Our Panama

Panama Verde

2009-01-16T15:59:00.000-08:00

This is the Panama Verde group with the trash can that they built. This is the first public trash can in the community. They are learning about trash management and environmental conservation and I am learning along with them. Imagine if you did not have trash pickup and you had to figure out how to manage your garbage without contaminating your yard or your farm or your drinking water. Most people in the community burn their trash (which can be bad for their health and for the environment). We used to burn ours too but now we are using a landfill system at our house.

Healthy little girl

2009-01-16T15:57:00.000-08:00

This is a cute, healthy little girl. Her mom said that she almost died when she was a baby because of a scorpion sting. They hiked her out to the hospital.

Lazy Monkey

2009-01-16T15:53:00.000-08:00

This is a sloth with her baby in our back yard. They are called lazy monkeys in Spanish.

Orchid Tour

2009-01-16T15:49:00.000-08:00

We got invited to a house during Orchid season. They had over 25 different types of orchids in bloom. This is one of the families who is not connected to an aqueduct. The mom hauls 5 gallon buckets of water up from the stream behind their house 3-5 times a day.

The picture of Lee and the kids was not posed. Lee squats like that a lot. I just turned around and the kids were right beside him doing the same thing.

Sunset

2009-01-16T15:48:00.000-08:00

A pretty sunset from the hill in front of our house. And some little purple bananas.

Harvesting Oranges

2009-01-16T15:46:00.000-08:00

I spy a kid in a tree...

Hunters

2009-01-16T15:43:00.000-08:00

The community was pretty excited when the cats made it onto the roof. That meant that they were starting to become hunters. Cats are prized for their mouse and rat hunting skills. If a cat manages to stay alive until adulthood and can hunt people will ask to borrow the cat or buy the cat and some families even give them milk as a reward.

Oso

2009-01-16T15:38:00.000-08:00

This is Oso (or Osito). He is pretty much the best dog in the world. He is so sweet and playful and smart. He lives about 5 minutes up the road from us but he comes down to our house every day because he likes us. I know that he comes because he likes us because for a long time we didn't feed him. He is one of the few dogs in our community who is actually well-fed. He sleeps outside of our door every night and helps take care of the house. He also goes with us on short and long journeys. He went with us on a 5 hour hike one time. While we were in the states for 3 weeks we found out that he still came to our house every night and slept outside our door to take care of the house. Now I give him a little food whenever I give the cats their food even though I know they feed him well at his other house. Anybody know what kind of dog he is?

Another world map

2009-01-16T15:35:00.000-08:00

We went to another volunteer's site where Lee drew another world map at the school. There is nothing better than a cold coke out of a glass bottle on a hot day. They cost 35 cents here. How much are they in the states?

Slight incline

2009-01-16T15:32:00.000-08:00

This is a leaf that I found on the ground and a sign that you do not want to see when you are lost and you just got off the chiva at the bottom of a hill/mountain and the people you just asked for directions pointed that way and said you would have to go up... Luckily another chiva came along so we didn't have to walk all the way up that fierce incline.

Fearless guide

2009-01-16T15:29:00.000-08:00

This is our fearless guide Teodoro and some of his sons. This is the second awesome waterfall he has taken us to. In unrelated news, he remembers when he was a little boy and they used to kill the tucans and cut their beaks off to make arrows for hunting.

Pacas

2009-01-16T15:26:00.000-08:00

This is the conejo pintado (paca) in the old bamboo house. The group built them a nice new cage with cement and zinc before the paca massacre of 2008. I will eventually post pictures of that. The new cage, not the massacre...

River Crossing

2009-01-16T15:23:00.000-08:00

Lee and Nate crossing the river when Nate came to visit us. The kids ask about him a lot because he is in an indigenous site and they are curious about the Ngobes. They like to ask things like "What do they eat where Nate is? Does Nate get scared? Does Nate file his teeth?"

Baking Day

2009-01-16T15:19:00.000-08:00

The kids came over to teach us how to make yuca tortillas. This is the inside of our kitchen. Someone always ends up with a face full of flour on baking day...

More photos from Isla Grande

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

One Year In Site

2009-01-16T15:04:00.000-08:00

This is from our 1-year-in-site trip. We took the train to Colon. Then we were supposed to take a bus and a boat to the island. Well, there was a bus strike so we were stuck at the Colon bus terminal. Our safety and security coordinator stepped in pretty quickly and contacted the Police department in Colon. They came and made multiple trips to get all of us and all of our stuff to the police station where we hung out for about 4 hours while they got us our own bus to take us to the dock. There was plenty of time for sleeping and playing games.

Restaurant

2008-12-15T13:53:00.000-08:00

This is a restaurant out over the water that we ate at when we were at Isla Grande.

Canal Railway

2008-08-23T09:32:00.000-07:00

This was taken on the train that runs along the canal. Grandma would have loved this. (Sorry we could not fit that in when our special visitors(the Gatlins) were down here... That just means you have to come back.) The whole car is a window so you can see out on all sides. And don't worry; I lost my awesome JLo sunglasses so you will not see them again. I know they are a bit much but they were cheap and I needed sunglasses.

A Perfect Day

2008-08-23T09:16:00.000-07:00

This is just a picture of a beautiful day in our site. I took this on the way to the river after the seminar. It was a perfect day for a swim.

Agribusiness in site

2008-08-23T08:58:00.000-07:00

This is from the agribusiness seminar we did in our site. We had a good turnout. There were about 15 people who participated both Saturdays. I believe I am laying some accounting knowledge on them in this picture. Looks like a spreadsheet, eh?

Advance Cleaning

2008-07-02T20:06:00.000-07:00

This is the kind of toothpaste that Lee likes and he can´t find it here in Panama. Our favorite thing to get from people is letters but if anyone feels like sending a little something with a letter you could get a bigger envelope and drop a tube of toothpaste in there and I know Lee would greatly appreciate it.

Hummingbird

2008-07-02T20:02:00.000-07:00

This is a baby hummingbird. They said that the egg she hatched out of was about the size of a jelly bean. We see hummingbirds just about every day but this was the first time I had ever seen a nest.

