blog

may 19, 2010

We have to file quarterly reports with the Peace Corp office.  This information is shared with Panamanian agencies and with PC in Washington.  Here’s the major portion of my submission.

1) Developed website for ADATA, the network of enironmental groups of the Chiriqui Highlands with a counterpart.  www.adataeng.megabyet.net

2) Helped a governmental agency (the local office of MIDA) remove viruses from their machine using a bootable anti-virus program.  Installed a linux system, Mint alongside their windows operating system.  They can choose which to use a start-up.  If they want to clear a usb device of viruses they can boot into Mint.  They do not have internet access and they use USB storage devices frequently, which transmits infections they get from internet cafes.  I left them a copy of the anti-virus program and offered to train them in its use as well as the Linux program.

3)  I wrote a wiki article about Santa Clara. I will translate it into Spanish and publish it after review.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara,_Chiriqui,_Panama#Santa_Clara.2C_a_small_town_in_the_province_of_Chiriqui.2C_district_of_Renacimento

4) Translated for doctors, dentists and and an optomologist at
two events over three days.

5) Presented a portion of Project Management and Leadership at two seminars organized by volunteers.

6) Planned and partially implemented a project involving the importation of up to 200 refurbished computers into Panama.  Currently seeking Panamanian partner.

April 27, 2010

A team of Army Reserve (Southern Command) doctors, dentists, nurses and support staff flew to Panama last week to conduct free clinics in the Cocle Province, about 8 hours by bus from our house. Two weeks ago 4 or 5 other volunteers assisted in the translations. This past week there were fewer so I went then instead.

I worked with the optometrist and the dentists. The former needed assistance with the distance exams. The biggest challenge was hearing the people talk, as many of them spoke in very soft voices, mumble, or both. Some of them tried to tell me about their vision problems, thinking I needed to know, but the test told us what we were looking for.

Working with the dentists gave me a close up view of the dental problems here. As there are relatively few dentists and the vast majority of the people do not have the money to pay, most people do not get preventative care. On this trip the dentists could only do exams and extractions since they did not have a complete set-up so cleanings and fillings were out of the question.

I interviewed people as they came in to find out what the problems were. I looked in a lot of scary mouths. Decay is common, caused by a high sugar diet (causing type 2 diabetes as well) and lack of care, leading to large cavities, pain, and the loss of teeth.

There were many with serious bone loss for lack of brushing and regular cleanings, and no one here uses floss, all leading to plaque and the development of dental pockets where bacteria grow, eating away at the bone. This gum loss produces snaggly teeth that decay, break and just plain fall out for lack of anything to hold onto. I know all this because I inherited a proclivity for all of these problems.

On the last evening the mayor of Penonome gave a party for the soldiers, to which they invited us. A Panamanian woman invited me to dance with her, which was a lot of fun. We did a salsa of sorts, and then I danced with another woman and we did the merengue. They were both good dancers.

April 22nd, 2010

Further developments have complicated the situation regarding our local agro-environmental group, APAASAC. Last week representatives of ADATA visited just after a meeting with EISA (Electron Investment SA), a company building one of the hydro-electric projects in the province.

Representatives from EISA, whose project is called the Pando-Monte-Lirio, were there to talk about the donations they are considering for projects in Santa Clara. These projects, proposed by the community, are submitted in writing and then reviewed by the company. Many local communities are participating.

The largest among those submitted in Santa Clara include a sum for replacing the water pipes. The regional government paid for a portion of the project, now completed, and this donation would finish the job. There is also a request for money to buy prizes for a raffle to support the newly reconstituted health committee, and a request to purchase some trash cans for locations where people congregate, two bus stops, a small shopping area and the central park. They also talked about the training programs they will be offering in self-esteem and various health topics, including sexuality. These donations are not a requirement of their contract but it is common for projects such as these to offer them.

Without much doubt the companies figure they will enjoy more support from the community. Especially In a charged environment like this one, they have to be thinking this way.

