You really learn to cope with the bug bites.  Everything becomes normal after a while.

So, I am sitting in front of the Panama Canal at my friends’ Andrew and Matt’s place on the 41st floor.  Its a world away from what I have been considering my lifestyle for the next two years.  Everything in this place is antique and they have fresh squeezed juices from a stocked fridge on the daily.  Plus, having a hot shower and extra beds (one for me) has made it a wonderful place to be.  For those of you who come to visit, you must meet the twosome that have made my times in the city a much richer time and whose friendships have been the source of much rejuvenation from the day to day monotony that training has become.

The last two weeks were emotionally draining.  Its never easy to meet a new host family, get acquainted, and then have to say goodbye, and having to do it multiple times during a period of two months is not easy.  The best part of these past two weeks were a bittersweet combination of meeting wonderful locals and living with them, fellowshipping with them, and just enjoying each other’s companies.  Training as those of you who I have talked with on the phone know, is just too long at this point in our PC existance.  I feel like I lack a frame of reference for most of the (very simple) material that we are being presented with.  But that’s the beauty of it all I guess, it’ll be a test to see how much of it I actually apply in my own community.

This week was definitely not as crazy in terms of the amenities as last week was.  I had electricity and running water this week.  My bathroom was the jungle and I think I contributed to the urine scent that penetrated my nostrils through the cinderblock windows.  The shower was a pipe on a slab 3×5 of concrete about 30 feet from the house and thus far, the best showers I have taken yet.  The water was undoubtedly cold, but the beauty of it all was the heavens above, a sky showered with stars at night.  One night, I saw a shooting star while spitting the water out of my mouth.  Another night, I showered under a light drizzle.  Every night was heavenly except this one night where I got out of the shower and I slipped and fell on my butt with my clean boxers.  The worst part was that I had just let out a fresh stream of processed water through my body and the remnants of the pee pee were in the puddle I was sitting in.  I went right back into my 4 foot walled off shower and scrubbed as best I could with my hands my body for at least 15 minutes.  It was horrible.

In the last two weeks, I shaved twice.  I look like a pervert when I don’t get to shave and I hate going out in public not having shaved for more than 4 days.  So not shaving for a whole week is brutal.  But everytime I get the chance to stand in front of a mirror barefoot, without being paranoid of what it is I am stepping in or on, it is an experience worth the wait.  I feel like I am in a movie, and I am one of those characters that came from a long journey across the desert to be asked, “Is there anything I can do for you?” to which I would reply, “Just a hot shower, a nice shave, a good meal, and a comfortable bed would do.”

So, what did I do this week?  Well, my group killed some chickens, we husked some rice, some went fishing, others carved the shell of a fruit, we went to a dance, met everyone in the town, played soccer everyday, and just had a million things on the agenda for our technical training week.

In the mornings, I would try and walk over to the closed off soccer field that they open up for a few hours each day for the community to spend time together playing sports.  On the field, you can watch the kids chase each other and set up a mini-soccer field, or watch the older gents play a organized and skillful game of soccer.  Everyday, they play, and they do well playing each other.  It’s quite the spectacle.  One day, I mustered up the courage to play and ended up playing mid-back defense.  Not to brag, but I dominated (even though I was the catalyst for one of the opponent’s goals).  But in the mornings, the field is empty, and the dew is noticable as the sun rises early on a backdrop of edgy hills.  Its a good place to go for some quiet time and reflection, which I feel like I do all the time in my head, but never get the chance to do with my body.  I feel like I am always being shuffled around like a sheep.  But as the sun rose one morning on the field, I watched two chickens running in perfect form around the baseball diamond hitting each base as they chased each other.  The skills that these animals have here are incredible.