Los Patronales

2008-07-02T19:51:00.000-07:00

In Panama most or all towns have a patron saint. Ours is San Antonio de Padua. Every saint has his or her day of the year. The nine days leading up to this day are called the novena and they have church in a different part of town every evening leading up to the big day. On the big day they have church in the morning and activities the rest of the day. For us the next activity was the feria. The first picture shows all of the fruits, vegetables, and other produce that people brought to sell at the feria. This was the nicest one we have seen in our community. Usually they all show up with their stuff in bags and then they just pass them back and forth because they know who wants what and then everything is gone and Lee and I are left trying to figure out what just happened. This time we could tell when it had started and Lee got up there in time to get some avacados and a papaya.

This is the after picture. Everything was sold, even the bananas and platanos that were left hanging
After the feria there is a little parade through the center of town. They were really excited that we were taking pictures of it because they have never had pictures of it before so we are going to print some out for them.

Santa Fe

2008-07-02T19:25:00.000-07:00

We just finished a series of seminars in a town called Santa Fe. We did 3 days of Leadership and Project Management, 3 days of accounting, marketing, and contracts, and 3 days of farm planning market analysis, quality control, etc. There were 2 weeks between each 3 day chunk. The last afternoon we had a little closing ceremony where we presnted gifts to the people who had helped make it happen. Lee was asked to paint bateas and a gourd instrument. As usual, everyone was very impressed with his work.

The first picture is of the hostel where the Peace Corps facilitators stayed each week. We also used a rancho on the property as the classroom.

The second set is the coffee made by the coffee beneficio in Santa Fe.

The final one is a gourd that has a ridged part and comes with a fork-like thing with long skinny tines that you rub across the ridged part for rhythm. The band is called Conjunto Folklorico Benjamin Rodriguez. They played at a culture night that we had the first week and the afternoon of the closing ceremony. Some of them had made their own instruments. In the background of this picture you can see how they do their floors sometimes. That is just cement but on the top layer they make it smooth and add colors. I have seen green, red, and yellow.

This is Lee dancing the cumbia at the closing ceremony. Dancing and music are a big part of the culture here in Panama. If you had lived in Panama for a year you would dance the cumbia too. Everyone just moves in a circle dancing with the man on the inside and the lady on the outside so she will have room to swing her skirt like the lady on the far left. Every couple of minutes the music changes up and then it is time to spin and revolve around your partner. Then it settles back to shuffling in a circle. Lee is also wearing the awesome baseball hats that we had made for the seminar. It has the Peace Corps logo and a logo that Lee created for the agribusiness program.

The Comarca (Reservation)

2008-07-02T19:08:00.000-07:00

We went to a feria (a farmer´s market plus other activities) in Stephanie´s site and then we hiked to Nate´s site. This is a view from the hike. I wish I could say that our destination was where the sun´s rays are falling but it was not. The hike to Nate´s site is 2 hours like ours. He is at a higher altitude and there are fewer trees. He lives in the Ngobe-Bugle reservation. These indigenous groups used to live in the Azuero region but the fled to the highest mountains after the arrival of the conquistadores.
This is Lee with Nate and some of the kids in front of Nate´s house. Nate told the little boy to act like he was punching Lee.

Nate´s gas tank had run out a few days before we arrived so we made little camp fires outside to cook over. We made a mixture of rice, raman noodles, beans, soya, etc. and fried eggs for supper. We made pancakes from scratch for breakfast.

This is Stephanie with one of her friends These are the dresses that the Ngobe women and girls wear. They come in all colors but they are all the same design. Oh, and they are looking at pictures they just took on the digital camera. People here love to do that.

June 22 and classic Lee

2008-07-02T16:16:00.000-07:00

Lee and I celebrate birthday eve´s now so I got to go to my favorite restaurant in Panama, and possibly in the world, for my birthday eve. It is in El Valle de Anton about a 4 hour hike from where we live. From our site you can see the Mountains that line the crater where the town sits. We did not hike there though. We did the 2 hour hike and took chivas and buses. The food was amazing as always and I love the atmosphere there.
On my birthday morning we went to see one of the waterfalls. There is about a 5 minute hike to get there and they give you a walking stick so you do not slip on the rocks.
Birthday afternoon was at the beach. I love the beach rain or shine, cold or hot. I will let you guess whether Lee feels the same way or not. I took this picture on my way into the water. It was sprinkling and a little cool but the water was nice and warm. We ate supper at the restaurant behind Lee in this picture. The seafood was fresh and delicous like it usually is in Panama.

Here is the link to Lee´s blog. He takes good pictures and has an eye for things that are interesting, beautiful, and-or weird. Those of you who know Lee will not be surprised to find that his blog has fewer words than mine. By fewer I mean none other than the titles of the pictures. Classic Lee.
guabinsoldtimeradiohour.blogspot.com

Mister Johnny and Sweet Pea?

2008-07-02T15:22:00.000-07:00

We got 2 sweet little kittens from our closest volunteer, Melissa, who lives in Vaquilla. This is Lee holding them after their first night at our house. Melissa hiked them in. She carried them in a cat carrier in the rain. We thought she was not coming when it got dark and she had not arrived but it turns out the river had crested and she had to wait until it was safe to cross. Water was getting into the cat carrier so she started moving clothes from her backpack in there to help protect them from the rain. They survived the journey, all 3 of them, and the kittens were even okay with meeting our dog friends that night. Canela comes by a few times a day just to say hola and look for food. Oso comes and hangs out and usually spends the night on the porch when we are there. He is one of the best-fed dogs in Panama and we hardly ever give him any food. He just comes to hang out.

The kitties liked to sleep on Lee´s chair when they were still allowed in the quincha house.

They like sleeping on their food bucket too.

They were sleeping on the window sill yesterday. Above the window is a piece of zinc that Lee put up to cover the hole that the kitties were using to get in at night. Last night we only heard them bump into it one time and meow a little bit before they went to sleep.

