It doesn’t feel like the end of the year, but it is. January is right around the corner and I am sitting here, trying to figure out a few things, making a few plans for the year to come. I don’t want my next year to become void as I find myself settling into a groove, therefore, I must be intentional about being productive or else I’ll get lost in the monotony of daily living. Goals. It’s about goals; both setting them and accomplishing them.

The past few days have been great, no less than stellar. Its a constant up and down emotionally, but I think I found the key. It’s a combination of sun and exercise. For the days that I was miserable and depressed, I realized after much reflection that two things were missing in my life during those days: exercise and sun. The rain had been coming down in odd sequences, but more so, I had been doing at most, a small walk from one place to another, not really getting my heart racing. So I started running.

So far, I’ve only run twice, but both times, as I plugged in my iPod with broken ear buds that crackle, kids would see me approaching on the road and begin to take their place behind me. They’d just run with me. I run about a mile and half (I’m still building up my heart rate), but these kids are running right behind me, sailing along smoothly, as I pant, gasp, and chug along with all my might and power. They make me look like a pansy.

But as I type this, a stupid tick/flea = flick, is having it’s way with me. Its so annoying, but it’s as if it is taunting me like I can’t kill it (which I can’t because as soon as I move, it moves and disappears like a fickin’ ninja).

A new year is approaching. A time when I thought for sure there would be flying cars and shiny clothing that would change the way we did things, we are now living in an age that we can easily connect to others and get to each other without the fancy gadgets. The technology is there, just the designs are a little off. Maybe my vision of the future in the past was only slightly off, but still, flying cars would’ve been cool.

Anyway, just wanted to write about a few things that you learn when you join the Peace Corps. Just for kicks… here they are in no specific order.

10 Things you learn in the Peace Corps, Panama:

1. How to walk in mud. Man, it’s an art to be able to tell the difference between mud that you will sink into and mud that you can step on. Trust me, unless if you try, you have no idea.
2. How to use a Machete
2a. To chopear – literally to trek through the jungle slashing your way through the shrub and the brush. Great forearm workout. You should try it. This is how I cut my toe.
2b. To cut open a coconut – still working on perfecting this and want to be able to do it in one swing like a couple people I know, but it takes me about 6 or 7 concentrated slashes before I get the desired outcome.
2c. To kill a potentially harmful animal – Snakes, spiders, and other critters that make me shriek like a girl.
3. How to tell between Pipa and Coconut- virtually the same thing before I came, now, I know. The difference is in the age. Pipa is young coconut where Coco is older and matured – and a Platano and Banano – virtually the same thing before I came, now, lIke the coco/pipa deal, I know the difference. The difference is in both size, and taste. Platano are huge, starchier, and eaten fried or boiled. We know banano as banana – the stuff we get at the grocery store.
4. How to plant bananas, yucca, otoe, name, cacao, and other good stuff that just won’t grow in the States. Never been a farmer before, don’t think I’ll be farming ever again after this. Thank God for Ralphs, Albertsons, Jewel, Dominicks, and all the other grocery stores around the nation.
5. How to live without potable water and electricity. Although I have electricity, my water system sucks. It’s ten million times harder to live without water than without electricity. All you have to do without electricity is sleep a little earlier to wake up when the sun comes up.
6. How to speak Spanish. Mi espanol esta mejorando dia a dia. Despues de dos anos, podria hablar perfectamente (mas o menos).
7. How to live with what you have. It’s an art and a great skill to live without much and how to enjoy simplicity (even though as soon as you go back, you’ll want to go back to luxury). You live on the basics of rice and beans out here. Meat is a luxury for almost everyone.
8. How to holler ‘ouye’ really loud while working in the field and make hand gestures to acknowledge people you pass by.
9. How to wait patiently for buses that always run late, are always over-crowded, and steamy, sticky, and hot.
10. How to make a difference in the world, even though at times, you don’t feel like you are.

There you have it.

Have a Happiest of New Years, I’ll see you on the front end of 2009!

Love,
Ray

Still loving life, and trying to make it count.

Thwap, thud, thud, thwap. I look back and I see two heavyset oompa loompa type women slugging it out. My second girl on girl fight of the day. The first one was funnier; clothes getting torn off each other, women started screaming at each other for no reason whatsoever. They fought in their panties for a good fifteen minutes with their clothes shredded all over the places. It looked like a saggy boob sumo match. I think one of the woman’s breasts were able to touch the ground if she stood there normally because of how much her boobs were stretched from the fight, but it doesn’t say much though when she stands at an impressive 4′5″. People settle unresolved beef with each other that they’ve harbored for long periods of time when Christmas time comes, I think its because they can’t really hate each other blatently in a small community where everyone knows everyone, so their mode of conflict resolution evolved into a beat-the-brains(or breasts)-out-of-someone method.

This fight scenario was pretty hilarious though. About 50 people watching and encouraging the fight to happen, the women prepare for a fight by getting their hair braided, then tied back into a bun. If one finishes first, she just curses out the other, patiently waiting for her hair to get tied before the fight begins. I call it etiquette. It’s sort of cute. Then, they duke it out. I call it the softball punch. They make fists with their hands, but swing their arms back like they are going to throw a softball and then they hit each other with uppercuts. It’s like that boxing game toy where there is a red and a blue robot boxer in a yellow ring and your objective is to punch the opponent until their head pops up. The women here do the same. So I pretty much watched these women sumo sock each other until one ended up crying because she had to stop beating the crap out of the other. The whole world disappeared to the two fighters as they were doing each other in.

This day, I probably saw a good 15 people passed out on the ground throughout the community. They just lie there, hung over, soaked in their puke for 8 hours, wake up, then drink again to pass out.

Yesterday, Christmas Eve, I got a little drunk with my community. Invited to just about every house, I was asked to drink with them for about two weeks now. Everyday, a few of the guys would tell me that they are going to get a handle of Rum for the night and that they didn’t want to get disappointed. I told them that I would drink them under the table and make them feel like little school girls on the football field. I did.

We started drinking at 12:00a. They light up fireworks during Christmas time, most of which are just loud noise making bombs. The music starts up and it’s just a really annoying situation to be in. Every house blasts their cheap stereos and burns your ear drums. Unfortunately, they all listen to different things so it’s a cacophony of terrible Tipico music, which I still can’t stand, but can dance to pretty well. Tipico music just involves you shaking your hips and moving your thighs in a slow motion Tahitian type of way. Fortunately, it doesn’t look like a man is trying to do Tahitian dance. It just looks like you know how to shake your hips. I danced for about an hour with three women, all of who I could poke their eyes out with my nipples if I was bare chested and dancing with them, but I had my shirt on and slouched over so that we could dance cheek to cheek, or something like that.