EISA was there also to talk about reforestation. They are legally required to plant 12 trees for every 1 they remove. Therefore they are looking for sources of trees to reforest the areas they clear to install the 10 foot diameter pipes to channel the river into the turbines. The reforestation is still under study to determine the number of trees and other aspects of the plan, they explained. Our group is interested in the project for the income and to insure the job is done properly.

ADATA representatives arrived just as the other meeting was ending. It was an icy moment – Adata parked their truck so as to prevent the EISA truck from leaving so I feared a confrontation. Adata and EISA had all met weeks before when EISA learned, if had not already, that at least some members of Adata opposed the projects. What I did not know at that point is that Demaris and Jorge were already working on getting written commitments from ADATA members.

After asking Jorge to move the truck, which he did in a tongue in cheek sort of way, EISA departed. Demaris and Jorge came in. They said that they were not opposed to hydroelectric projects but they were opposed to the lack of an environmental impact study of all 12 or so projects on the river and the 90-10 rule which allows the company to take up to 90% of the water. This includes not just the river but the water basin, they explained. What might the impact be on water supplies for the human population, and the fauna and flora? This is unknown, but in an area highly dependent on agriculture, it is important to find out, they argued.

They then read the letter that all members of ADATA except APPASAC
had already signed.

Lito then said that he for one felt they had to accept the donations that benefited the community. His brother Anel said that they were all opposed to the mining projects, and remained committed to the environment. After all, he noted, they are one of few organic farmers in the area. He explained that they were not negotiating with EISA, just conversing with them, although that made it clear they would consider negotiating with them.

Demaris then read the letter of withdrawal from Adata they had prepared for APPASAC. She explained that they could not appear to be working against the hydroelectric projects and then having a member who is negotiating with them.

Much to my surprise Anel signed right then and there. As far as I knew there had been no meeting with APAASAC members, no vote taken and no notice of the pending event.

It was a sad moment, the consequences not considered with care as far as I can tell, with no moment given to questions of procedure. The moment gave me the feeling that had I done my job, it would have made a difference if not in the outcome, which is their’s to choose, but in the method.

Subsequently I discussed the situation with our sector director and as I thought, we must not participate in anything anyone is doing on any level with the hydro-electric projects now that the situation here is politicized. At our next meeting I will inform APPASAC.

December 24, 2009

So – Christmas in Panama……

From what we hear, Christmas Eve here is bigger than Christmas Day. On Christmas Eve, beginning at about 8:00 pm, people “pasear”. Pasearing is something all Peace Corps volunteers should be good at – it can be defined as strolling through your community, creating opportunities to know the residents better and to increase their comfort levels with the Peace Corps volunteer. This is one of the major ways a volunteer creates “confianza” within his community. Creating a strong personal relationship among the people the volunteer works with is the major way the volunteer learns how to be most useful and successful in his work.

In our community, and probably in most communities volunteers work in, if you pasear near mealtime, you will always be offered something to eat. Unless you can come up with a good excuse, you should accept it, even if you know the people offering it don’t have enough food to feed their own family. Many PC volunteers, particularly young men, almost never prepare their own food, even in the poorest communities. Of course, they must be willing to live on whatever the locals eat – in this case, large servings of plain white rice. Many people we work with are less poor, so there is usually a pot of chicken soup on the stove as well. I usually get a small bowl of chicken soup and add some rice to it. Their chicken soup is delicious, and usually has carrots, yucca, potatoes or other tubers in it.

On Christmas Eve, people prepare lots of good food for passersby. I am offering Apple Brown Betty and really terrific cheese straws Neal and Susan taught me to make a few years ago. We will probably hang out and divide these goodies among two of the families whose homes we’ve been invited to, as they will receive more visitors than we would, as we are still new to the community. The hard part will be staying awake until midnight, the most festive part of the evening.

Christmas and New Year’s Eves are one of the few times people who are not considered drunkards can actually drink alcohol openly. Don’t know if that will help us to stay awake… No one has cars here, so the likelihood of being run over is pretty minimal.

