Aaron in Panama

holy shit, a blog update

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 12:48:00 -0400

Shamefully copy&pasted from a comment I made on Aleah’s blog:

After a year of talking with the older generation of my community, I’ve gotten a sense of how much has been lost on the space of a generation. People here are becoming less and less in touch with their traditional dress, music, storytelling, woodcraft, everything. There’s a handful of folks who still play the old tamborito and sing in the coro, only the abuelas really know which plants are medicinal, there’s only one trapiche in town that still works. Nobody has juntas anymore. The kids (at the risk of sounding like a grandpa) really don’t give a damn about their history, their culture, their heritage; they’re hypnotized by television and cell phones and the rest of the flashy garbage that comes along with modernity. The things I love most about this place are the things that are disappearing the fastest as global capitalism extends its reach even to this tiny mountain community.

The road getting cut fifteen years ago was like pulling the plug out of the cultural bathtub of La Pedregoza– too much has swirled down the mountain and out of memory. I’m lucky to be here while much of it still exists. I don’t know what the future will bring.

…And on a less melancholy note: I’m gonna start transcribing my more interesting journal entries from the past year and putting them up on my blog as the weeks go by. I dunno if anyone is still following this thing after eight months of inactivity, but watch this space.

Photos!

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 11:05:37 -0400

Hey everyone, I’m really sorry that I’ve been so lazy about updating this thing, but things have been super-busy. It was a lot easier when I had a laptop, but that thing is deader than hell nowadays. When I come down to internetland I’m usually more interested in catching up on the news and watching ZANY YOUTUBES than writing a blog post.

I know. Mea culpa. Once momma and poppa come down wth the laptop this summer I’ll be better.

Anyhow, I know lots of you guys want pictures, so I decided to share this:

http://picasaweb.google.com/panamacalendar2010

None of my pictures are up there, but there are some waaaay better photographers than me down here, and this album gives an awesome look at the huge amount of diversity here in Panama.

I love you all,

-Aaron

SHAMELESS COPY-AND-PASTE MONEY PLUG

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 09:47:32 -0500

HEY THERE SEND MONEY THANKS

One of the goals of volunteers in Peace Corps Panama is to promote youth and gender development. These activities have included youth groups such as Muchachas Guías (Girl Scouts), Panama Verde (an environmental conservation club) and other initiatives such as Junior Achievement in the schools. Other than youth groups, our volunteers’ gender development initiative includes working with women’s groups giving them seminars on anything from sexual education to how to run an effective business. Work with men includes (but not limited to) seminars on alcoholism and prevention.

For the past couple of years volunteers have organized a nationwide GAD (Gender and Development) Youth Conference where 50 youth from all throughout Panama are invited to attend a 3-day conference. At the conference Peace Corps volunteers in conjunction with a Panamanian agency, in this case APLAFA (an agency that works with sexual health and family planning), to facilitate sessions on self esteem, self image, leadership, goals and values, and HIV/AIDS awareness. The conference is set to take place on February 17, 2010.

As volunteers we have already met 30% of our budget thanks to a generous donation from the Panamanian Lion’s Club but we need your support to help get us the rest of the way to our goal. After the donation we received, we still are short near $5,700. This amount covers transportation, all meals, and materials needed for the conference. For many of the participants this is the first time they will leave the comfort of their communities and be exposed to not only other Panamanian cultures but also learn valuable life skills. Based on previous conferences the experience is valuable and life changing.

Many of us volunteers are working together to contact our friends and family who want to donate to. As the conference is quickly approaching, please donate soon. Help us to make the 2010 GAD conference a reality for these 50 Panamanian children! You can review more details about this proposal and make a donation at:

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=525-132

(If unable to view hyperlink, visit www.peacecorps.gov click on Donate Now and search by project number 525-132)

Mini-Update: International goodwill mission

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 10:28:05 -0500

A (very) drunken member of my community waves me down as I am walking up the road, shakes my hand for an awkwardly long time, and says:

“Aaron! Listen to me! I. Love. America. I love it. I have, in my (belch, stagger) r-room, an American flag. (sway, giggle) Next to the Panamanian flag.”

He pauses to shake my hand again. He then pulls out his wallet, yanks out a dollar bill (Panama uses US dollars for their money), unsteadily thrusts it in my face, and continues:

“Look. American Dollars. If yooooou don’t have dollars, you don’t have money. No money. Money.”

