Coming up on the new year, I was reflecting on where I was last year at this time, and it´s strange to think how different my life was. I´m looking forward to what this upcoming Panamanian year will provide/offer/spring on me. It´s been an interesting four months already, so it´ll be amazing to see what happens when I get under way working in my community.
I´ve been remiss at adding photos to the blog, I´m aware. But I have a whole bunch that I´ll update when I head into Panama City this weekend. The network connection is just so slow out here that I don´t have the time to upload all my photos. It´ll be much faster to do it all at once this weekend. I promise there will be photos!
The holidays haven´t felt like the holidays here. Mostly because instead of wearing sweaters and eating cookies, I´m wearing flip flops and (still) eating rice. Not much changes for the holidays here. Which means that I haven´t had time or reason to miss home, which is good. We´ve entered "summer" in Panama, which means that it´s windier and cooler at night. Which is a blessing. I´ve had some nights recently where I can actually say I got a little cold under just my one sheet. "Cold" is a relative term here.
What have I been doing lately...? I´m learning how to pasear (walk around and visit) with my neighbors and friends like a Panamanian. I´ve paseared to everyones house at least once now, which sounds really easy to do when there are only 27 houses, but it´s hard to do in another language when you´re not entirely certain what the protocol is. I´ve figured it out though, and now I´m pretty comfortable walking into anyones house, sitting down and talking with them. It´s harder than it sounds, I promise.
Other than that, I´ve been hanging around and working with my family a lot. We went out to Puerto Lara (a nearby town where my friend Karen lives) for Christmas Eve day for a soccer tournament. That was an experience. I witnessed the Wounaan´s tradition for celebrating quincenera (a girl´s 15th birthday celebration): apparently they get the birthday girl absolutely plastered (the girl in Puerto Lara was so drunk she couldn´t hold her head up or keep her eyes open), then dance her around while friends and relatives support her physically. It was actually very disturbing for me to see someone, much less a fifteen year old girl, that drunk. I talked to some of my community members, and they said that they do that as well during Semana Santa. That upset me a little, but after talking one-on-one to some of the parents, I realized that they don´t all participate. Some of them recognize that it´s not safe or smart to inebriate a 15 year old to the point of passing out. I´m hopeful that I can have that discussion with most of the parents, because it was very jarring for me. I may not be able to stop it, but I can at least try to discourage the forced intoxication. Alcohol abuse is already a pretty prevalent problem throughout Panama, so I do what I can to set a good example.
Tomorrow will be another big party, and I´m having a community meeting with the women during the day, so it´s a big day for me. I have to prepare for that, and prepare for all night partying and drinking. It should be fun! I´ll take pictures and get them up this weekend.
That´s all I have to report right now. Happy New Year to all! I love you and miss you all, every day!
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
6 weeks in site and still strong!
I'm pretty good at keeping up with this bloggy thing. I thought I'd be terrible at it, but it gives me a good excuse to go in and use the internet, so I'm actually quite excellent at it.
I'm still alive and well, in a new house in my community, making headway every day (except to day, of course, because I escaped to use internet and eat yogurt). This last week actually was a busy, busy week. I was a little low on Tuesday, and paseared (walked around and chatted) with my community, and then found out that there was a water committee meeting that night. So, I ended up getting to go and see, first hand, what the problems are surrounding the water in the community. Turns out there are a lot...
First, they have an old aquaduct that only supplies water maybe half the time. So as a result people have to fill up big buckets of water to have a store for when there is no water. That's a common problem in Panama, and one that I already knew they had. They are actually pretty good at storing their water safely, so that's not a huge problem.
They also have a metered system, which in general Americans would see as a good thing. You'll know exactly how much you're using, and you'll pay for what you use. Except when you pair that with people filling up big buckets of water, letting them sit for a week, then dumping them out because the water's "dirty", you end up with people wasting a lot of water and still paying for it. And it's the paying-for-it part that they're dismayed by. I suppose if I went from a fixed rate of $2/month to a metered rate of $8/month in the course of a month, I'd be pretty dismayed, also. Especially considering that a day laborer's average pay is $8/day. That's a big difference.
