraguas. We traveled Friday to Santiago, where we bought groceries for her Birthday Fiesta-Celebration. With all our luggage plus many boxes and bags of groceries, including 14 pounds of chicken on ice (in a big cylindrical cooler we bought at True Value Hardware store), a 3 foot high Pinata, plus a big bottle of sugar cane liquor, balloons, dog food for her dog Sugar, etc. we were lucky Saturday and got a 28 passenger small bus that went all the way to her house on back roads in the mountains and up the dirt road for 3 miles that goes to her house.
On Sunday, several of Theresa´s women friends were busy preparing the food from 9 AM until about 3 PM. They used a huge borrowed metal pot, and the dish they prepared was vegetables, rice, and pulled chicken (which was first boiled). They did it the really old fashion way on an open wooden fire with three rocks supporting the cooking pots.
AT 3 PM about 30-40 friends and neighbors from the whole village came over to Teri's yard. We greeted each one, and some gave Theresa birthday gifts. Two or three men hung the pinata filled with about 5 pounds of candy, and had little kids take a whack at it with a stick, and the men raised and lowered it on a rope suspended from a line running from a tree to Theresa´s house. When the pinata finally broke, everyone, adults and children rushed in to scoop up as much candy as they could.
Then Theresa and I and a few of Theresa´s best friends served heaping dishes of the main dish, along with orange drink to each person. Many were dressed in their Sunday best clothes.
I gave a little speech, which Theresa translated, welcoming them all, and thanking them for being such good friends and neighbors to Theresa, and looking after her while she has spent the past year and a half in El Satro.
Then we served the Seco cane alcohol drink to the men (women don´t drink, at least in public). The men sat separately in the back by the outdoor kitchen in a circle drinking Seco and another corn moonshine they made until way past dark (beautiful sunsets at 630 PM). At 8 PM I announced last call, and the men who had moved to the front porch just about finished the bottle of Seco, and took it with them into the night. I was really tired, but it was a great party. One of Theresa´s best friends even brought 2 birthday cakes (one for Theresa and one for an 18 year old boy with the same birthday. They even tried to blow out trick candles, after everyone sang happy birthday.
Theresa and one nice young man talked into the night, after I went to bed.
Also, her community does not yet have electricity! It is going to in a few weeks, thanks to lobbying by Theresa and her community members. After dark, people live by candle light, or flash lights.
Her community is really is a mountain village way out in the sticks. Think of West Virginia hollows. It is set in beautiful mountains with pine trees planted by many of her neighbors or their parents about 35 years ago, many square miles of pine trees. It passes and looks down on a beautiful lake that is now a national park. Think of Lake Tahoe.
One amazing thing about her community is the Stars! At an elevation of about 2700 feet, with no pollution from smoke, smog, or city lights, I have never seen so many stars shining so brightly! Tourists could come there just for the stars!
On Monday, Theresa and I went horseback riding way up a steep road into the mountains with two guides, a man and his 8 year old nephew who owned the horses. The views of the mountains and towns, the cattle ranches and farms were beautiful! We rode for 3 hours. We stopped near the next town and talked with some locals who happened by on the dirt road there. I gave pens and stickers to everyone as gifts of friendship.
After our horse ride, we hiked to the homes of some of Theresa´s best friends and neighbors. Some lived up the mountain up steep and rocky trails, across creeks, etc. Visiting people in her community is a real exercise in friendship. One family gave us a late lunch of chicken, (which they had killed for us!), rice, and beans! Three sisters of the family had helped Theresa prepare her birthday fiesta meal, and the family is very nice. They live in two houses that overlook the entire pine forest and lake. They built the house and everything in it (including bath fixtures) by carrying everthing up the steep trail by hand! Amazing people! We visited until nightfall.
Today we were up at 4 AM! We left Theresa's house at 515 AM and walked with our luggage, helped by the 13 year old boy who lives next door, and Theresa´s dog Sugar, in the dark with flashlights for 50 minutes up and down some very steep dirt roads to the next town where we caught the 630 AM Chiva! The boy took Sugar home with him, since Theresa will be gone from home on Peace Corps business until Saturday in Panama City. (Sugar did escape from the boy once, and came running back to the Chiva, but the boy took her in his arms back home.) Without his help, I don't think I could have made it. He carried one of my backpacks. I carried another on my back, and Theresa had another backpack on her back. Theresa and I together carried the new duffle bag full of stuff. It was about a 3 mile hike in the early morning dark!
The Chiva has two bench seats in the bed of a pickup truck that comfortably hold about 4 people each. As the Chiva continued to stop and pick up people over the next 50 minutes, I counted 25 people in that truck! We had 5 men standing on the back bumper during most of the ride, and 22 people all in the back! That was quite an experience! And it cost only $3 for the two of us!
We then transferred to a rickety minibus that also picked up about 18 people for the next hour's leg of our journey after breakfast for $3 for the two of us.
Then we transferred to a pretty good 28 passenger bus that rode straight on to Panama City in about 2 and a half hours.
After all that, we ate in the bus terminal at a modern food court (I had fish), and then came back to our modern hotel for hot showers and laundry! It sure felt good to have a modern bathroom! (Theresa has an outhouse toilet, and a cold outdoor shower that she uses at noon, after the hose warms up a bit.)
El Satro has cool temps, about 70 degrees, with strong winds at night coming down from the mountains.
Tomorrow, I leave for San Jose, Costa Rica, where I pick up my GAP tour. I don´nt know if I´ll have any more communication after we leave for our tour of the Arenal Volcano and Monteverde national park.
Hasta luego!
Love,
Dad-Jeff

Father-Daughter Vacation

2009-01-23T08:11:00.000-08:00

I am taking an extended vacation with my father in my Peace Corps country of Panama. It is nice, because I am getting treated to luxury foods, accommodations, and entertainment. This is also the most time I have spent alone with my father IN MY LIFE. I am the youngest of six children and between all of us, work, school, life, there was never any time such as this. These two weeks are MUCH better than the other father-daughter vacation we took when I was a junior in high school. We spent my spring vacation visiting all of the Virginia state schools to pick my college or university.

We picked out an organized tour that took us to see the best of Panama, in my opinion. Fifteen days, five provinces, Panama, Cocle, Kuna Yala, Chiriqui, and Bocas del Toro, and three indigenous cultures. We saw mountains, valleys, the Caribbean, the Pacific, cloud forests, corals, birds, and mammals. It was a great trip, which exceeded my expectations.

Yesterday we flew from Bocas del Toro to Panama City, ending our organized tour. The next few days are for my father to get to know a little about my life. We got off the plane and went directly to the Peace Corps office where he met the Country Director, my agriculture boss, the medical team, training, and support staff. Today we will travel to my regional capital in a PUBLIC bus (pretty cushy), but it is not the private minivan with our private driver Nelson. Tomorrow we will travel to my site in my chiva, a pick-up truck with bench seats, usually packed with at least 20 humans in a space meant to seat 12 comfortably. When my mom traveled up last year, I think we crammed in 33 in all.

My father is 40 years older than I am and as we went on hikes to watch birds, to see wildlife, and to see coffee growing, swimming, and snorkling, I realized that this will be the only trip of this kind that I get to spend with my father. I worry about the less-than-smooth paths in my Peace Corps community that I would like him to walk to meet people. At least my 29th birthday party will be held in my house. He does not have to go anywhere. That will be the climax of the vacation...a campo-style birthday party with arroz con pollo, potato salad, and sugary Tang.

Each day of this journey I have been reminded of how much I share in common with my father but also what I do not. The medical secretary and nurse were so excited to see how similar our faces are. Those who know me know how long it takes me to get out the door...how long it takes me to pack and to get myself ready in general. People are always waiting for me to hurry up. Traveling with my father, I am seeing where I got it from...HIM! I actually get to sleep in later and read while he is preparing to leave. I actually move faster than one person in this world.

We both have inquisitive natures. He asks questions in the extreme, such as the biochemical formula that makes coffee taste so good. Our coffee guide, Hans, told Dad that that is not known, and besides, it takes the sexiness out of it. I could never get a word in edgewise, for all of his questions.

We love meeting people. My father makes it a point to make some sort of connection with each and every person who crosses his path. He begins with names, nationality or state, and moves onto work. We were with two psychologist best friends in Kuna Yala and they mentioned that he was, "Doing his thing." It´s my thing, too. However, in the Peace Corps, I am less personally outgoing because usually people strike up conversations with me, instead of the other way around. However, I too, find that connection, whether it be a shared place, interest, or feeling.

January 8th to 28th is twenty days. By the end of this journey, that is the amount of time my father and I will have spent one-on-one. I am his translator and his guide, but he is my father. A boyfriend had his hand around my waist while watching Obamas´s Inauguration in a Bocas hotel room. Dad made a motion for us to separate, but at the same time flipped between CNN in English and Spanish for Gabriel´s benefit. Eleven years of adulthood make no difference...I am still his little girl.

Happy Holidays

2008-12-30T10:50:00.000-08:00

My family has been in the practice of sending out holiday letters ever since I can remember but since I have five siblings, my blurb will probably read something like, "Theresa is still in the Peace Corps in Panama. She is working with agriculture and tourism and is much healthier than last year." As I did not send out a holiday letter last year, I have the following summary...

Dear Friends and Family,

I hope this letter finds all of you well and with the excitement of the horizon of the New Year.

My past year and a half in Peace Corps Panama has been topsy-turvy, up-and-down, but now finally finding a happy balance in my community, my health, and my social life.

My community in Panama is how I pictured the Peace Corps--three hours from the nearest city with internet, without electricity, without a cell phone signal, women washing their clothes in streams, and other-worldly. One difficult adjustment was that there are other Peace Corps volunteers in Panama with electricity, wi-fi, cell phone signal, and hot showers in their houses. I got what I had wanted and imagined, but others in the same program have life a lot easier than I.

I was trained as a sustainable agriculture volunteer to specialize in coffee. Panama has a macho culture, like most Latin American countries, and I could not find work in agriculture. I tried to form a female community. She left the community to live with her husband who has hit her in the past and work in Panama City as a cook.

Luckily, Panama aboutnds with possibilities and I found work outside of my community. I helped teach a three week agribusiness seminar last spring. I made four mud stoves (two outside my community and two within my community). They burn less wood than the open flame method that most of the women use. I taught sex-ed outside my community. In agriculture I taught two coffee seminars and organized an organic agriculture seminar.

I joined four girlfriends to be the fifth element ("heart" or "Animal Animada")in the Captain Planet environmental education team. You can still donate to our project (even if it´s just $10) at

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfmshell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=525-102
(copy and paste)

We were featured in the Peace Corps publication WorldView but it is still not fully funded. We travel to elementary schools in rural Panama to teach about conservation.

Now my focus has turned to what I am best at--organizing. I have a small, community-driven tourism project. We sell food and will organize horseback rides as well. They only make $4 a day for a full day of hard labor. Selling food, and guiding tourists will pad their pockets in the dry season for days when there is no work.

As my time is coming to a close (just 6 months remain) I find myself growing nostalgic for where I live. It´s easy now that the sexual harrassment and marriage proposals have subsided. Now that I actually have work and a group that will sit with me to learn accounting and plan for the future.

Now when I have time free, it´s mine and I do not stress myself out looking for work to do. My garden is growing. My dog is growing. When I sit and listen in my town all I hear are birds, wind, roosters, and children playing. There is no traffic and life is tranquil. I was just prescribed to take naps for me after lunch. I am reading much more than before. Life is good.

Happy Holidays to you and yours

Community Organizing

2008-12-18T13:31:00.000-08:00

I once fell for the job of canvassing door-to-door, asking for money for a cause because it was called "community organizing." Being able to bike to and from work and unable for six months to find another job which fit my ideals, I stayed in a very manipulative and manipulating environment for those six months.

Today I left my community with ten representatives of the school´s Parent´s Association, known in the United States as the PTA or Parents and Teachers Association but here in Panama it is the Padres de la Familia to do some REAL community organizing. We arranged a special ride, not knowing how long our trip would take. I suggested that we take advantage of so many people assembled to also visit the Electrificación Rural (the government office that brings electricity to rural villages like mine). It turned out to be a really empowering day.

One special day in my canvassing job in Washington State, we went to Olympia to support a bill that we were supporting (statewide healthcare). Today had that same exciting buzz as that day.

In the United States, we were raised on freedom of speech and assembly, asking for what we want to receive, "the squeaky wheel gets the grease". Panamanians are raised on the lottery, "Si Dios quiere" ("If God wills it."), "Dios primero" ("God first). For example (Panama), "Are you going to come to the organic agriculture seminar?"
Answer: "Si Dios quiere"
To generalize, they are not really a self-actualizing society. Self-determination is unheard of.

But today, we marched into MEDUCA (Ministry of Education) with two letters and a list of all of the teacher´s absences from 2007 and 2008. Apparently she reached 41 unexcused absences in 2008! The lawyer came in and they will begin an investigation to see if she can come up with doctor´s notes for any of these absences. The president of the PTA then mentioned that the teacher never showed receipts for the government money that she spent on the school. The director of the money took the time to explain to all of us how the money should be used and reported then we went over the transactions of this past year. Apparently, she took out $500 just last week! She realized she forgot the report cards and school keys Tuesday when five students were to graduate from the primary school and just took off. The kids had nothing and the food she bought spoiled. The PTA and MEDUDA will investigate the money usage as well.