He then puts his hand on my shoulder. Thinking better of it, he shakes my hand again. He returns his hand to my shoulder, and leans in as if he is about to tell me a secret:

“Lisssen. We’re friends. (stagger) Me an’ you. Panama an’ America. Best (sway) friends. The best! If Panama can’t do something, America will come and help us.”

He stumbles a bit, and steps back. I excuse myself, I have a meeting to get to. He shakes my hand. I wave. He waves. I start to walk back up the hill. He calls after me:

“Aaron! America! America has the most advanced technology in the world!”

Trip to Cerro Escobal! My host dad killed a wild pig!

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:10:10 -0500

View from the top.

Damien, my host dad.

A Sáino, a protected species. Delicious.

Nom Nom.

Damien cutting bellota leaves, for Hats.

Trip to Cerro Escobal! My host dad killed a wild pig!

Hey! A blog post!

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 10:29:17 -0500

Howdy! Not much has gone down in the way of hot news since my last update.

I’m a little over a month in-site, so I changed host families last week. I’m staying on the other side of town, which means new neighbors, new views, and, best of all, cell phone reception! No more 25-minute walks to make a call. My host family is nice enough, but I was spoiled by how awesome my last family’s kids were— this new batch is a little higher on the annoying three-year-old scale. My host dad makes his living as a tenant farmer on an absentee landlord’s land (not voicing my opinions on that situation is really hard), and supplements what he grows by processing and selling the fibers that Panama hats are made from.

Thanksgiving was kind of a wash, four out of the seven of us (I was one) who met up in Panama City came down with some kind of stomach bug. We were just too busy shitting to find the time to go out to a restaurant, so we got exotic foreign snacks like triscuits and peanut butter from a gringo grocery and spent Thanksgiving in our hotel room watching cable TV and using the bathroom. Poop aside, it was really nice to see other folks from my group a month after we swore in and to have such a long phone conversation with the fam. I had a good time even if my bowels didn’t.

Last week, Kathryn (the volunteer next door) and I, along with one of her community guides and a few members of the Pedregoza water committee went waaay up in the mountains to look at the springbox that supplies water to a small, isolated group of houses up there. The family clan that we were visiting had come into some free materials and, knowing that us Pedregozeños had the know-how, asked us for help renovating their water system. Sometime this month we’ll go back and actually start building them a new springbox. Real live Peace Corps work in less than two months!

Other than that, it’s been more of the same: lots of rice harvesting, paseando to different houses in town, sweating, picking oranges (December is orange season), talking about the weather, and getting settled in town. I’m gonna start doing my community analysis this month with a town census and a general health survey. Wowee!

Kwestion Korner

Do you have any burning questions about the Panama, Panamanian culture, my work, the Peace Corps, La Pedregoza, Spanish, or whatever? If you’re reading this on Facebook, post a comment and I’ll answer you there. If you haven’t been swallowed up by the social networking hivemind, send me an electronic mail at tabletopgandhi at g mail dot com, and I’ll post the questions and my answers HERE ON THIS VERY BLOG. DON’T DELAY!

Two Weeks.

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:13:00 -0500

Two weeks in, and I’m already starting to settle in and get used to life here in the campo. My host family for the first month is wonderful: A great couple and five awesome kids. The home that they’ve been generous enough to share with me is simple, but cozy. It’s a four room cinderblock house with a dirt floor and a barra(adobe/cob) kitchen with a thatched roof just down the hill. There’s no electricity, the water comes from a springbox about 50 meters from the house (we’re too far from the center of town to be able to use the aqueduct), and an overfilled outhouse in the way of services. I couldn’t care less about the lack of creature comforts, I feel totally at home, way more than I ever did in that horribly empty one-bedroom I was living in this time last year.

I think that proyecto amistad is going really well. I’ve worked with folks in the community every single day that wasn’t a Sunday or a holiday, when I took some much-neededrest. I’ve cleared a half-acre of brush with three other guys using nothing but machetes, planted corn, hauled sack after sack of sand on my back for a half-mile in order to make cinderblocks, mixed mortar and laid block for what will be my bathroom, walked up the mountain to harvest corn and eat oranges right off the tree, and dragged about 80 pounds of palm fronds down the mountain with nothing but my back and a bark strap around my forehead in order to thatch a roof. It’s exhausting work, and the people around here shrug it off como si nada. The men and women here are strong as fuck, and I’m well on my way to being in the best shape of my life. It’s pretty damn humbling working with people who have been doing this stuff for their entire lives, and I know it must be pretty hilarious to have this grown-ass man of a gringo come in and be completely unable to complete basic tasks that a six-year-old should be able to do.