The entire night, I had 26 shots of rum and 2 shots of something they call Seco, which is made from fermented Sugar Cane. Their brand of Rum, Ron Abuelo, tastes horrible. I would never be willing to be a sales person for it as it burns all the way through and out your butt. Seco is the same as it tastes like Vodka gone wrong. On top of that, the beer here tastes terrible too as they do not know how to brew a good beer. The last good beer I had was at a market called Super Gourmet, I had a Hoegarden (spelling?). Yum.

But it was a fun night. I made them all look like they couldn’t drink even though they could drink far more and far longer than I could. They just wake up the next morning and go at it again. One guy I drank until he tapped out challenged me to a contest to see who can last longer in a daily-get-drunk-fest. He said that he went for 15 days straight of getting drunk. I told him no thank you and called him crazy. He laughed and then passed out in the middle of our conversation. I have no clue whether or not he is drinking today, but I’m sure he is well on his way to day three.

Today, I had a few meals. Actually, I had 7. Starting really early at 12:00p when I woke up. I ate and ate and ate all day. We ate so much that I can’t poop. I think that it’s all funneled in at the bottom and I am in an awkward position where I know I need to go, but I know I can’t. Don’t you just hate that?

But I am out of my funk (sort of). It took me 6 days to get out of it, but I am doing a regular job or reminding myself of what is important and why I am here. I got a call from a concerned country director and his little pep talk acted as a catalyst for a time of reflection for me. Plus, I was in the middle of reading a book by Richard Dawkins called “The Selfish Gene” where he said although he wasn’t writing about the morality of selfishness, but the simple fact that we are born to be selfish. Then he went on to suggest what I have always suggested that we must learn and teach others to act in altruism and selflessness. A pretty good reminder for me while I am here in the Peace Crops and want to go back to the States to get back to a financial stance that allows me to enjoy the finer things.

I need to remind myself why I am doing this. Some people are doing it for their own gratification or for the experience. For me, I have had tons of experiences like this and as much as I hate to say it, there hasn’t really been many ‘new’ surprises. The only new thing is that I committed for two years, something I couldn’t do during college (took a break, and studied abroad) or in high school (I went to five high schools). I’m almost an addict to moving around and don’t like to be kept in one place for too long – something I don’t think is a good or bad thing, but something that just is a part of me and my personal culture. I am doing this because I have always preached the importance of selfless living, and I thought that there would be no better way to express selflessness than by giving up two prime years of life for people I couldn’t distinguish between Adam or Adam Sandler, and just serve them for their own sake. I will look back at this experience like my other ones (DTS, mission trips, travels, etc) and say that it was a time well spent, but being in the trenches makes it a hard pill to swallow especially when I could be doing so much more for my personal benefit back home.

What more, as I mentioned earlier. My emotional layers are being exposed, forcing me to choose to escape to the world of volunteers where they just congregate together or learn to allow the people I am serving to serve me by being my emotional support. I thank God for the people who have encouraged me through this, especially my family and Abbi, Holly, and Lynda who have been proactive in supporting me emotionally through this lonely time. However, I am constantly finding myself reminded that although our worlds are completely different, the humanity we share is enough to enjoy each others presence and develop friendships which I will forever have and cherish. There is no experience that can match one where the souls of two people meet – I think I’m learning to find that in both extravagant and humble living. The lessons I am learning are those I knew in theory, but to find them materializing in real life is a cool breeze on a hot day. Who knew I would learn these lessons I have always dreamed of in a world so different from the one I came from.

I am in the Peace Corps and I will finish. See you when you visit or when I get out in two years.

The day starts off normal.  Light rains, soft breeze, a gentle sunlight, the sound of my fan blowing, and of course, the horrible smell that seeps through my door from the bathroom all the time.  It’s 7:00a and I follow my ritual and plug my ears with my iPod.  I love their new ‘Genius’ setting.  I click on Phil Wickham’s Cannons and tap the Genius symbol with my forefinger.  It automatically makes a playlist that it thinks you would like based on the song that you choose to play.  It’s literally Genius.

I listen for about an hour, get dressed, and then head out.  I wear my usual gear of shorts and t-shirt.  Most of the clothes that I brought don’t really work here as they are too nice.

I take my time as I walk to school and I find myself enjoying the weather more than usual.  There’s a cool breeze outside and the sun pierces through a few openings in the clouds.  The sky should be grey, but it is blue laced with bright white cotton balls.  I am always amazed at the cloud formations and glory in God when I walk outside.  So far, almost everyday has been a new reminder of the creative nature of God.

The school is locked.  I have no idea what to think, so I head over to Emma’s restaurant.  It’s my safehaven and I always feel welcome.  She feeds me when I’m hungry (which is always), and probably is the warmest person in site.  Everyone loves her and the more time I spend with her, the more I miss my grandmother back home.  I eat the usual fried dough and fried sausage for breakfast, something I won’t ever come to really enjoy, but have learned to tolerate, and head out to see if the school is open.

The school is still closed.

I see a teacher who I have gotten to know briefly, but who has been a fine gentleman the entire time I have known him.  Always cordial and very proper in my eyes, he stops me in my track and asks me about my day.  He’s washing his clothes and I walk over to do my usual chicken dance – talk to the community members when they initiate (I find that if they initiate, they are generally more interested in what I have to say and tend to ask more questions).  We small talk for a bit until I realize that he lives in perfect distance to the school’s internet satellite.  I can pick up a connection from his house!

I tell him that I am going to charge my computer and start working, but I end up putting my computer and we begin to talk about various things from the environment, to business, to the nation, and global issues.  He’s a well thought out person and my time here has given me good reason to get excited about higher than neanderthal conversations which I have the most of.  Grunt – do you eat rat?  Grunt – is there a factory that makes money where you are from?  Grunt – are you Chinese?  Grunt – do you eat children?  Grunt – can you buy me a soda?  Grunt.  It all gets old really fast so when someone wants to have an educated conversation with me, I am always about it.

I begin to really enjoy the conversation when he starts talking about his gifted students.  I asked him to tell me about students that excel upon finishing a conversation about Howard Gardner and a controversial study (controversial because everyone who isn’t Asian has a problem with it) that states that Asians are genetically more ‘intelligent’ and Black people are more athletic.  Who really knows the empirical basis for it, but I’ll take it.  Being an Asian man is probably the hardest thing anyone can endure anyway.  We get stuck with the terrible stereotypes of being nerdy math geeks, who have no social skills, and small penises (can I say penis?  Oops, I said it again).  It’s just unfair.  We start at a disadvantage in any setting except for math conventions and engineering seminars.

