It never stops raining, but I love it.  I feel as though my spirit is being lifted as I hear each raindrop fall.

Yesterday, I wouldn´t have said the same thing about this rain.  There was a flood pretty certain to come and as sure as we received a warning of the flood, the rains started pouring, hard.  With fears that I would be doing disaster work instead of development work, I got on my knees and prayed and asked those of you who read my blog and Facebook to pray along with me.  Then came the morning.

The morning brought a different type of rain, just as hard, but it wasn´t coming from the southwest, instead it was passing through another direction, which gave the community full of meteorologists (totally a joke) a sense of relief.  The funny thing is, that their notion of where the rain was coming from was absolutely correct as we received notice that everything was back to calm in our community through the wire.  Yes, we use this archaic radio and a fax machine that would´ve made the inventors of the printing press proud.  So I thank those of you who cared enough to squat for a few and throw them up to a good God.

So yea, I love the sound the rain makes as it hits the puddles that it created through the hours.  I love the noise of the community´s kids as they play in the streets.  I love the voices that cheer in the crowds at the outdoor courts.  But most of all, I love the laughter of the people who call me Chinese (totally a joke).  Of all the things, I think that one is getting under my skin.  I was used to getting called Chino in Guatemala for a year, but here, there is a racism of sorts as the Chinese people did a good job excluding themselves from the communities instead of integrating into them.  All 100,000 people created a stereotype that I will now have to kill before I can get any work done.  To them, the difference between a Chino and a Coreano is about as different as tacos in Mexico versus tacos in LA.  Only the truly refined can tell the difference.

But yea, thanks to the overwhelming population of the Chinese here who have opened up little grocery stores/markets around Panama, they all think or thought at one point, that I was here to do the same.  Oh the hilariousness of my life.  Here I am to help their community develop and there they are to think I am here to capitalize on opportunities.

So far, all I´ve done here is have meetings where people don´t show up, and if they do show up, they are between 30 minutes to 1 1/2 hours late, eat fried sausages everyday, and walk the streets only to provoke further questions of who the heck I am or what the heck I am.  Am I Chinese or what?

I am thinking about writing a book, maybe you can help me… just based on the titles, what sounds better?

The Observer

The Sum of All Lessons

Yeaaaaaaaa…. let me know what you think.

Ciao!

Hello friends, family, and acquaintances.

As of this morning, my town, along with a few others along the coast and rivers received a fax regarding an impending flood due to the turbulent waves and increasing rain levels. The last time they received a flood warning was in 2004 and the flood wiped out the entire town. The river borders this low elevation town and it isn´t rare for them to experience floods up to the road, but once it penetrates the road, the entire town is at risk and falls at the will of the flood as everything from the road on is downhill. Due to the regularity (at least once a year) of floods on the 30 yards or so before the road, people are tense and beginning to prepare the school as an evacuation center for everyone. I have no idea what to do, so I am turning to the best source… prayer.

There are 1000 people in my town, the majority of whom make less than $40/week. It isn´t enough for them to start over and the flood in 2004 was one that they do not want to relive. The people are a beautiful mixture of ethnicities and an incredibly rare sight here in Panama as people generally stick with their own kind. I am overwhelmed with the thoughts of what it would be like to deal with the repercussions of a flood.

Please pray for my town and the people in it, the rivers and the rain levels so that it doesn´t penetrate the roads, and so that the waters will subside.

Also, if you can send this to others I´d greatly appreciate it.

Disclaimer: This is a continuation of my last blog so it is highly recommended that you read the first portion of this first by scrolling down. But before I continue to write, does anyone know how to make my blog look better?

Warning: Don’t read unless you have read the blog post prior to first!!!

(continued)

Then I met her…

She is a rotund woman, probably in her mid-sixties, but healthy as what we like to say in the US, an ox. Sort of a Santa Clause type of figure, she has a haircut that if her breasts didn’t protrude from her chest, would make you think twice whether or not she was a woman. Her features are all sort of masculine. Dark eyes with darker eyebrows, wrinkles in the face that you see field workers possess, a manly facial structure, and the combination of mouth, nose, ears, and mouth that seem to scream man more than woman. But she is a sweet heart, and from the first words in her mouth and the gentle, but loud smile on her face, I could tell that I would be quick to fall in love and enjoy her company.