I really want to tell you about three inspirational meetings we went to last week. The first was the annual party of the environmental organizations near our community. They decided to get together because they’ve not seen each other very much this year and felt they needed to catch up on what each group is doing. We met in the high mountains for a day of accordian music, rice and beans, and fried pork skins. A representative of each group said a few words, but mostly everybody just hung around, ate and chatted.

This group is very concerned about the recent concession granted to canalize and dam up a couple of the rivers in our province in order to generate electricity. If you saw these rivers, you’d laugh. We’d call them streams – I can’t imagine how their water will be sufficient to generate the electricity to power a light bulb. The folks here are very concerned because according to the concession, up to 90% of the water flow can be directed through pipes to the turbines. Environmental studies indicate that local impact will be minimal. However, all the studies are company-funded. And by the way, concessions to build the 14 dams have been given to 14 different companies..

The second meeting was an organizational meeting of environmental groups in our province, specifically called to initiate a program whereby they will all work together politically, with a common agenda, to combat the invasive anti-environmental activities being supported by the national government. The latest and most alarming to this area is a concession request by a gold mining company to put an open pit mine on 36000 acres in the middle of the International Amistad Park. This park is located on the continental divide and is part of the Biological Corridor linking North and South America. It is supported by European and US environmental organizations, and has tremendous environmental significance. The government has already granted a major concession to a copper mining company on the nearby Ngobe-Bugle reservation, a semi-autonomous province populated by a very poor tribe who earn their living by subsistence farming and depend on the local rivers for their water. How much sulfuric acid does it take to leech copper (or gold) from a pulverized mountain? And where do you put it afterwards?

What is inspirational about these groups is their level of environmental awareness and their work to combat environmentally destructive practices. Many sponsor organic farming practices, reforestation, environmental cleanup, bird sanctuaries, student environmental groups, community trash collection, recycling projects and other such activities. Many have been following closely the Copenhagen talks. The believe that the government grants concessions for land development, mining, public works and other projects on the basis of which international company offers the most money.

Peace Corps volunteers cannot participate in any political activism, so we will remain in the background. On the other hand, we are supposed to develop leadership, organizational, computing and presentation skills, business plans, etc. How groups choose to use this training is up to them.

The third meeting was actually a training program for coffee growers, sponsored by the local governmental agency that supports them. Among others, we listened to a session on the European Best Farming Practices Act, which the growers will eventually have to conform to if they wish to export their coffee; a session on how to combat the “broca”, an insect that drills into the coffee bean to lay its eggs, and a session on why and how to implement record-keeping systems (part of the Farming Best Practices requirements.) What was interesting about the day was the emphasis on organic farming practices.

Moving on, let me say that christmas decorations are much in evidence here – the same Currier and Ives ones we see in the States. The relevance of snow and reindeer in this climate escapes me! Commercialization of Christmas is rampant – many, many commercials on TV, lots of store floor space devoted to cheap decorations and even cheaper plastic toys. But the frantic rush to buy stuff is absent out here in the campo, where there are no stores.
I must go bake some apples. Cooking will be a pain, as the water is not running this morning!

Lastly, Gary and I wish you all a very happy holiday season and a very Happy New Year.

Cheers, Peg

Nov 23, 2009

So –

we’ve been in our community for a month now, and are beginning to get the hang of it. The Peace Corps prefers that one stay with a host family for the first three months the volunteer is in his community, but we did not expect to, as there are two of us, which is twice the burden on a host family. Also, we are older and more likely to be finicky guests. So, we began to look for a place of our own right away. Ironically, we will probably end up staying in the home we originally moved into with the intention of staying only one month. We plan to continue to live with “La Profe”, a woman of 50 whose youngest son is moving out of the house in January to go to university. She will be living alone in a four-bedroom, two-storey house. She is very involved in the community. Everybody knows her and thinks very highly of her – exactly the kind of friend every Peace Corps volunteer needs. For many reasons, this is politically a very good place for us to live. In addition, the house is super-comfortable, she can help me with my Spanish, she is super-energetic and she is quite happy for us to be here as she moves into this new, childless phase of her life. She is the only member of the community we know who has a car, and loves to tootle around showing us cool stuff. Also, we can go grocery shopping with her, which will avoid our schlepping food 45 minutes on a bus, followed by a 15-minute walk from the main road to the house.