From MEDUCA we walked downtown to the Electrificación Rural. When I GOT to my town a year and a half ago, we had lightposts, powerlines, lightbulbs, switches, electrical outlets, and electric meters but the light never came. We live in a protected forest reserve and the Environmental Authority (ANAM) ordered an environmental impact study in July 2007. That ended awhile ago, I think. Now, road crews have knocked down some of the posts. But it´s Panama. What are you going to do?

Electrificación Rural was really helpful and faxed the letter to Panama City right away. They made phonecalls on our behalf and suggested that we also get the governor of Veraguas and the chief of ANAM Veraguas to sign the note as well. I lost my group downtown but left copies of the note with the governor and with ANAM. (More work for me tomorrow.) My guys bought me a couple of beers and took off back to town. I made copies of all of the notes that I took today: people´s names, contact information, next steps, and gave the MEDUCA stuff to the PTA president. I was practically pulling teeth to try to put someone in charge of electricity. I asked, "Do you want electricity?" Everyone nodded. "Then you have to follow-up on all of this." My next-door neighbor assumed the responsibility. (That makes things easy for me.)

My cooking group finally made its first sale on Tuesday. We made 100 tamales for the secondary school graduation. They did not sell so well at 50 cents (the asking price) and I got really nervous as the graduation drew to a close and we still had at least 60 tamales. I dropped the price to 25 cents and used my canvassing skills to not take "no" for an answer. If someone handed me a dollar, I asked, "How many do you want? Four?" It worked! Our profit was $11.80. Not tons, but decent. We may sell more food on Sunday when four soccer teams come to play in my town. Migdalia will be tired from her son´s birthday party on Friday but Maestro Alvaro and his wife, Maribel are willing and able to give it another go.

Mother´s Day

2008-12-18T13:09:00.000-08:00

Mother´s Day is December 8th in Panama so after all of the Patriotic November holidays then flowing into Mother´s Day, graduations (on December 16th), and flowing into Christmas, the fun does not stop until the new year.

For those of you unfamiliar with Panama´s campo culture, every holiday is a drinking holiday for the men. So although the mother is not supposed to lift a finger for her man on Mother´s Day, she may find herself unlucky enough to cook for the dozen drinking men gathered at her house.

Mother´s Day fell on a Monday this year so I got to visit houses both Sunday and Monday. I got sucked into Señora Natividad´s kitchen for four hours on Sunday evening. I had just wanted to drop by some pumpkin bread (because she had given me half a pumpkin) but met her granddaughters who had never before met a foreigner (although they live in capital cities). So I sat down and told them about myself then found myself translating song lyrics for them. Pop culture (MTV) manages to jump cultural boundaries. One 14 year-old young woman was explaining MTV´s dating show "Next" to me, tittering nervously, but still commenting on gay couple matches. That´s a pretty taboo subject where I live.

The next day I WANTED to visit ALL the houses, but you cannot. It´s impossible. Everyone invites you to sit and talk for a while. Maybe drink or eat something, too. I made a whole loaf of pumpkin bread for Efigenia (who calls me her "daughter") and got there seemingly as her own daughters were taking off out of town again. I excused myself, too, a little later because I try to get home before dark and other people had invited me over.

I caught up with Magalis at her father´s house. She has been working as a cook in Panama City for several months now. Her boss is an organized small-business owner of 26. She has taken Magalis to the salon and shows a special interest in her. Magalis told me that her new boss reminds her of me.

Yes, Magalis lives with her husband who has hit her in the past. She tells me that the difference is that now that she makes her own money, her husband knows that he cannot mistreat her. If he does, she will leave him forever. But she is only making $200 per month. How long will that carry her? I was glad to see her.

My last stop on Mother´s Day was next door. Matilde had told me that she was going to save me some food. Apparently, we ate the rooster that helped my laying hen to lay with spaghetti.

On My Mind

2008-11-21T11:00:00.000-08:00

Those of you who know me may remember that when I first came to my small community in rural Panama I became fast friends with a woman named Magalis. Although I lived in another house, Magalis and her three children Maria, Robi, and Carla were my real host family.

Magalis was alway ambitious and had an open mind to new things. For example, once she asked me, "Is Buddhism bad?" bedause she was raised and indoctrinated in Catholicism, which is generally not so open-minded. We talked about world views and reincarnation and everything. I used to eat lunch and dinner at their house every day. Sometimes I showered there. Everytime I got back from a trip, I would make sure to visit her that same evening. I always played games and swam in the creek with the kids. When I finally did move into my own house, the three children helped me move.

Little-by-little, Magalis and I began to lose touch. I realized that although she has an open mind to ideas, she had a closed mind about how to make money. As a Peace Corps volunteer and as a human being, I wish for the people of my community to find livelihoods for themselves within the community. (That is why I began the tourism project.) Magalis chased jobs like butterflies...she earned $10 every three months working with the medical visit team, she taught reading classes, she helped administer the primary elections. (We have elections this year in Panama, as well.) But ultimately, she did what everyone else from my town does to make money...she moved to Panama City to work, leaving Robi and Carla with her father (their grandfather, Fernando).

I visited her less frequently because I knew I was fighting a losing battle. She always said, "I want to WORK. I want my OWN money." She told me about her husband who hit her and I knew I could do nothing to help her but offer comfort because she would not leave him. He was her regular paycheck and how she was able to buy food and clothes for the children. He did not live in town, but in Panama City, and sent her money every month. So he only came home, drank, and hit her on holidays. I personally could not take giving unheeded advice anymore. I can only hope that Magalis does not live with her husband in Panama City. Possibly she does not. Her son, Robi, told me that she is working as a domestic.

I have always liked Robi (age 11) a lot. He is smart. He will be very handsome. Robi is extremely helpful and sweet. I have told him that if he ever needs anything, not to hesitate to come over. I told the girls, too, but in the midst of preadolescence and adolescence, things are different for girls.

Robi came over last night just around dusk, not really for any reason. I was about to eat dinner (just Ramen noodles) so I offered him some. I asked about Magalis and she is doing well. Her boss wants to put Carla (age 10) in private school. Maria (age 15) is already in boarding school. Robi said that he plans to stay in the community with his grandfather so his grandfather is not alone. The secondary school just got computers and internet so it may be a decent education there. Robi said he wants me to show him how to use computers this summer (mid-December to mid-February), before he starts school.

We ate dinner and then it got REALLY dark. It was cloudy and we have no electricity. He asked if I had an extra flashlight but I do not, so I walked him home to his grandfather´s house. Carla looked sad and lonely. The kitchen floor is earthen and dull. They invited me in but I had to go home to pack for a trip out of town.

This morning (actually it was night still), I kept hitting my alarm´s snooze button. But I thought I heard Robi´s voice say my name, "Teri," and I awoke. No one was there.

Maybe I can help Robi financially someday. He shows so much promise. I would like to give back for all the friendship and emotional support he has given to me.

What a Week!

2008-11-09T12:30:00.000-08:00

November is pretty much PARTY MONTH in Panama. I am currently listening to marching bands parading out the door of this internet café while writing this blog. Today is November 9th, Veraguas´ Grita de Independencia. Tomorrow will be a government and school holiday because this November 9th falls on a Sunday. Today is the day that the call of Independence from Colombia reached the province of Veraguas.

Día de los Difuntos was November 2nd. Independence Day was November 3rd. Flag Day was November 4th. Tomorrow, November 10th is the Grita de Los Santos (another province). November 28th is Panama´s independence from Spain.

I have been in the midst of my community for these events...well, except when I was celebrating our own holiday, Election Day, November 4th with other volunteers. We were so happy when Barack Obama won that we sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "My Country ´Tis of Thee". It was a patriotic time for us and for them and Panama and the United States share the same flag colors of red, white, and blue. I was given a Panama flag bracelet, which I proudly wear.

I was not going to come out of my community for this parade, but my two favorite children, Robi and Yair, were helping me plant a groundcover in my yard yesterday. We heard on the radio that Irving Saladino, Panama´s FIRST Olympic gold medalist would be in Santiago for the parade. On August 18th, 2008, he won the long jump in the Bejing Olympics and all television channels all day replayed his jump. He is a new figure for Panamanian patriotism. Yair and I asked permission, I snapped a photo of Saladino (but my computer-camera connection is not working), and Yair is standing at my side watching me write this. (But he still cannot read at age 8.)

Día de los Difuntos is the day that Panamanians go to visit the graves of their families. I cleaned unattended graves and took photos. There were some men drinking in the cemetary as well as families gathered. That´s how holidays in my site tend to run.

Anyway, in addition to hearing the news about Saladino, Robi and Yair told me that someone had died in a nearby town. That was the third death of have heard of in that way in my 15 months in site. This time though, he is related to everyone. He was the brother of my landlord and two other men in my site. But I still did not know him.

Matilde (my next-door neighbor) told me that he had been there in the cemetary on Día de los Difuntos on a horse and in a black sombrero. I found him in my photos. Last night people congregated in the church to silently pray and view the body. The minister was up on the mountain, watching the communal farm (each member stays up there one week at a time), so nobody said anything.

I was not going to enter the church until Raúl, my chiva ayudante, told me that man was his father. I am an empathic person and I felt so much sadness. I entered the church and felt so much sadness. I went to visit my landlords to lighten my load. Then I visited my two grandmothers, always present in their warm kitchen. I visited the kitchens of three old women yesterday. That always makes me feel better.

When I went to bed last night, I still did not know if Yair had permission to go to Santiago or not. I did not know if I had the energy. He woke me up at 6am with a hoot. I got dressed. We found a ride to Santiago with Maestro Álvaro and his family. Then we went to the funeral. Still no minister. Still no words spoken. It was more like a construction project, mixing cement and placing the coffin in a shared tomb with his sister.

Yair and I got picked up after the burial and are around thousands of parading students. What a weird, wild week. What comes next?

Captain Planet

2008-11-09T12:15:00.000-08:00

My friends and I visit Panamanian schools as the five elements, inspired by the Captain Planet cartoon that was aired in the 1990s. We have Earth, Wind, Water, Fire, and Heart, which translate to Tierra Tremenda (Krista), Aire Aventurosa (Cassie), Agua Asombrosa (Melanie), Fuego Fantástico (Allie), and Animal Animada (yours truly).

Panama has some of the greatest biodiversity on the planet, having species from both North and South America. However, they fail to care for it. Every country in the world thinks that they have infinite resources until they suddenly realize that they do not.

So please help fund our Peace Corps Partnership grant so we can afford the transportation and food to visit rural schoolchildren who have 1) never had interactive education, and 2) can be the next leaders in Panama to preserve their quickly disappearing natural resources.

You can donate online at https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=525-102

Thank you so much. Panama, my friends, children, Mother Earth, and myself thank you.

Teri

Procrastinating

2008-10-27T17:13:00.000-07:00

I am in the Peace Corps office right now. It is 7:15pm on a Monday night and the security guard is here just because I am. There is a special rule that the office is open until 9pm on Monday nights during training but I truly am the only person here. I HAVE TO FINISH MY GRANT FOR WORLD AIDS DAY! It was my goal for today and I have not yet reached it. I will be off in the campo for a few days teaching environmental education so I really MUST finish my grant today in order to have the time to have it processed and to receive the money in time for December 1st.

First, a complaint...You know the Organic Agriculture seminar I spent TWO MONTHS organizing? My local ANAM guy canceled the seminar the day before without a word to me. When I finally tracked him down 7:30am Monday morning in Santiago (he had not been returning my calls), he said that he thought that I would have been able to reschedule. RESCHEDULE?! Two months of work with four organizations: ANAM Santiago, the Ministry of Agriculture, the president of APAO (the Panamanian Asociation of Organic Agriculture), and a man who lives in another community who suffered from agrochemical poisoning and now produces all of his own organic fertilizer and organic grains and produce. I don't think so.

The ANAM guy was not even there that day to stand up for his call. He canceled my seminar because 22 students were going to come in the afternoon from Panama and I had asked for permission for some people from far away to spend the night. I was angry! When I finally caught up with him, he was trying to tell me that he was about to hit the road. I told him that I was too, but that I had taken out the time to talk to him to clarify some things. (That was true. I had to catch a bus for Panama at 9am.)

I told him that if his job is to protect the forest and his biggest problem is people slashing and burning for agriculture, then he needs to give the people alternatives. I was trying to teach them organic agriculture and he canceled the seminar. I am trying to bring a tourism project (new income) to the people and it looks bad if he does not support me in my efforts. It sucks to be talked down to by a woman in a macho culture but I saw no choice but to let him know my feelings. He agreed to support me and communicate better in the future.

Luckily, those of us more removed from the community with light still attended the AWESOME presentations that everyone gave. The people who had promised me they were coming to present that day decided to, "Not let Teri down." So they came and so did some people from my community and the community above mine. I was so proud of them!

Slave to Planning

2008-10-07T09:26:00.000-07:00

I am a planner. It´s the way I was born and living in rural Panama has changed nothing in that respect. I am about to host a two-day organic fertilizers workshop, working with two government agencies on Friday and Saturday (which took 3 hours of WAITING and planning yesterday).