The first thing that Emma did was ask me if I was married. She wanted to keep me for herself and told everyone in her little off the road restaurant that it would be so and that if anyone were to call that were a female and request me, she would lie and tell them that no such person existed in her town. She then proceeded to ask me what I was doing there and loved the sound of Cuerpo de Paz (Peace Corps). She went back and forth saying at one moment how beautiful the idea of the Peace Corps was to how beautiful I was. But I am used to this sort of thing, older women thinking that I am a piece of fine cheese. I just wonder why my popularity with the younger ladies isn’t there. Maybe older women have more refined taste and can sense the nuances in men, sort of like a master sommelier who can see, smell, and taste the distinct flavor profiles of wine where as untrained palates go from possibly not being able to tell the difference between a good wine and then progressing into the stage whether they think a wine tastes good or bad, without being able to distinguish the characteristics that make it so. Or maybe, the older women are just being nice to poor old me, and telling me how handsome I am. I wonder if I have a sign on my forehead that I can’t see in a mirror, but these older women can that tell them I need my ego to be stroked. Whatever it is, I’ll take it as face value.

Emma’s restaurant fills a unique niche. Since I my town is in a place of endless Banana fields owned by Bocas Fruit Company (Chiquita Banana), countless numbers of trucks go through the site in order to transport the edible green potassium bombs to the port where they will go all over the world. I think I read somewhere that over 80 million metric tons of bananas are harvested all over the world and over 98% of that is grown in the developing world. I should probably try and find out how much of that specifically comes from Panama, but I know that the major supplier is in the Caribbean, and the coastal countries that border the Caribbean. Based on some website I looked at, I think that Panama produces less than 3% of the world’s banana supply, where the largest exporter (probably correlating to producer) is India at over 25%. Costa Rica, the nearest bordering country to the west, exports 3% of the world’s banana supply. And if anyone were to guess who consumed the most and guessed that the US single handedly consumes over 28% where the European Union as a whole consumes over 33%, it would be easy to determine who is getting their fill of potassium around the world.

But Emma’s restaurant serves the most incredible food in all of Panama. With a palette satisfying combination one-two punch of Latino/Creole food, it’s impossible to not wander in the direction of her dive restaurant, the nicest in the town, the only in town. She employs several people and gives them supplemental income to the very little amount they are actually making on their own and it’s nice to see the smiles that they all have as they truly enjoy the work that they do – a lesson in management that everyone needs to learn as it is both a lax environment and a well oiled machine.

After visiting Emma, I knew that I would like it here. The town has just about everything that I could ask for. They have running water and electricity, which is more than I can say for most people in the Peace Corps, but on top of that, they just recently finished paving a once rocky road into a black top masterpiece. The town is compact so I don’t have to venture far to get from one place to another, and they have the basic aspects of organization down. And with Emma’s restaurant, I know that if I get lazy, I won’t starve to death, as all I would need to do is wander the three minutes it takes to get to her spot. The only problems that I face are problems regarding having the luxuries of internet around and the heat, oh the intense heat that rains on me as I try to just enjoy sitting around.

After visiting with the major players of town, I went to Rufina’s house, about a twenty-five minute walk outside of town on the new road, then another five minutes through a banana plantation operated and owned by Bocas Fruit Company. Her house is made of wood and is up on stilts. There are really no enclosures and the doors are minimal. It’s probably about 700 square feet and as you enter, you can see through the gaps in the floor and watch the chickens cluck beneath your feet, scattering around like football players in a scramble for fumbled food. She proudly displays some miniaturized furniture that was made of yarn and plastic and tells me how her son brags about it in college. Organized on top of a small display stand, she has full furniture sets made from yarn and plastic, even a bed with a blanket and pillows. Such a simple pleasure I think to myself, yet to her, it means the world. In her backyard, besides the several hundred or so banana trees she has planted, are orange, guanabana, and coconut trees, all pretty standard here in Panama. Plus, she has a giant pig; I mean a massive porker, with about 15 little piglets that it just gave birth to squealing every other second for food through its mother’s tit. The only question I kept asking myself was, how the heck did this pig get pregnant when there was not another pig in site at all? Is it a miracle or a freak accident that I should be concerned about?