She goes into David every weekend. David is our provincial capital. It takes 2 1/2 hours to get there on a bus, and it is only 30 miles away! She can do it in 1 1/2 hours. We’ve spent the last week buying stuff for our room. We’ve also had satellite internet installed at the house. Hurrah!

The house is so fancy that we are embarrassed to talk to our volunteer friends about it. Living in this house will certainly shield us from the “Peace Corps experience” of living in difficult circumstances. About 70% of PC Panama volunteers go into indigenous communities, many without electricity or water, where the folks live in huts with dirt floors. We do not mind missing this part! On the other hand, we hope not to be part of the other extreme, the “Peace Corps lifestyle”, where the volunteer doesn’t really become involved with his community because he spends too much time away from it, hanging out with expats or just reading and isolating himself.

The group that invited us to this beautiful part of Panama is called APASAAC. They are a group of coffee growers who have decided to make this tiny town a model ecological community. Many of them are converting their coffee fincas into organic. At the same time, they are reforesting their part of this province, training other farmers and coffee growers in the use of organic fertilizers and bug repellents, etc.

We are learning their operation in detail before trying to give them any advice. They would like to accomplish many projects and hope to use our help in prioritizing these. They are quite well informed about many aspects of environmental awareness and improvement, and we do not yet fully understand how we can help them. But they seem to think we can.

The mission of the Peace Corps has three parts: 1) to meet a country’s expressed needs for technical assistance, 2) to share the culture of the United States with the host country, and 3) to share the culture of the host country with the people of our own country. Within this culture, family and friends are everything. Right now, we’re trying to build trust within the community so that the people will speak to us frankly. Eventually, they will let us know what they need and ask for our help in achieving an objective. By understanding them, we hope that we will know how to do that successfully.

Two of the important members of APAASAC are brothers, members of an extended family of 13 kids. Their father came here in the early 1940s and bought many acres of land. The land was divided up among all the children, and all but two still live here and grow coffee and various foods. Each of these children have children, many of whom are grown and have children of their own. Many live on our road, and I am still figuring out the family tree! Everybody seems to be everybody else’s cousin. There are several such large families in the community.

Right now, I am picking coffee a couple of mornings a week, which I really like to do. You get points for being a good worker, and I’m known as a good coffee picker because I only pick the ripest beans. The professional pickers pick EVERYTHING – green, immature beans, twigs, bugs, whatever. That is because they get paid by the basket. I don’t get paid at all, so there is no advantage to me to fill my basket indiscriminately!

Also, I’ve begun working one afternoon a week at the school, with the students who want to practice English. It is important to remember that in this culture, you learn stuff accidentally – for example, Gary and I were thinking about organizing a Panama Verde group at the school. Panama Verde is a student organization that works on environmental awareness and improvement, so we thought it would be a good adjunct for our APAASAC group. However, in one of our chat sessions, one of the students just happened to mention that there is an environmental student organization already in existence, just waiting for a new coordinator. If we had just jumped in with our brilliant idea of organizing a Panama Verde group, because that is what we already knew about, it would have been the wrong thing to do.

We’ve already met several members of that group. Many of the same kids who want to practice English are members. They belong to the most progressive families in the community and participate in many student activities. These are the kids who will be the next generation’s leaders, and the ones we want to spend time with.

One of the big projects APAASAC wants to do is community-wide recycling. Panama has no garbage pickup to speak of, and garbage disposal here is a really serious issue. This is a huge, multi-faceted project that will take much organizing. Gary is working a lot on it. The directiva of APAASAC would like to present the project framework to the other members of the organization at their General Assembly in January. So they’d better get busy!

There’s also a group that wants to learn how to make pizza and sell it at community events. This is a great project – it brings income to the group and will be perfectly sustainable. However, they have to get organized pretty quickly, as their first big even occurs on December 20. We’ll see how it goes!

Cheers, Peg