I also jumped up and decided to host World AIDS Day. I have to complete the grant before the end of October and it is just in the vision stage. I need a place to hold it, but at least I have the people to facilitate. I had a great planning meeting with Willymay from the Veraguas Red Cross office yesterday.

Sugar got spayed. She turned sexy last week. The veterinarian told me that she was about to go into heat. A dog walked with us to the chiva for 30 minutes in the dark the other morning and another male dog scratched the ATM door when Sugar and I were inside the same morning.

Things are good but purposely hectic.

Recent Happenings

2008-09-26T10:35:00.000-07:00

I realize that it is the end of September but I have been busy WORKING so I have not really filled in people about what I have been up to.

August I went to a wetland in Bocas del Toro with ANAM (National Environmental Authority), Panamanian and Peace Corps environmental volunteers. San San Pond Sack is a protected area, home to nesting turtles. It was a full moon so we did not see any turtles trying to nest on our night walk (they only come out when it is dark). In the morning I saw one baby turtle (the strongest) emerge from the nest. We excavated the nest and foung one dead turtle and the rest still in eggs, so my friend April and I covered them back up again.

Then in late August, a bunch of volunteers and I put on a big AIDS education fair in Veraguas. We chartered a bus from my town and the town below so people from the ages of 14 to 75 learned about AIDS and how to prevent it.

I joined the Captain Planet Team (based on a once-popular environmental cartoon) with some girlfriends of mine. We went to two sites in the province of Chiriquí to teach kids about conservation.

On the television show, they were multicultural kids with the powers of the elements: Earth, Wind, Water, Fire, Heart. I am "Heart." He was a boy with an accent who could communicate with animals. In Panama, I am "Animal Animada." Krista is Tierra Tremenda, Cassie is Aire Aventurosa, Allie is Fuego Fantástico, and Melanie is Agua Asombrosa.

We will be seeking a publically funded grant (Peace Corps Partnership Grant) to fund our transportation and educational material costs. Usually friends, families, and returned Peace Corps volunteers contribute to these grants.

I lost my best friend in Peace Corps. She was medically separated for a broken arm, so I spent a weekend with her. I would have spent more time with her but I had a kidney infection and had to go to the hospital.

Throughout all these other things, I am working on the tourism project in my site. It´s difficult because the people do not like to try new things. I finally got two co-coordinators in my town so I do not have to do all of the legwork to drag people to trainings.

Last Saturday, we had a fieldtrip to the Santiago open-air market with the Coordinator of Commerce in IMA (Farm Products Marketing Institute).

I am working with the tourism agency, the marketing agency, the environmental agency, and the agricultural agency. I meet with someone everytime I go to Santiago.
The relationship with the agricultural agency is more recent because their office is not in Santiago but we just had a workshop about growing rice in tanks and an upcoming shared workshop on organic fertilizers with the agricultural and environmental agencies on October 10th and 11th.

There was one very poisonous week a few weeks back where four fer de lance poisonous snakes were spotted and tried to enter people´s houses in my village.

(Photo of dead fer de lance (equis) snake near my house, with watch.)

I also helped my next door neighbor kill a HUGE tarantula she almost stepped on (in flip flops) hanging up the wash. The next morning I found a scorpion on my back when I was doing yoga in my kitchen.

My dog, Sugar, and female cat, John, are growing RAPIDLY and I am so in love with them. The cat was really angry when I went out of town and soiled two rooms of the house. But she returned to sharing my bed and chair with me when I returned. The dog is getting barking and growling lessons from the puppy next door and the neighbor dog´s diet and health improves from the neighbors caring for the two dogs.

Now Sugar barks when she sees people walking on the road and when she hears something in the night. She´s too little and docile to do anything about it still, so we just have a sweet slumber party in my room every night.

Look how cute my pets are! I taught a dog and cat to love one another!

Walden Book Review

2008-09-15T16:19:00.000-07:00

Book Review: Walden, or Life in the Woods, by Henry David Thoreau
By PCV Teri

One of the many journals I brought with me to Peace Corps Panama had the following quote written in it: “If you have found yourself building castles in the air your work needs not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them,” Henry David Thoreau—Walden.

Those words came on a card of encouragement from a friend of mine when I was grappling with the difficult decision whether or not to buy an organic farm in northwest Washington. I received it a year before I came to Panama but brought it with me because her letter was one of blanket support for any and all decisions based in my ideals. Thus, I was happy to have it then and I am happy to have it still.

I have always felt a kinship with the “transcendentalists,” such as Thoreau, Emerson, and the Alcotts. American Transcendentalism began in the early 19th Century in New England, United States and touted new ideas in literature, culture, philosophy, and religion to protest against the changing capitalist and industrial society of the time. As I began to read Thoreau´s “Walden” for the first time in my life last year, I reaffirmed my own inclinations when I read his words: a love for nature, a slight rebellion against industrialism and commercialism, and a search for self.

Henry David Thoreau embarked to live on the shores of Walden Pond near Concord, Massachussetts in the 1840s. He lived in a little shack that he constructed himself, ate food he grew himself, and lived alone in the woods for TWO YEARS and TWO MONTHS. If that time span sounds familiar to you—it should. That is just two weeks shy of how long we stay in Peace Corps Panama.

I highly recommend taking the time to read Walden. It is the rainy season in Panama. What better time to do it? Some things that really struck me were how little humanity and human problems have changed in 150 years. He shows how far back the spirit of conservation runs in the United States.

Thoreau also has great advice for volunteers, if nothing else. He lived ALONE. We all feel lonely sometimes but he lived alone through two silent New England winters and lived to tell the tale. He watched ants battle. He grew his own food. He paseared. He befriended impoverished Irish immigrants who came to America to work hard; to buy meat and bread and butter. Thoreau felt the richer man without such luxuries nor an income.

I would love to reprint his conclusion, which is from where the quote about “castles in the air” and another favorite quote of mine originated. But there is a pesky, little thing called “plagiarism,” so I will leave you just one more suggestion from my favorite transcendentalist: “We should come home from far, from adventures, and perils and discoveries every day, with new experience and character.”

Peace Corps Goal #4: Do not forget why YOU joined the Peace Corps.

Unclean

2008-08-29T14:54:00.001-07:00

My mother used to have signs for the dishwasher that said "Clean" and "Unclean", as if it was so filty that it was untouchable. I just about reached that point on Sunday.

The first two things on my To-Do List:
1) Clean out the rat-infested utility room
2) Treat LICE...in hair, clothes, and bedding

The tasks were so daunting that I finished neither until Tuesday. I put my "clean" clothes on the line for several hours to dry and air out. They were full of mold and a couple of them had mouse feces on them. I also sprayed them with pyrithrin (insect repellent for clothing). BUT I did not wash my recently-worn clothing in boiling water until Monday and Tuesday.

I took EVERYTHING out of the utility/junk/storage room. I mopped three or four times--one of which I was scrubbing on my hands and knees. I also found termites eating a wooden box so I committed myself to pull everything out of it (junk never before cleaned) and wash it. The room and shelves, which had held bags of junk, mostly the homeowners´clothing, were both so soiled that they STILL smell like urine.

I left my house in disarray until Wednesday to give everything a chance to air out and to clean each day another time. I cleaned up approximately two pounds of mouse droppings. Disgusting. Then I hand-wahed everthing wooden that had been in the room.

When I finally finished a full day´s cleaning on Sunday I bathed, ate dinner, then had my next-door neighbor, Matilde look for lice eggs in my hair. She found none. My 7 year-old best friend found one.

Tuesday 8 year-old Fula found one louse and one egg.

Wednesday, my adult best friend Rosmery found one louse and one egg.

Ups and Downs with Machismo

2008-08-14T10:06:00.000-07:00

I have begun to joke that I am "too sexy for Panama". It began in my training period that my peers and I began to notice that, "There is Something About Teri." I am a Panaman magnet...on buses, walking, in cities, in the country. Unless I pretend to be asleep (and sometimes even then) I receive more attention from men than I ever have in my life. And this is an EVERY DAY EVENT!

DOWNS

In training, a drunk man was hitting on me and had this weird impression that I could save him in an emergency. If he had been bitten by a snake and the hospital was closed, that I could save him, right? My friend Maggie said, "No! She´s just a normal volunteer like the rest of us." But somehow I continue to invite as much attention as a celebrity walking through Panama.

My 7 year-old best friend, Yair comes over to my house every day. This week he became my informant for the first time. He told me that the teenage boys were calling me, "The doll with the puppy," because I am in love with my puppy and take her everywhere. (Similar to a Hollywood celebrity, I suppose.) This makes the teenage girls angry and he told me they said that I was "Fanatic" about my puppy.

There is road work in my town right now. I would be supportive, but I think that the beginning of the rainy season is a ludicrous time to bring earth movers to a place that gets so much water that spillways are streams housing crabs in the rainy season. The piece of road outside my house is the WORST! The mud is knee-deep and I lost my mud boots on the bus last week. The widening of the road has caused mud slides and boulders to fall on both sides (in front of my neighbor´s house, not mine." There is a 5 foot drop-off from my yard to the road. I cut the bottom of my foot the other day when I decided to spare my sandals and go barefoot when I jumped. It was a bad idea.

I went visiting or "calling," as they said in the olden days, and just wanted to relax in my house when I got back. But who can relax when earth movers and spectators are just outside your house? I decided to weed a little bit, which is literally very grounding for me. Then the jerks started to whistle. I shook my head at first to no response. Then I got mad and yelled. No one from my town stopped them.

I told two male community members that I needed their assistance. That I was a professional, that I was there to help their community and that I needed their help to support me. I talked to some mothers with disrespectful children, too. They said that they would talk to their sons.

*************************************************************

UPS

Yesterday, I met with the boss of my regional Ministry of Agriculture. I had never visited the office before because it is woefully inconvenient. I HAD TO WAIT FOR 5 HOURS, although I thought that we had an appointment, he had apparently forgotten. In that time I was given a fresh coconut with juice, gum, a very important person´s cell phone number, brochures, and coffee by the male employees of that agency as well as the other two agencies that work there.

When we finally met (which took over an hour with so many phone calls), he readily agreed to an organic agriculture seminar and a rice tank seminar and installation, which is what I have been trying to get for my people for awhile. We´ll have guest speakers and lunch for both.

Today, the FEMALE chief of comercialism of farm products and I had a meeting. Her male boss had given her permission to work in my tourism/farmer´s market project. She and I treat the other formally and with respect and are truly working together, which is a nice change.

I called the regional boss of the National Environmental Agency to get his permission (finally) to use the reserve land for the project. He told me he was in the office and would stay there. I arrived there and he had just stepped out, to head for my area actually. I stepped outside and used his newly acquired cell phone number. He came immediately back to the office, approved the project, and left again.

¿ALL´S FAIR IN SEXISM, SEXYNESS, AND WORK?

Work!

2008-08-08T08:29:00.000-07:00

I am the new secretary of GAD (Gender and Development) in Peace Corps Panama. It´s an extra-curricular that deals with gender issues and a lot of reproductive health and AIDS education. The meeting was held in lovely El Valle, Coclé. I came a day early so that I could see the famous tourist craft, food, and plant market there. I ran into high school volunteers from the organization Amigos de las Americas who had spent their summers volunteering in communities in Veraguas and Coclé. I went hiking with them and my friend, Jim, to the top of India Dormida (a mountain) in the morning before the meeting.

I am also really excited because three women from my community told me that they would be interested in sex education! I had them over for coffee and cornbread at my house to teach them how to keep financial records. We will split those up into budget categories next month. Since they were not yet brain dead, we also talked about nutrition, including home remedies for colds.

I had a meeting yesterday with the director of the Veraguas regional director of Turism. They will come and give a brief training August 25th. I also saw people I know from the agencies of environmental protection and agriculture on the street in Santiago. (Some more hob-nobbing.)

I THINK YOU CAN BUY LOVE. My puppy has brought me much happiness but has gotten sick twice already so I am spending my savings to support my new best friend in my community. There is also a black labrador for sale at the vet who possibly loves me more than my own dog. (She seems a lot more loyal.) I am calling her Mia for now, which in Spanish means "mine". She costs $300. If anyone wants to support my habit, please wire money to my account.

New Recipe

2008-08-08T08:27:00.000-07:00

MANGO FISH

3 fish (medium size)
1.5 mangos (eat the other half), sliced
3 medium red peppers, sliced
juice of 2 small lemons
1 medium onion
4 cloves garlic, diced
1 Tbsp. culantro
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 Tbsp. curry
Dash cinnamon
Oil

Optional ingredient: coconut meat or milk

Attempt to fillet and debone the fish. Marinate fish with the mangos, lemon juice, peppers, and onion for 2 hours, if you have the time and a refrigerator. If you live in the campo you can cook it right away and it will still be tasty!
Put a small amount of oil in a frying pan or pot
Add marinated fish, mango, and vegetables. Add culantro, salt and pepper to taste, curry, cinnamon, cayenne.
Cover and simmer until the juices thicken into a delicious sauce.
Add garlic in the last few minutes to have an extra garlic-y flavor. (Thanks, Laura!)
Serve over rice.

I am sure it would taste good with chicken or tofu as well

Hurried Post

2008-07-30T08:15:00.000-07:00

Since my mother worries when she does not read anything from me for over a week, I figured I should let everyone know what I have been up to.