The orange and black one is named Mister Johnny in honor of one of Lee´s former co-workers at Publix in Albany, Georgia. If anyone from Albany reads this can you pass along the story to him. Lee really enjoyed working with him and he still tells Mr. Johnny stories. Oh, she did turn out to be a girl though so we shorten it to Johnny most of the time. The other one with more white fur is a girl too but we are still working on her name. There are a few Spanish names still in the runnig but this would be a good chance to teach our community another English name. I have called her Sweet Pea a few times and that might stick... We´ll see. I was singing that song on the porch yesterday when Severiano came to visit. Lee saw him approaching and did not warn me so I turned around mid baw-chica-baw-chica-na-na-na to see Severiano arriving in our yard and laughing at me. It seemed appropriate though because we always laugh with him and his family. He laughed really hard later when we were explaining the postal system in the U.S. to him and Lee acted out how some of the rural delivery people sit on the right side of the car and put the mail in the boxes (which they do not have here) while driving with their left arm and left leg.

The Ambassador´s House

2008-07-02T15:04:00.000-07:00

We went to a reception at the Ambassador´s house to celebrate 45 years of Peace Corps in Panama.

These first 2 pictures show the inside of the house. The first one is the room where we hung out by the food tables. They kept bringing out different kinds of delicious finger foods and they went fast. The second one is just an area where people were milling around. Just before the reception the new group had their swearing-in ceremony. There were about 50 new voluneers, the director of Peace Corps (worldwide), the Ambassador, a lot of RPCV´s (returned Peace Corps Volunteers) from the last 45 years, and a handful of current voluneers.

This is me with the Ambassador, William Eaton.

Then we have the fancy outfits. I had to get a dress because I did not have anything nice enough to wear. I even wore high-healed shoes for the first time in years. Lee is looking schnazzy in his picture with a Great Dane and a Chihuahua. We did not get any good pictures of the two of us the night of the reception so I put my outfit on the next morning for a picure. Lee did not so we will have to settle for this picure of Lee missing half his head featuring a comical pairing of dogs.

My hero

2008-05-17T08:50:00.000-07:00

This is our first host mom in site, Angela. On the end of her stick is the scorpion that stung me. Lee was not there at the time but some of the kids were on the porch and I was taking a shower. I grabbed my towel without looking at it and a scorpion stung me. When I pulled the towel away it dropped off and ran out of the shower. I asked the kids where the scorpions make their homes and the came right back there with machetes cutting back the grass to look for him. They could not find him but over the next couple of hours 4 or 5 different people from the community visited me and brought me the herbal remedies that they use. Oh, and they sat with me for the first 3o minutes or so after the sting because that is when you find out if you are going to get violently ill or not. We have 2 main types of scorpions in our site and I was pretty sure it was not the bad one but since nobody got a good look at it they wanted to make sure. When Angela came by to check on me she asked where it had happened I took her back there and showed her and she said, "Sometimes they get right under here" as she grabbed a stick and started poking. After about 4 jabs she came up with a scorpion on the end of her stick and asked if that was it. That was it indeed. I took a picture and that is the day she became my hero.

Volunteer Visit

2008-05-17T08:17:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos from when we hosted a volunteer visit. At about week 3 in training they send all of the trainees out to visit volunteers. You find your way there by yourself and you spend about 4 days seeing what volunteer life is really like. We had a couple, Isaac and Melissa, visit and it was pretty awesome. We made a different type of compost pile, we visited some farms, talked to a lot of people from the community, and we found time to go swimming. We did a lot of hiking but I think they enjoyed it. I thought the hike in might scare them a little so I arranged for the car to bring them in. I was coming back from Santa Fe that day too so I met them on the chiva. When we got to the store, they had taken the car to run an errand so we went to eat lunch at a fonda (small restaurant) and came back to check. The car still was not there and they seemed to want to do part of the hike so I told him we would go ahead and start walking and the car could just catch up with us when he got back. Melissa grabbed her backpack but Isaac and I left all of our stuff there for the truck to bring. About 10 minutes into the hike it started raining. It was kind of nice because I would have been wet with sweat anyway and this way I was cooler. I kept thinking that we would hear the car coming any minute but we never did. Before I knew it we were arriving at the house. We started cooking supper and waiting for the truck but by about 5:00 when it still had not shown up I was starting to get worried. I had the phone # to the tienda of the owners of the car but it was in my bag that I had left at the tienda. We started asking around the community to see if anyone knew the number but they didn't. Finally, I had the idea to call our regional leader and tell him the situation and see if he could get ahold of them. That is definitely above and beyond the call of duty of the regional leader but Brandon is awesome and he was willing to help us out. After a series of phone calls and misunderstandings things were taken care of. The truck came at about 6:30 the next morning and everything was fine. All of this may have been a little traumatic for some trainees but these guys seemed to take it all in stride. We jumped right in the first day and gathered materials and made the awesome compost pile in the first picture. We have never made one like this on a raised floor before but it is supposed to create a convection current and allow the compost to, well...compost faster.

The second picture shows Lee and Melissa with a Panamanian family in the background. Lee is holding the tool they use to make pilones. Pilones are what they use to pilar rice and coffee. Sorry, I do not know the noun or the verb in English. It is a huge wooden thing about waist high. They use a big bat-like thing to beat the rice or coffee out of their shells.

The third picture shows Isaac and Melissa with a tiny Panamanian family we went to visit. They really do not seem that short in person but they look tiny compared to North Americans.

Chuleta! I forgot about the tide!

2008-04-27T14:19:00.000-07:00

These are from a camp that we had. There were about 8 volunteers and somewhere around 30 kids. The first picture shows Lee on the hike back from the beach. The area in the background is where they dropped the Man vs. Wild guy when they filmed the Panamá mangrove episode. The second picture shows Lee pointing at John Wayne Island. Why do they call it John Wayne Island, you might ask. Well, it was John Wayne´s Island, that´s why. It is now owned by the John Wayne foundation or something like that. The third picture is an attempt to capture how treacherous the hike back was. My favorite quote from camp: Chuleta! I forgot about the tide! The kids were finishing up with lunch when Stephen said that. I guess the tide was about halfway up. We just had to scale a little higher and wade through some parts. It was an adventure. The kids were awesome. They never complained or got scared. I was a little scared but Stephen and a girl from his site hung back to help Lee and I bring up the rear.

