The Shankars (well, 80% of 'em) in Panamá

One of the highlights of my time in Panamá so far was the last week of March when Mom, Dad, and Ian came to visit me!!! It was a crazy busy week filled with every type of transportation imaginable: planes, boats, the metro, chivas, and multiple busses both big and small. I met them in Panamá at the airport and we immediately set out for my site. After a night in David, we got up early and made it to my entrada. There we caught my chiva and just 24 hours after arriving in Panamá, they were in Barranquilla! It was one of the weirdest moments I've experienced so far; in my head, I've titled that moment "when worlds collide." It was amazing for them to see my house and how I live. I took them to pasear (visit) at all 25 houses in my community in just a couple hours. My gente (community members) were shy, but also curious. It was interesting for me to watch them be uncomfortable and experience some culture shock (although on a small scale). I think now my gente better understand or at least have had a small taste of the shock I experienced upon arriving in Barranquilla.

They made it!

Bus Ride #1

At my house

Shy, but curious

Mom with my baby host sister, Ladi

Ian learned to use a machete, we drank fresh coconut water, and celebrated my hosts sister's 14th birthday! We spent some time with my host family and it was my favorite part of their visit. While neither of my families could directly communicate with each other, they were able to meet and have a brief conversation with my translating. My parents thanked my host family for taking such good care of me and welcoming me into their house and lives. My host dad responded by thanking my parents for letting me come to Panamá and work in their community. This was my favorite exchange of their visit. They got to eat my campo cooking and we all squeezed into my 10ft by 7ft house for the night...Well, I actually slept on the porch in a hammock because my house is that small. I asked my family what they thought of Barranquilla, my gente, and generally my life there. They responded by saying I really seemed happy (even though I've mentioned that in previous conversations) and they already recognized how hard it will be for me to leave in just a year and a half.

Be afraid

When Worlds Collide

The next morning we packed up and headed out for some quality time on the island of Bastimientos. We spent a few days being beach bums and enjoying the perfect weather. The last stage of out trip was taking an overnight bus back to Panamá for one last day to enjoy in the city. We arrive nice and early (3am) and relaxed in our hotel lobby. When it was actually daytime, we waled the Cinta Costera, visited Casco Viejo, and the Panama Canal. We ended the day with a tour of the Peace Corps Office and having dinner with my Country Director at her house because he and my dad went to grad school together. The next morning, they headed to the airport and back to the US and I made my way back to Barraquilla. It was an amazing week!!

Boat ride #2 of 4

Since my family's visit, I've been working to hold elections for my water committee and begin surveying for repairs to our aqueduct system. I spend a lot of time playing with kids and coloring with them! They also love to practice English with me! I'll be holding water committee elections in a week, and then our main projects should get underway.

I spent some time in another Volunteer's site helping her do some surveying and make plans for an aqueduct she will be building. Then I was able to celebrate my birthday on Bastimientos at the beach! It was a lot of fun a great way to ring in year #23.

Yeah, we're working!

In the next couple weeks, I have a lot of training events that will cause me to be out of site. I have training in Panama City, a meeting in Changuinola, and a Seminar in early June. The seminar should be really interesting because I (along with the other WASH Volunteers) will be bringing a counterpart from my community for this training event. It's a few busy weeks filled with travel all over the country!

My minions

      

My youngest host sisters

Helping me sweep

Q&A

As promised, this blog will be dedicated to a Q&A! But first, a quick overview of what I've been doing for the last few weeks.

We clean up pretty good when
we leave the campo

Most of February, I was out of site for a two week long training event and to visit some of my friends in their communities. For the first time since moving to my community, I ventured far east into the Coclé Province. I visited my friend's community and then headed to a week of "office" training. I was reunited with all the Volunteers in my Group and we spent a week in sessions in a classroom setting. And by classroom, I made an outdoor rancho with an awesome penca (thatched) roof!

Visiting Guyabital, Coclé

Yes, I get paid to play in the river!

The second week of training was hands-on. My group visited a Volunteer's site in the Comarca Ngabe Buglé (she's over a year into her service) and worked to build a tank, rainwater catchment tanks, develop and build a toma (a cement box that captures water from natural spring sources), and were able to practice working with counterparts and facilitating presentations. It was a great, exhausting week and I learned so much that I hope to take back for my community! I lived with a host family for the week and was reminded about the kindness of strangers who welcomed us into their homes without reservation. I also remembered all the reasons I love having my own little house (escape from children, chickens, buchu, etc). Following training, I visited another friend's site for a few days. Then I headed back to Barranquilla after a nearly 3 week absence. It was so nice to finally get home and have a break from traveling with a bunch of stuff.