My Peace Corps group 59 celebrated our one year anniversary on Isla Grande, Colon. Getting there was a little tricky. My guide book says to avoid Colon City and that one should be surprised if they are NOT mugged there. Then there was a bus strike. But Peace Corps protected us. The police gave us a ride from the bus station to the police station until all of our group was assembled. Then they chartered a bus for us to La Guaira, the jumping off point for the caribbean island of Isla Grande in Colon.

I visited a volunteer friend in her Colon site. Apparently, she is the first Colon volunteer who wants to extend her service beyond the 2 years in recorded history!

Today I am running around Santiago, visiting government agencies to schmooze and drop off my letters of solicitation. I keep looking at the clock because it is 10:20am and I still need to visit at least one agency, but better to visit three, pick up my dog from the veterinarian and catch my chiva home. Wish me luck!!!

SUGAR´S BETTER

2008-07-15T07:47:00.001-07:00

My puppy Sugar got better! Her middle name is now Milagros (Miracles). We´re going home today. Six days of hospitalization, medicine, and IVs for three days only cost me $80. Nothing compared to the United States, but expensive when I only make $340 a month.

Tourism Project

2008-07-15T07:32:00.000-07:00

I am an accomplished ecotourist and farmer´s market vendor. I live in a pine forest reserve with a beautiful lake stocked with tilapia. There are hills and mountains to climb. My Panamanian townspeople grow subsistence food. They grow coffee. They are barely scraping by.

Rosmery told me she was going to visit me but her baby has a cold, it was raining, and she does not have an umbrella. Mathilde told me that her son Jazan had a scholarship to go on in school but they did not have the money for transportation and the phones for three towns in the distance were not working. So they missed out on that opportunity.

Last year 30 tourists on average came to the Forest Reserve every weekend. Nobody sold them farm products. Nobody sold them fast food to eat. Nobody sold artesanía (handicrafts). They just finished the road this month. It is BEAUTIFUL! It is asphalt painted with yellow and white lines. It was a dirt road last year when all of those tourists came. Just imagine how many are going to come this year.

I had a meeting on Sunday. Only nine people came (it rained at the exact time the meeting was supposed to begin). I talked about tourism, tour guides, farmer´s markets,artesanía. I talked about the money to be made. I also talked about the impending change in government in 2009 and how they need to demand that any government project promised to them is completed before the elections in May. I also talked about the rising global prices of petroleum products (gasoline, agrochemicals) and basic grains. It is time to make an income, produce more food, and to go organic.

I have a year left. I am really excited about the tourist center/farmer´s market and hopefully someone will take me up on the organic agriculture.

Sugar Baby

2008-07-11T14:37:00.000-07:00

Last year during the culture week of training in Veraguas a beautiful dog adopted me for an afternoon and evening following me 45 minutes from one town to another. It was still another four weeks until I moved to my site so I did not keep her. She was called "Canela" (Cinnamon) on our day together.

There was a VERY pregnant dog at Hostal La Qhia where we did our agribusiness seminars who looked similar to "Canela" and was in the same town where I had met her. Although my "leash arm" has been ticking for years (like a woman´s biological clock ticks) I have not felt settled enough to take on the responsibility of a dog.

But here in the middle of Panama in the middle of my Peace Corps service I decided to adopt a pupyy. The fattest one in the litter and the only one that had the caramel coloring of the mother.

Sugar playing with Laura Gregory´s dog, "Lucky"

I picked up my puppy "Sugar" who groans like a baby cooes from the hostal on July 3rd. She spent two nights in Santiago at a friend´s house and I brought her home on Saturday, July 5th, healthy and eating well.

Sunday night she was menaced by five large dogs circling my house and growling like wolves. They consider my house their territory, are possessive of me, and jealous of my attention with Sugar, my 2 month old puppy.

Sugar took ill Monday morning and has not eaten since then. I took her to the vet Wednesday evening and she has had IV drips since then. She finally drank water, won´t eat, vomited water, and had bloody diarrhea yesterday and today. It´s really touch-and-go. I have been babysitting her at the vet (it always is nice to have a loved one take care of you when you´re sick) but have tow meetings this weekend. I´m hoping that she gets better and that I can bring her home on Monday.

Sugar less than a week later. So skinny. Her leg is wrapped to keep it straight so the IV fluids can enter.

Smorgasbord

2008-06-29T19:32:00.000-07:00

Some beautiful things I have seen in the past month...

Ngabe naguas in the Comarca Ngabe-Bugle

Passion and respect for a legend. Hector Gallego began the cooperative movement in Santa Fe, Veraguas and disappeared on June 9, 1971. His actions and intentions live on through others.

A new friend graduating from the Agribusiness Seminar

Orchids

Little girls with puppies

Marinon Curacao Flowers

My garden growing

A banana plant trunk

A deluxe refrigerator with full run of the kitchen

Thunder and Lightning...Frightening

2008-06-26T14:53:00.000-07:00

I live in the mountains which, very often, puts me in the clouds. The rainy season has begun. I am from the East Coast of the United States and have always thought that thunderstorms are beautiful. But here in the mountains of Panama the storm is so close to my house. I tense up after the lightning strike, bracing myself for the earth shaking thunderclap to follow.

Part of the fear is that I actually AM less safe. Lightning regularly strikes around the area. I have a dead tree in my backyard that was struck the year before I arrived. A horse, a hen, and all her chicks recently died standing close to a barbed wire fence in my town. One storm this year already temporarily took out the public phones of my town and the phones of the next two towns up as well.

What if lightning struck my concrete floor? So I put on flip flops with rubber soles. What if it struck my zinc roof?

One day after gardening I jumped into the shower as the rain began. Lightning struck and thunder followed one second behind it. I thought to myself, "Maybe now is not the best time to be in a zinc box on a hill."

Back at Home

2008-06-09T08:39:00.000-07:00

I was worn-out after over a week away from home. So when I got there I did chores and did not venture out the first couple of days. The rainy season has begun so the time is ripe for planting. I stuck a bunch of hibiscus branches in the ground to finish my privacy hedge then a couple of days later a road-work tractor came and put a MOAT in front of my house. How´s that for being a hermit?!

I started working on my garden, too. I have had a BEAUTIFUL fence around nothing since November. My friends Jeff and Foy came to visit and they helped to build it. I cooked. So after my indoor chores were done I macheted all of the grass growing and went to the monte with my neighbors Mathilde and her son Yair to look for horse manure. We scored big! So I made three double-dig beds this week (amended the soil for 18" down with banana trunks, manure, and compost). Some young boys came over to hang out one day when the teacher left at 10am but I told them it was a work day, so they dug one of them.

As I said before, the rainy season has begun so I worked in the morning and then read in the afternoon. I companion-planted my three beds according to a book I lugged here from the U.S. One bed has kale, sunflowers, garlic; another bed has a lettuce medly, mustard greens, and radishes; the third has turnips, cinnamon basil, marigolds, and burgandy beans. I hope everything grows! I covered the beds with banana leaves to protect them from the torrential rains called "aguaceros".

Rosmeri extended friendship to me this week, inviting me over for dinner twice and became a new confidante one night when we chatted late (till 8pm). She is the woman closest in age to me in the community. She is 25 years old and has two children.

Yair, who is 7 years old, follows me like my shadow. I almost hit him with my machete the other day when he practically ran into it. (He did not know I was taking another swing.) But he listens to me when I tell him I want to be alone. He also just wants to help so much! He brought me a bag of ferns. He built me a bridge across my moat. He and Mathilde helped me yank out weeds and plant a groundcover around my fence. I cannot stay annoyed long at all.

I visited Efigenia and Alfonso, friends to all volunteers. Efigenia gives the best hugs! I felt guilty because she counts the days between my visits. It had been 22 days this time. Efigenia has not left the house in over four months because her mother-in-law is very ill. I imagine that she had a stroke several months ago (but did not go to the doctor so we don´t know). She has not walked unassisted for years. They live down the hill and across the creek from our town or 20 minutes uphill on a rough trail from the next town. Efigenia told me that she calls to people, does not always recognize the people in front of her, yells, salomars, sings, and sometimes cries. The worst is the crying, said Efigenia. Efigenia also told me that one time she called my name. She said I walked down the hill (I was not there). If she was in the United States, we would have put her in a care facility. Twenty-four hour care for our elderly is too much to ask. We feel as if we have no choice. For Efigenia and Alfonso, there is no alternative. They would never imagine sending her away from relatives. And what about those moments of lucidity? How sad would it be to miss those?

I saw a work partner, Trinidad, last night and we talked for 20 minutes about work, coffee, my idea for tourism and a farmer´s market next summer. The técnico from the Ministry of Agriculture does not work with me and has placed his next coffee session during a time that I cannot attend. My feelings were a little hurt that 30 people came to his session on coffee pruning and only 7 to mine. Trinidad told me that people do not pay attention in those sessions because there are too many people. Could I come up to the farm and give a session there?

Good thing I ventured out!

Festival de Corpus Christi

2008-05-28T10:20:00.000-07:00

At the end of May I went to the Corpus Christi Festival in Parita, Herrera, Panama. The energy of everything was a little low, maybe from the rain. But the costumes were INCREDIBLE and so my photos are pretty exciting, too. (Sorry, photos are limited to slow internet.)

From www.panamainfo.com :
Parita: This is carnival mask headquarters as hometown of Panama’s most famous mask-maker- Darido Lopez. Visit him and his world-famous folkloric festival masks at his house right on the Carretera Nacional-you’ll see the sign out in front.
I have a mini-mask in my house. I just realized it is from him or his family.

All of the masks were beautiful. They were a lot of animals, good devils, bad devils, and the Spaniards meeting the Indians. Then all of the groups danced. There was a dance competition of the men dressed as women. They played castanets as they danced. It was so pretty.

Corpus Christi from Wikipedia:
Celebration
Corpus Christi is primarily celebrated by the Roman Catholic Church, but it is also included in the calendar of a few Anglican churches, most notably the Church of England. The feast is also celebrated by some Anglo-Catholic parishes. In Roman Catholic parishes that use the Mass of Paul VI, the feast is known as "the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ". In the Church of England it is known as "The Day of Thanksgiving for the Institution of Holy Communion (Corpus Christi)" and has the status of a Festival. It is also celebrated by the Old Catholic Church and by some Western Rite Orthodox Christians, and is commemorated in the liturgical calendars of the more Latinized Eastern Catholic Churches.

In medieval times in many parts of Europe Corpus Christi was a popular time for the performance of mystery plays.

I did not know any of this attending. It seems that Parita, Panama also enjoys pageantry and dance.

Working on the Road

2008-05-23T19:24:00.001-07:00

I have been out of site a lot lately, but working. In fact, I have just had the most satisfying Peace Corps week yet.

Last Saturday I went with several other volunteers to Santa Catalina, Soná, Veraguas known for its great surfing waves and unfortunately Soná is known for the highest HIV infection rate in the province of Veraguas. We did a number of lessons on sexually transmitted infections, HIV transmission, safe and un-safe practices to some of the local women.

We were extremely lucky to have been sponsored by a couple of expat Americans who own a hostal, La Buena Vida. They gave us free lodging and brought most of the women to the talk. They are not just expat hostal owners, but they employ locals and run a artisan class on Saturdays then sell the jewelry and bags in their gift shop, giving 75% of the profits to the designers. I was really impressed!

This week I participated in the second of three agribusiness seminars for a rural producer group that has an impending greenhouse project and grocery store contract. I feel so good. We had seven volunteers working with small groups of participants (I had 2-3, depending on the day)and this week was arguably the most difficult...learning the business end of things.

Growing up in U.S. society, I take for granted that I have learned about saving and accounting from a very young age. It has become second nature. I take a certain pleasure in balancing my checkbook. The people I was working with had never before operated a calculator and never before thought about recording gains and losses.

I seem to end up with the remedial groups, both of the seminars we have had so far. But I kind of like it. I watched Jacobo go from disengaged and discouraged to engaged and empowered over a period of just three days. Egberto got it all along. Alonso was slow but got it and Javier got it but was kind of grouchy.

They loved skits! And the cool part was that through watching them they understood difficult concepts. They also really liked the games we played, which happened to include "Musical Chairs" and "Hot Potato".

We finished up today with a homemade coffee depulper (a $350 savings!) and I went on a tour of their coffee plant. They were preparing their low-grade coffee, which is mixed with 15% corn. Smelled like popcorn.

Home Repairs

2008-05-16T08:32:00.000-07:00

I wrote this seven months ago and the sink has now been fixed three times, replacing parts, and my landlord finally fixed the leaks in the roof this week.

I moved into my house after two years without inhabitants. Even though my landlady cleaned the house and her husband sprayed for termites, there was still a lot of work to be done.

A huge hole in my back wall was covered with a sheet of zinc. They had cement blocks to fill it in, but I wanted the decorative window-style to let a little light into the room. Cinderblock houses tend to be dark and damp. I paid $5 to purchase them.

I was explaining the repairs to my mother, who is an experienced landlady and that it would take time. She said, "Yes, sometimes contractors take a long time." I laughed to myself because there are no contractors in the campo. Rafael, the son-in-law of my landlord would be putting in the blocks with a bag of cement he already had. However, we had to wait for the blocks to come back from the city. The chiva was too full of people the day they were purchased. Waiting time--one week. Then we waited for a clear enough day to put them in. That was about another week. Rafael put in half of them and it poured. So then he put in the other half two days later. I made coffee for him as payment.

