Insanity

There is something insane about planning “Tech Week.”

With less than a month to go, this thought struck me as I was walking to Elsa and Humberto’s house at 6 pm for my sixth-and-not-even-final meeting of the day, preparing for Day Zero.

The thing is, there are a lot of things going on here.  It was always going to be that way, because the needs here are so diverse, because there are a lot of different, motivated people and leaders, because I like doing lots of different things so as to keep busy and not get bored.  I realized back in August during my Site Visit that there were ample opportunities to do a wide variety of environmental health work.  I expressed my plans to try to do all of these things in December and January as I was preparing my Work Plan, and then I set all these wheels in motion in February, with the thought that I would make available every possible avenue of my capacity to help, offering that help to whomever would take it.

I knew that it was not all going to work out, that some attempts were going to fail, but I hoped that a few would succeed, too – as Mom would say, I was taking the “shotgun approach.”  I hoped that when one project was stalling, we could make progress on another, and that I would never really be waiting for things to happen because I would be spending that time working toward something completely different.  Quebrada Pastor made this possible because there are so many different leaders here, interested in a variety of projects.

So I set about different projects.  In November, I encouraged groups that wanted an aqueduct to invite me to measure the flow at the source.  I organized a ferrocement-rainwater-catchment-tank-building party in December to show everyone an example of this novel water collection and storage option.  In February, I walked to (almost) every single house to tell everyone I was offering to orchestrate the construction of storage tanks and pit latrines for anyone interested.  When the aqueduct groups finally formed their Water Committees, I went with each of them to do surveying.  I have been meeting with the school/central aqueduct Water Committee since I arrived, proposing repairs, and finally starting to survey that system, too.

Lots of balls have been rolling for a while now, albeit we had to overcome significant inertia to get them going….

And then in April I found out we would be hosting Tech Week.  Suddenly, all of those carefully and slowly cultivated projects, developing organically each at their own pace, were going to culminate at a specific point, on a rigid, unchangeable timeline, all at once.

That is the insanity of it.  Originally, we had lots of separate things going on, each with their own participants and goals and timelines.  Each had some probability of success and some of failure.  Now these things are all tied together, and the objectives have grown – now we are also teaching Trainees, reinforcing further the idea of capacity and empowerment.  We’re riding that opportunity and excitement – 30 Peace Corps people in Quebrada Pastor!  Wow! – to offer things I  wasn’t even ready to try yet, for lack of time and energy, like Tippy Taps and Incinerators, and I’m trying to take advantage of the context to show my people here – by placing them in the role of teacher – just how much they know.  I’m trying to “aprovechar” (which means something akin to taking advantage of an opportunity) all of the interest that this week is going to generate, and all the extra minds and hands that are going to be here.  It could turn out to be something really cool.

Could.  That’s really the insanity of it.  Before, if things failed, they would fail separately, at separate times, within a small group of people.  Now, everything can fail together all at once in the most public way possible – in front of the whole community, my boss, my fellow Volunteers, and all the new Trainees (not to mention my parents, who are coming at the end of the week, and the mayor of Changuinola, who might be showing up on the last night).  In setting my ambitions high, I am inviting an ever-more-severe fall.

And that fall feels particularly perilous because there is one person who cares an order of magnitude more about the outcome of this thing than anyone else.  That would be me.

I care about the outcome of each of the individual projects that I invested in, cultivated, developed, and cared for.  The owners and beneficiaries of these projects care too, but for their individual projects, not collectively.  And I care about the success of Tech Week as a fun learning experience for the Trainees.  The Trainees, Facilitators, and Trainers each care too, in their own way.  However, my definition of success is tied up in how the whole thing reflects on my community and me.  I’m inviting them all into my home to scrutinize my life and my work – a great opportunity to show off everything here that is awesome, but also a great opportunity to fail.  My hopes and interests for this week are the exact overlap of all the goals of my community members, the training staff, and the participants.

Such are my preoccupations as the preparations begin to exponentially increase in intensity.  I’m still putting forth maximum effort and ambition – I have to plan for both the best-case and worst-case scenarios – but I am trying to temper my expectations so I am not devastated when things don’t work out perfectly (as, of course, they never do).  And that’s the challenge, having so much hope and investment and effort tied up in something, while trying to be realistic.

