Culture Week and Tech Week

So you haven´t heard from me for a few weeks, but that´s because so much has been going on. A couple weeks ago I found out where I´m going to living for the next two years. My site will be in a small mountain town in the province of Coclè due west of Panama City. I haven´t had the opportunity to visit my site yet (I´ll be doing that next week,) but I did get to spend a week in the town of Membrillo and learn about the culture of Coclè. The community we visited was group of artisans who make wood and soapstone carvings. They produce some gorgeous art in Membrillo. We followed that with a trip to a Ngabere site in Cerro Iglesia for Tech Week. We spent the week building a couple of composting latrines and learning the other technical skills we will need once we get to our sites.

Good Parrot.

Seth and I making tamales during Culture Week.

On top of a small hill behind the property of my host family during culture week. That´s my host father and two of his sons in the middle. On the left is Seth, who will be the closest Volunteer to me, and on the right is the other Josh in our group.

Planting rice at the granja (farm.) A hard day´s work in the sun.

Making sugar cane juice. This machine is the traditional way of making sugar. The sugar cane would be crushed into a juice which would then be boiled to form discs of hardened sugar. We drank the juice straight from the machine which resembled muddy water and was unbelievably sweet.

This is where chocolate comes from (a cacao pod.) The pod is about a foot in length and contains quarter sized seeds that are used to make chocolate. The seeds a have a gooey white coating that is sweet, tart, and tastes a little like apple.

A loro (medium sized parrot) sitting in a tree.

Balsa wood carvings done by one of the families in Membrillo. The white bird on the left is a harpy eagle, national bird of Panama.

These 2 pictures are from the beach at Las Lajas where we went to relax for a night following Culture Week and Tech Week. The beach is even prettier then the pictures, and for $5 a night the price was right.

Thoughts on Panama

So a couple of people have asked me for my thoughts on Panama. I´ve been hesitant to go into too much detail, because we´ve been given some strict rules on what we can and can´t post. In summary, the rules break down as follows:

1) Don´t post any negative opinions of the country or Peace Corps.
2) Don´t post anything controversial.
3) Don´t post any information that can be used to identify the specific location of a Peace Corps volunteer.

So that basically leaves 2 categories of posts:

1) Observational/Descriptive
2) Positive opinions

So now that you know all that, here are a few thoughts:

Panama is definitely a divided country with a huge income gap between urban and rural populations. As volunteers, we will be working with poorest people in the country. The people here have been very friendly and generous, our host training community has been especially welcoming. The country has amazing natural beauty and diversity, and a unique culture. While not as a culturally diverse as the US, Panama has latino, idigineous, african-antillean, and chinese populations that have mixed to create a very unique place. I´m looking forward to the next 2 years in this amazing country. Also, the US could learn a thing or two from Panamas public transportation system which provides cheap transportation to anywhere in the country.

Now for the question and answer period, what do you want to know?

Pics from our First Site Visit.

Last week we had our first visit to a volunteers site. I got to visit a volunteer near Bocas del Toro who is leaving in October. The site was amazing with a white sand beach within 10 minutes walk from her house. This is not my future site, but it was my first taste of the Peace Corps lifestyle.

From left to right: Andrea, Ryan, Jesse, and Joe. We were visiting Joe´s house in Bocas del Torro.

A Ngobe girl. For some reason, the Ngobes never smile in photographs.

A composting latrine similar to the ones I may be building. We worked on this one during my visit.

The house of the volunteer with whom I stayed.

Cute Ngobe kids on the beach.





On the beach near the Bocas del Torro region.