Tomorrow a group of 5 engineers, a TA, the program director and 3 PCVs come out to my site for the Michigan Tech International Senior Design Program. I’m thrilled to work with the students for a week assessing and talking about what can be done in Punta Sirain to improve the quality of life. I’m lucky to be a part of this project and my community feels even luckier.
The students will be sleeping with host families and eating typical Ngobe food. I think this will be somewhat of a challenge for them, as it was with my parents, but it should be a blast too.
Last Thursday I went up to Kusapin for a goodbye party Johanna hosted for her English class once it ended. It was such a good time! Johann, Jamie, and our new addition to the peninsula family Audrey and I were all there with the English students, whom in this case were Panama high school teachers in the school up there. Even almost a year in, I still love my trips up to the capital of Kusapin to hang with the other girls, in what we jokingly call the sorority house, since it is a bunch of chicks up here!
In October hopefully we’re getting another EH volunteer. I’m really excited about this, to have a person in my group out there to work with. Since my sector is a lot different from the tourism sector, the group the other 3 girls are in, it’ll be nice to have some sanitation input on our side of the bay.
The community of the new volunteer has requested a guy, but in sort of an obnoxious way. They want a guy so he can play baseball with them, go fishing, work in the finca, and physically carry out the construction process of the EH sector work. I almost want to cry since even though I am completely capable of these activities, the gender roles of Ngobes still puts men over women. The other day a good friend of mine in the community even told me she wished I had been a guy so that I could actually do something to help them. Even though I’m able to prove myself to them with these tasks, it’s like they don’t accept that I’m doing them. This is the sort of thing I’ll never change, none of us women will, and we have to deal with it. Hear them complaining and hearing even the women telling me what I can and cannot do, REGUARDLESS of what I’ve shown them I can do, is the most frustrating.
I responded to this with some harsh words explaining that men and women are equal in the states, and my women here don’t know what they’re missing. It doesn’t matter to me if we get a girl or a guy, as long as the new volunteer loves surf sand and adventure and has passion for the ocean. In one sense I hope its girl to piss them off. But we can’t be like that. We have to just be strong and take the Ngobe gender roles with a grain of salt….. They call this the developing world for a reason.
Work related, I got in touch with a local agency to build rainwater tanks in the schools without running water on the peninsula. Right now our goal is to construct the 1000 gallon tanks in three schools. Could it be that I might have something to show for myself at the end of year one??? That is, besides choreographed dance routines, a killer tan, and a superior ability to braid hair?
In all seriousness though, I think I’m on the right track. Tim Allan and I got a lot of surveying done in July, before the Caymans, and I almost have all the information I need to so some prelim pump design. As much as these people want this “said aqueduct”, and as much as I’m humoring them by going though the design legwork, I’m really hoping they see the light with rainwater collection once we get the school’s tanks up and running. Only time will tell.
As for the latrines, you guessed it, not one is in use yet, and unfortunately I see it staying that way. A combination of ignorance, cultural norms, laziness, thinking they’re dirty, what have you, they have come up with excuses why they don’t want to poop in the concrete block. I’m almost bored of asking.
Tomorrow I will have lived in Panama as a Peace Corps volunteer for a full year. Freaking scary. Time is flying but I’m having a great time. Time of my life? Those of you who know me well, know that I’m almost always smiling and having fun, so to think that these will be the best two years is an understatement….they’re all good years to me, each in their own way. Knowing that, I’m in no way ready to leave. I have a lot more to do here, and a lot more to experience here.
But I’m coming home f or Christmas so get excited.
Amanda and Niki were down in July before Caymans. A breath of fresh air. Friends are amazing. I love the people in my life but nothing compares to friends from home and college and of course family. We had a ball spending time together and parading around Panama. Their visit, and seeing my fam in the Caymans, gives me the strength to push forward, dealing with the idiosyncrasies of my community and pushing for projects and development I know I’m capable of making happen.
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