Time for a shower. The water is cold as a mother father. I can barely get my entire body in as the water is the coldest I have yet to experience in Panama to date. It’s so bad that I literally plan my days around showering, oh, and pooping too. There is a simple PVC pipe that shoots out from the ground of their shower stall, a rusty three by four area of the most intense stains that I’ve ever seen in any bathroom. I didn’t know whether they were poop stains in the stall, to which I contemplated how the heck did poop stains go vertical or whether they were rust on the almost tile that was laid out. Either way, I made sure that I didn’t touch the walls as I showered in the artic water shooting through a headless spout. I felt like a dog getting hosed down from my master, a rusty beast of a man that loved to torture me. But the toilet is worse. Up to now, I have had to drop deuces in pit latrines for the most part. A pit latrine is nothing more than a giant hole in the ground with a cement mold of a toilet to act as a support system for your apple bottom. The sad part is that most of my colleagues had seats on their latrines, where I had nothing more than the rim. And, the first time I used it, it took me forever to figure my way around it to sit down because there was no seat to sit on and when I wiped it down, the entire paper turned brown (look at earlier posts to hear a more graphic and entertaining description). The toilet in my bathroom wasn’t really a trade up. Even though I had an indoor toilet, the toilet was stained with who knows what and it looked more like it belonged in a derelict art show than the home. The bathroom is red, with floors that are a deep cherry and walls that are a mixture of paint and stains. The toilet has no toilet seat and the sink is just plain gross and never used. But I have to learn to adapt and so I took my shower, and waited, holding my poopage in until I found a toilet I could use with a seat, which happened to be back at Emma’s place the next day.
Shivering cold from my shower, I got into my pj’s for the night and headed off to dreamland.

It’s early, but I can’t tell what time it is. My eyes are groggy and my eye boogers are keeping my eyes shut. At first, I freak out, wondering if I have pink eye, but I realize that I am just plain exhausted from the day before. I have two days left and I need to make them count, but as I wake myself up, I can’t help but experience the fear that I slept in too much. I walk outside, stumbling past the mothball scent of the bathroom, through the curtains that separate the living area from the bedrooms, to see Rufina already there. She is busy writing the day’s agenda to make sure that I have a good impression of the town. Seida is making final adjustments to the food she will be serving us for breakfast, and I walk back into my room to get the fan. The fan is my best friend in Bocas.

After breakfast, fried sausage, fried bananas, and fried bread, Emilio asks me if I want to go out in the field. One thing I said I wouldn’t do my first few months was to say no to any experience that would help me see their daily lives. I change into work clothes, put on my LA Dodgers hat, slid into my rubber work boots, and began to head out. The trek is daunting as we start off on the new road to turn upwards and down onto a muddy path. You can see where they placed rocks in the ground to help the trucks get in and out of the fields without getting stuck and several times as I hiked through, my boots got stuck in the mud. Thankfully I didn’t fall.

It took us nearly forty minutes to get through the two and a half miles or so of mud, field, and plantations until we arrived in Emilio’s well-organized Banana plantation. Its green all around and there are thousands, and as we walk around there are various species of poison ivies and such that he tells me to avoid. We walk around and he explains to me in practical terms the entire process of how bananas grow. It takes about six months from planting the bulb to getting the fruit, the bags they put around the racimas (bunches) increase their ability to be sold and their resistance to insects, and they have to monitor the fruit on a daily basis. It is no easy task and at $0.08 per good banana, they are getting next to nothing if their batch goes bad.
I got my hands on a machete and started grooming the banana plants. I want to call them trees, but the reality is that they are leaves compacted together to form a pseudo trunk that holds up the flower that eventually turns into the potassium treat we love to go bananas over (I know that was lame, but I had to do it). As I was slicing through ground of the field, clearing out the thorns in the way, I saw I bird to my left, and the next thing I knew was that I had hit my foot with a machete. I looked down and saw nothing, but felt a sharp pain like I stubbed my toe, so I ignored it and continued to walk. Ten feet later, I see a hint of red, and then after twenty feet, I realize that my blood is oozing out of my boot. I cut into my boot and didn’t see it, but the thing that scared me was that I didn’t know how far I cut into my foot. You never really experience the pain as bad as you do until you see the wound, and this was one of those moments.