I had an enormous leak in the kitchen sink. Rosmeri (the landlord´s daughter) told me that only two people knew how to fix it: Hernán who lives hours away and Roberto who also lives hours away. Hernán coincidentally arrived later that day but was only in town for the afternoon and evening so I did not bother him. Instead, I waited two weeks for Roberto´s arrival. He told me that I needed to replace some parts and was luckily in town for three days. Friday he inspected the sink by flashlight and candle. Saturday I went to the city to buy the parts and confirmed that he would come over at 9am to fix it. I asked the chiva assistant who had a saw to cut the PVC pipe to fit the next morning as well.

At 9am Raúl (the chiva assistant), Chango (my 17 year-old next-door neighbor) and I fixed the sink. Roberto came over at 11am and tightened the joints. Now just the faucet leaks. I need to buy teflon to fix it but at least my bucket finally catches the much smaller leak until he returns.

There are various leaks in the zinc roof but it is raining too much to fix them. I hope I remember where they are when that day comes!

We fumigated before I could clean. Termites leave sandy trails around and through the cinderblocks. There was a sticky fly nest in one room that was constructed from pine resin, I believe. The resin ruined my scrub brush. I packed up the landlord´s things and relegated them to the room with the most leaks and bugs. I later packed them in plastic bags to "mouse proof" them. "My kids," Yair, Karla, Robi, and Grabiel helped me. I selected my bedroom because it was the cleanest and driest in the house.

There is garbage--old clothes and old shoes, batteries, bottles, cans, strewn all over the yard. The garden is in total disrepair. I built a rock wall to replace the busted lumber which once contained it. The kids are helping me to make a chicken wire fence.

Little-by-little, I am making my house my home. It´s clean and decorated. My yard and garden get more beautiful all the time.

Recipes

2008-05-16T07:50:00.000-07:00

I ate really poorly when I first moved into my house. Peanut butter and crackers. Ramen instant noodle soup. I love to cook, but usually for other people or for myself with leftovers. I simply did not know how to cook for myself without a refrigerator. I´ve got it down now. I buy carrots, onions, garlic, and green peppers every week, and keep ginger root on my spice rack. All of these things keep well. It is necessary to keep carrots in the plastic bag so they don´t dry out and the other things in open air so that they are aerated. Plus, my two chickens each lay one egg a day so I have perfected the garlic, onion, pepper two egg omelette. This weeks recipes...

SWEET AND SPICY STIR FRY VEGGIES
2 carrots
1 green pepper
1/3 onion
2 cloves garlic
cinnamon
tumeric
cayenne pepper
salt
1 tbsp. palm oil
1 egg

So I cheated and ate quinoa imported by my mother from the United States, but I cooked 1/2 cup quinoa with cinnamon and a little salt to place my vegetables upon.

Dice all the vegetables. Place in heated frying pan with water and 1 tbsp. oil. Add dash tumeric, 1 tsp. salt, dash cinnamon, and a pinch of cayenne. (I think a dash is more than a pinch, right?)
Cook until the water is reduced, the vegetables have softened, and the carrots have become sweet. I scooted all the veggies to one side and fried an egg over hard on one side of the skillet for some added protein. Plus, it picked up the flavors of the veggies!
Serve over rice/quinoa.
Enjoy

LEMON BASIL COCONUT TILAPIA
My neighbor asked me if I liked the fish from the lake. I answered yes and so she gave me a fish her son had caught the evening before and she had cleaned that morning. I never will learn to clean an animal here!

1 whole tilapia
Juice and some meat of young coconut (but I live in the mountains so I used the canned variety which they sell in the alcohol section of the supermarket. Cook with one half, drink the other half.)
1 small green pepper
1 carrot
1/3 onion
2 cloves garlic
Handful of lemon basil leaves from the garden, diced
1 tbsp. oil
1/2 cup water? Sorry I didn´t measure
1/2 cup rice

Start cooking the rice
Slice the vegetables a little long so you can pretend you´re eating in a Thai restaurant.
Bring water and oil to a simmer in a frying pan or wok
Add vegetables and lemon basil
Cut the fish in half lengthwise to cook better. I threw away the head, don´t tell.
Simmer until the water cooks down
Add coconut milk and more lemon basil
Let it cook down so the carrots release their sweetness and some sauce remains.
Serve over rice and garnish with more lemon basil (it´s growing right outside the kitchen door!)
Bring the little plate that the fish came on back to your neighbor with a little sample of the meal and announce to her that it is low in salt, fat, and sugar. (She was just told by the medical unit that her blood pressure is high.)

Volunteer Visit

2008-05-10T09:40:00.000-07:00

I have been in Panama for 51 weeks now. Thats right, almost one whole year. The new group of trainees is already here and last weekend the 46 of them dispersed through Panama to visit volunteers.

I met up with Juliette in the bus terminal and we rode almost all the way up to my site together. As we rounded the corner to my house I told her she was going to laugh, and she did!

Juliette likes to cook and I like to cook and I bought ingredients that would allow for many things to happen in the kitchen. This is what we ate...

Fresh bread with ripe tomatoes, salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil with red wine.
Oatmeal with vanilla soy milk, honey, raisins, and cinnamon
Tuna noodle salad with mayonnaise, green pepper, onion, and carrot
Kidney beans with cinnamon, a little chocolate, cumin, salt, pepper, bay leaves, with rice and hot sauce
"Thai" coconut lime, hot pepper, a little curry, lemongrass, green pepper, carrot, onion, garlic, and soy protein
Salad from local lettuce, carrot, onion, balsamic vinagrette, and hardboiled eggs from my chickens.
It was a delicious weekend! I love cooking with/for people.

Saturday we went to the PTA meeting and worked in the school garden. Later we paseared and got lots of gossip from house-bound Efigenia. She has been taking care of her mother-in-law for the past four months. Secundinas leg is finally healed and her sister, Cecelia (two grandmothers) fell and cut her leg deep in the exact same way. I was so sad.

Sunday we went for a hike to the two best views in the area.

Rocking it Out

2008-05-10T09:01:00.001-07:00

This is my ENORMOUS house in the campo. It is pink and white and may be the largest house in town. It has four large rooms...an entry room/library, my bedroom, the yoga/hammock room, and the junk room. My kitchen is likewise enormous with a food preparation area and a sitting/eating area. That is where I entertain my guests unless it is a man, then he sits on my front porch while I hover. (Thats the custom, as is serving coffee.)

I did some yard work this week. One thing I am really good at is working with rocks. I finished the rock wall for my front garden. I did not do it the first time because a board was holding everything in place so I left it. The board rotted and it was time to finish up. The problem is that I did such a good job that no one notices it. It just looks normal. So I am sharing it with you.

I redid my shower, too. You may be picturing a new shower curtain, tile, something of that sort. No, I weeded and put in some new ferns. I figured as long as I was working with rocks, I could fix up my shower floor so I no longer stand in a pool of water. I raised up all the "tiles" on smaller rocks and made it smooth and pretty. My shower curtain is improved as well. It has weights in the bottom and is tied in place so the wind does not blow it open for the people walking by in the street or for my neighbors to see me.

Then I finally deconstructed my 2007 calendars and put them on my walls. Nikki McClures paper cuttings from Olympia, Washington and the Lonely Planet calendar. I surrounded my world map with 12 region-specific photo collages taken directly from the calendar. (It was dark when I finished so I did not take a photo.) Its really pretty. My kitchen is a walk-in classroom with maps, rocks, shells, bee hive, seeds, kids art, pictures of animals, and now culture photos as well. I got brochures from the tourism office yesterday and am going to do the same thing with my Panama map. One of my favorite activities is explaining the maps to my people and I think it will be great with art, architecture, nature, and people in photos as well. One time 17 year-old Alexi came over and asked, "What is this?" about the world map. My 34 year-old friend Magalis saw the Panama map and said, "I dont get it," so I pointed to places she knew and traced the Interamericana Highway with my finger. Is this what it feels like to be a social studies teacher? I am very excited for next weeks visits!

Climate Change

2008-04-24T15:22:00.000-07:00

I was sitting with my neighbor in rural Panama last night. He mentioned that a stream that had never dried before is almost dry this year.

A gentleman in a neighboring mountain town told my neighbor that usually it has begun to rain and cool down by this time of year, but not so this year.

I said, "The climate is changing."
He said, "It is because of the slash and burn [farming]. The same farmer who complains still slashes and burns."

I told him, "That's PART of the problem. The problem is worldwide. It is also the cars and the factories. There is less forest in the world every day. They say that the change in temperature is every year rising faster than any other time in the history of the world."

"That's scary," he said.

Earth Day

2008-04-24T14:57:00.001-07:00

I organized an Earth Day event
for the elementary school children of my town and the town below mine. Earth Day falls on April 22nd every year. I talked to the head guy at our local National Environmental Authority (ANAM) office, the two school teachers, and my neighboring volunteer ahead of time. I organized activities and gave each person a role.

Not surprisingly, something went wrong. The ANAM engineer told me he wanted to do the activities on April 23rd because he had to be in the Earth Day parade in the regional capital. I spent April 22nd having final meetings with the school teacher from my neighboring town and my Peace Corps neighbor. I was so excited that after my having mentioned the 3 Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle), the teacher had gone out and researched them. She gave her students the homework to present the themes. Ashley was going to read an ANAM story about reforestation. I was going to present something on soils and I was going to have my town's school teacher lead the children in coloring photocopied pictures of endangered animals.

My school teacher did not show April 21st so I could not confirm her participation. I moved to Plan B...getting the students' parents' permission for the field trip because the teacher did not. I started with the President of the Parent's Association. He was out hunting some wild cat (most likely endangered) and would not be home until midnight. So I left a note. I would get the rest of the permissions the following day.

I was awoken on the morning of Earth Day by 11 year-old Robi calling my name. I dragged myself to the door and he told me, "The Engineer is at the school and wants to talk to you

I threw on some professional clothes and walked to the school. He wanted to celebrate Earth Day right then and there. Of course our teacher did not show up. Nor could we find the President of the Parent's Association.
I gathered up my materials, cranky to not have my coffee, to be rushed, to have the teacher fail the students again, and to not share the event that I ORGANIZED with anyone from my town.

Aside from the initial disappointments, the day was a great success.
The ten children from the school learned about conservation, the forest reserve, the 3Rs, reforestation, and endangered animals.
They colored pretty pictures, picked up garbage from the street,
and got to eat cookies and drink cold Coca Cola.
The Coke soooo delicious after picking up trash in the hot sun.

Then the Engineer went off to fight the forest fire
that had been blazing up the mountain for 24 hours.

11 Months in Panama

2008-04-19T16:22:00.000-07:00

My hens started laying eggs a couple of weeks ago!

Avocados, mangos, and mamón (lychee) are back in season.

Also in season are mariñon,).
the fruit from which the cashew comes. The cashew MUST be roasted in order to eat it, otherwise it is poisonous. Even so, the smoke produced is poisonous and a friend of mine burned off a layer of skin on his hands cracking open the outer shell of the cashew. They are DELICIOUS here and some of them are chewy (soft).

SCAP
Yesterday, I went to the Specialty Coffee Association of Panama´s (SCAP´S) "Best of Panama" yearly competition.

http://www.coffeereview.com/article.cfm?ID=12
http://www.bootcoffee.com/report_panama.pdf.
http://www.scaa.org/news.asp?article_id=76104439

Two Ngobe (indigenous group) coffees were in the competition. Those come from the sites of other Peace Corps coffee volunteers.

Greg, the Coffee Coordinator, and I were not initially welcomed and he was sniffed by a SCAP organizer searching for perfume before our Panama coffee buying supporters showed up and gave us entrance into the judging room.

Coffee cupping in much like wine tasting,
complete with slurps, chewing, and spitting. The judges later scored and described the flavors. My favorite description being, "Hot buttered scone with raisins and currants." The judging and descriptions were all in English.

Greg and I got to taste the experiemental coffees at the end. I tried a geisha (specialty bean) that tasted like honeysuckle. Greg thought the one next to it tasted like Reese´s Pieces.

It was a great educational experience seeing both the ratings and people from the coffee world. It is very different from our world of living with the coffee growers and pickers.

MIDA
I was in a second-hand clothing store the day before and recognized by the Veraguas regional agribusiness organizer of the Ministry of Agriculture. He asked me how my region was to my back before I turned around. We had a talk about the price of rice and chemicals, future projects, the link between agrochemicals and cancer and the environment. I had met him at a market in October when my farmers sold tomatoes there.

He is involved in the upcoming agribusiness seminars I will be helping out with. That was the first time someone from a government agency sought me out!

EMBARRASSING MOMENT
I rode a double-decker bus last night. Somehow I missed the last step and grabbed the bus assistant in a fall-breaking embrace. Greg joked that I wanted to dance.

CLIMATE
Panama is awesome! Yesterday evening I was shivering waiting for a bus in Volcán, Chiriquí and today sweat was dripping off my body waiting for a bus in San Felix, Chiriquí.