He tells me about a particular girl who is 11 named Maydelin.  She is one year younger than everyone in her class and ten times quicker and smarter than the rest.  She studies when everyone else plays, and could do great things if given the opportunity.  Then he tells me about a Magnet School equivalent that the country has set up in various locations around Panama.  There is one in David that he says would be feasible for Maydelin to go to.  I get excited, ask Zach my APCD for Angela the Regional Leader’s number and call her.  I ask her to go to the Magnet School on Monday and see if we can start a partnership where Peace Corps volunteers are at to match high performing kids with the opportunity to go to school in a more fitting and challenging setting.  We should find out in a few days the results.

His roommate, the owner of the house comes in and we talk for a bit.  I ask him if he is going to prepare for the possibility of the banana company departing.  The reality is that with the increase of production in bananas in the far east, the cheaper labor, the lower cost of worldwide shipping, and the work ethic of the laborers, it only makes sense that even agriculture would move west.  Everything here is slow and surely, a little backward.  People have a tendency to be patient as they wait, but they wait for everyone else to initiate something that will benefit them when the reality is, if they just put in a little effort, everything could be got a lot faster.  It’s a combination of laziness, a day-by-day mentality, and a limited perspective on world forces (economic, social, governmental, and climatic).

Tomas, the roommate, asks me how much I make, to which I say, $300, and he pulls out 2 pay stubs: $146 and $110.  At first, I feel sorry for him, thinking he makes nothing at all, but then he points to a section on the pay stub that reads, 7 days.  For seven days, He makes over $400 a month, probably closer to $500, and I am getting paid peanuts.  He tells me that I am living under the poverty line and that the Peace Corps should up my pay.  I smile, while gritting my teeth at our own cheap government for paying me so little, and just say, “well, that’s how committed I am to you!“  He laughs and says that my pay check is just wrong.

After 5 hours of straight talk and conversation, I tell him my head is about to explode from all the Spanish and excuse myself. The rain has been coming and going all day so the ground is wet.  I walk outside and head in the direction of home.  All the kids ask me when we are going to play games again.

A few days prior, I hosted a game day.  I wasn’t doing much for the day and I wanted to stay busy and realized that most of my time was being spent with adults and I hated the idea that I was neglecting the kids.  Everyday I walk back and forth on the main road that the entire community wraps around and everyday for the past month and half, they have yelled Chino, I have responded with Mono – monkey in Spanish (something I learned from my fellow PCV Brian who calls the kids monkey when they call him Gringo) – and said that I am not Chinese, but Korean-American.  They usually yell Chino and laugh until their boogers start to shoot out and drool makes its way to their dirty chins.  I could kill two birds with one stone, I thought, and told a group of 10 to gather all the kids they knew the next day and meet me at 11a.

20 kids.  Definitely more than I told to come, but less than I expected.  I didn’t have my camera on me so I told them to go out and tell other kids to come while I went home to get it.  When I returned, there were 70 kids sitting in the bleachers!  The first thing I did was to tell them my name – REY!  They repeated it a good 10 times before we moved on.  We spent the next four hours or so playing Mar y Tierra, El Barco Esta Hundiendo, Pick up the Trash, and Red Rover.

Mar y Tierra, or sea and land, is a game where you draw a line or use an existing one and tell the kids (or adults) to stand on one side or the other.  Then you yell out either land and sea and they have to jump on whichever side was decided to be land or sea.  It’s a simple game, but the kids love it, especially when you lose your voice screaming mar, tierra, tierra, tierra, mar, mar, tierra!

El Barco Esta Hundiendo, or the ship is sinking, is a game where the participants are at a party on a ship when it starts to sink.  The capitan yells out to the passengers that the ship is sinking and they need to find groups of a certain number (between 2 and infinity) to fit onto a life boat.  Any less, they can’t go, any more, they will sink it.  The kids love this one too, but their celebratory shouts of joy are deafening, especially when you are trying to count to 14 to see if the other groups made it out safely.

Pick up the trash is a game I invented.  The game is simple.  You get as many bags for as many teams that there are and give each team a name.  Then you tell them that each team is in competition against each other to pick up as much trash around the community as possible.  The stinky cheaters went into their homes and brought out their own bags of trash to fill the bags.  A total failure, but with a little more refinement, a good way to keep the community clean.

Everyone knows Red Rover.  Its the game where there are two teams, hand to hand, facing another team holding hands.  The objective is to yell out Red Rover, Red Rover, send ‘Billy Bob’ (or other name) over and the kid, Billy Bob in this case, has to run across and break a link in the chain.  We broke up into two games and I laughed my butt off as kids got clothes-lined like they were professional wrestles with the WWE.  It was hilarious watching these little munchkins drop down horizontally like the Undertaker decided to own them.  Hulk Hogan would’ve loved to have been here for this – so would’ve Michael Jackson (ouch!).

As I walk my 4 minutes home, all the kids yell REY and I nod.  Its nice to be acknowledged by kids.  They are wonderful and really cute.  Especially when they are wearing tiny clothes that even porn stars would cringe to wear: statements implying that they are freely offering their service and bodies to ridiculous pleasures.

I get stopped by two of the members of the initial group that wanted me to conduct a class on leadership.  This has been a sore process for me because of the sheer lack of discipline that has been displayed by the Panamanians thus far.  Here, I find myself celebrating when someone does what they said they would do in the first place, even if they fulfill the minimum requirements.  It’s a sad day when I constantly celebrate medicrity, but then again, I am in the Peace Corps and this is our job.  Up to this point, they have stood me up once, been late twice, and then the flood came.  I am very stringent when it comes to my leadership course and have little patience for incompetence and disrespect.  I told them once that I would not do the course and that I would just work one-on-one with the only person who has shown up consistently to every meeting.  Four of them spent two hours begging me to reconsider and I asked them to choose a date that suited them, AGAIN.  They chose December 19th as the first day.