The Arrival of the Hamburglar, Ronald, and Ronald

2008-04-27T14:12:00.000-07:00

This is an older picture but I think it slipped through the cracks without getting posted. Everyone puts up some sort of nativity in our site in early December the wise men start their journey and they move them a little closer each day until they arrive. This is the arrival. No, your eyes do not deceive you. From left to right that is the Hamburgler, Ronald McDonald, and, yes, you guessed it, Ronald McDonald. The family was surprised when we recognized them. I do not know where they got them from but they had never heard of McDonald´s.

Bridges Schmridges

2008-04-27T13:48:00.000-07:00

The first picture is of some of the kids who come by and visit after school sometimes. They are in Kindergarten, 1st , and 2nd grades. The second shows the Gatlin family river crossing. Who needs bridges, right? The third picture is Lee and his dad with Oso. Can you tell he likes to hang out with us? He is a pretty awesome dog.

Kari, Antonio, y Carolina

2008-04-27T13:32:00.000-07:00

The first picture was taken on the chiva. It wasn´t too scary was it? The second picture shows Kari in what is now known by the community as Kari´s hammock. I think some of them think she brought it from the States because it showed up the same day she did. Chana is on the left and another nice little girl who´s name escapes me is on the right. Chana asks about Kari just about every time we see her. She asks about Antonio and Carolina too.

El Mercado

2008-04-27T13:15:00.000-07:00

After our adventure in the city we went to El Valle for a cooler climate, a more laid-back atmosphere, and an amazing market (el mercado). The first picture shows part of the market. They sell everything there from orchids to vegetables to indigenous art. There are some stores around the market too and that is where Lee´s dad found a friend. Buhuhuhuuu! That is my atempt to spell a Gatlin family sound of disgust. Everyone who knows them should know what I am talking about.

Mono Perezoso

2008-04-26T18:07:00.000-07:00

This is Kari, Lee´s sister, holding the cutest little baby sloth in the world. She lives at the hotel beside the one we stayed at in El Valle. She is about 2 months old and they take her out of her cage to hold her every day so she will have contact with other animals. That helps her stay healthy. We were coming back from the market and we saw a guy holding her so we just asked if we could hold her too. Oh, and the Spanish for sloth, mono perezoso, literally translates to lazy monkey. I thought that was pretty funny for a while but, if you think about it, us calling them sloths is kind of funny too.

Our hotel had some interesting pets too but we did not hold them. They had a Tucan and some golden frogs.

Just a side note while I am waiting for the picture to load... Lee and I will have spent a total of over 8 hours each on the computer today by the time we are finished. I never would have imagined that we would use computers so much in the Peace Corps, but we do a lot of paper work. We are helping with the training of the new group of volunteers in a couple of weeks so we worked on that for a while. We did thank-you letters to agency members who came out to our community. Lee worked on the cover for an educational video, using inadequate software. I have spent hours on work-related e-mails. I have not even sent one personal e-mail today. Sorry to everyone waiting for responses... And after a cummulative effort of about 2 hours I will have completed one new post for the blog if/when this picture finishes loading. I really do not mind the work, even the quarterly reports we have to do, which are a little tedious at times. I actually love the work. What is so frustrating is using computers that may or may not have the software you need and may or may not have issues so that it may or may not take you 2 hours to finish a post that should take about 5 minutes. Okay, I am finished venting and the picture is finished loading. Sorry about that; I try to keep this fun and informative but I slipped up with a little rant. Hopefully I will be able to try this again tomorrow. I have lots more awesome pictures from Lee´s family´s trip down here to visit us and if they load fast enough tomorrow I will not have time for any more rants...

Fiesta

2008-03-24T10:11:00.002-07:00

We had our quarterly fiesta Saturday. This was our second one. We started them because Julio was coming and helping with seminars, projects, and everything else and he wanted to have a day where everyone who was working so hard could come together just to have fun and spend time together. The first one was good and this one was even better. They built the rancho in the first picture the day of the event. That is not how they build them if they want them to last a long time but they use that style when they just need shade during the summer time. They are planning to build a permanent one though. Lee and I made the piñata. Around these parts we call him Esponga Bob.

The second picture shows Lee almost winning the sack race. Can you believe the altitude of that hop? He says that if he would not have relaxed a little in the middle of the race he would have won. Julio is really competitive though... We will have to wait 3 months for the rematch.

And the 3rd picture shows me being the M.C. Don´t you think that someone with Spanish as a first language would have been a better choice? I was a little nervous but I think it went well. I had a little help from the menacing figure lurking behind the bushes. He is not really menacing. It just sort of looks that way from the photo. He is actually the father(Severiano, I know, the name seems kind of menacing too...) from our 3rd host family. He wanted me to narrate the smashing of the piñata too. He would tell me to say things like: The piñata no longer has feet. It sounds better in Spanish. The other guy in the photo is Eugenio. The violin that he played was made in a nearby community. He taught himself to play it.

We also had a decima singer, a harmonica player, a salomar contest, and a guy who sang and played guitar. The decima is a type of song that you hear a lot here in Panama´. It has a certain type of rhythm and there are rules about the rhyme scheme. They can be prewritten or improvised. Victoriano improvised and Lee and I got our names mentioned. Also, there are certain guitar stylings that have to accompany the singer. One of them is called Storm of the Rooster. I think they are also supposed to use the mejorana (sort of like a guitar) for this too but we did not have one. Also, the singer should be wearing a sombrero pintado. We just learned that that is very important.

Salomaring is a type of call that is sort of like a cross between the scream when that cartoon coyote falls of a cliff, yodelling, and the noises people make when they are trying to move large farm animals like cows or horses. It is one of my favorite things about Panamanian culture. The first person salomars and the second person answers by trying to match the first one. It is actually pretty hard to describe. You just have to come to Panama´to experience it.