But our group spent a good amount of time killing chickens.  We were given four chickens to kill and what we were told to do was to grab the chicken by the neck with one hand and the legs with the other and just whip it by the neck.  Either that or step on the head and pull quickly with your hands by the legs.  One girl actually ripped the head off the chicken and got blood all over her face.  It was the second most hilarious thing of the entire week.  The funniest thing of the week was while we were at the site’s volunteer’s house preparing for a lesson plan we were to give to kids when the volunteer walked out of her house holding a toad by the leg.  At first we were all confused as to what she would do with the toad until she cocked her arm back and threw the toad about 20 yards into the rice field.  It was just what the doctor ordered.

One of the days were dedicated to doing typical cultural stuff which included husking rice and gutting the chickens we had killed.  Gutting a chicken was not fun and it seemed tedious (which makes me glad that I don’t do that for a living).  But I was asked to chop some wood using an axe, so I made my way over to the wood pile and began chopping away.  This was the second time I had ever used an axe and so I wasn’t the most confident trooper going into war with the logs, but the first few swings were right on the money and I hit gold.  Chop, chop, chop, I did a fantastic job until they put an awkward looking log in my chopper zone.  I swung hard, missed, and my middle-fingernail on my left hand partially lifted up.  Yessiree, I have a black and blue finger thanks to not being Paul Bunyan.

Outside of the cultural activities we participated in during tech week, the greatest challenge was avoiding the horse poop mines.  This particular community was fortunate enough to have a paved road, and the funniest thing about the paved road is that there are more horses that travel the road than cars do.  That means that there is a LOT of horse poopage that we needed to learn to avoid.  The smell was of course, never pleasant, but avoiding the poopage in the day was a breeze.  It was avoiding it after the sun set that made you feel like you were walking on the mine fields of Gitmo.  But don’t worry folks, I survived and I am alive and well.

I think that the 20 new mosquito bites were much harder to endure through than the poopage on the road.  I made the fatal mistake of opening up my mosquito net for longer than 1.5 seconds and found myself sleeping with a friend of Marc, his name is Horace the mosquito.  Horace slept with me for 3 days under the safety of my net and every night for an hour, I would turn on my iPod or use my headlamp to try and get him into striking distance, but Horace was a good hide and seeker and hid well when the light was on.  So thanks to his hide and seek skills, I now somehow have bites on my inner thighs, more on my butt, and a few on my hip bones to add to the collection.  Someday soon, I will be an artpiece as all the mosquito bites will magically turn into a piece of artwork.  Yep…

You learn a lot from being in the Peace Corps.  My newest skill is learning how to brush my teeth with water from a faucet that only goes up mid-thigh.  One way is to stick your butt out really far so that the splashing water doesn’t get all over your clothes.  Another way is to stand with your feet really wide apart so that you aren’t getting your sandles or shoes wet.  But my favorite is to stand behind the faucet and get protection from the splashage by an inch and a half wide pipe with one foot in the air behind you so only one foot gets minimally wet.  All methods work well and all are highly recommended.

But the highlight of the week was getting a massage under a waterfall.  I swear, I can sit under waterfalls all day long and the fact that there are plenty here in Panama gives me a sense of satisfaction.

Ok, time to get back.  I don’t get much tv time and my new found friends in the city are watching some football.  Man, I feel out of the loop.

One life.  And I’m loving it.

Wow. I can´t believe a week has gone by. It´s only been one week since I was last near anything that caused cancer through electromagnetic waves through the brain and so on and so forth. Here is my week in a nutshell; enjoy the Mastercard layout.