The ladies after working hard to pour the tank floor

I had a meeting in Changuinola with MINSA (the Health Ministry) to discuss obtaining legal status for my Water Committee and what assistance the government may be able to provide. Then, I had a fun couple of weeks in site. I built a rainwater collection tank made of cement at my house. The water goes out frequently, and so now I will not have to carry water to my house because it rains nearly every day in Bocas. I have a few finishing touches to put on the tank, but it's nearing completion. I also worked with my Water Committee to organize elections that we will hold when I return from vacation.

With my rainwater tank

I will be traveling for the next week because Mom, Dad, and Ian are coming to visit me!! We will be spending time in Bocas (visiting my site) and in Panamá City. In a couple days, I will be heading to the City to get them from the airport and whisk them off to Barranquilla! I cannot wait for their visit!

A cloudy morning in Barranquilla

Q&A

Q: How far is the nearest "store"- your mom said you had pasta your first night in your home, where did you get the pasta?

A: I am lucky because in my community there about 4 different "tiendas." These are small stores in or right next to people's homes that sell the basic essentials. They ALWAYS have things like rice, sugar, oil, soap, and pasta. Some of the nicer tiendas sell eggs (who knew they didn't have to be refrigerated?!), candy, crackers, and pop. One even has a gas powered refrigerator so they sell COLD pop, chicken feet, and chicken neck. Although I can buy many items in site, they are very pricey and not consistently in stock. I bring in most of my food from nearby cities, usually Chiriquí Grande or Changuinola. I try to calculate how much food I'll need for the amount of time that I plan to stay in site without leaving and bring in roughly that amount (while always knowing that I can buy emergency food in site). That pasta was possibly the most anticipated meal I've ever eaten.

Q: What was the hardest thing to adjust to?

A: I think the hardest thing to adjust to was going from training to living in my site with a host family. It was a shock to go from a training community with electricity, reliable water, and living with 4 people to a community with very little water access, no electricity, and living with 15 people. Now, I feel very integrated and well adjusted, but it was a big change to first arrive at my host family's house and not know anybody or how anything worked!

Q: What is the story behind the turtle shirts?

A: The turtle shirts (as featured in photos on my last blog) represent the Bocas province. Everyone Bocas has the shirts to represent our Province and the icon of Bocas is the turtle. That's because every year, groups of endangered sea turtles come to the coastal areas of Bocas to lay their eggs and it's one of the most famous things from the Province. The bonus is that my shirt has my Ngabe name (Buchi) on the back. Volunteers in indigenous sites get local names from their community and that name becomes almost interchangeable with our real names during our service.
  
Q: What's your favorite thing you've eaten? Are you eating more than frijoles (beans)?

A: My favorite thing I've eaten (that's Panamanian) is an hojaldre/a. It's a really simple combination of flour, salt, baking powder, and water that is fried. But, the deceptively simple recipe is quite challenging to get right in practice and the technique for shaping the dough requires a decent amount of practice. Hojaldras are part of a classic breakfast and a well made hojaldra is definitely what I look forward to in a Panamanian restaurant. Because they have to be fried in oil (which is expensive) they are a real treat in my community and I only eat them at special events. And, luckily, I am now eating way more than frijoles! Since moving into my own house, I am in full control of my diet and occasionally make beans or lentils, but am yet to cook rice. After eating rice so much with my host family, I am seeing how long I can go without cooking it myself!
 
Q: Will you be responsible for organizing the local community to work with you on water access or will there be other Volunteers working with you?

A: I am the only Volunteer living in Barranquilla and (as with nearly all communities) so I will be working on my own to organize the community for work. Once my community's Water Committee is reformed and the community is motivated and prepared for a big project, I will certainly need some support from technical coordinators, Peace Corps staff, and other Volunteers with more experience. But, overall, I am the only Volunteer that will be working with my community on water projects.    

Q: Is it everything you expected it to be?

A: I saves the toughest question for last. The answer has to be "yes and no." No, because I had no idea what to expect and all the advice I received said the best thing I could do was have little to no expectations. But, in reality, that's really hard to do. So, I had my expectations, but they were so far off from the reality in Panamá that I quickly realized most things that I thought might happen were completely erroneous. That realization early on made it much easier to have no expectations. So, pretty much everything I told people about what I would be doing in Panamá before leaving the US was either wrong, vague, or made up (sorry!). I say "yes," it is what I expected because I knew it would be quite the adventure. I'd practice Spanish, live in a rural community, and have a lot of hard (yet rewarding) work to do. In that sense (and only that sense), Peace Corps has been exactly what I expected. Overall, despite my incorrect expectations, I couldn't be happier with how the reality of Peace Corps Panamá turned out!

Now for some of the questions that I most frequently get asked by my community members! I try to answer these as honestly and tactfully as possible, but sometimes I just have to move on and come back to it another day.

