Since returning to Panama after a visit to the states in Mid-May for my cousin Ali’s wedding time has been moving quite quickly even though nothing terribly interesting has been happening. I now have less than 4 months left with the Peace Corps! Pretty crazy. At my bosses suggestion I’ve decided to “extend” my service into the 1st week of November to help the volunteer that is replacing me get situated and show him or her the different projects they will be working on. So if all goes as planned I will finish my Peace Corps service on November 9th, however where exactly I will be headed on that date is still to be determined.
Varela Hermanos make delicious rum and seco
So what am I doing in my last few months as a volunteer you ask? I’m just about finishing up the Junior Achievement classes I began in the school the 1st week of June. I’m working with two 8th grade classes and two 9th grade classes on the “Nuestro Mundo” (Our World) module. The material focuses on explaining vocabulary like imports, exports, goods & services, competitive advantage, trade balance, etc… The Junior Achievement organization provides lesson plans, workbooks for the students and materials for classroom activities that the kids seem to enjoy. I only have to worry about figuring out the most effective way to explain the material and trying to get the kids to listen to me when I’m doing my explaining.
Posing in front of thrashed sugar cane with our hard hats at the rum factory tour.
I’m also working with a new youth cooperative in the high school that is supposedly run by the students with guidance from professors. A few of my volunteer friends work with youth co-ops as well and have had varying degrees of success. The problem is that the government organization in charge of supporting and helping the co-ops is making a big push to form youth co-ops. So I don’t think the students really came up with the idea to start a cooperative, they were more or less told that’s what they were going to do. The idea though is they will learn how to maintain inventory, keep records and more or less manage a small business. They used a donation to purchase a photocopier which they’ve set up in a small office and they’re charging 4 cents a copy to students and professors. They hope to expand the small business to include selling school/office supplies like pens, paper, white-out, tape, etc. Currently I’m organizing a trip to take some of the students involved to visit a more established youth co-op that another volunteer works with in a town about an hour away from me at the end of August. Hopefully the students will get a better idea of what it means to be involved with the cooperative and get excited about moving their little business forward.
The other savings and loans cooperative that is my primary project is moving along slowly but surely. We had our annual assembly in early June which went well, and we actually made a profit of about $150 last year from interest on loans and our bank deposits. We got a resolution approved by the municipal council extending our contract to use the building we moved into last year for another 3 years free of rent. We used part of the $1,500 donation we received to change the zinc on our leaky roof and install outlets and light sockets. We’re currently doing the paperwork to get electricity hooked up so we can finally get a fucking fan, yet why it takes a month to setup an electricity contract is still beyond me. Someone broke into the co-op a few weeks ago but since we don’t keep any money there and don’t really have anything of value it wasn’t a big deal, just had to buy a new lock. We’re getting estimates to install iron gates for our front and back doors so someday soon we can try and get a computer in there. We got our logo and a description of the services we offer painted on the outside of the building so hopefully we’ll get some new associates looking to join. I’m pretty happy with the way things are going and I think the members are as well.
As you may know from previous blog posts my life here is not all work, and my town likes to party quite a bit. I recently participated in the Corpus Cristi festival we celebrate here which involves 5 different groups of dancers that travel from house to house doing their presentations for a small donation from the homeowner. From what I’ve gathered the dances stem from the Spaniards trying to teach Christianity to the illiterate indigenous people they found in Panama when they arrived. Each group has different costumes and most are formed by members of the same family who’ve decided to do their part in helping maintain traditions. My host family does the “Diablico Sucio” (Dirty Devil) dance which involves wearing a long-sleeved jumpsuit with a piece of cloth and a big mask on your head and sweating profusely. There is a guitar player and support team that travels with the group carrying water, but mostly booze to feed the dancers in between houses. It was a whole lot of fun and won me a lot of street cred in town, although I never want to be that sweaty for that long ever again.
They call me Roberto "Manos Blancos" Dawson
I have now been outside of the USA for the 4th of July four of the last five years. I’m kind of proud of that for some reason, but also quite bitter that the only year I was in the states Corey decided to skip having his epic and storied 4th of July party. Anyway, this year my friend Max Kraman came to visit during a two month tour he’s doing of Panama and Costa Rica. For the 4th of July we went to my favorite beach in Panama, Playa Las Lajas to meet up with a group of about 12 other Peace Corps volunteers. I love it because you and whoever you’re with are the only people you can see on the beach for miles in each direction. The water is rough and good for body surfing and we bought about $40 worth of fireworks to celebrate the birth of our great nation. Max then came to stay in my town for four days and on Thursday we went to Panama City for a little nightlife. On Saturday he got on a bus for the 14 hour ride back to Costa Rica and I headed with my girlfriend to one of the few touristy places I’d yet to make it to in this country.
The San Blas Archipelago is a chain of 365 islands that stretch along the Northeast coast (Caribbean side) of Panama all the way to Colombia where the Kuna indigenous group live. The trip involves a 2 hour car ride on a windy dirt road across some small mountains in a 4x4 vehicle driven at high speeds by a chatty Panamanian. We then got on a small boat with a ridiculously small motor to make the almost 2 hour trip to the island where we would be staying. Our island was about the size of a baseball field with 5 cabins, no electricity or running water and 3 Kuna Indians who prepared some barely tolerable food. We shared the island with a few other couples that we ate with, but for the most we lounged around our cabin and occasionally made the 10 foot trek from our front door to the ocean for a swim.
Our 5-Star Accomodations
On a sad note I got my bike stolen two weeks ago in broad daylight right here in my quaint little town of Parita. I left it unlocked outside of the internet place like I always do with two other bikes that were outside. I used the internet for a half hour but when I left the bike was gone. I immediately went to the police station and we did a quick drive around town to no avail. Since then I made an official complaint with the corregidora (literally the “corrector” of small problems) and have followed up on leads with the police. Everyone in town knows my bike was stolen and they’re doing their part to find it, although most people just accuse one of the two local “bad boys”. As the days pass I’m beginning to lose hope, but I’m not losing any sleep over it either.
The rum and fresh coconut drinks helped me forget about my missing bike
That brings us just about up to date. We have our “Close of Service” conference the first week of August at which point it will really start to hit home that this little adventure is coming to an end. Some people are counting the days until we leave, having already bought their plane tickets home, but I’m just gonna let it run its course and see where I end up.
