and any talk of healthiness, and any talk of resolve, why? why? do i try?

Alright friends and family, let me tell you how I arrived at my computer this fine February eve.

I took the boat to Chiriquí Grande because I had no money, food, or gas in my stove’s tank. I had no choice. Although my room temperature CocoListo mix was holding me off from starvation for the past 4 days while I sat crying in a corner of my hut reading The Other Boylen Girl during shark week, when the townsfolk of my community asked me if I wanted to jump on the Ngobe train to CGrande I could not say no.

With $15 dollars to my name and a prayer to God that we got paid, I took the boat to the port. Low and behold to find that the one and only ATM within a 50 mile radius was out of order. Perfect.

15 dollars. You would think, that a woman of age 24 with an engineering degree and working on her master’s would be able to manage and budge the small capital of $340/month. I still have not mastered this task, and on month 4 I find myself broke as a joke and falling into sticky situations… getting out barley, financially alive. No thanks to you $8 boat ride, no thanks to you.

To David I went, to eat real food, grocery shop, and write this little tale to you all. I’m on my 4th beer. Get excited.

So to update my list of little treasures that I would oh so love to receive in the Panamanian mail that never comes, includes the following…

Dunkin Doughnuts Hazelnut Coffee….I’m still a Boston girl at heart.

CDs with awesome new music that will never make it to Panama mainstream. Thank you Alison Green for your work and dedication to this cause.

OPI nail polish. I’m above wet’n’wild. And when I don’t paint my toe nails they disintegrate into fungus. You’re helping me stay healthy, one $7 bottle at a time.

DARK CHOCOLATE. ANY KIND.

Pens, markers and mechanical pencils- we don’t have electricity and I cannot be bothered with a hand held sharpener.

Engineering paper, I want to cry when I see white lines instead of green graphs.

Underwear and sports bras are always welcome.

Rainbow nerds, cause if you haven’t noticed, I’m still 12 years old.

I could definitely use a new rain jacket. It rains everyday and the one I’ve got I’ve been wearing since my 13 year old camping trip to the White Mountains. It’s moldy, smells like gasoline from the boat rides and is only water resistant, not water proof. I live in a tropical climate and this will not do. If someone owes me a legit present out there, send over a waterproof wonder….11 years and this thing stinks!

Ok, done with asking for stuff…..for now….

So the forecasts for March and April appear to be brilliant ones. I’ve paid the man who’s gonna finish my new house for me and we should be breaking ground of finishing the bedroom of my new house within the week. This however completely depends on the cycle of the moon. Crazy? No, I’m dead serious. The bugs in the wood align their mating cycle with the moon….or something like that, so you have to cut the tree down at the exact right time, or the bugs destroy the wood, and everything goes to waste, and KK gets no lumber for her new, family sized house. Which I might add the women of my community have mentioned several times that with my new big house, I’ll have room for a husband. Oh lucky me.

Anyways, once the bugles tree is cut down into planks to finish the house I get a patio, a kitchen, 2 bedrooms and a bombass place to hang my hammock complete with view of the Caribbean, and life will be grand. My only problem at the moment is that the new house is owned by a man who does not have friendship so to speak with my counterpart in town. This age old religious feud over whose church is more devout than the other might cause some uprising when the joven gringa wants to move to the other side of town. I’ve got my game face on. There might be a battle. I want the house, they want ownership of me, and coins might be tossed. Both parties want me on their side which is hilarious cause they all know I don’t go to EITHER of their churches…..the silly gringa is Catholica, which in their minds is bad either way. No matter what I need the house. I need the space. I can’t sleep at night cause the first house is haunted……and they all know this….

Haunted you say? Ok, Kaitlin really is losing her shit out there on the peninsula. BUT no…..

I am 150% convinced that I cannot sleep at night because I, along with the town I live in, is being haunted. The grave of a man who was taken a year ago by a Bruha (a witch) sits 150 yards in front of my house (the one I live in now not the one I want to finish and move into; on the other, less gloomy side of town where everyone practices a different religion). His clothes were buried there because the body was never found. The body was taken by a Bruha, aka, lost at sea. Aka one in the same. The funeral ceremony was on my birthday, November 2nd this past year, el dia de los muertos, the day of the dead, EXACTLY 6 days after I arrived in site (6 being the devils number). The satanic canoe from which this man disappeared from marks his grave. It is the first thing I see when I open my front door in the morning. COINCIDENCE? I think not. The place is haunted, and I need to move.