I called out to Emilio and his brother who had been in the field and they made their way over. When they saw the blood, they told me to sit down and take off my boot, which I was already in the process of doing. I kept my cool and tried to be positive about it, but by now, my foot was throbbing and I was afraid of what I might find, a stub instead of a toe. I didn’t think that it went in too deep, but then again, the machete was sharp and I had injuries that were worse than they actually felt in the past. I kept the smile on my face, making as many jokes as I could possibly think of as I took off the boot. My foot was shooting sharp pains up my leg now and I could see my ankle now. Then the rest of my foot jerked out and all I saw was blood. Blood was everywhere, soaking my entire sock and by my big toe, a cut in the sock about an inch wide, nothing to freak out about yet, but the idea that I could be missing a toe was starting to produce downpours of sweat down my forehead, neck, back, and chest now. I took off the sock and there it was, a cut about the length of the sock’s tear. I didn’t lose my toe! It was bad enough where I could either be extremely careful with my foot or get stitches. The first thing I did was ask for a cell phone to call my medical officer. She told me to go to the hospital in Changuinola, about 45 minutes away and I said ok. I just didn’t know how I was going to get out of this jungle because we had to walk through mud to get here. On top of that, my boot was cut open so I couldn’t even walk out if I wanted to and for sure my toe would get more infected than by the machete that was simply used to cut everything. Then Emilio’s brother dashed off and returned about 10 minutes later with a bike. I had to ride a bike out of the jungle, which was no easy task based on the fact that there were tree trunks lying in the paths, mud lying across entire roads, and terrain that no Schwinn type of bike was supposed to navigate through. Emilio cut my boot further to resemble a disfigured clog with an open toe and I slid my foot into it just in case my right foot needed to hit the ground for balance. I was in no mood or shape to walk out, let alone peddle out, but I sucked it up and made my way out, using the bike as a crutch like scooter, pushing forward with my left food as my right foot rested on the gears. It took me twenty minutes, but I made it out safe and sound. I peddled to the center of town, bloody sock in my left hand, deformed boot on my right foot and people just stared at me more surprised at the fact that I knew how to ride a bike than the bloody sock and cut I had on my toe as to them, getting cut with a machete was nothing more than a rite of passage. My first step to becoming a member of the community.

Below are some pictures of a Halloween party I went to as well as my swear in ceremony. I am officially a volunteer.

It`s hot and the only thing that runs through my mind is the incredible sensation of heat all over my body.  I thought that I had gotten used to the heat by now, but I was wrong, this was a whole new kind of heat.  It wasn´t humid enough to be wet, but it wasn´t dry enough not to feel sticky.  I had finally arrived to my site.

The trip to my site in Bocas del Toro consisted of a night bus that started off plush, but as it was nearly empty, had turned into a compact nightmare.  A couple hours into the drive, while I was sound asleep, the bus drivers decided to change buses by contacting someone with a more economical bus that wouldn´t waste the gas, but would definitely put me and the rest of the passengers through an unbelievably uncomfortable night.  By the end of the ten hour bus ride, my butt felt like it had grown a tailbone and my back was being tortured as each step that I took caused a sharp pain to pierce through my lower body.  It was reminiscent of one of the longest days in my traveling career with Spencer through Asia.   We had left Malaysia around 5p to get into Hong Kong around 11p, met with his sister Natalie and now a good friend Michelle, and stayed up until 5a to catch our next 5 hour flight to the Philippines, plus a 2.5 hour bumpy taxi ride to end up in a hotel room in which we couldn´t fall asleep anyway because we were sick and had taken medicine that had caffine in it.  The day was long and I remember lying in the bed next to Spencer´s trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in when he told me that he thought he was going crazy.  Yes, he had started hallucinating and memories of his childhood were vividly coming to life as we had been up for more hours than we should´ve, excausted from the travel and the cold we were both desperately trying to fight off.  It was a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG day.  This didn´t feel as bad, but the memories were definitely there and the memorable pains of the longest night were starting to resurface.

From Changuinola, I was met by my regional leader, a tiny girl who seems to be sheepish at first as her voice barely carries through the air, but began to loosen up her tongue as she became more comfortable with the new volunteer in her region.  She is actually leaving in a couple months to be replaced by someone else, but for now, it was her duty as a regional leader to make smooth the transition for all new volunteers into their site.  We went back to her place with my ridiculous load of luggage (my traveler´s backpack, my 50L roller duffel, and a box full of books and paper work that I had accumulated throughout training).  We realized quickly after arriving at her place that we should´ve probably stored it near the terminal where I would have to take the bus to my site in 45 minutes, but foresight was hazy and hindsight was 20/20.  I brushed my teeth, changed, and we headed back for the road to meet my counterpart where I had first arrived.

The place was nothing special, just like most of the establishments here.  You can´t help but wonder if the food being kept warm under the heat lamps are sanitary, but you get used to eating it as there are rarely any other opportunities near any bus terminal.  It was a cafeteria style restaurant and it was scorching hot.  I was in my new Peace Corps Polo Shirt and black slacks and Ecco shoes (which I swear by religiously) to make a good and lasting first impression.  I was on my way to my site and from what I was told, I was a 45 minute bus ride away from my site.  All I knew at this point was that an ambitious and persistent woman named Rufina would be coming to pick me up.

The week before, she had been on her way to find me and had made it all the way to a city called Chiriqui Grande, about 3 hours from site, when she received a call telling her about my Dengue Fever.  There was a Community Entrance Conference she needed to attend to meet her community´s new volunteer, moi, and bring him back to get acquainted with his new home for the next two years.  Unfortunately, Dengue got in the way and she was told to turn back.  Now, she was asked to go only 45 minutes and was briefed by my regional leader about what she needed to do in order to complete the volunteer process the day before.  It was nearing 9:45 when she walked through the open door of the cafeteria style restaurant.

