Calvin and Hobbes

Calvin died.

She was very sick.  And even though I knew – somewhere in my mind – that it was serious, even though I thought to myself the night before, “Calvin, please don’t go off and die somewhere,” I wasn’t prepared.  She had disappeared earlier in the day.  But she did not go off somewhere to die.  She came home.  And she died right outside the porch gate.

That image of her, eyes half-open, stiff as a board, is seared across the insides of my eyelids.  And it hurts.

One might say that Calvin’s cause of death was “complications due to surgery.”  Just over three weeks ago, I took her and Hobbes to the vet in Changuinola to get spayed (their first trip outside the community, their first bus ride, their first time in the city – it was a big day).  My neighbors had been telling me that they had seen my two female kittens “playing” with the male cats in the area, so I decided the responsible thing to do was what many pet owners in the US do and almost no pet owners in rural Panamá do – get them fixed, before they had a dozen new kittens that I would be completely unable to care for.

Hobbes recovered almost immediately from the operation.  Calvin didn’t.  First she ate little, then not at all, losing all her strength and energy.  Took them back to the vet to have their stitches removed, was told that she had an infection.  Left them with my host family (their original owners – after all, these were the kittens that were born on my bed when I was living there) to go to Mid-Service Training in Panamá City, with instructions for treating the infection.  Returned to find her still in bad shape.  Thought if she didn’t improve – with my care – in a few days, we would go back to the vet, on a day when I didn’t already have a meeting planned.

And then she died.

All that day I asked myself over and over what I should have done differently, how she could have gotten better, what I did wrong so that she didn’t survive the recovery from the otherwise-routine surgery.  And after exploring the (multitude) of instances where I could have made a different choice, in the end – maybe there wasn’t anything else I could do.  I did what I thought was right.  It all turned out fine for Hobbes.  I don’t know why Calvin didn’t get better.  It hurts all the same.

It hurts because I miss her.  I miss the dynamic between her and Hobbes, always playing together, always fulfilling the somewhat opposite – yet similarly mischievous – personalities of their namesakes.  It hurts that she was my responsibility and I failed to protect her from all the risks of the world.  And there are a lot of risks in this world, in this little corner of the earth where bug bites turn into flesh-eating bacteria infections (leshmaniasis), where worms can enter your body from your bare feet in the mud (ascaris), where gut-wrenching parasites lurk in all the untreated water (amoebas)… (Just re-read the 10 plagues limerick from A Peace Corps - Panama Passover for the many delights found in the province of Bocas del Toro.)  It’s a dangerous place, especially for the young, the sick, the old, the injured.

I have though many times since my arrival here that this place is ill-suited for babies (especially while I was vomited out of a hammock, feeling like a sick baby, surrounded by the crying of sick babies).  There are so many risks, and life is so fragile.  I just didn’t want to experience that firsthand, personally.

Of course, pets are seen differently in rural Panamá than they are in the US.  They serve a purpose – to catch mice, to protect the house – rather than companionship.  This is obvious from all the mangy dogs wandering around the community, ribs showing, so skinny that they can fit between my gate posts to steal my food.  And if there often isn’t enough food to feed the children, why waste any resources giving more than chicken-neck-bone-scraps to the dog?

Fortunately for me, Ángel understands this – having seen the way each of the previous Volunteers handled their pets.  So that day I retreated to the sanctuary that is Ángel’s house, seeking support from his family, using the ample cell service to seek support from fellow Volunteers and friends and family back home, finding solace in the isolation and beauty of that lovely house on a hill overlooking the sea.

I remember back when I first arrived, Ángel had said that they think of death differently, as a freedom from suffering (CampoWisdom).  I still don’t think I can wholly buy into that mentality – I too much profoundly value our gift of life – but maybe there is something to that.  Calvin was suffering.  Now she is free.

But I still miss her. 

I guess I’ll just have to love Hobbes twice as much, now.

Patriotism

I had wanted to post this for Independence Day.  Instead, I celebrated America’s birthday in one of the most American ways Panamá would permit me – I ate something at an American fast food chain three times while traveling halfway across the country.  And had pizza and coke floats for dinner (sadly, Panamá doesn’t believe in root beer).

I had known, going into this, that there was something patriotic about joining Peace Corps – that I was serving my country’s interests abroad by promoting international friendship and cultural exchange through the sharing of my education and training.  I knew this – it is, after all, what they tell us – and I believed it too.

