Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Jumping on a moving train...

I witnessed an extraordinary thing on Sunday. I was going over to the school to use the internet and get some work done, and I stumbled upon a Padres de Familia (our PTO) meeting. I stuck around for a few minutes to see what was going on, because they seemed to be in the midst of some kind of training. There was charla paper (poster paper), markers, and a woman from my town was leading an activity. It was a good seminar, addressing a major issue: that encouragement and positive reinforcement, even in the face of failure, is always more beneficial than corporal punishment or verbal abuse. Simple enough concept, but most Panamanians are raised to fear their parents retribution if they come home with bad grades rather than seek out their help when they struggle in school. So, most Panamanians raise their kids that way thus perpetuating the vicious cycle.


The woman leading the group is named Yasmila. She’s someone that I trained to give some of the health seminars earlier in the year, and she initially told me that there was no way she would be able to get up in front of her community and present. She did though, and her presentations went well. I asked her what this training was about, and she told me that the Education Ministry wanted all of the Padres de Familia groups to receive trainings on emotional intelligence and communication. She told me, “Molly, I never would have done this if you hadn’t taught me how and told me that I could.” I just smiled at her, but inside of me, my heart swelled up. She probably thought nothing of the comment, because she turned away to help a group with their activity, but with those words she validated my entire Peace Corps experience. All I could think was, I am Charlie Sheen and I am WINNING! I was so proud of her, and by extension (and my unadulturated egoism) myself, that I stayed until the end, just to see how well it was received. Everyone was so communicative and participative, it was a delight to see. They never would have participated had that same training been facilitated by some nameless Education Ministry official. But because it was Yasmila, someone they know and trust, they all listened and responded and took it to heart. I loved it.


My service has been peppered with these kinds of experiences. Successes that I can’t claim as my own, but I helped facilitate in some way. I had another one last week with my water committee. There’s a cattle rancher that lives above my water source (which is a large, protected area quite a ways from my community) that’s been taking liberties with our property. He’s chopped down and either sold or used several hectares of trees. My water committee asked me to write some letters for them so that they could go to ANAM (National Environmental Agency) and the local authorities and file a report. I obligingly did so, and they turned them in and diligently followed up (which in itself was a win because almost no one follows up after turning a letter in). Last week the ANAM official went with them to the area, examined it and sided with my water committee. This does not happen much here. Bribes are pretty common, and land designated to water sources are regularly plundered for their natural resources (namely, wood) while authorities look away. The fact that the official sided with my committee is amazing, much less that he went out there at all. I was pretty impressed, and proud of them. Once again, a win, but one I can only really take 5% credit for.


Now, I know that the point of Peace Corps isn’t that, at the end of it, I can claim sole credit for a wide array of projects and accomplishments. In fact, that’s probably the mark of an extremely ineffective volunteer. The whole point of it is that internal capacity is being built and my community members feel more empowered to create the future that they want for themselves. By that estimation, I feel pretty effective. I have community members that have really started taking initiative since I’ve gotten here, partly because they were already go-getters, partly through some influence I’ve had on them, and partly because of some intangible X factor. I have a friend that put it nicely: when I congratulated him on organizing and motivating his community so successfully, he said, “I didn’t really do anything. The whole thing feels like a train that was already moving down the tracks, and I’m just hitching a ride for a little while.” It’s true. My train may be moving a little slower than his, but, in a lot of ways, I feel like I’m just here paying witness to their lives unfolding. I cannot dramatically change the course of their collective train, but my influence has little, lasting effects in the direction they choose to go. It is a sobering, humbling, and yet hopeful thought.


The influence that we have on people is so nuanced that, oftentimes, we don’t know we’ve done anything until much later. I probably won’t see the majority of the effects, since my time is winding down, but I'm encouraged by these little, bite-sized wins. They always happen right when I need them, too. When I'm bored, or feeling useless, suddenly I get a tiny reminder of why I'm here, a taste of my example rubbing off. That little success is like a drug, and gives me just enough of a high to keep me working until the next success. That feeling of pride in my community members and my work is what has kept me here for the two years. And it's what I'll remember when I'm back home.

Friday, May 20, 2011

MORE pictures!

These photos aren't mine, but what's cut and paste for anyway?

https://picasaweb.google.com/bracken.killpack/CoibaPictures?authkey=Gv1sRgCOfilbLNqraoxQE&feat=directlink#

There are some very pretty underwater shots of bright fish. I was too nervous to take my underwater camera underwater after the last time--when I took it underwater and it died a million little deaths. Bummer. Fortunately, Kate and Bracken's underwater camera is still going strong.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Photos!

These are the photos that I tried to post last time, but didn't take. Enjoy!

May 18, 2011

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Life Lessons as taught by Peace Corps

There are some things that one should never ignore: stop signs, STD’s, Back to the Future marathons, 2-for-1 Happy Hours (unless, of course, you have a drinking problem). For me, amoebas now fall into that category. Before Peace Corps, that would have been a given, but I’ve gotten so used to always having some ailment that it seemed reasonable to assume that it would eventually clear up on it’s own. Well, this time it didn’t. I got really sick, probably the sickest I have ever been, at the beginning of April, passed out while throwing up off my deck, and fell off my house. My house is on stilts, and about 5 feet off the ground. I broke my nose, suffered a concussion and spent a week in the hospital in Panama City. On the plus side, I got a black eye and found out that I look kinda awesome with a black eye. I’ve included a photo to prove it, even though I don’t look very happy in the photo. For the record, all of those injuries have been dealt with, and are now better.