She was dark, a mixture of Hondurian and Panamanian (something you don´t see much of in Panama) and held her hair up with a net.  She was wearing heals that looked uncomfortable with velour pants and a blouse.  Her face had an almost smile to it, as she had been waiting for this moment for several months now.  Her eyes are set deep into her face and you could see that she was weary from the long work days as she was just starting a new venture in Banana´s.  She definitely produced a lot less than her associates and as with anything, it was a grueling process, but she was determined to succeed.

Her first exposure to the Peace Corps was through a girl whose name I have now heard over and over, but can´t figure out what it is.  It starts with a D and ends with, something I don´t remember.  After her service, she ended up marrying a guy from my tiny town of 1000 and was currently in the States raising her second child.  I think what some members of the community told me was that she was having conflicts with her in-laws in how to raise a child, so she thought it would be best to go back home and spend a little bit of time there away from the cultural differences.  So through the exposure that she brought, Rufina went on a frantic search to get a Peace Corps Volunteer in the site.

Origionally, the Peace Corps was trying to avoid sending anyone to the site.  First of all, it is semi-urban and seemed unsuitable for a volunteer because the majority of the people worked for what most of us Americans know as Chiquita Banana.  It´s a mixture of ethnicities as there are half-bloods of Panamanians, Nicaraguan, Honduran, and a whole slew of indigenous people from Ngobe to Terribe to Kuna.  There are of course a couple of Chinese people who live there and operate the local store, known as the ¨Chino¨as almost every small store is owned by the Chinese (there are 100,000 that live in Panama and they have been here for over 150 years).  It´s a lot like LA, but without the glitz, glamour, and well, diversity outside of the very diversity in the Latin American region.  But the persistence of this one woman convinced the Peace Corps to send me to this site and now, in one week, I will be going there for two years.

Rufina was quickly introduced to the material that was presented at the Community Entrance Conference the week before to the other volunteers and their counterparts and as she was told about the CED program and what I was there to do, a fire lit in her deep set eyes and you could see the gears in her mind churning to find a way to squeeze what she could out of me during the next two years.  But at the same time, she was still confused at what the Peace Corps was and what exactly this Chinese looking guy could and was going to do in her community of 1000.  Whatever it was, she had finally realized that she was at the point where her anticipations met reality and danced around cordialities with me as we stood to get on the only US type school bus at the bus terminal to get to my site.

Bananas.  For miles, that´s all you see.  Every town out here is built and sustained by the Banana companies.  When the Banana Republic was a powerhouse in the world, they were paid well and could literally shift entire communities and economies as they pleased.  Their hand was powerful and they attracted people from all over Latin America and the Caribbean to work for them in their empire of crescent shaped fruit.  This was the source of diversity as they had lured in latinos, indigenous people and foreign workers to take part in their empire decades ago, and to this day, you can find people who are receiving their retirement checks from Chiquita Banana.

The uncomfortable and hot school bus stopped every 20 seconds to pick up the people who decided it would be more convienient for them to simply wait in front of their homes or their farms instead of walking to the nearest bus stop.  The motion of stopping and going started to make my head hurt and the excessive heat and humidity didn’t help at all as I had just gotten off a 10 hour bus ride in the middle of the night.  The combination of the back breaking bus ride at night along with having to move my unbelievably heavy bags around didn’t help the adjustment into my new community.  Everything was adding to my discomfort, especially the heat.  It was when I felt like giving up and the residual exhaustion of the entire trip was at full force that we took a corner and brightly colored houses began to appear.  One row at first, and then a dozen more, closely packed cement houses with zinc roofs, painted with just about the ugliest and loudest colors anyone can’t find in the paint store.  I was in La Mesa.

The bus stopped in front of a school which had an adjacent basketball/volleyball court.  This was the center of the 100 home town surrounded by armies of banana trees and flanked by a river which across, you could see Costa Rica.  This was my home for the next two years.

At first glance, i thought, oh man, what am I doing here.  I had asked asked for two things in my interview with my APCD; either a big city nearby or a beautiful view.  I didn’t get either.  But to be fair, they did have me placed next to the second biggest city in all of Panama, but due to certain issues that came up, they had to switch sites to one that they weren’t even trying to place a volunteer in.  Then I met them.