My community is a truly beautiful place (no pictures yet, I’ll drop a photo dump sometime this month). We’re way on up in the mountains, with a commanding view of the lowlands down to the south. On a clear day, I can see the Pacific from the center of town. On Cerro Escobal, the mountain from which the people make their living, they grow bananas, mangoes, guava, plantain, sugarcane, cassava, rice, corn, passionfruit, ginger, taro, oranges galore, two different kinds of mandarins, limes, cashews, breadfruit, peppers, squash, and so on. I’m not gonna be going hungry here.

How am I feeling? It’s a rollercoaster. I love the town, love the people living in it, love the fact that I’ll be spening the next two years of my life here, working. I miss my training group but some of us will be getting together for thanksgiving, and I’m lucky enough to have a fellow volunteer from my group working less than a half-hour from me, so that isn’t too bad.

Homesickness comes and goes. One thing I’ve realized over the past week is just how magical the summer really was— it was probably one of the happiest times of my life so far, and I miss that feeling. I miss the music, the festivals, the wonderful new friends and the sense of finally coming into my own on the bass. I miss working with Clara at boxerwood, living with Nate and the guys in fartburg, grubbing in the garden with mom and dad, visiting Ben in Chicago with Melissa and Andrew. It was a sweet, fleeting couple of months. All of these amazing memories are so fresh in my mind, but here I am, thousands of miles away.

I’m excited, happy, lonely. I’m ready to work. I’m ready to see where the next two years take me.

Sometimes I play the banjo down here.

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:51:46 -0400

Sometimes I play the banjo down here.

“Long Live the Working Class” Word.

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:05:58 -0400

“Long Live the Working Class”

Word.

Culture Week: Coffee Adventure! All of these were taken in the...

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:04:34 -0400

Coffee beans are harvested in November;

...and then they're dried,

...usually in special houses

...and then the husks are removed.

Most big producers use machines.

Then the beans are roasted!

This smelled really, really good.

They burn the beans on purpose. I dunno.

...call it "french roast."

Finished product.

Culture Week: Coffee Adventure! All of these were taken in the processing barn of a local coffee cooperative. All of the coffee is sold regionally.

Panama City, Part II

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 12:47:58 -0400

Abandoned building in Panama Viejo

Isn't it?

Rastas

!!!!!!!

Tom, Bremen, Melissa, Catherine, Molly

Panama City, Part II

Long-delayed photo dump: Panama City, part I

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 11:57:06 -0400

Avenida Bilboa

More Avenida Bilboa

Skyline

Panama Viejo, the original colonial city

More Panama Viejo

Even more Panama Viejo

Some sort of Historical thing

Long-delayed photo dump: Panama City, part I

Tech Week

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:23:44 -0400

Tech week went really well, we busted our asses in the rain and sun for a week and got a lot done. It was interesting seeing how my fellow group members acted when we were doing hard physical labor; it really made me appreciate the work ethic my folks instilled in me me! Our group is made up of a lot of type-A leader personalities and when you need to get a project done that really makes for a slow worksite. Still, the group eventually fell into stride and we got out stuff together in time to finish.

In a week, we built two pit latrines, two composting latrines, and four household rainwater catchment systems. We also learned how to survey aqueduct lines and got a basic introduction into aqueduct theory. It was a ton to absorb in such a short period of time, but I’m starting to feel a lot more confident in my abilities to actually do real work out in the campo when the time comes.

After we finished up Tech Week, we got a free day and night. We all met up at a hostel on the Pacific not far from the training community, where much libation and merriment ensued. The beach was absolutely amazing— long, gently sloping sand that went out for at least a hundred meters before it got too deep to stand, even sets of perfectly-spaced breakers that were just the right size for surfing/boogieboarding/bodysurfing but not too big to make swimming too tough, and the water was just the right temperature. It was a great chance to relax and blow off steam after a long week.

For the next two weeks, I’ll be back in Santa Clara doing more training stuff.