Since then, I’ve returned to site, and tried to return to my work. It was pretty slow in April, as I was still healing and having dizzy spells. April is also when Panama celebrates Semana Santa, the week before Easter when everyone basically just drinks. The week after Semana Santa, I went to Isla Coiba on vacation with 7 other volunteers. Here are some selected photos from Coiba (COY-bah). I have an underwater camera, but after a tragic incident in Bocas del Toro when I tried to actually use it as directed, it died and had to have repairs done on it. I went without a camera for several months, but thanks to good ol’ Mom and Dad, it got fixed and returned to me. But since that happened, I’m nervous to take it underwater again. So, I didn’t get any fish or giant turtle pictures, although I saw both. I also saw dolphins, crocodiles (of which I DO have pictures), scarlett macaws, and some howler monkeys, as well as countless bird species. Very cool trip.


Isla Coiba is a World Heritage site, and used to be a penal colony, which is why it went undeveloped long enough to become a national park. When it was still being used as a penal colony, cattle were introduced on the island to sustain the prisoners (it was a self-sustaining penal colony), but have since become feral. So, this primary rainforest has a bunch of feral cattle running around in it, which can’t be eaten because they don’t have vaccinations, and no one’s made the effort to kill. They also have to predators, as there are no large cats on Coiba, so they’re multiplying. Our guide, Javier, a former Peace Corps volunteer himself, said that they’re starting to threaten Coiba’s biodiversity and the World Heritage Society warned Panama that they would lose their sponsership if they didn’t get rid of them. We suggested just letting some big game hunters in to handle it, which I guess was tried once. How boring would that be, though? Hunt feral cattle in primary rainforest! Not only does it sound lame, it doesn’t even sound true. What are feral cattle doing in primary rainforest?


After Isla Coiba, I traveled back north to Soná, a town in western Veraguas, and the hometown of President Ricardo Martinelli. It’s also the community of my friend from high school, Simone Labonte. Simone’s a TE (Teaching English) volunteer working primarily in the school. She’s got a great host family, that fed me so much food, I had to get out of there, and a really sweet community. It’s nice to see other volunteers in good siutations, because more often than not, we only hear about the bad situations and the volunteers that are leaving early as a result. I’ve included a couple photos of Soná and Simone in the same album as Coiba.


Finally, on my tour of Veraguas and the Azuero, I went to Parita, the town of my friend Melissa. It’s about 25 minutes from Chitré, where the Azuero Fair is held every year. As expected, there was greasy food (of which I partook), large animals (one of my favorite things about the fair), and rides. There were also lots of arts and crafts, and vendors of every kind. We missed the cultural dances, unfortunately, but I got a good look at everything. We did go into the little museum showcasing some of the costumes of the Reinas de Carnavale (Carnavale Queens) from this year. They had costumes from Parita, Chitré, and Los Santos. There are some photos included. These dresses cost thousands of dollars, and this is only a fraction of their Carnavale wardrobes. The queens wear different outfits on every float, and there is one every day of Carnavale (Saturday through Fat Tuesday), as well as the coronation dresses, and their payache outfits (payache is the nightclub that opens after dark). The outfits are pretty incredible. The biggest carnavale party happens in Los Santos, with the Reina de Calle Arriba (upper street queen) and the Reina de Calle Abajo (lower street queen) competing for the title of Queen of Carnavale. Each side of town has a big sponser who pays for the floats and parties, and basically whoever’s is more epic, wins. The costumes are just part of the larger competition.


After that whirlwind trip around the country, I’m back in site, working to arrange a meeting with program director in a couple weeks. The time has come for my community to decide whether they want another volunteer after I leave. After nearly two years, and reflecting back on what I’ve tried to do, what’s failed and what’s succeeded, I’m conflicted about whether they should receive a follow-up volunteer. On the one hand, I love my community, and there are a few people that are really smart and motivated, albeit very busy with their own lives, who I think I’ve had an impact on. On the other hand, I feel like my impact specifically as a health volunteer has been minimal. For example, my town told me that I got sick and fell out of my house because I 1) run too much, and 2) ate too much watermelon. They laughed when I told them I had amoebas, because they still don’t believe that amoeba’s exist. The thought of trying to explain it, yet again, is exhausting. There’s another problem, too. That being that some of the women see me as someone to sell their baskets. It created some problems when I went back to the States in March for a wedding, and, even though I’ve explained to them that there is no guarentee that the next volunteer will do the same, they want another volunteer specifically for that purpose. I don’t want to support them getting another volunteer if that’s the only thing they want them for. There are projects that could be developed here, of that I’m certain. I’m just not sure that my town has the motivation to see a project through at this point. Like I said, I’m conflicted.


I think I’ve explained myself, and aired all my grievances. Sorry for the delay. I was busy falling out of my house and spending time in the hospital. And then on vacation. I’d like for my final five months to be fun. I’m going to see if I can borrow a projector from another volunteer and have a few movie nights for my kids. I think that’d be a fun way to spend Saturday nights with my town. I’ll try to keep everyone posted better than I have been.


Much love. Take care!


"Tito" the crocodile and our fearless leader Javier. My friend's Catherine and Kathryn enjoying the warm waters of Coiba.


Peace Corps looks pretty nice in these photos, huh?


Above: Scarlett Macaws, and some nasty weather on the way back from Isla Coiba.


Above: The main church in Soná, President Ricardo Martinelli's Soná residence, and my friend Simone and I.


Above: some of the outfits for the Queens of the last Carnavale. These cost in the thousands, and they have one for each event for the 5 days of Carnavale. These are some coronation gowns.


Melissa and I at the Azuero Fair, some graffiti that I liked and some very ambitious hermit crabs on a banana peel.



Hermit crab exodus.