Number of days without electricity and clean, potable water: 6
Number of times a cockroach crawled on me while I was awake or walking around: 3
Number of toilets that flushed: 0
Number of times I went number 2: 1 (yep, that means I didn´t poop for 4 whole days. The 7 hour busride today was b-r-u-t-a-l)
Number of boiled green (unripened) bananas that I ate: unknown, but probably close to 4 per meal
Number of chickens I saw crossing the road: 1 zillion
Number of people that called me ¨Chino¨(Chinese): 1000 (there are 1000 people in the whole village)
Number of times I slipped and fell on a muddy hill: 3
Number of mosquito bites with the potential of spreading malaria: 32
Number of cockroaches that crawled around me while I was sleeping: 1 (it´s name is Marc)
Number of bug bites on my butt: 2 (one on each cheek)
Number of bottles I had to chlorinate to brush my teeth: 4
Number of sodas that I drank this week: 14
Number of the most amazing organic Apple Bananas that I ate: 3
Number of organic oranges that I ate right off the tree: 4

Yep, this week was pretty interesting. The more involved I am with this whole process, the more I realize that anyone can really do this. The question really is will they do it and if they do, will they commit to going through with the whole process? There´s a part of me that almost fears that at the end of two years, I will not want to go home and want to continue living a more simple life (but who am I kidding, I love the finer things in life). There´s always been this dialectic in my life that makes me want to live both lives. But one thing is for certain, no matter where we are in life, we are in a world that currency makes all the difference and it is that currency that allows us to go back and forth from simplicity to luxury. The choice is the luxury, not necessarily the nicer things that money can buy.

So I spent the entire week without any potable water and electricity and found that I could fall asleep daily at 8:30p to wake up at 6:00a. Everyday, I woke up before the roosters crowed and it was usually the kids that woke me up through their stomping. I stayed in a village of 1000 people near the port town of Almirante in Bocas del Toro. The village had no paved roads, no electricity, and in order to sell cold soda, the local store would haul in tubs of ice from the outside to accomodate their clients wants. They definitely sell more soda than anything else in the store. The town is hidden in a valley and every morning there is an incredible fog that settles through a mild peak in the valley to remind us of the beauty that creation is. In the center of town is a soccer field and in that soccer field, I played goalie for the first time in a game that had close to 30 players (way too much for a soccer game).

My house was right next to the soccer field and consisted of two stories made of wooden planks. The ceilings were too small for me to walk around without hitting my head, and everytime someone walked around, the whole house vibrated a little and made enough noise to wake everyone up. I was able to get my own room for the week with a wooden table for a bed. My mosquito net and Thermarest sleeping pad have become my best friends as they save me from the treachery of the bug clans. Unfortunately, the planks on my wooden bed were spaced out so that a friendly cockroach named Marc could come and hang out in my mouth and crawl around me while I slept. I just hope that it didn´t lay any eggs in my ears (I saw it on tv once and it was horrible). I want to say I killed Marc at least 5 times, but he was like a ninja cat and must have at least 9 lives.

Our week was redundant to what we have been going through throughout the rest of training. I feel like I am living in Groundhog day and each day brings forth the same thing as every other day. I think that my travels everywhere and living everywhere has numbed me to the new experiences and it is in the creation of things and the solving of problems that I truly generate energy.

I am so looking forward to all that is to come in my site. The work is looking more and more exciting as each day goes by and I am looking forward to applying my consulting principles to my community. I need to become an expert on Six Sigma, so if you have any recommendations, please send them my way. One of the concerns that my community expressed was their concern to ensure that their bananas were in the first or second grade, and I think that I can definitely help with that process. I am also looking forward to working with teachers and kids at the school of 538 kids in my local village. It´s a primary school and it should be fun to work with them. I just can´t wait to get to work and help out in any way that I can.

The weeks are no longer fast anymore, and the days are even slower than before. Once I escape the wrath of training, I can finally hit my stride again and do some good while doing well in my community.
··FOR THOSE WHO PLAN TO TRAVEL TO PANAMA··

Ok, I think I got lucky with my site as it is the tourist hot spot in Panama. Bocas del Toro is a cluster of islands one after another with secluded beaches and indigenous villages. I will be living about an hour and a half away from all the fun. That means for those of you who want to visit, you can easily come, I can pick you up from Panama City, and show you the true side of Panama. I know that some of you are already trying to plan your trips so there are certain things that we need to make sure before you come and before things overlap. But be excited for beautiful beaches, lots of seafood, and some wonderful time with yours truly, moi. I´ll be sending out an e-mail soon.