And, heck, if some things do fail, that’s life.  That’s the nature of this work.  And everyone who is going to be a part of the week – my bosses, the Volunteers, the Trainees, my community, my parents – should know that, or at least be given the opportunity to learn as much.

Here we go!!

In the midst of the increasing insanity, I made note of a few heartwarming sentiments straight out of this very place, reminding me how much I appreciate my counterparts here:

·         Angel: I would rather not belong to any church rather than always be fighting with people within my own church and with people in other churches all the time.  (Church – and organizations in general – is great, except when it primarily serves as a divisive force rather than a uniting force – and I’m glad someone else agrees.)

·         Otilia and her son: We will build this latrine ourselves.  We do not want any help from outsiders.  We’ll let the Trainees help so that they learn something.  (At last!  This is exactly the empowerment sentiment I’m seeking!)

·         Neli and Alberto (married couple): We are both the owners of this tank, so we both have to sign the work agreement.  (It’s good to see such equality.)

·         Principal Carolina: Well, if you’re going to get incinerators for the school to use, let’s get together a meeting as soon as possible and invite all the leaders of the community so that we can organize a waste management committee and clean up this community.  Here, tell me who should be invited and I’ll write up the invitations and you and Omar can sign them.  (I love when other people take initiative to make things happen.)

Pictures:

James, an Agricultural Volunteer from a community down the road, came for a visit to give a training about cacao tree grafts, which was much enjoyed.

Surveying for the Jimenez aqueduct (José is the husband of Ema, my mochila teacher) – how am I ever going to design and construct (and get funded) three separate aqueducts…?

The brownie cake that I made for Heidy’s birthday was so popular that it was requested for Mechi’s birthday this week (my “host mom”) – and enjoyed by all.

Random visit to an artisan shop tucked away in the Ngӧbe neighborhood of Almirante… you never know what you might find if you wander off the main road…

One Year

A year ago yesterday (June 18) marks one year since I arrived in Panamá.  In some ways, the United States seems like a place far away in time and space – a different world, really – and in some ways, it seems that I cannot have possibly been in Panamá for a whole year.  I find that I have adapted to Panamá in a lot of ways – and in other ways I still feel very stubbornly American.  Thus begins a season of reflection, as I go to attend Mid-Service Training in a week, as I meet the new Trainees who will be attending Tech Week in my site a month from today, and as my Training Group celebrates one-year-in-our-communities in September…

I’m going to have to save writing most of those reflections for later – much too busy at the moment – but suffice for now to say how grateful I am for all of the support I have received from friends and family back home (not to mention my new friends, both fellow Peace Corps Volunteers and those in Quebrada Pastor) – throughout this past year.  That support has made all the difference in making this all possible.  Thank you!

A few pictures:

Some activities haven’t changed much in the last year – the similarity of these pictures to those taken last September are proof: I still hang out with my host family, I am still little-by-little trying to encourage the community to make necessary improvements to the central aqueduct, and I still like taking pictures of frogs!

3^rd birthday party for Heidy, my “host sister” – I made her a coconut-caramel-brownie using her family’s cacao and coconut oil from Dylan’s site

Cleaning the tanks for the aqueduct to which my house belongs (and the improvement of which is a significant – and challenging – focus of my work) – this little friend provided an interruption and entertainment!

Serenity

Sometimes I push and push and seem to get nowhere.  And then, all of a sudden, when I am doing nothing, someone else makes something happen.

In the classically American way, I grew up believing that if I just worked hard enough, I could make the things I wanted happen.  If something wasn’t working, I just needed to try harder.

Arriving here, I was more than prepared to fail.  I expected to fail at many of the things I tried, because everything here was new and challenging, and anyway, a significant portion of Pre-Service Training was spent warning us of our impending failures.  But of could I also believe that, if I just kept trying, eventually, I would succeed.  I just had to never give up, never quit, continue experimenting, and try harder next time.

So when Enrique tells me that his neighborhood is not interested in my latrine project – even though they told me back in September during my first visit that they all wanted latrines – I figured I must have just done a bad job selling the project, that I should go back and try again, but smarter, better, more persuasively, somehow.  (The hard sell, of course, is that I am asking people to pay for materials themselves.)

