10 Hours of Sleep

I am proud to say that I’m currently getting at least 9 hours of sleep a night. I’m pretty sure this is more than the recommended amount but who’s counting? I’m in bed by 10:00pm the latest and wake around 7:00am to a leisurely breakfast. I usually read a few chapters of whatever book I’m working on before bed and upon waking, or flip through one of the many Newsweek’s provided to us by the Peace Corps office. I’ve also been studying Spanish a fair amount using a workbook they provided us in training, and reading the newspaper to learn new words. This will be my first blog update after a month in site because well, not much has been happening. During training every minute of our lives was planned, whereas once we arrive in site it’s all up to us. This is liberating but daunting at the same time because every action must be completely self motivated.

This guy was playing the campesino (peasant) at a parade in my neighboring town where there is another Peace Corps Volunteer. Please note his cow foot flask.

Anyway, my main project here is to work with the savings and loans cooperative founded by members of the community two years ago. Currently our “office” is a small room attached to one of the member’s houses, which she also uses to give literacy classes in the afternoon. Our office hours are Mon-Wed-Fri from 2-4pm and Sat 9-12am. As you can see this leaves many free hours for me to fill throughout the day. I’ll talk about that later, but since I didn’t know how a cooperative worked until I got here I will explain a little how our particular coop works. Currently we have around 50 members who are supposed to save $5 a month in the coop. This money is theirs but they cannot take it out at any time like you would with a normal checking account. The members can take all their money out if they resign from the coop; otherwise they actually have to borrow their own money at 4% interest rate. The idea of borrowing ones own money is basically that you are making a promise to yourself to maintain a certain level of savings. Members must be up to date with their $5 monthly savings payments (aportaciones) to be able to borrow, but only about 10 of our members have the proper amounts in their accounts. According to a provision put in to add stability in the early phases of the coop members cannot currently borrow more than they have saved. Hopefully members will soon be able to access credit, which could be a real impetus for growth within the coop. (This could also lead to catastrophe if people default on their loans, which happens all too often). People can also open what is basically a checking account separate from their $5 aportaciones and take that money out as they please. We also offer Ahorro de Navidad accounts which encourage people to save a small amount each week which they then get back around Christmas time. We will be promoting this aggressively in the coming weeks for Christmas 2008. My coop, like most in Panama has quite a few problems, but since mine is so new I feel it has lots of room to grow. I’ve already had two meetings with the Board of Directors, and I succeeded in getting IPACOOP (the governing body of all coop’s in Panama) to come give a seminar to my members. I have a big meeting planned for December where I really hope to kick start things as far as motivating the members and promoting the coop in general. We’ll see what happens.

What else have I been doing with my time you ask? One week I went to the school everyday and introduced myself to all the classes before they go on their summer break in mid-December. When the new school year starts in March I plan to give Junior Achievement classes starting with the 6th grade and working my way down. Junior Achievement here in Panama provides volunteers with materials and lessons plans for hour long classes, once a week, for 6 weeks. Each grade has its own curriculum and the kids get diplomas at the end of the course
6th graders “Our World’,
5th graders “Our Country”
4th graders “Our City”
3rd graders “Our Community”
2nd graders “Our Families”
1st graders “Ourselves.”
All this is done in Spanish, but I may help with English classes in the school as well. Meeting the kids really helped me integrate into the community because now whenever I walk around town they scream my name. It’s a nice feeling and helps me start talking to their parents as well.
In the afternoons (like now) I usually go to FADEPA (Fundacion para la Ayuda de Estudiantes Pariteños). It’s a state funded organization thats basically an after school center for students in my town. They have encyclopedias, a small library, a copy machine, computers (some with internet and some without) and an attendant to help the kids. The internet is high speed and costs 50 cents an hour. Most of the kids come to play games, and watch videos on youtube, but a fair amount come to type papers and research things for homework. I’ll eventually be working there basically as an attendant, charging for internet, etc so that they can increase their hours of operation. I also have an idea to get the kids to write or contribute to wikipedia articles on subjects they are interested in, starting with one about their town.

My final project that I’ve identified will be to work with a local artisan here in town. He makes beautiful paper-mache devil masks for the festival of corpus cristi (like the one in the above photo). He’s got good demand for his product, but seems to be selling his masks for entirely too little. I hope to help him make his business more profitable and learn how to make some cool masks at the same time.

So basically I have alot of free time at the moment. Things are done at a more leisurely pace in general in this country, which is one of the reasons I came here, so I'm definitely not complaining. But please feel free to write a me snail mail letter, send some interesting articles, or give me a ring. Contact info is on the right hand side of this page, under my picture somewhere. Also check out the Peace Corps Panama Friends link for info about contributing to volunteer projects, etc. Other links have more info about Panama for the truly adventurous. Thats all folks, for now. Ciao!