Mom and Dad, I love you guys so much and miss you more than words could express. Thanks for being the best parents anyone could ask for.

Amy, I´m going to steal all your vacation time. Miss you sooooooooooooooooooo much! Love you!

Spencer, I hate your voicemail. Let´s set a date.

Jen, Costa Rica.

Judy, call Elisa and get ready to have the trip of your life.

Les, I hate your voicemail.

The Nebraska crew, keep them encouragements coming!

Double J (Jason and Josh) in San Jose, I miss you foo´s. Get your snorkeling gear ready.

Abbi and Stephen, shoooooooooot. I wish I was in NY with ya´ll.

Ty, enjoy LA for me, I miss my city and you bad. Thanks for connecting me with Andrew out here. Good times with ya boi.

Christine (Tortiechris), thanks for the love.  I´ll write you soon!

Ummmm… so today was definitely an interesting day.  It all began with a terrible night where I couldn´t sleep well because of the realization that my ideal site was no longer going to be MY site anymore.  The site they origionally assigned to me was a town of 3000 people, with a multi service cooperative (think corporation or business unit with multiple interests), doing work helping them with eco tourism, marketing, and leadership development.  For those of you who know me know that this would pretty much have been the perfect site for me.  However, yesterday, as we were wrapping up our technical session, I opened up my laptop and bam, as I was about to work on my computer, my APCD Zach popped his head up behind my screen and said he needed to talk.  Well, after a few hours of conversation about everything, he pretty much told me that the last volunteer didn´t do the best job of leaving a good impression on the community so they no longer wanted a volunteer.  This left them with a dilemma of sorts and according to Zach, there was one site that he didn´t want to place a volunteer because of the difficulty of the work that would be involved in doing it.  I don´t know how much of that was sincere or how much of it was just said to make me feel good about the ¨hard work¨ that I was about to take on, but his emphasis that I was the only one he would place there sold me, even though it was a little salty.  Maybe bittersweet is a better word. 

So, here I am going to Bocas del Toro!  I am excited in that it is a popular tourist destination and for those of you who visit, I will look forward to showing you all around and giving you the best of Panama.  The sad part is that I am two hours and a boat ride away from the beaches.  But if you look at the map, I am pretty much right on the border of Costa Rica and Panama.  But about my site…

I will initially be working with two groups, a banana farmer association and an elementary school.  The town was established by the Chiquita Banana Company, which was known locally as the Bocas Fruit Company during the time of the Banana Republic (Wiki it if you don´t know what it is beyond a clothing company – think of a crazy fruit conglomerate that had incredible political power), but now, it is a company that is independent of the company which still operates nearby.  I will most likely be living in a cement block house with a zinc roof.  They tell me there are a few stores in the town.

So far, from other volunteers´description of the site, it is full of the color green, which is great for me since it is by far the color I enjoy the most.  There was a guarantee that there would be lots of bugs around, and the weather would be pretty hot and humid.  Oh well, one life, and I came to serve, so I will whine and moan for a while until I get to site, suck it up, and rock out with my socks out for the next two years. 

They have requsted some help from a volunteer in regards to expanding the leadership capacity of the banana people association, teaching teachers how to use computers, and start up some organizations within the community.  Oh, did I mention that the majority of the community was indigenous?  Yessireebob, I am going to an indigenous site.  The school I think has about 500 kids from kindergarten to grade 5, so for those of you who have some kid techniques, drop me a line and shoot me some talent so that I can drop it on them without making myself look a fool.