Now, Alberto is telling me that they have a celebration on the 19th, that they knew about, but were shortsighted to think of, even though I asked them at least 20 times if they were sure that they wanted to start on the 19th and if there would be anything that would prevent them from coming.  The past excuses have been rain (before the flood), an English course that they have been taking, that they forgot, and that their dog ate their brain.  I believe the others, even though I can verify the first three.  I get short with him and tell him that if he wants to celebrate after he already missed three meetings, that he can go, but he won’t be able to take the course.  Then I ask him if he understands what I said and why I am saying it, and he becomes apologetic and quickly hushes up.  I refuse to prostitute such valuable information and they know it for certain now.

I continue my walk home, say hi to a few more people (I am a celebrity here), and walk in.  My host mom (or sister, she’s 26) is pregnant!  Two months pregnant, so that means they probably did it while I was sleeping in the next room.  I don’t remember hearing anything though, ever.  She asks me how I knew, and I tell her I know everything.  She gives me the patented, “Oh Ray!” and laughs.  She tells me that its a girl, and I ask her how she knows.  She says something, but I don’t understand.  I pretend like I know and just smile and nod.  It’s my patented move to acknowledge people.  Smile and nod, smile and nod.

She asks me where I was and I tell her who I was with.  Quickly she says, “Rabies!”  The simple mention of his name makes her cringe.  I ask why and we kick out the kids, who were helping her clean.  She tells me the history between this teacher and her sister who happens to be 15.  In a nutshell, he pursued her and wooed her when she was 14 and after the first time, she became pregnant.  Now she is 15 and 4 months pregnant.  He is 34.  I don’t know what to think except that this verifies the reality that even intelligence cannot provide a moral base.  Reason and logic can only go so far, values even further, but there must be an ingredient in everyone’s life that leads them towards selflessness and other conscientousness over selfishness and a pursuit of their own desires.

I sit at home and play with the kids for a while after and show her pictures of my life which include everything from my travels, to my friends, to the girls I have dated, and of course, my wonderful family.  For the first time, I experience the emotion I have been trying to avoid, the realization that I will miss the people here when I leave.  I already feel like I am a part of the community, even though I have the renegade “buy me something” bomber come at me every now and then.  I should knock out their teeth and stick them in their forehead.

I eat dinner and grab my computer to go work at Emma’s.  It’s 7:30p and I have a lot to do.  I need to prepare to get my courses certified by the ministry of Education here.  And in order to do that, I need to have lesson plans, books, and letters ready for the agency visit. I walk to Emma’s and am greeted by Rufina’s daughters, one who has a really cute boy named Moises to whose first birthday I was invited to.  I walk in and there are a group of people sitting around the table.  I notice that two of them have been crying and get the 411 from someone sitting outside of the table.  She informs me that someone has just passed away an hour before.

I only saw him once in my life when I asked for the toilet paper.  He was a fragile man, easily in his 80’s, but he was 70.  He was thin and looked weak when I saw him proped on his bed.  He was barely managing to stay seated.  I made quick eye contact with him and greeting him before I rushed out to do my own business.  I never thought that would be the last I would see him.  My first time meeting someone would also be my last – it’s a cliche you hear in the movies and about people you will never see again, but you never really think that you will be there at their death.

I sit around offering my condolences and asking if there is anything I could do at first.  I don’t know the culture here and the Latinos seem to be very verbal while the indigenous are not, they just sit there, close in proximity.  I say sorry, rub their backs, and just stand in the background until the coronor comes.

Two trucks with flashing lights pass by, looking for Emma’s.  She has a room in the back made of concrete that she rents out to people.  It would’ve been my back-up if everything else fell through, but I am pretty certain that won’t be happening.  They make their way back and leave the back of a converted pick-up truck open.  It’s a hollow, aluminum shell.  They spend a few minutes collecting information and asking questions.  The daughter of the man loses her breath and starts to cry.  Her tears scream in pain even though she barely makes a sound.  It’s hard to see and a few of the women rub her back as they ask me to find alcohol.  I grab the alcohol and give it to them.  They pour some out onto a paper towel and put it near her nose.  I think they did that so she wouldn’t faint.  Her breathing gets deeper and shallower at the same time.  It’s as if she is drowning in a tarpit of pain.  People look at each other as she sinks into her arms crossed on the table.  No one really knows what to do in this situation, no one can really prepare for it.

A crowd has gathered.  Most of them are kids who are curious with what is going on.  They see flashing lights and chase after them.  It just reminds me of how little they have to look forward to on a daily basis. I tell a few to remain quiet.  There’s a good 50 or so people.

Her brother seems to be doing fine.  He shows the coronors where the body is and they drag a tin tablet where they will put the body.  It reminds me of a cooking tin and I wonder if the flimsy thing will even hold as they take it back.  Five minutes later, three men make their way through the house, restaurant, and patio with the covered body on the tin palate.  They wrapped him in a bed sheet and his silhouette is easily visible through the light fabric.  His feet are bare and sticking out, cold blue, and without ice.

I just witnessed my first death here.  Even though I was here, it felt like I wasn’t.  I tried my best to be the best support I could be and I could see that I did all that I could by the way they greeted me farewell when they left to go to sleep.  I felt sad at the moment I felt most helpless.  It’s a feeling of vulnerability I don’t feel enough, and realistically, don’t want to feel much of.  Life, I guess, has it’s ups and downs, ins and outs, and here I am, learning it in a whole new way, a whole new world.

I’m sitting here overwhelmed.

We just experienced the worst flood in over 40 years and the new experiences that I obtained through this process were those that I only thought happened in movies.  If you took all the dramatic parts and action parts of my time over the past two weeks, you would have a full length academy award picture; or at least I’d like to think so (don’t go bursting my bubble).  Here’s what happened in a nutshell:

- Flood!  The worst in over 40 years.  I was woken up to a foot of water in the middle of the night to move my stuff off the ground and tables and onto the drop ceiling.
- Organize. ther a group of 7 people who went out and found 70 other people to help with the flood efforts.  We helped people move their furniture and appliances to higher places, sometimes hanging sofas on the wall.
- Rescue.  Four of us went out in a little canoe that was shaped like a banana made out of a log and found 12 or so people.  One guy we rescued was stranded on a flood-made island for 2 days with a bag of clothes and a little Tupperware container with fried bananas.
- Coordinate.  I called everyone I knew and although failed to get fuel to where we needed, we (Veronica and co., etc) got the information about the fuel on the news and other TV shows.  By the end of the day, people at the disaster relief agency (SINAPROC) were asking me what to do and I was telling them where to send food.  It was pretty cool to have authority in a time of crisis. I put toge
- Meet.  We (Nico – the regional leader of Bocas) sat through meetings with the UN’s DAC, the governess of Bocas del Toro, and the heads of all the agencies on both national and regional levels and gave our input on what we thought needed to be done and how we could help.
- Return.  It wasn’t a triumphant return back home, but it was a warm return.  I’ll write about it now.