Cows

2008-03-18T10:41:00.000-07:00

It was a big day for Lee. He got to see where the magic happens. For those of you who do not know, when we were in the states he would go through a gallon of milk in 2 or 3 days sometimes. He loves it. We both got to help milk the cows. Olgin, Maggie´s counterpart, has a model farm and it was really nice to see such healthy, happy cows. Some of the ones in our site are pretty skinny... He said that they get about 2 liters a day from the cows in the dry season and around 4 per day in the rainy season.

World Map

2008-03-18T10:15:00.000-07:00

Lee and I visited another volunteer´s site in the province of Herrera to make a map of the world on the wall of her school. The first picture shows Maggie(the other volunteer) and Lee.

Herrera is very different from Cocle´. It is almost completely deforested so it is a lot hotter and drier. Almost everyone there has cows and horses. It actually looks and feels more like Alabama. The people are very friendly. There are a lot more tall people there. There gritas are different but I think I earned some respect for attempting to do it their way. We got to see cantadoros singing decimas with the mejorana. There are too many Spanish words in that sentence that need explanations. Let´s just say that we got to hear some awesome Panamanian music. After the cantadoros there was a band that played typico, cumbias, etc.

The Canal

2008-03-17T15:42:00.000-07:00

This is a cruise ship, along with about a hundred smaller boats, passing through the south end of the canal. You can see it better if you click on it to enlarge it. The huge ships can pass through one at a time but the little ones have to wait and go through with a big ship because it is not worth it to operate the locks for small ships. I read somewhere that some ships pay more than $100,000 to pass through the canal. I think it is based on weight.

The House

2008-03-01T05:18:00.000-08:00

This is a video that Lee took of the house and the yard. The thatch-roof house is the kitchen and the other one is the bedroom/everything else. It is not a long video but it may make you motion sick. You will have to turn your head to the side at some point when the camera goes on its side.

Raspaduras

2008-02-29T08:39:00.000-08:00

This is Señor Rosa stiring the pot of sugar cane juice to make raspaduras. They cook it for hours and then they pour it into a mold and let it dry. They usually make about 14 per batch. They use trapichas run by horses to press the sugar cane and get the juice out.

Arroz en Fangueo (Rice Tanks)

2008-02-29T07:50:00.000-08:00

This is some of the work that we did with the rice tank. The last picture shows most of the people in our group(we are proud to have men, women, and children participating), which became official yesterday when we had a visit from one of the government agencies. Sometimes it is hard to work with the agencies and people have to make multiple visits to their offices and write multiple letters to get things done, but we were lucky enough to have them come to us after just one letter and one visit. We had 2 representatives from the regional office and the national coordinator for the agency and Peace Corps. Our regional coordinator from Peace Corps came too. We heard that some people from the agency were coming out to talk about our upcoming project with Iguanas and Conejos Pintados (painted rabbits). They talked about that and a lot of other projects, got the names of everyone in the group, and they gave them some tools and some materials to start a tree nursery. They were so proud to have the agency come out and tell them that they are doing a good job and that they are going to help them get other projects started too.

With the rice tank, we made the hole, leveled the dirt by adding water and mixing the mud as we went and by dragging a board across it, and then we transplanted the rice from the semillero. It was more complicated than that but that is the concise version. We will control the water level, periodically raising and lowering it over the growing cycle to maximize growth and minimize weeds. We are in the dry season now so no one else is planting rice. Most of the farmers are cutting down trees and everything else and burning it in preparation to plant rice when the rainy season starts again. Hopefully this will show them that they do not have to do that next year.

Feed Me!

2008-02-29T07:35:00.000-08:00

This is a carnivorous, Little Shop of Horrors plant that we have in our yard. Okay, it´s not carnivorous but it looks like it could be. Really it is called Achiote. They dry it, harvest the seed, and mix it with oil to use for cooking. The kids helped us harvest it.

The Hike to San Miguelito

2008-02-21T08:50:00.000-08:00

We had some visitors on Monday. Catie and Stephanie are volunteers in communities relatively nearby. They hiked 6 hours with 3 people from Catie´s site, Juan, Magdalena, and Miguelito to arrive at our site right after lunchtime. We had a nice visit and made some delicious campo foods like patacones (slices of plantains that you fry and smash. they taste kind of like french fries.) and rice and beans. We had a very non-campo drink: sweet, iced tea! There is no electricity in our site so we don´t have any ice but a truck brought some in for an activity that the community was having that day and they were nice enough to send a block of it up to our house so we could make our chicha nice and cold. Right when I saw it I knew what kind of chicha I was going to make. The only problem was that Lee was not home yet from his trip to talk to one of the agencies about our Iguana project. And I was about to make his favorite drink. I waited as long as I could before I put the ice in there and started pouring glasses for people but the ice was melting... And a couple of minutes later Lee arrived in the darkness and misty rain of evening and was greeted with a big glass of sweet, iced tea.

The next morning we left at about 8:00 to go see the rice tanks and fish tanks of a group of farmers in a community 2 hours away. We hiked for 2 hours, arrived in San Miguelito, asked for directions to the farmers´group, kept walking, entered a different community, then entered another San Miguelito (yes, there are 2 of them). Then we went ahead and got lost again in the new San Miguelito (we took a wrong turn and ended up walking up a steep hill with no shade only to find that the road ended at someone´s house). In the second picture Stephanie and Lee are at the top of the hill and are not happy about it.

The first picture shows Catie in front of a beautiful waterfall about 20 minutes from our destination. Yes, we did make it(walking a total of 4 hours) and we had a very productive day. Feliciano and Fidel came from our community and they got to see the rice tanks at each stage of production and talk to other Panamanian farmers about their experiences with the technique. We are going to plant rice in the first tank in our community next week!

Agribusiness Grant

2008-02-21T08:36:00.000-08:00

So there is an awesome agribusiness seminar that I am going to help with. Through the Peace Corps Partnership Program you can donate money to help make it happen if you would like to. Here is the link: https://www.peacecorps.gov/resources/donors/contribute/projdetail.cfm?projdesc=525-090&region=latinamerica If you would like more specific information about how the money will be used you can leave a comment or e-mail me and I can send you a copy of the grant proposal.