Estufa Lorena

2008-04-19T15:32:00.000-07:00

The estufa lorena is an energy-efficient wood-burning stove which uses less wood to cook than the common fire cooking. You create an enclosed box with a chimney which is an improvement over the regular "fogón," which is an open fire on a mud table. One balances a pot on three rocks and both the kitchen and one´s lungs fill with smoke. "Estufa" means "stove" and "lorena" comes from a combination of the words "lodo," which means "mud" and "arena," which means sand. One can create a mixture similar to concrete from materials found in nature. That is one of the beautiful ideas behind the estufa lorena.

Migdalia and her husband Marciano improved their house this summer and I was thrilled when Migdalia told me she wanted a lorena stove so the smoke would no longer enter the house. I invited Matt and Lisa,
a Peace Corps couple that also lives in Veraguas, to my community to help me with the project. We made plans a month in advance because estufa lorenas MUST be built in the dry season to dry.

Long story short. . .the estufa lorena is usually built in one day but my friends and I labored for three days and almost abandoned the project on the second day. I kept laughing at our misfortune over the weekend wondering what more could go wrong. Matt and Lisa suggested that we could use the experience for job interviews when we are asked to describe a situation in which we have faced many difficulties.

SEQUENCE OF EVENTS
Matt and Lisa arrived Thursday afternoon. We went to visit Migdalia, who had bags of earth, sand, and dried cow manure redy for the next day.
Dominga had arranged all of the mothers of the pre-school class to come and help and learn the next day. We were only missing the rectangular wooden form into which we would pack the earth. Vidal´s wife, from the town below, assured me that day Vidal would come to help and bring the form the next day. So I did not buy boards from the sawmill while I was down there. Matt, Lisa, and I talked about going down the hill to get them but it was already getting dark. We enjoyed dinner and conversation instead.

FRIDAY, DAY #1
The women showed up and we sifted all of the materials. Vidal did not. He had gotten work for the day. He sent four sacks of earth up in a car but not the form. Lisa walked 40 minutes to get them, in which time she saw two poisonous snakes--a coral
and a big, aggressive, black Equis snake which chased her. She sent it tumbling down the hill with a well-aimed rock. The form was too heavy to carry. She returned to us two hours later without the form and shaken by the snake encounters.
Dominga, the pastora of one of the two Evangelical churches donated a bench to the project. Matt commented that he felt guilty because he is Irish Catholic. The women left one-by-one. Matt fashioned a form out of the church bench while the remaining women and girls sifted more materials.

I went to my house for purified water (for the gringos to avoid parasites) when the form was finished and work could begin. I returned 20 minutes later to find that the base table had buckled under the force of compressing the materials (smashing and beating, really) and broken. We spent the next two hours scratching our heads to come up with solutions. Repair the table? Build the stove under the table to sit even with the top? We decided to create a new base and to put the stove in another corner of the kitchen.

There were still no sturdy boards in my town so Matt built a chicken wire frame which we were going to fill with rocks and dirt. I am sure many of you have seen that construction on hillsides for erosion control. It was getting dark and the base was getting too wide. We went home basically defeated.

SATURDAY, DAY #2
Lisa discovered a nest of carpenter ants in my kitchen cupboard in the morning. We had to remove everything. I covered my dishes and food with a tarp and sprayed the entire cabinet with insecticide.

Matt, Lisa, and I still struggled with the rock base and chicken wire. Could we get boards from down the hill? Remember what happened yesterday? After a layer or two of rocks was in Migdalia suggested that we dig down to sink the rocks and make it sturdier. The only people working were Matt, Lisa, and myself. No one from the community. We were all frustrated and tired.

I put my rock wall-building skills to work.
I built rock walls for trail projects when I was in EarthCorps www.earthcorps.org in Seattle. There was no wood but Migdalia´s yard was FILLED with rocks. I walked around with big rocks and fitted them together like a jigsaw puzzle. Sweat poured off my brow and people who were not helping would come to watch and to offer suggestions. I grumbled in English.

When the base was the right height we found that the form was too big for the base. Matt began to take apart the frame. I went for a walk/break. (Actually, I petted two dogs.) Matt accidentally broke my hammer as soon as I was gone. They all laughed because the table had broken the day before the moment I walked away.

Matt rebuilt the frame to the minimal size. The ladies (Migdalia, Lisa, and I) rebuilt the back wall of our rock base, widening it. We finished the day placing the finished form on top of the finished rock base.

Matt and Lisa were originally (and throughout frustrating Saturday) planning to leave on Sunday. We were talking about leaving Migdalia and Marciano directions on how to build the estufa lorena. Lisa decided at the last moment that she wanted to see the project through.

That´s when Vidal showed up with the form, 30 hours late! He tried to place his form on top of the base instead of ours. Then he offered suggestions about other things we could have done for the base. Migdalia gave him a hard time for not coming on Friday. It started to rain and I walked home alone to drink a glass of wine. My kitchen still smelled like insecticide.

That night after a relaxing dinner we found ourselves locked out of the house! (The house and kitchen have separate entrances.) I went to my landlords´house for the key but both of them were out of town! The parents could not find the spare keys in the house. I almost fell asleep on the armchair, waiting in the dark.

Six people came back with me to help me break into my house. We talked about where we might sleep otherwise. Luckily, Hernán got us in and a sleepover was unnecessary.

SUNDAY, DAY #3
We started mixing the pre-sifted materials with water and packed them into the form.
Vidal, Migdalia, and Marciano all helped. We finished packing the form around noon. Just three hours of work!
Matt and Lisa found a ride out of town so we carved the holes for the pots, chimney, and firebox and smoothed out all the surfaces and edges for another hour.

I filled all the rock wall gaps with lorena mixture with Migdalia and two kids. The project was beautiful and FINISHED!

Changing My Focus

2008-04-08T08:34:00.000-07:00

The life of a Peace Corps volunteer is probably the most flexible time in a volunteer´s life. Some volunteers live in their communities but do not do a lot of work. Some volunteers live in their communities and do a lot of work. Some volunteers do a lot for Peace Corps as an organization and help out other volunteers but do not spend a lot of time in site.

After months of feeling like I was not working enough in my site, I am thinking of becoming the third type of volunteer. (Although my boss tells me I just need to lower my standards.) Part of my desire to work outside of my community stems from Semana Santa weekend when I was told that everyone hopes I will marry someone from my town and stay there forever. The person who told me this actually has already moved to the regional capital. I have stated many times that I do not know how that is possible as everyone my age is already married with children. My 21 year-old male informant asked, "Why do you have to complicate things?"

This even preceded dates I was already supposed to be away from site: a doctor´s appointment in the city, visiting friends for the weekend, helping make estufa lorenas, and a coffee retreat. I picked up my 50 pound backpack and went on my way. I found myself to be SO SATISFIED in the work I did away from town. I also will be involved in three intensive weeks of training of people from another town in Agribusiness over the next three months. So there is more satisfying work away from town to come.

Don´t get me wrong. I love my community but I feel like I am just living there. When I cut my grass people say, "Working today." So if working for myself is considered work and no one sees me teaching my next door neighbor to read or teaching people to be assertive, I have to appreciate myself. My job as a Peace Corps volunteer is to train people but Panamanians do not view training as work and I am certainly not working every day, which hurts my American view of life.

Making estufa lorenas was so great for me because it was physical work and although men usually see me as tough, the men in my community do not. In Steph´s site though, the men were commenting on how strong I was and that I had big muscles. Those were the best compliments I had received in a long time! Plus, at the end of the day, we had a clay-based stove to show for our efforts.

The coffee retreat was rewarding because we talked about training and put pruning and pulling off suckers of pruned coffee plants into practice. Good, focused work. We also went for a long hike to a waterfall and some old Panamanian man hit on me and kept commenting on how surprised he was that I was able to hike. I much preferred the awe over my muscles making the estufa lorena.

USA versus Panama

2008-04-04T16:52:00.000-07:00

Panama: Boyfriend-girlfriend until the woman gets pregnant then the couple gets common-law married.
USA: A couple dates for years, moves in together, then they marry and have kids (if everything is good).

Panama: People should have babies around the age of 20 because if something bad should happen to the parent around the age of 40, the child is 20 and has been brought up well.
USA: Parents make sure they are in love and financially secure to support children. Then they have babies. For example, my mom was 25 and my dad was 28 when they had their first child. They were 37 and 40 when they had me.

Herrera

2008-03-16T19:13:00.000-07:00

We just had an All Volunteer Conference in Chitre, Herrera. All of the Peace Corps volunteers from all over Panama were congregated in one central location where we could talk about leadership. "Being Leaders, Creating Leaders" was the theme of the conferece. It was awesome. Having all of the volunteers and staff in one location always brings about a sort of synergy that makes me so excited to be in Peace Corps Panama and gives me energy and ideas to bring back to my community.

I learned from an economist that Panama should get ready to set up an export market RIGHT NOW. I also learned a smooth way to bring about sex, HIV and AIDS talks in my community. I hope I do not chicken out.

I preceded the conference by finally visiting my friend, Maggie, in her community in Herrera. She has a typical volunteer house made of wood boards and palm leaves. But she also has zinc sheets for the roof to keep the rain out. The first night we went to a dance. We drank Seco Herrerano (created in that region) and I danced every single dance, having more difficulty getting back to my seat after each dance.

Maggie´s counterpart, the biggest, whitest Panamanian any of us have seen is the best host. Although he worked every day, tending to his cattle, he made sure that we had fun activities to do each day.

We went to the river in the forest reserve. I rode a horse part of the way back. He took us to see a típico violinist.

We pressed sugar cane and drank the juice.

We went on a hike to see an unstudied petroglyph.

Working

2008-03-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed how travelogues are always more vivid than the way we think about and describe our own lives? I think it´s because we do not question impressions the way we question and interpret our own lives. Likewise, we tend to take photos of vacations and hardly ever take photos of what we do, where we live, and where we work. Maybe we do, but just as we are leaving from the place we have been working or living...or when we first arrive.

Therefore, although living and working in Peace Corps Panama is wonderful and exciting (probably even more so for people who live in the suburbs and work in a cubicle), I realize that most of my blogs are describing travels. I also spend a lot of time describing my community. Just so you know, two thirds of Peace Corps is cultural exchange. I learn about them and Panama while they learn about me and the United States.

Some people do wonder what I do for work. Some people in my community do think that my job is to visit them and get disappointed when much time elapses between visits. But we have to do quarterly reports and these wonderful interactions...two thirds of my job...does not even register on my report. So here we go.

I talked to the Parent´s Association of the school about changing the school garden. It has to move in April, anyway, so I suggested that they do a double-dig bed. I described it to my best friend, Magalis and then she supported me when I described it to the rest of the group. They elected to meet on an EXTRA Saturday to do the work.

It was AMAZING. They dug two feet into the earth and removed rocks the size of two basketballs together. Everyone did their "homework" and brought banana plants, horse manure, and leaves to enrich the very poor soil we have there. Everyone worked really hard! Four hours of back-breaking work, taking turns, and getting really into it. Unfortunately, for all of the material that was removed, the bed is too shallow now and I felt so bad to tell them. Maybe I will just have them bring a little more of everything for April´s meeting so they can fill it in.

Magalis, being my biggest supporter, told the extension agent from the Panama government agricultural ministry about the project. I think she also sassily told him that I would be their technical assistance, rather than him. He also wanted a copy of the community analysis I wrote (12 pages long in Spanish) to photocopy. She told him no, because she was afraid of him losing it. He immediately came over to my house to begin to coordinate with me. He would like me to make compost at the middle school two towns away. He would also like me to come to his workshop on coffee pruning at the end of the month. He never mentioned the community analysis to me.

When the extension agent came over to my house, I had actually put the finishing touches on my own lecture about coffee pruning for that Saturday (3.5 weeks before his). I did not make it to his last coffee workshop and had been disappointed by what I had heard. It was half a day instead of two days long and also covered kidney beans instead of just coffee. I figured if I exposed him to my information, it may influence his own workshop. We will see. At least his jealousy has him including me finally in scheduling events.

My coffee pruning lecture went really well. Basically, the people who like me best in my community will always come to my events because they like me. Hopefully, they learn something, too. Seven people came and then afterwards we went to practice on Arcenio´s trees. He is my next door neighbor and his trees were the closest to the school of anyone´s. They appreciated my detailed pictures and descriptions. It will be an interesting comparison to see how the government extension agent covers the same topic. He is providing food, though. I did not.

I received a cryptic message one Friday afternoon to go to the regional capital for a meeting with the National Environment Authority (ANAM). I asked Eliecer, my messenger, when the meeting was and he told me, "It should be Monday," with no assurance whatsoever. I could not reach my contact from that organization over the weekend so I went to check it out two days later. I did, in fact, have a meeting. With three people.

They were really excited about bringing a tourism project to my area. These dry season weekends are filled with lot of national and international tourists enjoying the lake and the pine trees, the fresh air. And the only people making money is the government. ANAM collects the park fees and NO ONE in the communities sells food, crafts, or takes people on guided tours! The idea is to get money to set up a tourist center with a little restaurant, farmer´s market, information center, and rest area. We had another meeting with people from my town and the surrounding areas a week and a half later.

I invited the extension agent to the tourism meeting and a few days later he asked me if I was attending. "Yes, I invited you. Remember?" SASSY!