So we return back to Bocas del Toro after a week in David.  It’s bright and the clouds shine beautifully as it reflects the sun’s light.  It’s almost as if everything has returned to normal, but I know its not.  There is a lot of work to do and hopefully, the urgency is still there to prepare for the next flood or whatever Mother Nature has in store for us.  I need the residue of urgency to remain.  The words of John Kotter keep ringing in my head about the need for urgency in order to catapult change.  Urgency seems to be the key factor and in a culture that has grown accustomed to sticking their hand out and waiting patiently for change to happen to them instead of them creating it, it doesn’t do much for me when I know that there is a lot I can do, they can do, to change the status quo.

The first thing I do when I return is just sit with people and talk with them about what is going on.  Most of them just ask me what I brought back for them, thinking that I went back to the States out of fear for my own life, when the reality is I was evacuated to David against my own will.  I won’t complain though because the time with other volunteers was good as was the food and air conditioned rooms in the hotel.  Thus, my un-triumphant return, without any food or clothing to give to them after the flood.  I am no hero, just someone that surprised them by my mere act of returning.  Most people thought they weren’t going to see me ever again.

When most of those who I have had regular interaction saw me, they gave me a hard time about leaving in the first place with big smiles on their face and proceeded to give me hugs or shake my hand with an expression on their face as if they genuinely missed me.  The kids ran up to me and shouted my name, even though they pronounce it as Red (or Wred), instead of Ray.  I laugh to myself when I hear them say my name.  But the person I missed the most was sweet Emma, the one with the restaurant always feeding me when I’m around and asking me to teach her daughter English.  I think I’ll oblige and teach one person English during my time here.  Other people just jerk their head back as a symbol to acknowledge my return and raise their palm up, symbolizing a what’s up hand gesture.  I lift my hand and face my palm to the ground almost like I’m dribbling a basketball, which symbolizes I’m here and I’m good.  We exchange smiles and go our own ways.  I’m glad they missed me.

There is a lot to do even though on the outside it seems like there is nothing to do.  Life in my town is back to normal as well.  Everyone is doing what they did before the flood, except most of them are waiting for the government and other agencies to provide them with the seeds and the roots to plant their on their plantations and farms once again.  Over 60% of my town of 1000 (probably closer to 1500) lost their livelihoods as banana growers.  Of the 60%, only about 5% had crop insurance.  This is not a good situation to be in.  Fortunately, 80% of the economy here is based on banana production and even though Bocas Fruit company will be getting most of the benefit as those with the resources generally have the power, some of the aid will trickle down to the independent growers.  Hopefully, they won’t have to wait longer than two weeks because for them to see a return, it will take at least 9 months.   The problem is now a problem of development aid and disaster prevention, not search and rescue (even though in some parts of the Bocas, the landslides wiped out entire communities).

The next day, I walk outside and get a call.  It’s Nico, the regional leader of Bocas del Toro.  He’s a quirky guy from Delaware, but of most of the volunteers here, he is one of my favorite.  When he talks, you can barely understand him so most of the people just squint and nod at what he says even though they have no idea what he is talking about.  I’m glad he isn’t loud and easy to get along with; it calms my soul.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up in some sort of diplomatic role someday.  I’m sure whatever he decides to do he’ll do it well.  Nico tells me that he is with UNDAC, UN’s disaster and relief assessment and coordination team.  There are only 80 or so people in the entire sector and from the international sector, three came from Nicaragua, one from the US, one from Paraguay and one from France.  It’s a pretty diverse team.

I hop in the car with Raul (the one from the US), Lester (an IT guy from Nicaragua), and Nico.  We drive from community to community to assess the damages and hear a thousand cries for help without a means to give them help at this time.  Some of the communities are covered in mud and to get from one house to the next (about 20 yards) is an enormous task as they are trudging through knee deep mud.  Some tell us that no aid has come for 2 weeks.  Others tell us that little aid has come.  We have no idea what the truth is because everyone exaggerates in times of great need; especially when they think that the person they are speaking to has the means to bring them what they need and want.  We do a “quick and dirty” (as Raul likes to say) survey of about 10 communities beginning with my own.

When we get back to the municipality, we sit in a meeting with the governess of Bocas del Toro, the UNDAC team, and the heads and directors of agencies.  The most prominent speaker of the bunch is the National Director of MIDA, the agriculture agency here in Panama.  They have laid out a statement that they will distribute seeds and fertilizer to those who were affected because of the great need here in Bocas.  After all, with 80% of the economy of the entire region at stake, this is no small matter.  Unfortunately, what we end up finding out is not so encouraging.

What the heck are they saying?  Is the only thing that keeps running through my mind as I am sitting here.  I’ve been here for almost 5 months and my head still hurts trying to follow everything that is being said.  My Spanish still sucks.

I lean over and ask Nico about what they are saying and find out that all that is being said is that the agencies (like MIDA) are waiting for money to execute their plan, but there is no money coming in from the national government.  On top of that, the representatives from the UN are telling me that they have not received any requests for aid from the UN, which indicates to them that the national government has enough money to distribute to the flood affected areas.  But when I talk to the people back in my site, no one has gotten anything and the only movements that they have seen were meetings that lead them nowhere.  It’s a bleak situation and I don’t know how many meetings it will take until they realize that people are not making money and wont be able to make money until someone makes an executive order to distribute aid to the independent farmers.

We go to dinner and while we are eating, I talk to Geronimo, the head of the UNDAC team for this mission.  He tells me that the agencies are working together to create a loan assistance program to provide long-term loans with low interest rates so that the farmers can borrow money easily to replant.  The only problem is that if they do that, the farmers will most likely be unable to pay them back as over 70% of the people in my town already have outstanding debts that they won’t be able to pay back and unloading more debt on them with accruing interest will probably demoralize them, creating more unproductive citizens.  What more is that this region gets hit with small floods yearly, and my town, since it is next to the largest river in Panama, gets hit with certainty every year.  The question isn’t if, but how bad will it be?  That means if they only get one year out of the crops, they will have to take out another loan the next year as well.  Thus continues the vicious cycle, but still, we have to try and push in order to prevail.