The towns people were shy.  Everyone stared without having the confidence to approach me.  They barely knew my counterpart, Rufina, so why would they even approach the new Chino in town?  To them, everyone that has slanted eyes is Chino, or Chinese.  I knew that it would be difficult to integrate into the town as it was not ready for a volunteer.  Only a few members in the community knew who I was and that was about it.  Everyone else only had questions and I knew that the next few days were going to be a lot of work, so that’s what I said I wanted to do as soon as we got into site, work.

Originally, the plans were for me to rest the entire day, but since I knew that the impression I left to them my first days would last, I made sure that the impressions were ones that would help me in the long run.  I was dressed well, and flossin’ my new Peace Corps polo.  It was hot wearing slacks, but I had decided beforehand that the sacrifice of comfort would be worth it in the long run, so as far as the comunity knew me, they knew me as a suit.  We first visited the home that I would be staying at for the next few days.  Half Honduran, half Panamanian, I met Emilio, the tresurer of the association that invited me to their town.  He is short, but looks like a lady killer.  A Cubano mustache and a smile that I am sure made the ladies melt, he is a quiet man with a mystery to him that I wondered how long would last.  I have always been good at reading through people’s first impressions and I wasn’t buying his, but I wouldn’t figure out why I couldn’t put my finger on it until later.  His wife is heavyset and also half and half.  However, she is half Kuna Indian and half Ngobe, an unlikely combination as they are worlds apart, but her parents had met in La Mesa working for Chiquita Banana.  Emilio is 36, his wife, 26, with two kids 8 and 6.  The kids look more South East Asian than anything and are easy to fall in love with quickly.  First, they act shy, but by the end of the night, they were hanging out in my room, lying on my belly as I read the last chapters of a book I had started two days prior.  I can’t help but think to myself, I am going to run out of books, fast.

The first day, I visited all my potential home stays, met with the teachers and administrators of the school and a local restauranteer named Emma.  Each of the homes have nothing in the rooms they wanted me to stay in, but all were offering up their homes for free and at no charge.  Each of the homes are also located in different areas of the town and I wonder to myself if there will be a problem with getting to know the entire community when it only takes about 8 minutes to walk from one end to the other.  In one of the homes, a purely Ngobe family, you could see the pride in the father’s eyes as he explained to his son’s that if you become great, you can do incredible things, and to him, the idea of having an American in his home, staying with his family was a significant event.  It was incredible to watch as his pride and his obviously hard working nature was displayed through the wrinkles in his face; battle scars from tending to the Banana fields so that we in the United States could pay our $.69 per pound.  Its a different sensation to see where it all begins and who is affected by our cost driving strategies in the United States and the rest of the developed world.  Only if we knew what went into each item that we bought be it fruit or clothing or anything else made in the developing world.

Then out of no where, his 2 year old girl waddles across the cement floor to where his wife is sitting and pulls down her shirt fully exposing her breasts.  Its a cultural norm for them to breast feed in public fully exposing their breasts to the rest of the world, but something I am completely unaccustomed to.  I’ve never been used to it as I was raised to view breasts as sexual objects rather than sources of nutrition and a solution to hunger.  But the baby just went to work attacking the breast until she had her fill, and as I had expected her mother to cover up as we continued to talk to each other about anything and everything to make sure that my eyes didn’t wander, I could see from the corner of my left eye that she was still fully exposed, breasts hanging out over her yellow tank top style shirt, listening intently to the conversation we were having.  She wasn’t embarrased, but I sure was.  I wanted to say something, but I decided that this was just one of those conversations that would go beyond nowhere, fast.  After about three more sessions attacking her mothers breast, the baby just plopped down face first on the cracked cement floor and fell asleep.  This was her mother’s cue to cover up and she did, not feeling as if anything had been at all ackward for me, for it was certain that she didn’t feel ackward at all.

We said our niceties and made our way out, heading to the school.  I had heard that the school was fairly large, and was surprised to see how small the physical campus actually was.  There weren’t that many classrooms and I felt like a trapped mouse in a small cage as I walked through the fenced entrance of the school.  We made our way to the office as the students stared without shame at the new Chino in their school.  You could see them asking questions internally about who I was and what I was doing there.  I told myself that they simply never saw someone so good looking, smirked, then made my way into the air conditioned office of the school. 