The Door and the Parasol

2008-02-21T08:18:00.000-08:00

One day we hiked out to the other side of town, about 45 minutes with a river crossing, and came back with a door for our house that the owners of the property had built. There was a group of 5 or so who took turns carrying the door and Angela and I carried our parasols. They are actually huge palm leaves that they use to make brooms out of but you may as well carry it above your head and have a little shade, right?

Helicoptor

2008-02-21T07:57:00.000-08:00

This is a bird cage shaped like a helicoptor. Rigoberto, the oldest son from our last host family, made it. I have also found drawings and etchings of helicoptors around town and most of them have traced back to him.

Primativos

2008-02-21T06:41:00.000-08:00

These are some bananas(primativos) that someone gave to us. That is as big as they get. They are tiny and delicious. This picture also features Lee being about a foot too tall for the rancho. The support beams are about 5 and a half feet tall, which is perfect for me and the Panamanians but too short for Lee... He has talked about digging a trench so he can walk through one part without ducking or hitting his head.

Night Parades

2008-02-14T07:11:00.000-08:00

These pictures are from one of the night parades. It was pretty amazing. Each float has a queen and is accompanied by a live band and dancers.

Los Patos (the ducks)

2008-02-14T06:57:00.000-08:00

These are our ducks. They do not know that they are our ducks yet because they keep running away and finding their way down to where they used to live but we hope that they will realize soon that they are our ducks.

Thanks so much to Nancy and John for thinking of everything, even the roof of our makeshift duck pen. Well, I think they intended it as a table cloth but it sure makes a good roof don´t you think? The children in the background are Sebastiana (Chana) and Feliciana (Chana). They are very good at catching ducks. It´s harder than you think...

Carnaval

2008-02-05T08:16:00.000-08:00

These are 2 of the floats from the aquatic parade in our regional capitol. The 2nd one is from the Cucua of San Miguel Centro, a town near ours. They use the Cucua tree to make pretty much anything you can think of, including the clothing of the people on the float. And, yes, the floats move down the river with the help of people swimming along side and pushing. One of the floats was pulled by a boat this year but I like the other way better.

The Chiva

2008-01-26T09:24:00.000-08:00

When we leave site we hike for 2 hours. It is about 45 minutes to the next town where we cross the river on foot. That part of the walk is hilly. About 15 minutes after the river you start to climb the mountain. It takes about 30 minutes to get to the top. From the top of the mountain there is an amazing view. On a clear day you can see the Carribean and the Pacific. On a clear night you can see the lights of Colo'n and they say you can see the lights of ships moving through the canal. On the other side they say you can see the lights of the Azuero (a peninsula to the south). The 3rd picture is one of the views from the top of the mountain. I think this was taken when we were hiking back in. Do you think we made it back before dark? Do you think we had our flashlights with us? .... No and no. It takes about 30 minutes to get down the mountain to the store where we catch our chiva. A few of our chivas are big and blue and from the back they are kind of pumpkin shaped. The first picture shows our chiva and our store. We usually hike out in knee high rubber boots and they let us leave them in a storage room at the tienda and pick them up on the way back through. The chiva ride can be anywhere from 1 to 2 hours. The road winds through the mountains and there are some amazing views. It takes longer when there are more people to pick up. There are chiva stops along the way but it also picks up people between stops if he sees them in time. The chiva arrives in our regional capital Penonome' which has hotels, restaurants, and internet. It is about a 2 and a half hour bus ride to the city (Panama City) which is huge and has everything you can imagine.

And that is the story of the chiva. I think chiva litterally means some kind of goat like animal but that is the word they use for some of the public transportation. There are buses and then their are chivas. A chiva can be a truck, a van, a small bus, or a flatbed truck with the back closed in, etc. And there is always room for one more person in the chiva...

This post was inspired by an e-mail from my favorite Frenchman in the world, Nicolas, and by a comment from Stephanie. Thanks for keeping up with us! And thanks to everyone who has commented or e-mailed about the blog. I finished my sentence on the pig post if you want to check that out.

The Shower

2008-01-25T19:13:00.000-08:00

The first picture is our shower. We are going to put a shower curtain over the open space. We are connected to the aqueduct but we do not have a water heater. We also have 2 shower bags that hold about 4 gallons each(thanks to both sets of parents!). We will fill them up and put them on the roof of the shower and then after a few hours of sun we can take warm showers if we want to. Lee will probably use these everytime because he really misses warm water. I don´t mind though. I am usually hot from working or hiking when I shower anyway so the cool water is refreshing. It is kind of rough sometimes when I don´t get a chance to shower until after dark though. As evening sets in the wind usually picks up a little and it can get pretty cool sometimes. The yellow thing in the background of this picture is my semillero. I chopped up some bamboo (yes, with my machete) to make little walls and I have a mixture of ash, soil, and river sand in there. I am going to plant the seeds in it when we move up there. We now have the cement poured for the floor in there and the sink is installed too.

The second picture shows how they mix the cement. We bought the cement and brought it in. The pile of rocks came from where they tore the old school down. The bags are the sand we bought from the hardware store. They usually go down to the river and haul up bags of rock and sand but that is hard work so we figured we would save them a little trouble.

Project Leadership and Management (PLM)

2008-01-25T18:22:00.000-08:00

Today was the last day of our 3rd in service training. It was Tuesday throughThursday. We each brought someone from our site who we work with currently or plan to work with in the future. I brought Feliciano and Lee brought Teofilo. They were awesome! We all tried to speak only in Spanish the whole time because most of the people we brought from our communities only speak Spanish. That was kind of hard because we usually speak English with other volunteers but it would have been kind of inconsiderate. It was good practice anyway.

The people in the first picture are Feliciano, me, Steph, her work counterpart, and Teofilo. This was Feliciano and Teofilo´s first trip to the beach in the day time. There first trip ever to the beach was when they came to the same training facility in July to meet us and take us to visit our site for the first time. After a day of training a group of us walked down to the beach (about a mile away). The moon was really bright so that was beautiful. I´m glad they got to see it in the daylight this time though.