Everyone was really excited, although some of the problems began to show themselves during the meeting, "I think it´s a good idea if it is just run by one person," said a woman from the community. Good old individualism and mistrust. The ANAM guy said that he was going to set up another meeting the following week to follow up on the things promised and momentum gathered but did not. I am going to start calling them until something happens. I have more experience in tourism and farmer´s markets than I do in organic fertilizers so I would like to steer my project in that direction, if I can.

Questions Answered

2008-03-08T07:11:00.000-08:00

I am corresponding with a 4th grade ESL class in Virginia in the United States through Peace Corps´World Wide Schools program. Many of the children or their parents are from El Salvador.

Teacher--Thank you so much for the card and letters. I was very happy to receiove them. Panama´s schools are on summer break right now but will begin again in mid-March. Maybe I can tyry to get an exchange going between your kids and the kids in my town. What would you think of them writing letters in English and Spanish? What games/sports does everybody play? What language do they speak in their home? What traditions have their parents brought from their culture to the U.S.? (Clearly papusas). What pets do they have? Do they have gardens and what is growing in them? Do their parents drink coffee? Where does their food come from? The U.S. or somewhere else?

Lily--I am 28 years old. How old is your teacher. I was born in Washington, D.C. but grew up in Fairfax County (McLean, Vienna, Fairfax). From what part of Mexico is your mom? I once spent two months in Yucatan, Mexico.

Elizabeth--The mountains are round where I live but there are pointy ones nearby. I live alone but I usually eat dinner with a family I am friends with. I love to eat papusas but no one in Panama eats papusas. They are a Salvadorean food. I just turned 28 a month ago.

Emilio--I like Panama a lot! I have two chickens as pets. They are 2.5 months old and will start to lay eggs when they are 6 months old. I am getting a kitten in March. It is hot in Panama. It is summer right now so it hardly ever rains and the sun is bright. It is hotter in the lowlands than where I live in the mountains. I use a comforter to sleep at night but in the lowlasnds you just sleep with a sheet. I am excited that you learned about cash crops! My farmers grow COFFEE, which is a cash crop. Coffee is the 2nd most traded commodity in the world. The money they get from selling their coffee lasts all year. I would like to visit someday, too but probably not this year. It is very expensive to fly from Panama to the United States.

Catherine--I have two chickens. They are named Goldie and Angel. I have lots of friends. I would like to visit but cannot right now. Maybe in 18 months. What would you think if my mom came to visit the class? She just visited me in Panama and lives in Virginia. She used to teach middle school.

D--I love reading, too! I am reading Walden by Henry David Thoreau right now. Yes, the pine trees in my town are from Handuras (the seeds, anyway). What part of Honduras are you from?

Jennifer--Yes, I have friends (Panamanians) in my community, in the regional capital, other volunteers in Panama, friends in the United States and in other countries as well. I write the ones far away with email. I have 4 brothers and 1 sister. They are all older than I. It does not snow in Panama. It is too warm all year. It never freezes. My favorite color is blue but I like all of them. I read lots of books, mostly novels but some nonfiction, too. I read Charlotte´s Web in Spanish. Parts of Panama are very poor and other parts are very rich. The people in my town only make $4 a day and there is not work every day. People in the city have fancy cars and fancy clothes. I just had my birthday on January 21st. We ate arroz con pollo, potato salad, and cake. Friends played music and we danced típico. I play games-- hide-and-go-seek, pretend, and cards but not all the time because I am an adult. Panama is in Central America like El Salvador but you have to go through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemale to get to El Salvador. I do like to eat papusas but I have only eaten them in El Salvador. Panamanians do not eat papusas. I do not teach in the school and unfortunately the teacher for my town does not either. She missed 70 days of school last year. They are in summer vacation right now (mid-December to mid-March). Hopefully the teacher comes regularly next year. The children were sad to always have their classes caneled. Kids come to my house to draw, to talk to me, or to help me with yard work, but I live alone.

Letter to 4th grade class (Activity Summary)

2008-03-08T06:44:00.000-08:00

Dear Class,

Since I last wrote in November, I have celebrated Christmas, New Year´s, my birthday, Mother´s Day in Panama, and Carnavales. Summer break for students in Panama is from mid-December to March 10th this year. Kids visit relatives in the city and relatives from the city come to visit my town in the country. Every night teenage boys and men in their 20s play baseball on the school grounds. Teenage girls go to watch.

We got a public telephone on February 1st! The old one was struck by lightning five years ago and not replaced until now.

Mother´s Day was celebrated on December 8th with LOTS OF FOOD. I went visiting and everyone seemed to give me a plate of arroz con pollo. Arroz con pollo is a dish with seasoned rice, celery, carrots, and shredded chicken. Each household makes it a little differently.

I did not get into the "Christmas spirit" this year because I always think of lights and decorations. We don´t have electricity here and people do not have money for Christmas decorations. Some of them do not have money for Christmas presents, either. Christmas Eve (Noche Buena) is more important than Christmas day. You stay up until midnight and hug and kiss to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. You eat bread (sweet bread), grapes, and apples. Christmas Day I went to the Catholic Church (because all of my friends here are Catholic). They had a service, then performed music, had dancing, and served food (arroz con pollo and potato salad).

I went to Panama City for New Year´s with other volunteers. I visited the Miraflor Locks of the Panama Canal for the first time. I missed a big party and dance in my town. Yulisa (Ju-lee-sa) celebrated her graduation from secondary school and her 15th birthday(the most important one here).

My birthdaty was January 21st but I shared a party with my friend José who was turning 17, on January 20th. We made arroz con pollo and families came over. Later we had music and dancing until midnight.

I went to Las Tablas in the Azuero Peninsula to celbrate Carnavales (the four days leading up to Ash Wednesday). During the day there were big water trucks with fire hoses to spray (and cool down) the crowd. In the nights there were big floats with two Carnaval queens who compete with one another and their courts. Each night the floats were more beautiful than the night before. There was a float with a band that played music and fireworks every night. A volunteer friend of mine lives in a town with the best poller-maker in Panama. I got to meet her and watch her sew. Polleras are the national dress of Panama. They are beautiful, multi-layered, hand-stitched blouses and skirts that women wear for traditional dances.

I went to an island called Isla Coiba, which is a protected natural area. I saw dolphins, a whale, a ray, coral, colorful fish, green parrots, 17 endangered scarlet macaws, flying fish, and heard howler monkeys. We had an English class for the park rangers there. The day before that we held a Youth Fair to talk to people about health, self-esteem, and computers.

My mom and stepfather came to visit me from the United States. We went to Panama City to see the old city, which was burned by pirates. There was a fire nearby that day which stung my eyes and nose so it was easy to imagine when it burned. We visited a dry tropical forest and went to the zoo. All the animals were from Panama: monkeys, jaguar, turtles, crocodile, macaws, tapirs, an agouti, and the Harpy Eagle, Panama´s national bird.

I also went to Kuna Yala (formerly known as the San Blas Islands). It is a reservation for the Kuna people, who have their own government.

No one but the Kuna is allowed to own Kuna land and for this reason they are able to preserve their culture. They also control their own tourism. The islands have beautiful white sand beaches and coconut palms and calm, turquoise Carribean water. I saw corals and tropical fish there, too! The women wear intricately designed blouses made up of two molas (front and back) and polyester for the collar, sleeves, and bottom. Molas are kind of like quilts and kind of like cut-outs. They can be abstract and geometrical or of animals or of village life scenes. They are very pretty! Women also wear strings of beads wrapped around their wrists and forearms and on their ankles up half of their calfs. Some have gold nose rings and sometimes they paint designs on their faces with a blue dye from the jagua seed. I really liked Kuna Yala. I was there for 3 days.

In my town I have been working with the Parent´s Association in the school garden. We made a HUGE double-dig bed last Saturday. They dug down 2 feet, pulling out big rocks. Then we added leaves, horse manure, and banana trunks to the hole before putting the dirt back. Tomorrow I will be teaching how (and why) to prune coffee trees. We have a lot of OLD trees (60 to 90 years old) that hardly produce any coffee. Pruning gives them new growth to make more coffee.

Site Jealousy

2008-01-31T07:05:00.000-08:00

I just visited two volunteer´s sites close to Panama and I am so jealous! My pine trees are pretty but equally spaced and are only visited by small songbirds. Catie and Steph are two sustainable agriculture volunteers from my group. They have dry tropical forest around their sites. Beautiful, Dr. Seuss style trees and the wildlife to fill them. Tiny primates called mono titis, tropical birds of all sizes and colors, and TOUCANS! The mountains they live near are striking, jutting up out of nowhere and accessible for climbing. They not as large as the mountains I live in but arguably more beautiful. Oh, and the views from their houses are better than my views.

The people were nice and Catie and I tried singing Décima for the first time. It is so hard to come up with rhymes in Spanish but I was so proud of us for trying.

In Steph´s site I attended a lecture and practice on fish tanks. Growing tilapia to eat or to sell. A couple of brothers in my community have fish tanks and it was cool to learn more. But my real reason for attending was to see how a volunteer-led lecture is run. I plan to talk about coffee pruning in my community in March. (You have to prune during the dry season, which is now.)

Steph and Catie both have wooden houses. Catie has a thatch roof. Steph has a zinc roof. Steph has no running water and Catie has limited running water and takes showers at her neighbor´s house. Steph has a bucket shower area next to her house.

I had an appointment in Panama City on Monday so I got a taste of rush hour, and culture shock. We were stuck in traffic for awhile. Then when we got off the bus we had to walk quickly to keep pace with other pedestrians. People were rude on the bus and I felt the anger one feels in cities. Rushed, irritated, and cheated out of a seat. It was shocking. One can experience culture shock in any form at any time. It will be nice to amble slowly through my community again.

Out and About

2008-01-29T08:26:00.000-08:00

I have been out of site a lot lately but it was all work-related. My 25th week in site I worked on my quarterly work report then went to my Veraguas quarterly regional meeting in Playa Banco, Veraguas. It was my first time south of the regional capital. We had a three hour meeting and then a cookout on the beach. American standards such as hot dogs and S'mores. The Panamanian addition is the individually wrapped hot dog. They are packaged all together and each hot dog is individually wrapped within that package. The next day we had a Youth Fair, talking about HIV/AIDS and self esteem in the morning and went to the beach in the afternoon. (Work and Play is very nice.)

After that we moved on to beautiful Isla Coiba. It was once a penal colony and is now a protected area, both the island itself and the waters surrounding it. We took a boat for two hours and then arrived the the island. In exchange for the park fees and lodging, we were to teach the park rangers tourist English. We went around the park all day and taught English in the evening.

SPECIES ROUND-UP: dolphins, turtle, whale, two rays, coral, tropical fish, 17 endangered scarlet macaws, green parrots, the howls of howler monkeys, FLYING FISH

We saw the old jail, hot springs, and an island with coral surrounding it. I just used goggles to see the myriad of coral and other animals feet away from the shore. I did not even need snorkel gear! Even though it was hot out we got into the hot springs. The park rangers at the old jail accompanied us with guns and then served us all young coconuts. You slice open the top with a machete, drink the juice, then chop it in half to eat the young coconut meat.

The park rangers were all really excited for the English class. They learned a lot and practiced after the class as well. What a satisfying day!

I came home to my little pueblo for my birthday. I shared the party with Jose, turning 17 and had it at his house. In the morning I chopped vegetables and shredded chicken for arroz con pollo. Men started to come over to drink chicha fuerte (a fermented corn beverage) with Alfonso, Jose's uncle at 1pm. I went home to rest and when I came back at 4pm the men were drunk, singing and/or passed out. When the families started to arrive for my birthday, we all cowered in the house and I was embarrassed.

Everyone cleared out around 6pm and Mari and I were alone in the dark in the house. And some drunk men were outside singing. What a disappointment, right? Then all of a sudden a bunch of people came back or came for the first time with instruments. The band set up with the accordian, drums, and guaracha (percussion scratching instrument), and Chebo grabbed my hand to dance. I did not stop dancing until midnight! I had a great birthday!

Last week (week 26) I brought my friend Magalis to a Project Management and Leadership conference. It was my favorite Peace Corps training yet and I was so proud of her! She started out insecure and nervous and by the end was the confident, capable woman I know her to be. We learned about goal-setting, letter-writing, working with agencies, and using a planner. She went to the ocean for the first time and although she once told me she was afraid of it, she got in up to her thighs and collected shells. She busted out in song during the talent show as well. It was such an empowering week. I cannot wait to see how she employs all she learned.

News From the Isthmus

2008-01-15T07:33:00.000-08:00

It´s summer. that means hot days, cold nights, and lots of wind. My clothes can dry perfectly in aq day on the clothesline. My pifá tree blew its top off. It almost broke the shower. Luckily, it just knocked the curtain bar down. Chango removed the prickly palm for me and nailed the bar back into place. Leaves and dirt blow into the house.

I finally visited the Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal! It was New Year´s Eve, which was coincidentally, the 8 year anniversary of the Canal changing hands from United States to Panama´s control. No one seemed to note that it was the anniversary. I watched a boat go through but it honestly was not significantly more exciting than the Ballard Locks in Seattle.

The avocado trees are flowering

The "baby chicks" are 1.5 months old, all feathered out, and fat. They eat a lot and inevitably knock over their food and water every day.