The thing is, this is problem of preparation.  I can’t help, but get angry with the government for being so unprepared.  There is no disaster outside of people, and the only reason that disasters occur are because people aren’t prepared to deal with them.  No one talks as if volcanoes erupting are a disaster if no one is affected, as a flood in an area that no one lives is not a disaster.  Earthquakes only matter if people get hurt or structures get destroyed which people depend on.  Hurricanes in the Caribbean and tornados in the Mid-West of America are only important if they destroy the livelihoods and lives of people in their paths.  There is no disaster outside of people and fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on where you stand, all of it can change based on the levels of preparation people have taken before the natural phenomenon strike.  Katrina was only bad because people didn’t strengthen the Levy’s and FEMA didn’t mobilize in time to respond, leaving people in disarray to this very day.  Bad leadership was a definite presence in the time in took to respond and the organization of it all, but still, people had been warned for years about the levies and did nothing.

I realize that I am a small pawn in a big game trying to figure out how to obtain power in all of this so that I can exercise some judgment and execute some projects to help people through the worst flooding in 40 years here.   You can’t do anything without power and power comes from either having the resources you need or having the favor of the right people.  I have neither.  I am as I mentioned, overwhelmed.

Through all this, what I knew in my mind has been realized in my own life.  I have decided that I will not ever be in this position in my own life.   I won’t allow my ignorance and assumptions ever prevent me from being prepared.  I have always lived by this mantra to expect the best and prepare for the worst, and here I am living smack dab in the middle of a situation where people expect a handout in their own apathy and feelings of helplessness and prepare for nothing.  My life won’t be the same.  As I have prepared myself for life through my own commitment to be the change that I want to see in the world myself, I find myself prepared in many ways for almost anything that life can throw at me.  Maybe except torture.  But even then, who knows how I will handle it in the middle of it all.  I’m going off on crazy tangents with my thoughts, but the fact remains that no one ever expected me to come this far in the Peace Corps, but here I am on my first camping trip that coincidentally will last me two years.  What a life.

I wake up the next day after a stinky night in a bed that is from the Mesozoic era and is growing invisible, funny looking mushrooms that by its mere horrible scent, makes me hallucinate.  I couldn’t sleep all night as I was tossing and turning, trying to prevent my face from touching the sheets and the mattress.  It literally smelled like someone decided to sweat there for two years straight and then let it rot in a humid cave.  Its time to attend a special debriefing with the UNDAC team for the governess and other heads of agencies in Bocas and I am really tired.

I make my way down the street inhaling the wonderful smog as I think about the coming day.  If they decide to take the UN’s advice, then they will hurry up and get aid out to where it’s needed.  But my fear is that they lack the organizational infrastructure to get it done.  After they arrive late (as usual), we commence with the meeting and for about two hours, the UN team debriefs the government on what needs to be done.  My hopes rise and fall like the stock market during volatile times.  At one point, I am fully convinced that they will take everything and apply it right away, and then the next minute, it looks as though everything is going over their heads.  Sigh.  It’s always a seesaw here.

After the meeting, I eat my fourth meal with the UN team and spend most of my time chatting with Raul.  Raul is an El Salvadorian who immigrated to the States over 30 years ago.  40 years old, but you’d think that he wasn’t any older than 28.  He’s got a lot of energy and is really positive, but that’s just on the surface.  I find out during our time together that he is a Senior Chief with the Navy, a fire fighter, and works with UNDAC.  But through it all, he is a living testament to the type of leadership that I try to convey to others and his personal humility is extremely evident in his interactions and his professional will in his work ethic; which makes me think of Level 5 leadership in Good to Great and the small percentage of leaders worth emulating.  He tells me stories of how he motivated troops, saved children from fires, and traveled the world with the UN doing good work.  Just being around him gives you the type of buzz from life that you want, but few people experience.  If you can meet him, take the chance.  My favorite thing that he said was, “Mission First.  People Always.”  Think about it, and you’ll get it.

After lunch and some more conversation, they send the taxi driver to take me back to my site.  I go home first and find no one there, so I head over to the grandparents house where my family usually hangs out.  It’s a crazy situation.  There are three bedrooms in a small concrete house no larger than 600 square feet with about 15 people living there.  And the weirdest part is that it’s a normal thing for them to have many people in a small confined place.  One really learns the value of community and of privacy in a setting like so.

I trek through the fifteen yards of mud to get through as it has started to rain again and shake my feet off before I enter.  The entire gang is there, a total of 6 families with the patriarch outside sawing away at a sofa.  I offer to help and pick up a hammer and work with him to place a board in the sofa.  I’m a lot better with a hammer than I remember as I am easily hitting the nails in the head.  I wonder if joining the Peace Corps makes you an automatic carpenter.  I feel a little more like Jesus.  What I experience next is anything, but feeling like Jesus.

I do my ritual playing with the kids and pick them up one by one and try to break the ceiling with their heads.  It’s a lot safer and more fun than it sounds.  Plus, I do my best to get a good deal of tickling in until they are about to cry.  Then they try and attack me all at once, waiting for the first one to go first so that I could grab them as the rest attack me, but they are still at an awkward stage and their coordination is just plain bad.  As I take my seat, they offer me food and I chow down.  As I finish eating, a slow, but steady procession of questions begins to come my way.  It starts off with questions like, What is the difference between Koreans and Chinese and Japanese? to Do you eat horses? How about kangaroos?  First of all, since when did Asia ever get Kangaroos?  I laugh at them while they think I am laughing with them and proceed to answer.  Then they begin to ask me the infamous, Why don’t you have a wife? and How many kids did you leave back home?  I tell them no wife and no kids, and then they ask me if I have a girlfriend or girlfriends back home.  I tell them I am single and won’t be ready to mingle for about two years.  They continue to question me about my ideal woman and I explain her to them and for some reason, my ridiculous list of qualities that no human female could ever accomplish attracts them and one who has two kids, is my age, stubby, and is no larger than 4’9”, but has a really pretty face begins to joke with me.  When she is sitting, she is very attractive, because all you see is her face, but when she stands and waddles around, it’s a different story.  Gosh, I’m shallow.  I need a girl who values her looks and wants to stay in shape forever.

Anyway, she starts to tell me things that shouldn’t be said.  For a long time with her baby’s daddy sitting next to her, she tells me about how she wants to cook and clean for me, do my laundry and when we get drunk for Christmas (it’s their tradition here), she will take me to her room and have her way with me.  I get really uncomfortable really fast, but just do the awkward laugh and try to change the subject.  It ends up that the more questions everyone asks me, the more she tells me how I’m perfect for her, how I need to open my eyes to see what’s right in front of me, and after a comment I made about her Gap Inspi(red) shirt, she tells me that she is inspired by me.  Of all the things, I consider the free laundry and the cooking, but I remember that she has mothered the children of two men, and although she has a great personality, I am just not attracted to her below her chin.  It’s a sad truth, but the truth nonetheless.