So these unfortunate and weirdly coincidental series of events, along with crazy noises and intense rain and wind at night leave me sleepless in my own house. Insomniacs eventually go crazy. This is a fact. And I’m avoiding it by moving… pronto. And don’t worry I will document the entire construction process via my dig cam and post the workings of my new abode here on my bloggy mc boggster.

Please don’t think I’m totally serious, I find humor and fun in the supernatural that surrounds me on the peninsula of wonders. Although, ask any Panamanian on the mainland and they’ll respond “it’s just different out there.”

In April, after the much anticipated All Volunteer Conference, I head to Ecuador to see Bubbie in Quito. CANNOT WAIT. Well, yes I can cause hopefully in the meantime I gain a house, bring a community member to a leadership conference, and hit up the AVC with all 170 Panama Peace Corps volunteers… should be a trip.

On an unrelated note, both of my little sisters are going to Bonnaoroo this year, without me. I am a saddened soul at the joy I will be missing out in back there in the US of A…….but heyyyyyy…..Caymans this summer! I’m ecstatic to be reunited with my family for the first time since August. Mom and Dad I promise, never this long again.

So January was a jem……

Well I knew the day would come when I would sink in one of the carved wooden canoes that we get around in out there. The day came. I was getting a ride from 16 year old Mami and her 14 year old brother when the 3 of us filled a canoe with my backpack and boogie board… yet is was a canoe built for 2, not 3. About 300 yards away from shore not one but 2 waves crashed against the boat, filing it at a rate that I couldn’t bail. Shit shit shit! The boat goes down, so do the kids. I quickly swim to the boogie board and tell Mami to hang on tight. She did, thank God. 20 minutes later of bobbing in the waves and yelling obstinacies in Spanish to the kids to hold on to the boogie board, they guys got the motor boat out, rescued us, and toed us to safety. The women were pumped that I had my boogie board. The gift from Andres proved to be quite the flotation device for the youngins….I don’t know. It wasn’t funny, but it wasn’t critically dangerous either. It was not fun, but I was not scared to death. We sank a wooden canoe…there’s no way it could have gone better given the circumstances. Good thing I was wearing my Peace Corps certified life jacket that I keep with me at all times out on the open bay…..

That’s the thing about my bay. If it were bigger, it would be dangerous, but if it were smaller it would be no fun.

Sooooooo…..do you do any work in the Peace Corps?!?!....

I do have some work plans. At the moment I’m taking a census to see how many people actually live in my town. With that information and knowing how much water is coming out of the springs, a difficult thing to measure I’m finding, I should be able to calculate and size a storage take within the next two months. That will be the first step in the much needed aqueduct I will attempt to design and build in the next two years. Dios primero. Along with work on the (soon to be hopefully) new house. The tourist beaches of Nidori and Guacamayo need latrines for the surfers. Working with Jamie, the tourism volunteer on that part of the peninsula, I will be helping to construct the latrines for surfers to use when they come out to play in the waves.
In other news, the local Lobster Conservation Committee invited me to be an advisor on the board. They clearly know I experienced I am with lobsters, being from New England and all. Graciously, I accepted. We’ve yet to have a meeting but it’s going on the resume.

I’m also working on a daily basis to get my town to build casitas, or privacy houses around their latrines so they will start using them. This is a daunting task since the people really have no interest in using them, and want to continue shitting in the rivers and creeks. What to do to get these people motivated about their own health! And more importantly, the health of their children. Little by little, I think they’re starting to get the picture.

So that’s what we do about that. Life is good. It’s better than good. It’s weird and fun and scary and crazy and memorable….every day. It’s what I signed up for. I still miss home and friends and family and real life…. A LOT. But I’m fortunate enough, more than enough, to know the people I love aren’t going anywhere. And that they support this crazy endeavor that I call my life. Who does this shit? Live on a peninsula in the middle of know-where Panama, only accessible by a once a day wooden canoe motor boat to help people live better?!?!. I guess I do. I know though in my heart, whether it be the Peace Corps or the Wall Street job or the family and kids or the moonlight walks on the beach, we all do what we want when we want to be happy. I know I wouldn’t be truly happy at home right now and this place is testing me at that. Whatever, we’re all crazy. We’re all figuring it out.

From my sleepless mind and soul….knowing somebody likes me up there…. I’m beyond grateful to you all, all who make my world go ‘round.
~Kaitlin~