The next picture is from one of the dinamicas. We usually start each class-like session with a game or an activity where you have to move around and interact. This one is called Juana Chichi. Notice Lee being squished between Nate and Teofilo.

The 3rd picture is the view from the balcony of Noriega´s beach house. The U.S. bombed it in 1989 when they were after him. They finally caught up with him at the Vatican and he ended up in prison in Miami. He was released this past fall (it was a pretty hot topic here in Panama for a while). There was a lot of speculation about where he might be going. He ended up in prison in France. Anyway, the house is a mess and there is a lot of broken glass and rubble but you can tell it was beautiful in its day.

Making things for horses

2008-01-16T12:14:00.000-08:00

Just about everyone in our site has horses. The other day our host family made a couple of the blanket things that go under the sadle. Here are pictures. They had that grass drying for a few days. Then they built that frame and were able to make 2 or 3 blankets that morning. Rigoberto, the oldest son (16 or 17) is on the left and Severiano (the dad) is on the right. When he saw that we had the camera he ran and grabbed his hat. He has awesome hair that is permanently in a doo wop loop, like he should be wearing a pastel suit and be leaning into the microphone singing Earth Angel.

Speaking of that, they asked us to help with the microphone (battery powered) that the church bought a few weeks ago. For some reason the instructions were only in English. Has anyone out there ever gotten instructions for anything electronic in fewer than 5 languages? So we helped them. I think I was the first to talk into it to see if it was working. I was excited that it worked so I held it up to Chana to say something into it, then Lee, Roge, Rigo, Mariella, and finally Severiano. Everyone pretty much said buenos dias, buenos buenos, or some version of that. When I held it up to Severiano, he switched into professional radio personality and said, ¨Good evening everyone. The problem has been resolved and the microphone is now working.¨ It was priceless. The instructions to there generator are also only in English. We are going to get the booklet sometime and translate it for them so they will have it when they need it whether we are there or not.

Ñame

2008-01-16T05:58:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of Lee´s soup. They use a lot of root crops in their lunch soups. This one has ñame, plantains, yuca, and otoe. The ñame is what makes it purple. The second picture is Chana (Feliciana) holding up 2 little ñames that look like fists with a big hunk of...otoe, maybe... I forgot what the big one is. She wanted the picture to include the pig planter that she made at school when they were learning about reuse and recycling.

T-bone harvesting coffee

2008-01-16T05:51:00.000-08:00

This is one of our work partners, Teofilo, harvesting coffee with his wife Felipa. They sew sacks together and put them on the ground under where they are going to harvest. They make a hook in the end of a stick to pull the branches down. Then they pull the coffee off and it falls on the mat.

We call Teofilo T-bone because sometimes we speak English when we are around him and I don´t want him to hear his name thrown into the middle of a conversation in a foreign language.

Quincha

2008-01-16T05:28:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures of quincha day. Valerio taught us how to do it. You have to find the right dirt and pick out all of the rocks, dig your hole, add water, and then crumble the dirt up(as demonstrated by Lee above) and add it until it is the right consistency, while you are mixing it with your bare feet(as demonstrated by Valerio and them me!). Then you add in a certain type of grass and make brick like forms. Then you make your walls. Notice Lee working side by side with a Panamanian. Clemente is almost as tall as Lee when he stands on the bench. Clemente is the actual owner of the house and he has been so nice and helpful. His children and their spouses have helped a lot too. Sorry about the sideways picture. I still haven´t completely figured out what I am doing with this.

Big Shrimping

2008-01-16T05:01:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of Lee eating his sugar cane. I think in the background you can see 2 of the boys looking for shrimp. Sometimes they use a mask and look for them in the daytime like you see here. Sometimes they go at night, when you can find more, and they just use a flashlight. I guess they still use the machete too. Our host brother, Rogelio, caught some by bopping them over the head with the machete. This is Marcelino, his cousin, in the picture.

Oh, and did you ever wonder how you would get your pig across the river if you needed to? Well, of course, you would tie a rope around its neck like a leash and walk it across like a dog. And don´t forget to have a friend walk behind it to make crazy sounds (something along the lines of giddy up) to encourage it to keep walking. The pig crossing is in the second picture on this post. You should be able to click on the picture to make it larger so the pig is easier to find.

Packages and cards

2008-01-09T09:12:00.001-08:00

Thanks to everyone who sent packages and cards. The most recent packages we got were from Susan, Tony, Claire, and Jonah, Lee´s Mom and Dad and Kari, and 2 from Mom and Dad. We got a lot of cards too. Lee says thanks to everyone who sent birthday cards. He got cards from his family, my family, Nancy, John, and Rocky, Susan, Tony, Jonah, and Claire, I hope we remembered all of them... We don´t have them with us right now because we got them last time we came out of site. Anyway, we really appreciate you guys thinking of us and we just wanted to let you know that the packages and cards made it here.

New Year´s Fiesta

2008-01-09T08:48:00.000-08:00

We had a new year´s party with Julio from Fe y Alegria on January 4. Everyone brought food and we played games. It was nice. It was also a good opportunity for us to give candy to the kids. We got an awesome care package from my previous employer, Draffin & Tucker, and it had some big bags of candy. And just about everything else you can think of. It was a very big box and all of the other volunteers were jealous. We have been eating the candy and sharing it with the kids along the way but we were waiting for an opportunity to make bags and give them to the kids. Thanks to another gift from Nancy, John, and Rocky we had 25 gift bags to fill with candy. Thanks to my Mom and Dad, the bags made it down to Panama after we accidentally left them in the States. So, thanks to everyone who played a part in making this possible. Every child took a number and we drew the numbers out of a hat to see who won... We gave out 25 numbers so, as you can see, everybody won.

Planing wood

2008-01-09T08:18:00.000-08:00

This is Lee cepillaring (planing) wood for the furniture for our house. Abraham is helping him. He is the one who carved the headboard with his machete.

