A wonderful trip... and back to work

All photos courtacy of my friend Ashley!

Two weeks ago my bud Ashley came and visisted. We went to Bocas to the lovely island of Isla Bastimentos which teemed with ex-pats and European surfers. The Afrotilian locals speak Guari-Guari, an English dirivative left over from the banana plantation boom. It's crazy to hear English but to be unable to understand it. The beach was beautiul, despite the fact that to get there we had to hike through the boggy rainforest.

We spent some time in my community and somewhat unsuccessfully fired the earth oven for the first time. I fought with the fire for hours and it never got as hot as it should have, but none the less, the salty bread (paula kept insisting that I add more salt... I cant taste it so I have to take her word for it) and the eggless cake (translation: gooey fudge?) were gone the next morning.

We also went to Boquete, a mountain coffee town that has the climate of the rocky mountians in fall. It was great to have some time off, but more than anything it was so nice to see a friend from home. Thanks so very much for coming Ash!

I returned home to my community after she left. I'd had a bad cough for the entire trip and was pretty drugged up on cough medicine. I layed in my hammock and stared at my zinc roof and listened to the summer zakaydas that screech in unison like thousands of dentist drills and tried to find the energy to go pasear with my community. I finally peeled myself from my hammock and walked through the still heat to my friends Emilia and Felipe's home. They're little toddler stuck out her hand for me to shake as I approached. She looked up at me with a sticky smile as her dad came out of the house with a stricken look on his face. His wife was having a miscarrage (although he didn't know that was happening.) It was an intense couple of hours as I tried in vain to contact the nearest health center to call for am ambulance that could take Emilia from the community entrance (a steep 30 min walk) to recieve treatment. Talking on the phone in Spanish can still be at times nearly impossible for me and the impacient nurses on the phone spoke quickly. When at last I understood that someone would look for a way to get an ambulance up the mountain two men carried Emilia in a hammock strung between a pole that they layed across their shoulders. I ran ahead to wait for the ambulance. They arrived with Emilia about a half an hour later. I know she must have been in alot of pain because she was nearly in tears and Ngabe women almost never cry. I gave her water even though I worried she was going into shock (the doctors said I should) and we tried to make her as comfortable as possible. Several hours passed as we anxiously watched the road for the trail of dust that ment the ambulance was on its way. It didnt come. I called again and they told me they didnt have one with four-wheel drive. I ran out in front of every car that went down. Most wouldn't even stop for me. Even a Ministry of Health car drove down and to my plea he said, " shucks. You see, I am not on ambulence duty right now? What can I do? I'll tell you what. I'll call the ambulance driver. He's a good friend of mine. I'll call him and tell him to hurry." I let him go. I didn't know what else to do. No one else was running out to every car desprately trying to make them stop. It was like when my little host sister ate rat poison and I was the only one reacting. It's crazy how the passiveness of others is infectious. Finally, fortunately, a private car with two gringos drove up and stepped out to take some photos. They didn't hesitate to load her into the back seat and take her to the hospital. I watched them drive away. They were in the comarca for a church seminar, they said. And of course they would cut their scenic drive short, I mean it's urgent, right? I said yes, that she had been loosing substancial amounts of blood for over 24 hours. The exchange was interesting. It was so different from the interactions I had just had with the health worker and the people on the phone who were supposidly looking for an ambulance. So I watched them drive away and felt so greatful that in America, when we can do something for someone we do it. None of this "gees. I'm not on duty, you know?" bull shit.

Emilia is fine. She spent a couple of days in the hospital and is now back in her home.

I spent alot of the last week spending time with her kids, who were home alone. I finally have been learning how to make chacra, the net bag that ngabe women make. I take it from house to house and sit with the women. They eventually take the string from my hands and do a couple of rows, their small caloused hands make perfect little even loops. They don't know but that's my plan. I like the idea that all the women that I care about in my community have helped me to make it.

I should begin building the 15 latrines soon. I had a great meeting with the benificiaries, despite the fact that one women said all the land belonged to her father and that no one had a right to build latrines. I told them to work it out. Let me know, I said. I don't think that anything will come of it. On the 4th I will go and take pictures of each hole. It's exciting to get started.

We are busy planning of the GAD youth conference. I will post pictures of each project so all of you donnors and everyone else can see the process!

Thank you so much for your support!

Feliz Navidad, un Prospero Año y Muchas Gracias!!

A modern Christmas... Lights, Generator, and a holiday flick: Preditors Attack!

Inivitees sit quitely and eat their holiday meal. But it's a subdued affair.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannakah, and Happy New Year to everyone!