The director wasn’t there, but the sub-director was.  She is a dark skinned, slender woman with a droopy face named Maria.  You could see a brightness in her smile that seemed dimmed by the folds on her face, and her demeanor was contagious.  You could see why everyone who knew her loved her, regardless of how strict and stern she was.  She greeted me with an enthusiasm as if I was the answer to the questions their school didn’t have.  You could tell that she had no idea what I was doing there, but that I had come equipped to help them solve problems that they had, and she was happy for whatever help I offered.  Moreso, they had recently received a classroom full of computers from the government, without anyone to show them how to use them.  She wanted me to teach the teachers how to use, and eventually teach how to use the 22 new computers in the school.  They are currently experiencing problems with the water pressure not being strong enough to flush the toilets and a lack of classrooms, which was my first observation as I entered the grounds.  It is so bad that the special education classroom meets in the administrative offices as they are trying to find a way to get another set of classrooms built to facilitate the 528 students that attend the school.

As Rufina and I walked from class to class, constantly wiping the sweat off my forehead, I concentrated to make sure that I remembered each name that I learned.  It was hard, but by the end of the day, I had learned everyone’s name that I had heard.  I have always said that the most important thing a person owns is their name, and it was no exception in this case as they were beyond impressed as I would greet them by name as we passed by each one as the day progressed.

Then I met her…

Ok…. I am tired from typing now, but I will continue the rest of my story shortly.  Until then, my address will change so if you are planning on sending me letters and care packages (which I appreciate and look forward to like a puppy in a window), please just collect the stuff and wait until I get the new address in a week. 

Until next time…

The week with Dengue Fever was quite the adventure.  Although it was mostly filled with reminders of what my life was like back in the States, there is an unusual comfort that I experience in the countryside.  My life last week was spent with cable television, a view of the entire city and the bay, food at restaurants that compared to some of the regular joints I would dine at in the States, and a comfortable bed.  To top that off, it was a penthouse condo in the nicest area of town thanks to Matt and Andrew’s hospitality.  Most of the days I laid on the couch as I watched TV and the maid prepared fresh fruit juices for my palatable pleasure.  I barely felt the humidity in the outdoor air the entire week all while enjoying the views of the skyline and historic Cazco Viejo from the condo’s floor to ceiling windows.

The difference is in the simplicity and the pace of life in the countryside.  As I was walking home in my host village last night, I looked up and saw the moon barely glazed by a silky layer of clouds illuminate the ground beneath my feet.  It isn’t that this is a weird thing to notice, but last night was different, I took each step watching the shadows play games with my eyes as the moon’s reflection of the sunlight shed three shadows at three angles.  I smiled and couldn’t help, but enjoy my very mundane walk.  From the eyes to the ears.  The next thing I enjoyed with a giddyness that should never be expressed by a male member of the human race was the crunching noise I made with each step on the gravel laden road.  Crunch, crunch, crunnnnnnnch, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch.  Each step brought an inexplicable smile to my face that didn’t make any sense to me.  Then I thought, these are the pleasures I am going to enjoy for the next two years.

I can go back and forth with easy; living in the lap of luxury to living in utter, for lack of a better word, simplicity.  I have lived my ‘adult’ years with the burden of choice, and my choices up to this point (outside of the missions work and service projects that I participated in), have been between two luxuries.  I never thought that choosing a simple life (in regards to food, clothing, and entertainment) would be something I would make for an extended period of time.  Anyone who knows me knows I LOVE, love, LOOOOOOVE great food and would pay almost anything to eat it.  Clothes are an artform that I learned to appreciate as I was engulfed in the world of fashion, mainly thanks to my ex-girlfriend Sara and my sister Amy, who gave me the realization that I could either live life or live life dressed ridiculously well (in so many words).  But I think that their influence created a monster as I have become a designer whore and love collecting things that most people don’t even know exist at prices they would crap their pants for.  And of course, who could leave out just enjoying the plays, musicals, tickets, and entrance fees to events that only money could get (or good connections).  In a sense I am a conoussouir of the arts.  Each of these are art forms in one way or another, designed and built to please the senses of taste, touch, sight, and the emotional sensations one gets when stimulated.  And for these next two years, I am realizing more and more that I must replace what the God given creativity of man for the beauty of God’s creation.  But it’s just an honest thought that I’ve been having, that to be able to juggle between the lavish “excesses” that this world has to offer and the simple pleasures that only a slow paced life could allow you to recognize, is among the greatest luxuries one can afford in life.  At least that’s what I think.

I go to site visit today.  I am beyond elated at the idea that I could go and glimpse what the next two years might look like.  I am ready to rock and roll and go full steam ahead.  Oh yes.  Wish me luck!

One life, making it count.

Well, I got what I never thought I would get – some sort of virul infection.  On Saturday, while I was JUST sitting down to dinner, I found myself experiencing chills and an incredible headache with quick flashes of intense heat (sort of like the hot flashes women get during menopause?).  So Saturday night, I went to the hospital, only to get injected with an IV needle (which is the size of my pinky) and getting blood work done.  My doctor thought that I had appendicitis, I thought he was crazy, and we found out that I was right, he was wrong, and a little bit crazy.