To try again, I would need the help of Rubén – the same Rubén who I mentioned in my Sustainable Development = Empowerment post, who had been helping me as a member of my Community Project Committee until he fell ill – because he lives in Enrique’s neck of the woods, and they trust him (more than me, anyway).

Rubén is better now, but I still hadn’t seen him since that frustrating visit to his house two months ago when he refused all of my offers to help get him to the hospital.  Rather than try to seek him out at home again, I decided I would try to run into him at church – even better, because he was guaranteed to be there, it would show that I recognized the importance of the priority to him, and it would save me an hour walk up the muddy hill.  Trying again, but better.

So I went to Quebrada Pastor’s Evangelical Church for the first time ever.  I had avoided attending all the different church services in the community so as not to “belong” to any particular segment of the community and as a result alienate others – but feeling that I had pretty well established that at this point, I thought it would be safe.

Arriving late for the service, I was inevitably seated in the front row on the aisle, directly in front of the pastor.  No misbehaving!  And no looking around to see who was there.

I’m sure I saw Rubén once when I surreptitiously glanced behind me, but by the time I stood up after the service, he had disappeared.

Disheartened, I became more convinced that he no longer wanted to work with me and was now intentionally avoiding me.  This appeared to be confirmed when I attended “Be Proud of Your Black Race” day celebration at the school (an interesting event, watching Ngöbe children dancing in African clothes), and saw Rubén yet again – but he was deep in conversation and would not even glance my direction as I tried to get his attention.  I returned home, sad to have lost the opportunity and more convinced than ever that I had lost his commitment – and also not willing to try harder to talk with Rubén.

As I prepared my lunch, to my great surprise, Rubén appeared at my door!  I welcomed him in, we talked, he promised he was still available to help me, and said he would arrange something with Enrique’s neighborhood.

What happened here?  I tried less hard and the result was better?  I backed off, I became passive, I let him come to me, and it worked?

Granted, I don’t know yet the results of his promise to coordinate with Enrique.  And I don’t know whether that will make a difference in Enrique’s willingness to work with me.  But it’s out of my hands.  I don’t have control over it.

And maybe I never really did.  I think that I have so much influence here – but there are far stronger forces at work in this community – these existed before I arrived and will be there after I leave.  My best hope is to be able to nudge some of those forces a little bit more toward the interest of environmental health, or community organization, or empowerment.

I may never actually know which of my actions were effective, what are the consequences of my efforts.  If I had not gone to church, would Rubén still have come to my house anyway?  Would the result have been the same had I insisted in talking to him at school?  If I had walked to his house?  I will probably never know the impact of my individual efforts (or lack of effort) in any of the things that I do here – and I will only barely have an idea of the overall cumulative impact of my time when I leave.

I get the sense I need to find a balance – putting forth every bit of my effort but also taking a step back, forfeiting the sense of control, and leaving things in the hands of others, happening organically.

I’m not sure where that balance lie – and my instinct will always be to try harder – but I continue to seek it, just as I continue to seek the humility – and patience – that I need to accept that I cannot exert the control I would like over all things, no matter how hard I work.

And so I chant to myself that prayer I remember hanging in my parents’ bedroom, which I used to read growing up:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

Some other things that have been happening, largely regardless of my efforts:

“Heidy Chocolates” is really taking off.  Willy (my host dad) has formed a group that now works every week to produce cacao products – and he is expanding his product line to include cacao “nibs” (broken up cacao beans), “cocoa powder” to make instant hot chocolate, and no-bake cookies (similar to the recipe I had showed him).  He got AMPYME, a government agency that offers seed money and training for micro-businesses, to come to Quebrada Pastor to explain how the company can apply for a seed money grant.  And he continues to sell cacao to an ever-more-impressive list of clients (including many Peace Corps Volunteers).  Next step is securing sanitary certification from the Health Department.

Finally finished surveying one of the potential aqueduct systems!  Looks like I’ll finally get to do some design work!