First and foremost... I want the thank all of those of you who have donated to my latrine project and the youth conference! The latrine fund is full, so as soon as the Peace Corps Washington office does the paper work I'll be off to buy cement and rebar. When we actually get going I will put up pictures of the 15 families we're helping and the whole dirty process of making cleaner latrines. Thank you thank you thank you!

Ay a la vida. Panama is like a convection oven today. At least in this internet cafe they have a fan blowing the scalding air around. Outside the heat slams you to the ground. It is impossible to towel off in the shower before you start sweating again. A year and a half seems to be the total time it takes for a previously wrinkleless gringa to turn wrinkly. I am, unfortunately, not joking. And days like to day you can feel skin damage in the air.

I spent Christmas in my community. Unseasonal rain has been falling, spreading ash-like funguses all over everyone's planted beans. Usually this time of year the red soil has turned to a fine dust and deep cracks break the trails desert-style. I welcomed the rain since I was sick with a cold and most of Christmas Eve I spent curled in my bed falling in and out of fever dreams as the rain pounded on the roof. I drempt that my ears were full for rice. On Christmas day I made a pumpklin pie in my pressure cooker, beaded little flower braclets with my little sisters and helped chop 25 onions for the big party my host parents threw that evening. I cried.

Cutting onions is an international joke.

Later that night I sat in the kitchen with my host family and their family that had come from afar for the party. They visiting family members were loath to talk to me (actually they were just nervous and shy), particularly the attractive nephew of my host mother. He just mumbled uninteligable responces to my questions until I gave up. I was akward myself. I tired to tell the story of Christmas but couldn't really remember. And I keep bumping into the baby that hung from the ceiling in the netted bag (it's a ngabe cradle). Just spacially I am not used to having to navigate babies. I ran into the sleeping babe several times, each time it woke and started crying. Not a silent night. Finally, feeling like a threat, I removed myself from the kitchen and went to sit with the invitees who had gathered under the solar drier. But it wasn't really the festive event I had imagined. Most people just sat huddled amongst their families and ate quitely. Finally my host dad came and handed out the popcorn I had made for the movie. (He powered up the gas generator for the occasion). What movie? The grinch? Those little claymation rodolf/santa ones? no. Just "When Preditors Attack" a garrish film with slasher re-re-re music as cheetas, lions and tigers ripped apart their prey. The filmers really hit their stride right about when National Geographic photographers would have hit the "stop" button. Most of the film showed the big cats up to their ears in intestine. Nice sound effects, too. Do not get me wrong! I am glad I was there! And I think it ment alot to my host family that I stayed with them for the holidays.

I am headed back up tomorrow to spend New Years with my Panamanian family. I've been really busy finding new communities for future volunteers and visiting our more recent additions to the PCV comarca family.

Thanks again for helping with the projects, I am very excited to get started!

Neither here nor there, but definately still in Panama

In October I had the oppertunity to apply for a job here in Peace Corps called Regional Leader. A Regional Leader (RL) offers fellow volunteers support in the form of rutine annual and safety and security visits, works closely with governemntal agencies and travels around the province looking for and meeting with communities interested in hosting a Peace Corps volunteers. When I thought about possibly taking the job I wrote out dorky lists of pros and cons. The lists were always short and mostly looked like the following...
PROS
It will give me a sence of productivity (something I have missed to the point my teeth ache here in Panama)
CONS
My community will no longer be my one and only commitment

I knew I would be traveling more and that I would be spending less time in my mountain top village. The idea was comforting in some ways, I used to feel so isolated and lonely at times I counted the hours as they ticked slowly by. But I also knew that I would be giving something up, really my only chance to live as one of my community members. In the end, at the time I had to make the decision I was lonely and frustrated and needed a change. I applied for the job and I got it (I share it with another volunteer, also named Andrea). I still live in my community (most RLs move to their provincial capital).

Two months later I am better able to understand what I´ve signed up for. It´s not to say that I´m not happy. I really like the busyness, I like the hiking, the new communities, and providing support to new volunteers who are struggling with things I struggled with. But I haven´t been in my community for more than 3 solid days in a row this month, and I´m tired.