All day Sunday, I was in bed, hot, with cold sweats, a fever, and simply miserable.  I couldn’t explain how I felt, but it was as if I had a bipolar medical disorder in my body.  First of all, my body felt like it was frozen in a block of ice all the time with just enough room to allow sweat to pour through the pores.  My head on the otherhand felt like it was under a blowtorch while my neck was being stepped on against my will and someone was kind enough to kick me in the forehead over and over and over again without feeling the need to take a break.  Yes, my life sucked.

Today is day 4 of what has been diagnosed as Dengue Fever (Wiki it).  It’s a virul infection that is in the same sort of class as Malaria, except its not.  There is no cure for Dengue, nor is there a vaccine.  You get it through mosquito bites that are unavoidable because they are ninja mosquitos that know how to avoid the hand.  They had special training.  Fortunately, the virus flushes out of your system in 8 days so no matter what, you have a concrete date to look forward to.  It’s not a fun 8 days though.  You suffer through the nonsense of a rollercoaster fever, nausea, muscle and joint aches, and never ending migranes. Yea, life sort of sucks when you have the Dengue.

Thanks to the wonderful hospitality of some friends (Andrew and Matt) I met here in Panama through my friend Tyler back home, I was able to spend a few days in the lap of comfort and luxury.  I am sitting in the most comfortable leather sofa known to man clicking away at my laptop that I left here a while back.  My head still hurts with a horrible migrane and I have some terrible muscle aches that love to keep my neck stiff.  All this, while I am supposed to be on my site visit.  So, while everyone else is visiting their home for the next two years I am wondering still yet what my site will be like.

If you haven’t heard, Bolivia’s president kicked out the US Ambassador, thus triggering the closure of the Peace Corps office out there.  From what I hear, there are 4 volunteers who were reassigned to Panama from Bolivia to continue their service here.  What that means is that someone from my community will be joining me in a alternate Community Entrance Conference, but that also means that I will miss my free weekend which I was looking forward to.

Anyway, for those of you who have never had Dengue, avoid it because it is terrible.  Getting through this was only bearable because Matt and Andrew opened up their home to me while I was suffering.  So if you guys read this, thanks for the hospitality.

Other than that, wait for a more cheerful blog in the near future.

I’m sweaty, but nonetheless, I’m outta here.

One life, making it count through the sickness.

So there were a few random things that happened during this week and I thought I would just list them all off for your reading pleasure.  In no specific order:

1. While talking on the phone to my sister for 43 precious minutes, I killed two cockroaches the sizes of both my thumbs combined, had a white rabbit cross my path, witnessed a trantula the size of my hand try to cop a feel of my toe, and barely dodged a psychotic bat from attacking me as it kept on flying around in circles.  But I couldn’t lose the mosquitos.  Darn, good for nothing, bugs.

2.  I clogged a fellow PCT (Peace Corps Trainee’s) toilet.  I tried to flush it about 8 times, but the water rose to the rim, and slowly made its exit.  Unfortunately, it didn’t take the 1 1/2 bars of Snickers that I left behind as a gift.

3.  I have my host dad a haircut with my clippers.  He had dandruff the size of sleet on a cold winter day.  I asked for a brush to see if I could avoid the shrapnel dandruff attacks, but at the end of the battle, my hand was pastey like Elmer’s glue.  Nasty fool.

4.  I got locked in another PCT’s bathroom.  I didn’t realize that there was no handle, but there was a lock that clicked the door shut, so I spent 5 minutes trying to be an engineer of bathroom doors and had to call for help as I didn’t enjoy watching the 2 year old baby watch me like I was an idiot for 4 minutes.  The family had the best laugh of their lives.

5.  One day as I got home for lunch famished, I asked my host dad where lunch would be.  He pointed to a plate of 2 dirty, boiled carrots that he said was my lunch.  Oh, he also generously gave me a hard boiled egg.  I was so hungry, I had to go to another volunteer’s house to steal food.

6.  Never knew what Chiggers really were and still don’t to this day.  But my butt’s itchiness grew and my inner thighs were so irritated, that I thought putting alchohol on my private region would help.  Note to self: don’t ever spray rubbing alchohol on your underwear area.  It burns.

7.  I ate Korean food!  It was fantastic in everyway, but I felt sort of sick.  I wonder how my stomach will take it all.

This week, I will be going to visit my site!  Keep me in your thoughts and prayers and I’ll let you know how everything goes in a jiffy.