The reality of all this is that men suck all over the world.  I am so disappointed in male-kind that I almost want to tell all the women to become feminists.  I have a new goal in town: to develop these men into gentlemen.

The smell of fresh cards pierces my senses.  This place is nothing like the Bellagio, Venetian, or the Palazzo in Vegas, the Mecca of card games, but I don’t care, the familiarity of the casino is doing wonders for me.  I drown out the never ending ringing of the slot machines and zone into my cards.  The waitresses in the short skirts are reminiscent of the b-level cocktail waitresses during the twilight shifts in Vegas, nothing really to look at, but having been in an indigenous site with the Peace Corps creates tensions in my shoulders as I exercise my rubber neck.  I turn to look at every 4 that walks by (guys rate girls from 1-10, if they say they don’t, they are even bigger pieces of poop as they are lying to your face). Cheap drinks flow through the dimly lit casino that would suit an office casino night theme with 3 blackjack tables, one poker table, one baccarat table, and two roulette wheels.   It’s more like a reject casino from Atlantic City after the rise of Vegas.  The pirate theme is annoying and doesn’t suit the name of the casino, “Fiesta,” which one would probably think should remind you of “Rio” in Vegas instead of Johnny Depp in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean.  The past week has given me a need to get away and the casinos always seem to provide me with just enough of an escape from reality to recharge.  Unfortunately, I’m down about a hundred and fifty dollars – ½ of my monthly salary and the small stack of red, five-dollar chips doesn’t do much for my confidence in this game to 21: and confidence is key.

I know I shouldn’t even be playing with the tiny salary that I have, but I need to get away.  The past events have driven me up the wall and the lack of a support system that I am satisfied with is making the walls crumble around me.  I’ve always been picky with people, but with only 180 or so people in Panama with the Peace Corps, the options aren’t that promising.  I mean, I enjoy the company of most of the people, but someone to confide in is something I barely had in the States.  This is a whole different world.

The worst thing to do in a game is to play with your emotions.  I can understand when people play on hunches, but they shouldn’t deviate from the rules; it messes everyone else up.  The other people sitting around the table with me probably weigh an average of 250 pounds each.  I take a mental note of how obese they are and just move on, but then I look at their faces and I can’t help but comment to myself at how unbelievably hideous they are.  The glasses that look more like binoculars I can forgive, but the terrible hygiene that has manifested on their skin and odor is a completely different story.  They look like the witch from Snow White, with the body of the Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters, and the smell of an Air India flight (couldn’t think of a bad smelling movie).  The old guy next to me can’t stop farting and is dusting every crop from here to Nebraska with his potent gases.  No one knows how to play and they are all hitting when the dealer is showing fives and sixes, staying on twelve to fifteen when the dealer is showing a seven or higher, then getting mad when I hit, bust, and the dealer beats them.   The only one who knows how to play is a kid that has never been to the casino until now and is listening to what I am telling him to do.  Unfortunately, we are losing at a faster rate than everyone else. I should never play when I am tired, but it beats being at the hotel where I came from.

For the past week, I have been sitting in David (the second largest city in Panama), wondering what it would be like to return to my site.  The hotel I am staying at has become luxury to me, even though the first time I walked into the room three months ago, I couldn’t help but think of how disgusting it was.  It’s definitely not the Ritz.  I have been spending most of my time downloading things off the Internet so I can pass the time when I return, but I think that the people who have the wireless routers got a clue and slowed down the connection.  The ETA on my downloads went from 1 hour to 12 days.  I am not going to be here that long.  Most of the downloads consist of comedy so that I can laugh at something other than myself and the ridiculousness of what I go through at times back in site.  I love stand up comedy.

I’ve been able to do some thinking away from site and I don’t like where my mind is taking me.  Some of the places that my mind takes me are pure euphoria; a blessed affirmation to the things that I am doing; a satisfying praise.  After all, I am in the Peace Corps.  On the other hand, and more often, my mind takes me to some of the darker places of my days; a cursed reminder of how pathetic the fruits of my labor will probably be; a depressing cocoon.  After all, I am in the Peace Corps.  I need inspiration.

I am having a hard time collecting my thoughts these days.  I have tried to write this blog now for three days, but haven’t been able to get anything down on paper.  My mind flutters from thought to thought, wanting to express itself onto the keyboard, but as soon as I sit down, it begins to wander like a nomad in a desert – no inspiration.  My mind is parched.

I don’t know, maybe I just miss my time back home and I should call it quits.  At times, I don’t really think that what I do here will make much of a difference anyway.  What I am doing here is really simple stuff, stuff that people who lack discipline need to learn, not people who lack intelligence because for the most part, the stuff we encounter is stuff that any college grad or even high school grad can learn to do and solve.  But then again, I am only feeling this way because I feel like I am a duck out of the pond.  I have become accustomed to my site and consider it home.  The people there know me more or less and I love being there.  But still, the work is simple and the life is simple.  It doesn’t take a genius to realize that this stuff can be done by anyone, anywhere, at anytime, as long as people meet two conditions:

1. Willing to lower their standard of living significantly, to that of poverty.
2. Willing to adapt to the culture and lifestyle.

Maybe that’s what makes the Peace Corps so great, the fact that we have to voluntarily choose both things.

For me, the first one is the harder one.  Cultural stuff comes easy for me and I can pretty much adapt to any culture, or at least teach them to adapt to mine.  After all, I have been working on creating a “perfect” culture in my own life, taking the best from each culture, keeping a people-centered value system, and finding industriousness in all things.  It’s the lethal combination of having a terrible living condition with menial work that, of course means a lot to the people you work with, but doesn’t really mean anything to you, that drives me insane.