Today I went to my host brother´s graduation. They asked me to be his godmother (Here godmother´s walk their godson down the isle of graduation). I had to rearrange my visits to see several volunteers to make it but it was worth it. I walked him down the isle, and I felt like I was participating in some mass wedding with really cheesy music. Think ¨Toys¨. I had no idea what to do so I watched the pairs of students and madrinas that walked down the isle ahead of us. It was evident I was to hold his hand. He was so nervous, pobrecito , I had to reach around his back to grab his sweaty hand, which he held really rigid. I will say just this... You think American graduations are drawn out and flowery (insert questionmark, stupid spanish keyboards.) But imagine seeing the first member of your family graduate from highschool. It must be pretty cool.

My 6th to last month is nearly over and it is evident how fast they are going to flip by, especially if I keep up this pace. The grass is always greener on the other side and it is what it is, but I´m feeling twinges of regret that I´m not just a regular volunteer that can focus 100% on my community. On the other hand (which would that be, like, number 6, maybe) I tried that take for a year and a half.

Kate and Jannel came to build an oven in my community for my host sister Maricela, who loves to experiment in the cocina. We sang christmas songs as we hiked up our skirts and mixed the sand and red clay with our toes. All my favorite women from the community showed up, which was great since I hadn´t even announced it as something they should come to. They came on their own to get muddy and learn how to bake bread using only mud. I have some great photos but this damn internet is so slow.

Headed out to do a volunteer visit tomorrow and some site development. Then back up to the mountain for Christmas and New Years. Happy Holidays. I am thinking of all of you! (Snow... I include you in that statement!)

We need your help!

Happy Holidays!
I am going to shamelessly ask for your money. Tis the season! (but if for you, Tis is NOT the season, no worries. Money matters back home sound scary!)

Here in Peace Corps Panama I am co-vice-president for the Gender and Development Comitee. Every year the Comitee hosts a youth conference/camp for 50 some odd youths from all over the country. During the conference we cover a number of topics ranging form self-esteem, making life choices, values, morals and goals as well as safe-sex and HIV/AIDS. Panama's HIV numbers rank in second amoungst Latin American countries, and 20% of pregnancies are adolescent, so these topics are of great importance. The camp is a lot of fun for the kids (ages 13-18) and kids who have gone to past camps talk to the volunteers in their community about how much they learn. The Lions Club of Panama has donated the housing for the camp, but we've writen a grant to cover mainly transportation, food and supplies. The cost of the camp is large (due to the 50 participants). If you'd be interested in donating and helping the camp happen it's easy!
Go to : http://peacecorps.gov and click on the "Donate Now" side bar. Search by "Panama" or "Gender and Youth Conference" or "Newman A" or "525-132".

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

Thank you so much! Happy Holidays!

Andi Newman
p.s. I appologize to those of you who are also on my parents email lists. It may mean that I have shamelessly asked for your money more than once. And that's annoying...

Happy Turkey Day!

Rain and Nutmeg... Even in Panama it's time for Thanksgiving

Painting the Pollera dancers for the parade

The misty slopes as seen from my community's "main street"

Kayla and I met up at the beach for a quick in-transit reunion.

Deluge every day at 12 until sunset, sometimes late into the night. There is something so special about the rainstorms here. They are unlike anything I could have imagined after spending my formative years in dry Utah and Colorado; even the never ending rain of the Northwest doesn't compare. First the fog creeps down from the road and clouds everything but the red trail from view. The wind starts to rustle and flap through the big plasticy leaves (a very diferent sound from the low howel of wind through the pines). Then the rain comes and you can here it climb up the side of the mountain for about 45 secounds before it really hits. It gives my little sisters time to bring in the clothes that are thrown up on the zinc roofs and over barb wired fences. I lay in my hammock and wonder at the might of nature. It has successfully silenced the clamour of my closest neighbors. NOT an easy feat. The kids are home by themselves these days while all the adults rush to plant 800lbs of kidney beans in their steep feilds before the rains stop. They entertain themselves by banging metal things with other metal things, and screaming "MAAAAAAma VEEEEEENga. MAAAAAAAAma VEEENga." over and over and over. But with the rain drumming on the tin roof, the loudest white noise you'll ever hear, I can hear none of it. I snuggle with my cat and read books. When the summer comes he will be covered with fleas, and our naps together might have to end.

It gets chilly at night and I sleep with sweatpants, sheets, a fleece blanket and a sleeping bag. It's the humidity that makes your bones quake; I don't think the temperature ever drops bellow 68 degrees. But the mist and the rain makes me think of fall back home, cinnamon and nutmeg and pumpkin pie with too many cloves. Sometimes the radio from someone's house belts out a christmas jingle advertisment and I slide into snowy daydreams. But that real nip in the air isn't here. That cold that gets into your toes and lays on top of your skin. It's strange, I could swear I should be that cold, but it isn't. It is almost like seeing food but not smelling it because you have a cold, as if a certain sense is missing.

