I worked with my personal Community Projects Committee to prepare my Work Plan and complete my Community Analysis and Development Plan to turn in to the Peace Corps administration, describing everything I've learned about the community with respect to its needs, resources, and organization, and everything I plan to do in terms of primary (Environmental Health-related) and secondary (other stuff) projects. My training group -- all 50 of us, united again -- attended more training, where we went into greater technical detail about developing our projects and presented our Development Plans. I hosted a couple friends from the college. And I celebrated my 25th birthday!
Some highlights of the Work Plan that we developed:
- Offer the opportunity to organize into work groups, buy materials, and build ferrocement rainwater catchment tanks to the many people in the community who do not currently have water in their houses or whose water supply is inconsistent such that they would want to store water. My role here is to first sell the idea of this kind of tank, with the help of my Committee -- $30 for an 85-gallon tank is way cheaper than the plastic alternative (about $1/gallon), and then show how to build the tanks, help my community leaders organize the work groups, and coordinate the purchase of materials. I'm going to try to persuade those who want the tank that they have to pay for the materials themselves -- a hard sell in a community where many things have been handed out for free by the government and other non-profits, and where some parts of the community who didn't work with the previous volunteers don't understand the nature of Peace Corps work. My thought is that the tanks are not unaffordable for the people in Quebrada Pastor, and they will care for them better if they pay for them themselves; in addition, after I leave, others can follow the same model if they are interested in having the tanks, too. Part of this will also be to educate about clean water and water treatment.
- Offer the opportunity to organize into work groups, buy materials, and build pit latrines. My committee and I will be selling this idea side-by-side with the ferrocement tanks, with the same thought -- those who think it is a significant enough priority to spend $40 on a latrine will be more likely to use it and take care of it. If they do not have a latrine and do not want to buy the materials, then more education is necessary so that they want the latrine in the first place. Again, the idea is to be sustainable and self-sufficient in this kind of work. Everyone is already well-exposed to the concept of a pit latrine, thanks to the work of the first volunteer. Part of this will also be to rehabilitate current pit latrines.
- Work with the Water Committee of the central/school aqueduct to make the necessary repairs to improve its function -- so far progress has been a struggle since I am depending on the Water Committee to call meetings... More motivation may be in order.
- Work with all five of the existing Water Committees (and any new ones that develop) to increase training and connection with the Panamanian government's water agency.
- Help each interested neighborhood develop the necessary planning for building an aqueduct. I have opened the offer to any interested group that I will help them through the steps of building an aqueduct -- starting with forming a Water Committee, measuring the flow rate of the source, locating all the participating houses, forming an agreement with the landowner, developing a system of monthly payment -- and as the groups complete these tasks, we can work on the next tasks -- surveying the line, quantifying the need, designing the components (intake, storage tank, transmission line, distribution system), putting together a budget, and finally soliciting funds. The best-organized and most-motivated groups will be the ones that accomplish these tasks first, and therefore have the opportunity to seek funding. It has to be a competitive process because there are at least four neighborhoods interested in pursuing their own aqueduct project!
- There may be an opportunity to build composting latrines, with the government's environmental agency's help -- there is some interest (since the first volunteer build several, and they are still in use, some with great success), but we have to see what the funding looks like.
- Miscellaneous other things -- there seems to be some interest in a Trash Management Initiative, in a Women's Artisan Group, in Ecotourism development, in building a School Library... And I will happily help with these things as my help is requested (though I am not going to push any of them too hard... Maybe the trash one).
With all of the heavy thinking of preparing the Work Plan out of the way, I was excited to attend training (with some quality beach time every evening), followed by the visit from my friends. Training was great fun, and I was thrilled to see my friends. However, the visit did not go as expected, in that one of them got sick the night we arrived in my community, and didn't fully recover until after returning home. As a result, we didn't get to do most of what we had planned. As Mary Catherine, an infintely-quotable fellow volunteer, told me in response to this: "The only "plan" that Pana-land allows us to make is how we plan to tell the story afterward." This poignant observation applies to everything that happens here -- and everything in life, really. What are our experiences other than a collection of our interpretations of events? So I have spent a while processing this trip, which did not at all go according to plan, to figure out how I plan to tell the story. I think the most significant personal lesson that I gleaned from all of it is that culture shock -- about which Peace Corps has warned us -- is real. It can be an adjustment to settle into a new country, to be sure, but it can also be an adjustment to go back to the US.