Here’s how I assess my own work so far and it’s real impact (maybe you have a different or even better perspective):

1. Bread Business with a Group of Women:  We bake something called Jonny Cakes, its pretty much coconut flavored flat bread.  We have turned a profit on our two days of work and only cook them on Fridays (until we got flooded out).  The women aren’t really organized in their processes as they spend more time just watching other people work instead of working themselves.  However, the fact that we are profitable is amazing.  They are excited about growing their business as we have only worked with about 5% of the population of our town.  If we can take the business to the entire community and have regular clientele, we will find ourselves in a position to earn a hundred to two extra for each of the 5 participating women in the business.  Anyone have any names that we can use for the business?
What I did: I met with them three times and simply motivated them.  Honestly, they should motivate themselves.  I find it ridiculous that I have to inspire people who obviously see the opportunities, but don’t do anything until they are pushed.  I hated working with low-performing individuals in the States and I hate it here.  I asked them to do some homework, which almost no one did, because they lack the work ethic, but when someone is there to tell them what to do, surprisingly, they do it.
The reality: It’s a simple business that they KNEW they could do all along.  If it takes a 25 year old kid to tell these women that they need to be more productive and find ways to generate income, something is seriously wrong.  But then again, I AM here doing “development” work and thanks to my mentors Jim Kouzes, Barry Posner, Jim Collins, and Warren Bennis, etc. I know that true development begins with leadership.  OK, so maybe this is an exercise in leadership development through a practicum.

2.  ASOPAG: The Banana Association:  27 people, all of whom have now lost their livelihoods due to the floods had a written vision that was never internalized.  They all own land, varying in sizes, but like most associations, they aren’t really working in conjunction with one another.  They had a pretty good year last year, but everything fell apart.  Again, basic organizational issues at hand, but this time, if they don’t take disciplined action to work on their fields regularly and stick with the program, the entire group gets hurt.  Of the 27, two were actually doing what they were supposed to be doing and turning a monstrous profit without any benefit from the group.  Most of the time, they complain about how they don’t have any money, but then spend all their money on things they really shouldn’t be spending their money on.
What I did: I have met with several of them separately and got enough information to know what they need to do.  We were supposed to have a meeting with all 27 growers, but the flood wiped it off the calender.  I have to meet with them when I return, but getting their livelihoods will be more important than anything else at this moment.  They probably won’t have enough money to pay to replant their plantations.
The reality: Again, the problem isn’t with resources, but with leadership.  They’ve had plenty of resources in the past so what good would giving them more do?  If you give them money, they will go out and buy a TV, something they DEFINITELY don’t need, but then, although they are a very slow people, they are impatient and like every other human in the world, wants to be instantly gratified.  They need to learn self-discipline.  As my friend from college Jordan Kemper loved to say, “You lack discipline!”  They need it – bad.

3.  Teaching computers: I hate teaching computers, but they have over 20 computers that we can use to educate them.  Most of the people who want to learn are adults, but I think it’s the kids who need to learn how to use them.  The adults also want to learn English, but the reality that they will actually use it is slim to slimmer to none.  They want to learn some things, but the reality is, they will never use what they learn because they don’t need to learn it.
What I did: Had one meeting where the director of the school was to inform her two computer teachers, but didn’t do so.  So the meeting was pushed back one week, but the flood prevented that from happening.  We will meet when I return.  But I have plans on getting my computer class approved by the Ministry of Education so that they can earn credits for the class.
The Reality:  As I mentioned earlier, most of them won’t use what they learn and they want to learn for the novelty of it.  It’s really pointless because they are focusing their attention on things that they shouldn’t be.  They could be using their time more wisely.

4. The Aqueduct: Dirty water comes out of the faucet.  It’s brown and sometimes chunky.  3-4 days a week, when it rains, the water comes out dirty from the faucet.  It makes it difficult to shower and brush your teeth, but you get used to it.  The problem is that the school and the clinic doesn’t get water so they can’t do what they need to do.  They have a full orthodontist/dentist office, but without water, they can’t do anything.  The school needs the water for kids.
What I did: I went up once, but need to get someone to fix it.  But pretty much, nothing has happened.  At this point, people are so complacent about it that they aren’t motivated.  I need to push them.
The Reality: They always complain about the problem, but don’t do anything about.  They have an aqueduct so they know how to go about and get one, but no one wants to work.  Pretty much, they want me to fix their problem for them.  Heck no, am I going to fix it for them.  They will work with me to get it done.

5.  Leadership Seminar:  15+ people will attend a seminar that I have put together.  4 courses that will be 3 hours a week for 10 weeks a course will cover the topics ’self-leadership,’ ‘family leadership,’ ‘organizational leadership,’ and ‘cultural leadership.’  All of them are geared towards creating a holistic community and this is probably the only project I am really excited about as it is the most sustainable.  After I go through 4 rounds with them, I will do a train the trainer course for 5 weeks that will teach the graduates to go through the courses again.
What I did: This is all my own knowledge from my studies.  I have been able to get some authors to donate their books in Spanish, but I need some copies in English so I can supplement them in the seminars.  This should be a cool project.
The Reality: This is probably going to be my baby and I will try to empower them to start multiplying their efforts.  Looking forward to where this takes them.

OK, maybe I’m being a little negative here, but right now I just don’t care.  Outside of the leadership project, nothing is really worth anything to me (well, getting them an aqueduct that works is important, but anyone in the Peace Corps can do that).  I’ve always avoided doing grunt work and I still don’t like it in any manner that it comes at me.  I was having a conversation with Ben (another PCV) during dinner, and he was telling me about the difference between me and him.  Referring to the relief efforts, he told me that he would’ve been happy to be the one handing out the food and packaging the material and intuitively said that I would hate that and the only way I would be happy in that situation would be if I was running everything.  I agreed, remembering a similar (almost identical) conversation I had with my sister a week prior.  It’s true, don’t give me work that anyone else can do, because work that the masses can do drains me.  I only want to do the things that few people in the world can do.  Maybe that’s why I’m having a hard time here in the Peace Corps.  But who knows, things might change and I might be whistling a different tune in two years.

The reality is, the criteria for a basic Peace Corps volunteer are the ones listed above.  A great PCV is one who really puts themselves aside for the good of the group, one who looks at their community objectively and truly spearheads needs and issues where they matter, and go about it in a sustainable, yet effective and efficient manner.  We are here as teachers, mentors, and guides, but few, like with anything in life are great. So what does it take really?  As I have always stated, life is about the ability to lead.  To lead yourself, to lead others, and to lead cultures into a transformation towards a better culture.  Outside of that, very few things equal greatness.  We need to develop leaders, for leadership is the only sustainable mold in all things.  How to’s are cute, but they don’t last as processes change over time.  Quality leadership will always remain constant as the principles surpass time.  Don’t believe me?  Ask Jim Collins, Warren Bennis, Chris Argyris, Ken Blanchard, Jim Kouzes, Barry Posner, Charles Handy, and a slew of other people much smarter than you or I.

(this post was really negative about 4 hours ago, but after a nap, I decided to re-explore what I wrote and this is my semi-negative post… enjoy)