All us volunteers are headed to chilly Chiriqui for Thanksgiving it is going to be great! Kudos for Ashley and Brandon Gries for all their hard work to make it happen. Nobody wants that job, and they volunteered! (weird)

I'm nearly ready to jump into what promises to be a crazy 3 or 4 months: Site Development for future volunteers, a latrine project, and a kids camp for 50 youths from all over the country.

Ay Ay Ay.

Mission Vetiver accomplished. (Not really "accomplished" but "poco a poco" ). I finally was able to make the trip with some of the bean planters to get seeds of a special grass for soil conservation terrace construction. It was a long process. Believe it or not, a year! But we planted them using a Level-A and hopefully in the years to come they will see the terraces forming naturally and notice the difference in soil quality when it hasn't all washed down the mountain to paint the river red. I hope to implement it in a number of farms in different communities as well.

Yesterday I had a great night with my bud Lisa in good 'ol David. We saw the Micheal Jackson movie. Wow. And I got popcorn. Enough said. It was wonderfull. We ate dinner at "the casino". Nachos. Served to us by waitresses in VERY tight, short shorts. The place has a pirate motiff. And stalagtites that decorate the stage. It was funny. I looked at Lisa and reflected that never would the Andi from the global north every choose to eat at such a tacky place. But we were both giddy with the prospect of dinner at the casino. Ca-ching!

An update

Rebecca whipped eggs for about a half hour trying to acheive the "soft peaks" with the wireless elbow grease of our grandmothers. We made a gluten-free chocolate polenta cake with cacao from Kate's community.

Elmo "the frog"

Rainy afternoon in the hammock with Chami. What a snuggler.

It has been so long since I've updated this 'ol blog. But it's funny, the longer I'm here the less the experiences I have impress upon me the need to record them. They become less out of the ordinary. I don't carry my camera with me as often and my journal, instead of filling with the happenings of the day, is a place of introspection and answerless questions.

Time is such a funny thing. There are days I stew in my community and wish it were all over. Days that I say to myself that if I didn't have a latrine project that I've promised to a nearby community I would call it quits. Then the next day, I think how sad and strange it will be when this is all over. An example:

Two days ago I woke up. It was raining, as it always does in October. It had rained all night and the fog that wrapped itself around the hill promised it would rain all day. I had two English classes at the school that morning so I ate breakfast, fed the cat and walked down to the school, planning my lesson as I went. The teachers had planned exams for that day and had neglected to tell me, so I walked away from the school without giving class. (Not a big deal, but a total of one hour walking in the rain). I went to visit a family on the other side of the communtiy. 2 months ago the 14year-old son was harvesting pifa (a squash nut that grows on a spiny palm) when 3 of the spines fell into his eye. He went to Panama city for surgery and the doctor made him an appointment for several months later. The kid approched John (the previous volunteer in my community who was visiting at the time) and asked for the money. "The doctor told me if there was a gringo living in my community I should ask him for the money." Unlikely. We helped him to write a letter to the Comarca senetor, asking for his support. To make a long story short they didn't get the money, although the money was waiting for them. They blame me. Really it is just a story of poor communication that plagues cross-cultural conversation. Then I spent the rest of the day at a funeral. I've been to funnerals before, but this is the only one I have sat through from the begining to the end. I won't go into the detailes. It was very sad. And funnerals, as my friend Kayla and I talked about, have an interesting way of illuminating how far you really are from being a true member of your community. I looked around and realized how many names I didn't know, how I couldn't remember where people lived within my community. I didn't even know the face or name of the boy we were burying, even though I consider his family to be one of my favorites, and I pasear with them quite a bit. His mother has 12 children, so it is not suprising that I can't picture his face. I felt like an intruder, but I knew once I went that I couldn't leave until it was over. When it was all over and they were serving food they served me first in a bowl with a spoon (everyone else ate with their fingers from a banana leaf). Even that display of respect has a power to seperate and make one feel seperated. I honestly don't know if they were glad I was there or felt that I was an intrusion. It is most likely the former, based on my experience, but sometimes it is hard to tell.

The next day I ran around from home to home organizing work days and I had possitive interactions with everyone I met. And thing fell into place as if because, as they say here, God Wants. And my gloomy mood lifted even though it continues to rain, and rain and rain. I have a nutrition charla with 50 women in my community coming up, lots of soil conservation barriers. Things are good!

Games in Kate's community. Me in Kate's dress. Slimming no?