I think I have finally eaten the true yam. It´s called ñame down here. It is white-fleshed instead of yellow-fleshed like the so-called "yams" (actually sweet potatoes) that we eat in the United States. I´ve been told it can grow to the size of a toddler.

There were carpenter ants living in my kitchen cupboard and protecting larvae they had laid beneath my plates. I used an instant kill spray and ants tried to carry the larvae away but staggered and fell to the floor instead. I ate at my neighbor´s house, then cleaned every dish and surface in my kitchen over the next two days. The cabinets are now well-organized and sweet-smelling from the eucalyptus branches I placed inside.

I discovered and killed the first scorpion in my house. It was three inches long. One blow from my machete chopped its head off and both parts moved for 30 seconds afterward. (Clearly I am no longer living in peace with the animals in my house.)

A bat flew around my bedroom two nights this past week. I was already sleeping poorly from the wind blowing all night. Then it tried to dive-bomb my head. Luckily, I sleep with a mosquito net because it was just two inches away! I tried to hit it with my pillow but it was already gone.

People in town tell me my poor sleep is due to the witches. And just so you know, bats have nothing to do with witches. I put my pajamas on backwards and hung scissors on my wall to prevent the witches from bothering me. (Anything to sleep better.) I slept well that night but not the next. I figured out jamming socks in my window to keep my curtains in place worked much better so the wind didn´t bother me and no bat could enter.

My next-door neighbor had an ovarian cyst removed but while they were operating they discovered she was pregnant WITH TWINS and one of the twins died.

DID YOU KNOW...?

We have fireflies year-round

I wash my clothes and bedding by hand in my kitchen sink, presoaked in a bucket of soapy water.

I "mow my lawn" with a machete. My 7 year-old friend comes over to help me.

"Tu Tienes la Palabra" (You Have the Word)

2008-01-14T11:17:00.000-08:00

I could hardly sleep the night of January 3rd. It was like the night before Christmas. What gift would Panama´s President Martín Torrijos give to my town? I awoke at 12:30am for an hour and then got ready for the day at 4am. Five trucks full of people brought the residents of my town to the county seat: Eliecer´s land cruiser, Maestro Alvaro´s jeep, Cololo´s chiva, and two government pick-up trucks.

The park in the middle of the County Seat was filled with campesinos (country folk) in all different outfits. Most dressed up for the occasion and many with their typical straw hats. They had come from the 12 voting precincts of the district to ask the president for what they needed. Thanks to the profits from the Panama Cananl the president had $200,000 to give to each area.

The requests were seemingly simple, and to us, necessary. But these people have gone without for so long. Light, a road, potable water, an acueduct, a new school because the old one is falling down. My town wanted a road. Juan Demostenes, skinny, not working, is an expert in ASKING FOR THINGS. He took the microphone and illustrated our need by describing how infirmed people and mothers going into labor are carried out in hammocks because cars cannot reach our town (most of the year). Our area´s money, together with the money of the precinct above ours will bring the road right on through our town.

I hold fast to my prediction that we will see the road before light comes to my town. The posts have been there since before I got there six months ago and there is still no light in my town.

Christmas in the Campo

2007-12-27T15:38:00.000-08:00

I had an amazing Christmas! My work partner Alfonso invited me to Christmas at his house back in early November and I accepted. He has six daughters ranging in age from 32 to 15. None of them live with their parents full time, but all of them made it home for Christmas. Efigenia (Alfonso´s wife) told me her daughters said I was like another sister!

I have a family in Santiago (the regional capital) now. I spent the night of the 23rd at their house. Although I have only known Lorena´s sister for a couple of weeks, she gave me a Christmas present! A nail polish set. Lorena gave me a halter top. She´s getting me to dress more in the sexy Panamanian style.

Christmas Eve is one of the drinking holidays in town. Independence Day (November 3rd), Mother´s Day (December 8th), and New Year´s Eve are the other ones. Alfonso invited me to Christmas on Independence Day and said we were going to have ham and champagne. I accepted. Drunk Alfonso said that he wanted to buy real champagne but it costs $150 a bottle. We had sparkling white wine. Being in the secure environment of a family drinking, I indulged. I drank "champagne" and Seco Herrano. We ate a small dinner around 7pm. Some of the girls went to church. Then we had the ham and champagne at 10pm. At midnight we all hugged, wishing one another a "Feliz Navidad". They included me, giving thanks in their Christmas prayer. Maritza said, "Thank you that all of the family could be together and that Theresa could be here, too." Then they gave me a present. My heart just MELTS with how wonderful people are to me.

Our dinner was all finger food. Little slices of ham, which I sliced. Sweet bread. Grapes and apples. They represent prosperity. I felt like a part of their family. Maritza, Doriela, Ariel, and Nanci walked me home at 3am.

Witchcraft

2007-12-24T08:24:00.000-08:00

In addition to being exceedingly religious and active in the churches in my town, most firmly believe in withcraft and the evil eye. It´s absolutely fascinating to me, especially as I learn more about the beliefs and practices.

My first introduction came when Magalis was feeling depressed. I had been out of town and when I came back she told me that she had been weepy, an old flame had been pursuing her, and that she sought the help of Aurelio and Ilaria to help her. They know something of witchcraft and told her that she had been bewitched. She had to do some hocus-pocus to rid herself of the negativity but I never learned what it was. She was torn because she does not love her husband very much and the spell was supposed to bring him back from the city to spend more time in our town.

I felt a little faint one day in November after dancing with little girls in the school in the morning. Magalis asked me, "Did they laugh at you? Were they staring at you?" I told her that we were just having fun. People were dancing and drumming. She said it sounded like the "ojía," which in English equates to the Evil Eye. Her father confirmed the diagnosis. She told me to lick my left palm first thing in the morning and if it was bitter, it meant that I had been cursed and would have to go to the curandera (witch doctor).

Magalis´brother-in-law came to town and she tried to pretend she was not at home. He was single-minded in his visit. He came to cast a spell to make Dadi, twenty-eight, cute, and unmarried, fall in love with him.

Living alone makes me one of the biggest oddities in the community, in addition to being a native English speaker, white, and from the United States. After the usual questions of if I am cold or scared at night, Ramón asked me if the witches bothered me. I told them they did not. Luckily, I already know how to combat them. I only need to place a piece of a spiky plant in my window. Then they cannot get in. It is called CALABAZO. It is also a signal for the evil eye. It dies if someone tries to curse you. That is what an elderly woman named Santos told me. Her plant came all the way from the Darién.

I love Santos. She always greets me with a huge hug and before she even knew me well, she would tell me if I ever needed a miracle, just to ask her. Her name comes from the fact that people truly believe that she can perform miracles. With people supposedly sneaking around the cemetary, casting spells, and casting the evil eye, I am lucky to have Santos on my side.

Panama Musings

2007-12-16T08:10:00.000-08:00

SUBURBS are coming! Outside of Panama City and outside of Santiago, the regional capital of Veraguas have tract housing. Paying for a house for 20 years is a new concept here and commented on. Whatever happened to having land and building a house as you had money, they wonder? They look like nice houses but so many buildings all the same generally makes me feel uncomfortable.

CHRISTMAS as I know it is a commercial holiday. I do not feel in the Christmas spirit. Know why? I have not decorated a tree or the outside of my house. I have not bought and wrapped gifts. I do not hear Christmas carols on the radio (I don´t have one). I do not have an advent calendar. Christ is still in Christmas in my community. They do not have money to decorate or to buy many gifts. The Catholics will begin a novena, nine nights of song and worship, tonight. I got really excited when I left town and saw Christmas lights and heard Christmas carols on the radio. Less excited to see gift wrappers and Christmas decorations in the store.

TIME. Even the way Panamanians express time is different than anything I learned in Spanish class. When they say "ahora," which means "now" in any Spanish-English dictionary, they are actually saying "later". If you want to say "now," it sounds like a stutter, "Ahora mit-mismo." That´s "right now," but I don´t know what "mit" is, I just say it.
The dictionary word for "still," as in, "Are you still going to Santiago?" is "todavía." But in my town people say, "siempre," which means "forever."
Some elderly people have no idea how old they are and thus have no idea what year things occurred.
Sometimes people are really prompt and sometimes they come an hour or so late or not at all.

PICK-UP LINES. "Do you want to marry me? We´ll have two children. A boy and a girl."
"Are you going to bring me to the United States or stay here with me?"
Then of course the ubiquitous whistles and hisses.

Community Presentation

2007-12-16T07:47:00.000-08:00

I finally had my meeting with my town and my boss, the director of Sustainable Agriculture Systems in Peace Corps Panama. It went really well. Thirty-three people came to my meeting, as a result of me visiting all of the houses and personally inviting them. They helped present the material and some conciousness was raised about environmental and economical issues. My boss finally explained my role in the community to the group. Fernando, Magalis´father, a farmer who likes me a lot, but who has never worked with me, admitted to my boss that he had no idea what I was doing there because he never attended the meetings where the town requested a volunteer.

Guess who was not there? The Evangelicals. They were the ones who signed up to be my community guides and host family and never did anything to help me assimilate to my town. In fact, I am generally uncomfortable around them. They had another engagement, bible-thumping in another town. I had long conversations with three of the most prominent people in their church and they told me they would try to come. In the end, I saw them driving away from town in the morning, without saying a word to me. That´s okay, hardly any of them are farmers, and they go to church four times a week at least. There is really no time to work together.

I was reminded of my time as a door-to-door canvasser as I visited all of the houses in my community. That is the worst job I ever had and unfortunately it will never leave me. As a canvasser, you are taught to minimize your time with people. One should only spend as much time with someone as necessary to ask for a monetary contribution. At night I would dream about going to more doors past 9pm (quitting time) in order to reach quota.

Rural Panama is not Seattle, Washington. EVERYONE invites you to sit. You talk about everything, usually former volunteers and the weather, before getting to the point you want to ask. It is considered very rude to not spend this time in conversation. Sometimes I come away with gifts. Natividad gave me 12 oranges and two coconuts when I visited her. People give me bananas as well. They know not to offer me cofee anymore because I cannot drink untreated water. If I was in Seattle, it would probably take two to three hours to visit all of the houses and invite everyone to the meeting. I spent two days visiting the people in my town and I still did not visit all the houses. I did not visit any of the three houses across the creek, for example. They already knew about the meeting and came. :)

The Black Hole

2007-12-10T07:17:00.000-08:00

I was supposed to have my community meeting with the director of the sustainable agriculture program and all of my town last Wednesday but she could not come due to the weather. It did not surprise me, only one half of all planned visits to my site have come to fruition. There is no communication. No cell phone signal. The public telephone was struck by lightning in 2003 and has never been repaired. The public phone in the town below is currently broken as well. There is no phone in the town above mine. My boss put a message on the radio and two people from my town came to my house to tell me that the meeting was canceled.

I came to the city today to call my boss to reschedule. The transportation is more expensive but I am available all day by cell phone and can use the internet as well. Last Wednesday I got a ride to the town an hour away driving and planned to walk back, cursing myself for choosing to do so. The Conservation agency from the town below showed up to make a phone call as well so I got a ride most of the way home and got back before dark (and in time for dinner).

I slept in the town below last night at the house of my Peace Corps neighbor, Ashley. There is electricity, a store with refrigeration, and the chivas (transport) arrive right there. I walked up the road to meet the cars and entered into darkness. It is such a visible difference and cultural as well. Each town closer to the city is more developed yet less neighborly. People in my town always invite you to sit and offer you something to eat or drink. Not so in Ashley´s town. The youth in the town with the currently functioning phone get involved in drugs and drinking. Luckily, my youth are still mostly good.

Yesterday morning I woke up and wanted to go walking. I had never felt such an urgency to walk before. It was partly due to an overabundance of food for Día de las Madres (Mother´s Day) the day before and a very strong need to walk away from small town politics and gossip. I had my first drink and a good talk in town on Mother´s Day with a townsman who has emigrated to Panama City to work. His entire family still lives in town. It´s such a shame that the most motivated and intelligent people emigrate. Is there a choice? Would the town have a chance to develop without outside help if they stayed? Who knows? I have the best conversations with these men who live and work away from my town. Just that small removal from the area makes them so world-wise. They can look at the town completely objectively. They definitely miss it, though.

I walked to the next town up the hill. One man, Rogelio, whom I met the day I moved to my town four months ago, immediately asked if there was some way I could teach English to his people, so forgotten by all development programs. They have the same transportation and phone I do. They must walk an hour and a half farther to reach it. Their soils are really poor. They can only grow yuca, beans, and citrus trees. That is basically a balanced diet but culturally they are dependent on rice and corn. Maybe I can do some work up there with time. There is no way to sell the abundant citrus because the roads are so bad and the transportation costs more than they would make in profit.

I had a really refreshing conversation with a young man who is unfortunately caught in limbo there. He´s a subsistence farmer. We talked about history and government. He noted that the United States often involves itself with matters of other countries and commented that a lot of the people who have turned into U.S. enemies were actually educated in the United States. He is really smart and wanted to go to school to be a mechanic (a well-paying job) but had to drop out of colegio because the transportation was too expensive. He is only short one year of education.

It was probably the first conversation I have had in my area that did not begin with talk of former volunteers, questions of what will happen after the two years, or what I can do for him. It was a real conversation. Plus, the walk there and back were absolutely gorgeous. I felt much better afterward.