Updatecito

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 18:06:19 -0400

Right now things are going really well, just finished Culture Week, spent time in a midsized town in Coclé getting a better feel for what the land and people are like here in the central mountains. It really was wonderful, the folks here are truly wise and kind people. Now we’re off to the Comarca Ngobe-Bugle for Tech Week, a hardcore introduction to what it really means to be an Environmental Health volunteer. A few things on the schedule: aqueduct theory, design and construction; composting latrine theory,design and construction; hands-on sessions for both; Health and water committee facilitation;and so on. Fun stuff!

I just got my site assignment! Wow! Dang! Gadzooks!

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:40:00 -0400

Today we all piled onto a bus to La Chorerra, the nearest medium-sized city to our training community. After a few hours of barely-paid-attention-to meetings, all of us poor little tense/excited/readytoexplode trainees finally learned where we’ll be spending the next two years of our lives.

I’m going to Coclé, the same province I visited two weeks ago. My community is called La Pedregoza, a small farming and artisanal town at the feet of the mountain backbone of Panamá. My site assignment form says it best:

Welcome back to Coclé, Aaron! La Pedregoza is a community of 234 Spanish-speaking Panamanians located north of the provincial capital of Penonomé in the foothills of the Cordillera mountain range; at an elevation of 400 meters, Penonomé and the Pacific Ocean are visible from various points in the community. The majority of the 50 houses of Pedregoza sprawl out along one path, with a 30-minute hike from one end to the other; The path goes on to connect with the neighboring communities of Limón in one direction and Caimitál in the other. Two pickup trucks provide bump transportation on a schedule that is equally bumpy. The community members generally spend their lives farming the land and making the authentic Sombrero Pintado hats by cultivating, preparing, and braiding the plant materials [Ben, this means that they make real live Panama hats in my site, so prepare yourself]; thanks to the transportation, the locals are able to sell some of their agricultural products. Many locals also hunt deer, boar, and other small mammals. Nearby peaks have been identified as possible sites for wind turbines, with various implications for Pedragoza.

Holy shit. I’m so excited to visit in four weeks. My boss as well as the previous regional leader of the province tell me that the people in Pedregoza are really gung-ho about having me there.

The site was developed about a year ago by the PCV who was living in the next town over. After holding a wildly successful seminar on aqueduct construction, he decided that they’d do really well with a volunteer of their own. They tell me that the residents, flying in the face of everything that I’ve been taught so far about community organizing in Panama, are extremely excited to have a volunteer working with them. So excited, in fact, that the president of the water committee has called the outgoing regional leader, the current regional leader, and the main Peace Corps office in Panama City on multiple occasions to make sure that there, in fact, still will be a volunteer coming in October. This is completely unheard of. Nobody in charge can remember ever having someone this ready to start work.

As if this all weren’t cool enough: during the site development meetings that went down over the past few months, Brandon, the previous regional leader, was approached by the leaders of a local women’s group. They were kind of sheepish at first, saying that, yeah, they knew that the volunteer was going to be for Salúd Ambiental, but they had raised all this money for a project, see, but they didn’t really know what they wanted to do and were wondering if the volunteer could help them out at all.

SO COOL. If the folks in Pedregoza are half as motivated as they say they are, I’ll be a busy bee for the next two years. I can’t wait.

PS: The problem with blogs is they only go in one direction. I wanna know what’s going on with you guys! Shoot me an e-mail or something! I don’t even care if your life has been really boring, any news from back home is great stuff. My e-mail is aarondwinston at gmail dot com. Much love!

"…on the other hand, this is also reflected in the structure of the loans granted by the..."

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 12:40:00 -0400

“

…on the other hand, this is also reflected in the structure of the loans granted by the Inter-American Development Bank, for in the analysis that we made of the $120 million loaned in the first period, $40 million, in other words one-third, corresponds directly to loans of this type; for housing, for aqueducts, for sewers.

It is a bit like… I do not know, but I would almost classify it as a colonial mentality. I get the impression they are thinking of making the latrine the fundamental thing that would improve the social conditions of the poor Indian, of the poor Black, of the poor person who lives in subhuman conditions. “Let’s make latrines for them and after we have made latrines for them, and after their education has taught them how to keep themselves clean, then they can enjoy the benefits of production.” Because it should be noted, distinguished delegates, that the topic of industrialization does not figure in the analysis of the distinguished experts. Planning for the gentlemen experts is the planning of latrines. As for the rest, who knows how it will be done!