Oh, for those of you who have so wonderfully written me letters, the office checked today and didn´t receive anything yet.  That means you either lied to me or someone is stealing the mail.  I am banking on the latter because I know you would never trick me to believe something that would just break my poor little heart.  I am looking forward to the letters, postcards, and packages!  But it might be smart to wait until I get you an address you can use more permanently to send something like a package.  Letters may flow like gold so keep sending them.  Persistance will overcome resistance.

Well, this should be good for now.  Honestly, I am feeling a mixture of things.  Sort of happy, sort of disappointed, exhausted, drained, and a bit lonely.  We went through the Peace Corps emotional roller coaster and they said that we should be in the honeymoon stage, but I feel like I am already hitting my low point.  But you know what that means, there is only one place to go from here, and that is sky high.  Keep me in your prayers as I continue to press forward on this two year committment that will forever change my life, and hopefully the lives of those I encounter.

Love you all.

One life.  Making it count.

I can´t believe it hasn´t even been a month here in Panama. 

Life is awesome here.  I think I am used to the cold bucket showers out of my rusted 55 gallon drum in the backyard, although pooping in the latrine is still something that I try to avoid at all costs.  I call it accessing my creativity when I slide into someone else´s bathroom to use their spoiled butt´s flush toilets.  All I know is that I am grateful that some do exist, even though I still have to use my latrine at times.

I am getting used to the heat, except this one day when I felt like I was going to pass out like a mother.  It must´ve been 350 degrees at least outside and the mixture of that with moist grass almost made me vomit as I was walking to class.  Definitely not used to the spikes in climate change, but everything else is gravy. 

Everyday, we have class in a rancho and I watch the most unique insects that I would freakout at in the States become my friendly neighbor here.  You know, wasps, hornets, spiders (even trantulas), gekkos, freakishly huge cockroaches and other crispy critters that would make Alfred Hitchcock scream like a little girl.  But so goes life here.  You sort of have your Raid brand insecticide at hand and watch the suckers flip over after they go mad from the poison.  It´s a pretty cool thing to watch and keeps me entertained as my host dad is the king of killing bugs.

But, I think that I am trained out.  Everything is becoming redundant, and nothing seems applicable to me anymore.  Plus, the volunteer stories are getting repetitive and I am beginning to wonder if my next two years will be in this twilight zone of the same experiences as most of the other volunteers.  The days here are slow, but the weeks zip by.  And I am holding onto the advice of others who have come before me to get through training because it is the worst part of the whole Peace Corps experience.

I gave a charla (seminar) for about 30 minutes during one of our technical sessions the other day.  We have two 4 hour sessions each day, one for spanish, and the other for what we should do as Peace Corps volunteers.  We briefly talked about conflict management and I brought out in 30 minutes, what normally takes 8 hours to cover and tried to show people that there are tools outside of themselves that they could use to effectly manage conflicts in groups.  I think some people got it, while I am sure others had a hard time following along because of the limited time.  The EHers (Environmental Health volunteers) asked if I could do it for them, and I am looking forward to getting to spend some time with thm because we don´t have much interaction due to our different sectors.  It´s funny how they typecast me here though to be the “conflict resolution” guy because back home it was always life skills, relationships, leadership, and faith that I was generally known for.  So goes life and social perceptions. 

Dang, I miss home and some good sushi.  I had sushi once here and I crave it.  Someone want to Fed-ex me some raw fish, sashimi grade?   

So, I have found out a little bit of information on my site, but will get the whole scoop in less than a week.  as soon as I find out; I will fill all of you in on it.   Oh, we also went on our volunteer site visit, which we go visit an existing volunteer.  I met Rob and you can find him on my facebook if you want… “Robert Dawson.”  Good guy with a passion for tattoos and writing on walls.  Ha.  He cooked some good food for us and we were able to get away from the boredom of training for a little bit.  Parita is definitely a site worth visiting and Sarigua National Park is a must see here in Panama. 

Ok, I need to go and get some stuff done before I get left behind on the bus.

Faith, love and hope…. let them all rain on me.

One life, making it count.