There's also one other big problem that they have. There's a new aquaduct that was built by the "government" (I'm actually not sure who it was built by; I've gotten mixed reports, which leads me to believe that I'll just have to figure it out on my own) that's going to pump water from a river nearby, through a treatment plant, up to the aquaduct, chlorinate it up there and feed it to all 4 communities that are attached to this aquaduct system. They'll have clean, potable water 24/7. Sounds good, right? Wrong. If this aquaduct gets finished, someone else will be maintaining it, meaning there will no longer be a local Water Committee collecting money, checking meters, and more importantly, deciding when to cut people's water off because they haven't paid in three months. The deal with the water committees is that they're assembled from the communities, and all the communities are related to each other. Basically that means that they elect people that aren't going to cut them off. People want family members on the committee because then they won't run the risk of having their water supply cut off if they're delinquent. Which they often are. It's disfunctional, to say the least. But, how do you convince someone that it would be better to have an outside agency managing their water supply, even if that means they're water could get cut? Yeah...dilemma.
Other than that, I'm also working with a women's artisan group that is starting a cooperative to sell their artisan work. They actually just voted on a name yesterday: Mujeres Artesanas Unidas de Pueblo Nuevo or United Women's Artisans of Pueblo Nuevo. I'm going to help them work with an agency named IPACOOP to start their coop and help them through some of the finer points once IPACOOP steps back a little bit. We'll see how that goes...
As always, I miss and love everyone at home. It's still hot here. It's eternally summer here, which I thought I'd love, but I find myself looking for the coolest spots and the coolest times of day and taking advantage of them. Although, I never have to "work" on my tan. Which is a nice little perk. And everyone has a hammock, which is also wonderful. Whoever created the hammock is a genius.
Til next time!
Molly
I'm still alive and well, in a new house in my community, making headway every day (except to day, of course, because I escaped to use internet and eat yogurt). This last week actually was a busy, busy week. I was a little low on Tuesday, and paseared (walked around and chatted) with my community, and then found out that there was a water committee meeting that night. So, I ended up getting to go and see, first hand, what the problems are surrounding the water in the community. Turns out there are a lot...
First, they have an old aquaduct that only supplies water maybe half the time. So as a result people have to fill up big buckets of water to have a store for when there is no water. That's a common problem in Panama, and one that I already knew they had. They are actually pretty good at storing their water safely, so that's not a huge problem.
They also have a metered system, which in general Americans would see as a good thing. You'll know exactly how much you're using, and you'll pay for what you use. Except when you pair that with people filling up big buckets of water, letting them sit for a week, then dumping them out because the water's "dirty", you end up with people wasting a lot of water and still paying for it. And it's the paying-for-it part that they're dismayed by. I suppose if I went from a fixed rate of $2/month to a metered rate of $8/month in the course of a month, I'd be pretty dismayed, also. Especially considering that a day laborer's average pay is $8/day. That's a big difference.
There's also one other big problem that they have. There's a new aquaduct that was built by the "government" (I'm actually not sure who it was built by; I've gotten mixed reports, which leads me to believe that I'll just have to figure it out on my own) that's going to pump water from a river nearby, through a treatment plant, up to the aquaduct, chlorinate it up there and feed it to all 4 communities that are attached to this aquaduct system. They'll have clean, potable water 24/7. Sounds good, right? Wrong. If this aquaduct gets finished, someone else will be maintaining it, meaning there will no longer be a local Water Committee collecting money, checking meters, and more importantly, deciding when to cut people's water off because they haven't paid in three months. The deal with the water committees is that they're assembled from the communities, and all the communities are related to each other. Basically that means that they elect people that aren't going to cut them off. People want family members on the committee because then they won't run the risk of having their water supply cut off if they're delinquent. Which they often are. It's disfunctional, to say the least. But, how do you convince someone that it would be better to have an outside agency managing their water supply, even if that means they're water could get cut? Yeah...dilemma.
Other than that, I'm also working with a women's artisan group that is starting a cooperative to sell their artisan work. They actually just voted on a name yesterday: Mujeres Artesanas Unidas de Pueblo Nuevo or United Women's Artisans of Pueblo Nuevo. I'm going to help them work with an agency named IPACOOP to start their coop and help them through some of the finer points once IPACOOP steps back a little bit. We'll see how that goes...
As always, I miss and love everyone at home. It's still hot here. It's eternally summer here, which I thought I'd love, but I find myself looking for the coolest spots and the coolest times of day and taking advantage of them. Although, I never have to "work" on my tan. Which is a nice little perk. And everyone has a hammock, which is also wonderful. Whoever created the hammock is a genius.
Til next time!
Molly
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