1. Is Rambo real?
2. Did you know that Chinese people live and breathe under water?
3. What do pilots say on airplanes?
4. Why do I (Emily) have freckles?
5. Why do I have blue eyes? (They call blue eyes "ogo de minchi," which literally means "cat eyes")
6. Why don't I eat chicken neck or feet?
7. How can I only have 2 siblings?!?!?! (The average immediate family is 8-10 people)
8. How does astronomy work? (They're curious about everything: stars, the sun, gravity, and UFOs)
9. What's with my tan lines? Are they tattoos? Do they hurt?

I have some major Chaco tan lines

10. How old is Rambo? Why doesn't he fight anymore? Is he dead? Is Rambo real? (They're obsessed with all things Rambo)

Visiting Cerro Gallina (aka Chicken Hill)

He saved me from the bug he's holding!

Making banana bread with my host siblings

 

    

It's been a while...

So its been quite a while since I've posted on my blog...I will use the excuse that I live in the middle of the jungle with no electricity. But, I'm finally getting a chance to update the blog!!

When I last posted, it was right after Thanksgiving. Since then, I've been to a holiday party for Volunteers, celebrated Christmas and New Years in Panama, hit some big milestones, and moved into my own house! A lot has happened.

In mid-December Volunteers from all over Panama celebrated the holidays together. It was the first time I saw the rest of the Volunteers from my Group since we all went our separate ways after training. We had three days filled with stories from our communities and a lot of catching up!

Very soon after, I spent Christmas with one of my good friends in Changuinola, the regional capital of Bocas. We attempted to recreated as many of our Christmas traditions as possible in Panama. We made lots of good food, watched Christmas movies, decorated the Regional House, listened to hours of Christmas music, and I made sure to Skype in with my family as we did the traditional Christmas tequila shots. Overall, it was a fun Christmas, despite the separation from family and friends back home. Next year (or later this year rather), I hope to celebrate Christmas at home!

The streak of holidays and celebrating continued with New Years. I spend New Years in Barranquilla with my host family and community. It was overall a very normal few days. The majority of my community is working in Costa Rica or Boquete (another part of Panama) harvesting coffee, so Barranquilla was pretty dead as far as New Years celebrations go. The biggest event of the night was a fight that broke out and involved my host dad. Traditionally, a part of Ngabe culture is to fight as part of celebrations; men even receive "fighting names" that they only use during fights. I don't think my host dad won the fight, but everybody was certainly entertained and cheering on the fighters. There were, of course, a litany of firecrackers and I was convinced that a kid would lose an appendage or blow up a house by the end of the night. Luckily, they proved me wrong and there were no injuries or fires!

I spent most of January working to complete my community analysis that culminated in a 17 page written report. Even more exciting than a 17 page report, was the work on my house. I had a lengthly and stressful struggle to find a house because several options fell through at the last minute and in a community with only 15 houses, the options are not plentiful. I finally secured a house and started to work with my host dad to renovate it. It took nearly a month to:

1. Find a guy with a chainsaw who could cut the wood for my house
2. Carry the wood from the monte to my house
3. Complete the construction

House construction in the campo is slow going and after spending nearly four months with my host family (whom I greatly appreciate and love dearly) was becoming very difficult. The food and lack of privacy were my primary challenges. I was eating plain rice or buchu (a boiled green banana) twice a day, every day, for four months. It was time to move out.

My House!!!

After spending a few days in Changuinola for a Regional Meeting (and visiting Bocas Island for the first time), I returned to Barranquilla with my Regional Leader. She was able to approve my house (it has to meet Peace Corps Security standards) and I moved in!!!! It was one of the most exciting days in site, especially because my house is only 30 feet from my host family house, so I still see them everyday. It took me a while to clean and organize my 7ft by 10ft wooden box, but now I'm all settled in!!!

Before I moved in all my stuff

The view from my porch

Currently, I'm in David (another nearby city) because I'm traveling for IST (In Service Training). All of the Volunteers from my Group will spend a week in Coclé for classroom style training in our respective sectors. Then, the second week has the WASH group traveling to two communities where Volunteers have been working for over a year. We will be getting hand on experience working with aqueducts so that we can take that information back to our communities. It'll be two very busy weeks packed with information. At the end of February, I'll be heading back to Barranquilla to hopefully get started working with my Water Committee!

I have hit a few big milestones in Panama! As of yesterday, I have been in Panama for 7 months and in Barranquilla for just over 4 months!!! It's hard to believe I've been here for so long! Time is flying and in another 7 weeks, I will be hosting my first international visitors. Mom, Dad, and Ian will be spending their Spring Break tooling around Panama with me!

I hope to update my blog more regularly, and next time I'd love to answer any of your questions (assuming there are at least a few people who read this) about my life, work, whatever! Leave me your questions in the comments! In return, I will be posting some of the questions I get asked most frequently by my community members! They range from questions about Rambo (yes-like the movie) to astronomy and everything in between!

The kids like to hang out on my porch

I built a little chair from scrap wood!

They even help do yard work!