”

- Che Guevara, Economics Cannot be Separated from Politics

This is something that I’ve been struggling with. No matter how many latrines I build or clean water sources I secure, none of it will change the fundamental structures that impoverish the countryside and rob its people of dignity and respect.

Photos Phart Phree! We poured a cement floor here in Santa...

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 12:10:51 -0400

Photos Phart Phree!

We poured a cement floor here in Santa Clara.

Pictures, Part 2!

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 11:51:11 -0400

Howler monkeys live in Panama!

Oh, the heady days of body fat...

The road to the aqueduct tank...

...quickly turned to this

Alan telling us how the aqueduct works.

Folks.

Pictures, Part 2!

Photos, part 1!

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:24:35 -0400

Leaving the airport

Accommodations in Ciudad del Saber

Aleah, Austin, and Molly

They have big lakes in Panama

A guardhouse? A funhouse?

Photos, part 1!

Volunteer Visit

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:28:19 -0400

Just got back from Volunteer Visit! My whole training group split off and went out to visit established volunteers in-site for the past five days. I went out to visit a guy named Josh whose site is way out in the campo in northeastern Cocle province.

Josh lives in a community called Quebrada Grande (Big Creek), a group of about 140 people living in the mountains of central Panama. I call it a community because town or villiage implies little things like “streets” and “infrastructure.” You can reach Quebrada Grande by taking a chiva (covered pickup truck with benches in the back and a cargo rack on top, kind of a cross between a taxi, a bus, and a cargo truck— usually run by anyone who has a vehicle and entrepreneurial spirit) from the provincial capital. Ride for two hours till the end of the line, stopping along the way to pick up anyone else who needs a ride. Be prepared to be cramped, on the ride out I shared the chiva with about 17 other people. After you get out, follow the path for an hour and a half.

This path is rugged. I was expecting a hike, and got a workout in the bargain. I definitely didn’t need to bring all of those changes of clothes. Or the other pair of shoes. Or all of those toiletries. Josh told me to pack light, and he meant light. This was a rough trip. Think 45-degree slopes. Think boot-stealing foot-deep mud. Think Panamanian heat. The path is only about two miles as the crow flies, and we covered it in a little over 90 minutes. This is why infrastructure is important.

Quebrada Grande itself was beautiful, and it was really awesome to get to see what the campo is like after living in out little Panama City/Santa Clara bubble. The folks in Quebrada Grande make their living doing mountainside agriculture; they get by growing yuca, rice, corn, a few cattle, coffee, a little sugarcane and so on. The fields are cleared in the typical slash-and burn style: for every field in use there are two other fallow ones. After a season, one of the fallow fields gets the torch and the others get a break. when the soil is totally exhausted, they clear more forest and move on. Most of the crops they grow are for their own consumption, what little is left over usually gets sold to a middleman at the roadhead.

The town has its own school that teaches up to the sixth grade, the families that can afford it try to send at least a few of their kids to stay with family in the provincial capital for high school. There is no electricity, no phone service other than a government supplied satellite phone run off of a generator, no cars nothing.

These people are poor. They get by on about five dollars a day, and that’s doing pretty well by campo standards. Josh is working on getting some water projects going, but the spread-out nature of the community makes getting things organized difficult and any sort of central work almost impossible. He’s looking at a mish-mash of projects for different houses, from rainwater collection to springboxes to small-scale aqueducts.

Paseando: A Cultural Interlude

A really important part of Panamanian culture is paseando, which roughly translates to ”passing/spending time.” In the more built-up part of the country this basically means strolling around the neighborhood, stopping by the neighbors on your way to and from home to shoot the breeze and have a drink or a bite to eat. It’s a social glue that really ties communities together in a way that’s totally lacking back in the States. The closest American analogue is how rural folks might invite you in to “come on in and set a spell.”

In the campo it’s something more profound. It isn’t about conversation, or gossip, or checking in on the neighbors. It’s more about sharing space, of just being there together. While I was pasearing with Josh there were long stretches of time, up to twenty minutes, where people would just sit. Sit, without the need to fill the spaces with conversation. It was very peaceful.

I’m running out of time here in the internet cafe, so i’m gonna have to cut this short. I miss you all.