Like the rest of my generation, my childhood and worldview was shaped by the World Trade Center attacks that occurred when I was 11, and the ensuing wars and the damage to our international relationships suffered as a result – the misplaced fear and hate and misunderstanding, directed at people who were not the terrorists, that was propagated through the United States, and the mistrust and fear of the United States among people around the world.  And I felt it was my responsibility, as citizen of the United States, to repair that damage, to represent the America that is tolerant of all kinds of people, that shares its material and intellectual wealth with the world for the sake of humanity, that always seeks new and better ways of doing things, that strives for the wellbeing of all people, that uses its power and influence in the world as a force for good.  I wanted to play my small part in representing that America, and I wanted to do my small part in improving my understanding of other people.

But I did not expect just how much Panamá would make me appreciate the United States.  Sure, our educational system needs a lot of work, but at least kids are guaranteed the opportunity to attend all the way through 12th grade and the teachers show up all 5 days of the week, all 6 hours of the school day, no matter how underfunded and understaffed the school system.  Many rural schools in Panamá are lucky if kids get 2 hours of instruction 4 days a week.  Kids may walk 2 hours to get to school, only to find that, inexplicably, their teacher did not show up that day.  The government tries to incentivize staying in school by providing a scholarship – funds to be used for buying school supplies and uniforms – to kids who earn a “C” average (3 on a 5-point scale).  Unfortunately, this has the effect of incentivizing the parents – the ones most concerned about earning the scholarship – to do whatever it takes for the students to get the grades, often including doing the students’ homework for them.  I appreciate what the government is trying to do, but not the actual consequences.

My education is not the only thing I appreciate.  At least when the US government spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on a water project, someone gets fired if it doesn’t work, and something is done to fix it – there is a high degree of accountability.  Many communities in which Peace Corps Volunteers are living have failed government-built aqueducts – some of which never worked at all.

Even if there may be much left to be desired, there are environmental regulations that are enforced.  Towns aren’t full of trash, waste is disposed of in a generally responsible fashion – and these are only the most visible problems that I see.

There may be a lot of complaining, a lot of room for improvement, but in a lot of ways, we can trust our institutions in the United States.  We can trust that our infrastructure was built to a stringent code, that someone is responsible for maintaining it, that someone will be held accountable if it fails.

I find that I do not much trust the institutions here, in rural Panamá.  And neither do my people.  I can see why.  In October, a government agency arrived, unbidden, to build an improved cookstove for the school.  (I had actually spoken with the agency prior to their arrival, and the discussion was about building composting latrines.)  They almost finished.  But they failed to put the metal burners on which to rest the pots on top of the stove and failed to give a training about how to use it, and after attempts to follow-up, they just disappeared.  Now we have a slowly crumbling unfinished stove at the school that is being dismantled piece-by-piece as the bricks are removed for other purposes.  Why trust an agency that wastes its money and doesn’t finish its work – especially when no one understands why they were doing the work in the first place?  Again, the opposite of the Sustainable Development.

And so I find myself telling my people that if they want something, they have to figure out a way to do it themselves.  They can’t wait for generous foreign organizations that seem to randomly give ill-suited gifts (Sustainable Development = Empowerment).  And they can’t wait for the government, which apparently does the same thing.  If they want control in their lives, they need to figure it out for themselves.

And then I pause for a second and realize that I am preaching Libertarianism to my people.  I would not have considered myself a Libertarian.  I like that the government does things like provide education, make environmental regulations, control fair business practices, build and maintain infrastructure, offer health care to everybody, provide a safety net.  But I also have some trust in those institutions in the US.  And it’s pretty darn impressive that our government can do those things.

Granted, there are some significant differences.  Panamá is a lot younger, its institutions have had less time to develop.  And it has been at the mercy of more powerful nations throughout its existence.  And it has less gross domestic product to play around with.  And less already-developed infrastructure, necessary for logistically providing a lot of things.  Where in the US does a teacher have to hike an hour up a hill through the rain and mud to be able to teach 16 students every day (like she does in the community next to mine)?

It is a weird sort of patriotism.  I am continually impressed and amazed at what we have achieved – what is available to us – in the United States.  And I increasingly appreciate how lucky I am to be from America.

However, Panamá is, in a way, now my country, too.  I do, via the US government, work for/with the Panamanian government, on behalf of its people.  I am – slowly – figuring out how things work here.  And if you ever tried to say mean things about Panamá, I would as surely defend its honor just as I would my little brother.  It is a special place all its own.  Even if I still proudly hang my American flag (albeit, inside my house).