La cabeza de Einstein

2008-01-09T07:05:00.000-08:00

Jose´s Birthday

2008-01-08T16:26:00.000-08:00

We went to a birthday party a couple of days ago. It was really nice. We got a group picture of all of the family and friends who were there. I am posting pictures of the food table and the birthday boy. They had arroz con pollo (rice with chicken) which is their special birthday, fiesta dish. This time they had cake. They have not had cake at most of the birthday parties we have been to in site but they are always happy occasions anyway. They also gave out a lot of candy and they made a sweet treat out of yuca (cassava). Jose´turned 3 on they dia de los reyes (day of the kings). That´s the day the 3 kings made it to Bethlehem to see Jesus. They start their nativity scenes with the kings far away and each day they move them closer until the day of the kings when they finally arrive. This may be kind of obvious but Jose´is spanish for Joseph. Jose´s mom has more children but the only other one whose name I can remember is Natividad. He was born on Christmas day. More on him later because he is a little character...

The Tick

2008-01-08T16:20:00.000-08:00

Well, I found a tick today... Lee says it is because I have been petting too many dogs lately. I can´t help it; we have some pretty awesome dogs in our site and they like to play. Anyway, I´ll spare you the detail of exactly where it was... Just know that it was in the nether regions... It was really little and Lee got it out head and all, this time. I had one a couple of months ago and he pulled it out but the head didn´t come out. It is all healed now though.

The House

2008-01-08T16:00:00.000-08:00

Well, we have spent a lot of time this last week getting our house ready. We finished making the bed. They even made us a nice headboard (carving designs with the machete of course). We spent almost 2 days planing wood for the bed, shelves, a new door, a little table, and maybe a bench. It was hard work but kind of fun. I´ll post pictures when I can.

We came in to the pueblo today to finish up our community diagnostic, which looks pretty amazing, but we also had a bazillion errands to run too. We got some things for the house: dishes, cups, silverware, a skillet, a blanket, sheets, and so much more that I can´t think of right now. We shopped until the bags were too heavy to carry and then we went back to the hotel. Anyway, we came out today to get things done before Aimee´s visit next wednesday. She is going to bring a carload in when she comes and hopefully she will make it all the way in this time and won´t have to leave our things at the tienda on the other side of the river 40 minutes away... Well, we got a message from her today saying that she is going to have to move the visit back because she has to have minor surgery the first part of that week. It is kind of disappointing to have to change the date again but I know she can´t help it and that will give us another chance to come out of site and get the rest of the things for the house. We are going to try to start our trip back early tomorrow (we always try but usually end up hiking back in the dark anyway).

We have a big junta day planned for this thursday. We usually have 20-25 people come and help when we work on the house. We have juice breaks and a big lunch. We are going to mix the mud and grass for the quinche and repair some holes and smooth out the walls of our house. They are also going to pour the concrete in the shower and hook up the tubes and whatnot. They mentioned replacing the door too. If we get all of that done we will be able to move in when the quinche dries. Yesterday Clemente (the owner of the property) and his family and friends came and harvested more coffee and limpeared (cleared the underbrush with machetes) all the way down to the creek. We raked 3 bucket loads up for our compost. We harvested a bucket full of Japanese oranges. Chana (Teofilo´s daughter) climbed the tree and threw them down. They are so delicious and easy to peel. We saw that we have a mandarine tree too. It is past time for those now. We have a mango tree. Those will come in April, May, and June. They have had mango trees for a while there but they never bore fruit until a couple of years ago when it started getting hotter. Lee says I should write about the tick so that is coming next...

Sustainable Agricultural Systems

2008-01-01T08:11:00.000-08:00

I will try to briefly explain the sector we are assigned to. As you can see it is called sustainable agricultural systems. We are working with the farmers to implement more sustainable farming techniques. Sometimes, the way they do things gets the job done but it is not leaving the land in very good condition for future generations or even for the next planting season sometimes. We are working with them on soil conservation, organic fertilizers, different techniques for farming rice, green manures, agroforestry systems, reforestation, etc. Some of the crops they have include rice, corn, yuca (cassava), cilantro, parsley, bananas, plantains, oranges, marañon curassow, beans, mangos, papaya, and so many more.

Our house

2008-01-01T07:58:00.000-08:00

Since I am starting this after we are already 7 months into our Panama adventure I am going to try to catch up. We have lived in our community for 5 months now. For about the last 2 months we have been working on our house off and on. We were going to build a new one but we found a perfect location on an amazing lot and the family who owns it is very nice and was willing to help us repair the existing house. They say we can finish it in 2 days. We will probably spend one day on the adobe and one day finishing the shower and replacing some of the wood.

For now we are still with our 3rd host family in site, the Mendozas, and we are happy there. We have our own rancho and the family is very good to us and we have learned a lot from them. It will be nice to have a place of our own again though. We have started out compost up at the house but I can´t wait to get up there and start the garden, get a couple of laying hens (ponadoras), maybe a goat.

Happy New Years! Feliz año nuevo!

2008-01-01T07:51:00.000-08:00

We welcomed in the new year last night in style watching fire works over the Pacific Ocean off Avenue de Balboa in Panama City. We were strategically located where we could see the muñequo burning as well. One of the restaurants had made a giant life-sized doll and stuffed it with fireworks as is the Panamanian way. Right after the fireworks they doused it with kerosene and lit it on fire. It was bright and loud and hot.

The first picture is a muñeco in progress in El Valle de Anton. The second one is a muñeco in our site made by Lina (Catalina) from our first host family.

May 15, 2007 Washington D.C.

2007-05-15T20:20:00.000-07:00

We were in Washington D.C. for a couple of days to meet our group and have orientation/staging. We had time one evening to see some sights. We went to D.C. May 14 and left for Panama May 16.

This is Lee with Dusty, Jenny, Kimber, Lindsay, and Rebecca. Jenny left after a couple of weeks of training. Dusty left after we finished training and had just arrived at our sites. Lindsay just quit within the last month. I know that everyone else in this picture will make it the whole 2 years though.