Granted, I didn't return to US, but instead I got a little taste of cultural misunderstanding that found me here in Panama. While my friend was sick, I found it very frustrating at times to try to help him handle his illness because he was not responding the way that I have learned how to respond to illness here in Panama. To me, getting sick has become a somewhat (unfortunate) routine (though I'm hoping for my bowels to stay clean in 2015!), which involves recognizing the symptoms, calling the medical office, and sometimes going to the lab to poop in a cup and get medication. Sometimes it just involves waiting it out -- lying in a hammock listening to soothing music, or reading in bed in the wee hours of the morning waiting for the next bout of vomiting to come and pass, and then finally eating some crackers and drinking oral rehydration salts as I'm starting to feel better. Sometimes it means that I will go fulfill my committment for the day -- an hour hike to go measure the flow of a spring source, say, and stopping to have some diarrhea along the way -- and then going to the lab to take care of the problem. So, for me, desires like wanting to lie down in air conditioning, or seeking out beef jerky (only found in Panama City, to my knowledge), or not wanting to go to the lab or the hospital to take care of things, just seemed like unreasonable ways of handling being sick.
Somehow, in the last 7 months, I had forgotten what it was like to have just arrived here, to have gotten sick the first (or second, or third) time, to feel like I was in a foreign country with no one who could understand what was wrong with me. I had forgotten how many miserable times it took for me to develop my coping strategies, to recognize how my body responds to certain problems; I had forgotten that, somehow, Panama had become my home, and I had adapted to it, or at least learned how to deal with it. And, after all, I have all of the support of the Peace Corps medical office staff, who will provide for me whatever I need -- visitors here don't have that luxury. I had forgotten all of these things, and as a result, I had forgotten how to relate to a friend traveling here from the US -- not a very different traveler than I was 7 months ago. I think the lesson to take out of this is, just like I have to adjust my way of looking at things, my attitude and perspective, to be able to understand the people of Quebrada Pastor, I also have to be able to adjust my way of seeing things to understand those back home. This is supposed to be the great outcome of this experiment of living here -- how much can I push my understanding to be able to relate to all different kinds of people? What does it take to develop that sympathy, that empathy, even? And, better yet, be that bridge between the different worlds?
So, it probably was not very sympathetic of me (or very mature) to commemorate his illness in a limerick. Even if that's how I deal with unpleasant things.
He planned a nice Bocas vacation,
Heard tales of amoeba invasion.
So hard did he pray
The diarrhea away,
That he suff'red severe constipation.
Okay, and to be fair, I can't say I've completely adjusted. There are still some things here I don't understand. Like my community's explanation of that massive ant invasion after I recently moved into my house:
Invading Formics! (From Ender's Game.)
Ants swarmed the house, a full-scale campaign
I killed every one,
But was told, when done,
Was just the cleaning service that came.
The ants came to clean my house? That's just too much.
And finally, pictures!
Finished constructing the ferrocement rainwater catchment tank! Still have to connect the pipes and begin catching rainwater...
Visit to Fort Lorenzo in Colon with friends -- hugging trees, view from the fort, requisite cannon picture, crossing the canal over the lock
Birthday on Isla Colon -- eating Indian food with fellow volunteers!
Adorning my house -- with autumn leaves sent from home, with photos (feel free to send me more!), and with...
Kittens!! I finally adopted two kittens of the litter that was born on my mattress in November. They are both girls, but I decided to name them Calvin (the yellow, adventurous one that is a little more independent and ornery) and Hobbes (the gray one that loves to purr all the time), anyway.
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