Hobbes has become quite the mouser.  I’ve seen at least 3 of her kills.  She usually likes to play with them a bit before killing them, ripping their heads off, pulling out the entrails, crunching on the bones, and then throwing up the remains all over the house.  What a good cat.

Nayelis used what she learned at the Healthy Women’s Artisan Seminar that I sent her to attend in April to make me a bracelet!

I took a group of 5 teenagers to the Acting Out Awareness: Camp for Young Health Promoters last week.  In preparation, we did some activities to learn about hand washing, water treatment and storage, and HIV/AIDS, and we took a field trip to the Health Center in Almirante.  (Watching them practice putting condoms on each other’s fingers may have been the best part.)  Then we traveled to Alto Caballero, a community in the Comarca Ngöbe-Bugle, on the other side of the mountains from Bocas, to attend camp!  They seemed to have a fantastic time, learning about theater, health, and leadership, followed by giving a performance of a short play, along with kids from 4 other schools, from all over the country.  My kids learned and performed a play called “Margarita Cochinita” (Dirty Little Margaret), which communicated (in hilarious fashion) the importance of hand-washing in reducing illness.  They did a fantastic job!

Also part of Theater Night was a performance by all 30-some kids and facilitators of the song “Lavando” (to the tune of Enrique Iglesias’ “Bailando”).  This is the same song that I mentioned in the post High Maintenance way back in November, when I went to all the classes in the school singing “Lavando” for Global Hand-Washing Day.  At that time, it was only a chorus, but with some much rain and so many of my plans canceled during October and November I ended up writing the rest of the words to the song – just for fun  (you can find them, with the translation, at the bottom of the post).  It was thrilling to have it actually performed, with a choreographed dance and everything!

Lavando

Yo me paro y me doy cuenta la existencia

En mis pantalones, no sola flatulencia

(Diarrea más flatulencia)

Y me siento una guerra adentro de mi barriga

La noche en la que tengo fiebre y vómito

[Coro]

(Lavando, lavando, lavando, lavando)

Las manos después de usar el baño

Con jabón limpiando (con jabón limpiando)

(Lavando, lavando, lavando, lavando)

Los malos microbios me va desterrando

No me va enfermando

Comiendo y cocinando también preparando

La comida y la bebida y todo vamos tomando

Me lavo manos (me lavo manos)

Me lavo manos (me lavo manos)

Cualquier excremento, limpiando los bebes

Tocando animales, manejando sus heces

Me lavo manos (me lavo manos)

Me lavo manos (me lavo manos)

Yo quiero mojar las manos, enjabonar las manos

Lavar las manos, secar las manos

Una rutina sana (una rutina sana)

Y chocar tu mano (y chocar tu mano)

Yo quiero mojar las manos, enjabonar las manos

Lavar las manos, secar las manos, una rutina sana

Cada día del año

[Fin del coro]

Yo me miro en las manos con preocupación

(Tengo preocupación)

Y finalmente desarrollo realización

(Y finalmente desarrollo realización)

Qué ironía del destino mi sufrimiento

Sentimiento vienen de mis propias manos

[Repite el coro]

Rough translation:

Washing

I get up and realize the existence

In my pants, was not just a fart

(Diarrhea plus flatulance)

And I feel a war inside my gut

The night in which I have fever and vomiting

[Chorus]

(Washing, washing, washing, washing)

Hands after using the bathroom

Cleaning with soap (cleaning with soap)

(Washing, washing, washing, washing)

Expelling the bad microbes

I'm not getting sick

Eating and cooking and also preparing

Food and drink and all things we consume

I wash hands (I wash hands)

I wash hands (I wash hands)

Whatever excrement, cleaning babies

Touching animals, handling their feces

I wash hands (I wash hands)

I wash hands (I wash hands)

I want to wet my hands, soap up my hands,

Wash my hands, dry my hands

A healthy routine (a healthy routine)

And shake your hand (and shake your hand)

I want to wet my hands, soap up my hands,

Wash my hands, dry my hands, a healthy routine

Each day of the year

[End Chorus]

I look at my hands with worry

(I am worried)

And finally develop the realization

(And finally develop the realization)

What irony of destiny my suffering

Feeling come from my own hands

[Repeat Chorus]