Break Time

You can't go to Panama without seeing the Panama Canal!

Most of you probably know that I spent a summer during high school in Okinawa, Japan as an exchange student. My host sister Yuka and I have seen each other four times since, and she came to visit me in Panama from Tokyo a few weeks ago. She thus qualifies for the Spent the Most Time on an Airplane to Get to Panama Award. Any contestants out there?

Protests were brewing again, so to ensure that I would be able to meet Yuka and then the rest of my family in Panama City and not be trapped on the other side of the country, I had to leave my site 4 days before her arrival. I spent the limbo days visiting other volunteers in communities closer to Panama City. The timing was right though because in site we had just wrapped up the latrine project and nothing much was going on except the start of school.

Checking out the city with Uncle Richard and Yuka

I’m still not terribly familiar with Panama City myself, but luckily several of my volunteer friends were in the city as well so we could show Yuka the perks of metropolitan Panama City. On a Thursday night, these included Thai food and a techno club.

The next day, we head to another volunteer’s Embera (another indigenous group) community. Travel consisted of 1 ½ hours on a converted school bus with blasting bachata music, a 30 minute pick-up truck ride and an hour long dug-out canoe ride. Goodbye, metropolitan Panama. The river was so dry that we had to get out a few times so that the strong men could push the canoe along the river bed.

In the Embera village with another PCV Sarah, and Yuka

The following day we hiked through the jungle in order to GPS survey the border of the community, and then headed back to Panama City to meet my family arriving: my great uncle Richard from Alaska and my mom, dad, and brother Myles.

The six of us spent the following 2 nights on the tiny tropical Isla Diablo on the Caribbean side in the Comarca Kuna Yala, about 4 hours northeast of Panama City. You know that Windows desktop background of a tiny island with one palm tree? We went there. The area attracts an eclectic group of tourists because each tiny island is owned by a Kuna family and provides simple sand floored huts (similar to my house!) with air mattresses for visitors. The island on which we stayed was about the site of a football field.

Isla Diablo

Next we headed to my community for 3 nights. By this point I had slept in 3 other volunteers’ houses as well as in a hotel and on the tiny island, and I was very ready to go back. Whenever I visit friends in other parts of Panama, I oftentimes find their houses nicer and their communities with more amenities, but never have I found anyone with as many awesome neighbors as I have.

The kids from all around loved my visitors- Richard teaching the harmonica, Yuka reading kids books and learning Spanish, and Myles practicing knots with the boys. I enjoyed not being the center of attention for once.

Cooking Japanese curry rice in my abode!

Most adults on the other hand were a bit shy about there being so man non-Spanish speaking gringos (and one China Japonesa – I’m still struggling to teach people that there is a difference) in one spot. Surprisingly, many adults asked me if Yuka was my sister. I said no. Next, in all seriousness, they asked if she was my cuñada (sister in law). I said, that would be nice.

Yuka learned how to make the chakara bag from my neighbor Cristina.

Before we all knew it, it was time to head back to Panama City. I was happy to have hosted my parents and Myles again, and honored that Richard came all the way from Alaska and Yuka from Japan. Kuna Yala was stunningly beautiful, and my site was, well, like it always is in the summer. Hot, dry, lots of kids, and lots of beans.

Latrines in Motion

Participating families met in mid January regarding the pending latrine project, soon after I had returned from my trip to the United States. The original plan was that families would dig the pit and go down to the river for the gravel during January in order to be ready to start construction in early February, so that all work would be done by the time school starts on February 27. The $5 deposit was also due before materials were to be delivered.

However, during the meeting, most people admitted that they hadn’t started their prep work. “We thought you had left for good.” “We weren’t sure if the project was really coming.” “I wasn’t sure if my family was really going to be included.”

I was frustrated with the lack of progress while I was gone, but I have lived in Comarca long enough to realize how common it is for outsiders – politicians, missionaries, general do-gooders - to make promises and not keep them. I reassured them that yes, the money to buy the materials was sitting in the bank waiting, and that we only needed to choose a date when everyone could be ready for the materials to be delivered. When everyone made the connection that they needed to do their prep work before the materials could be delivered, they all quickly agreed that they could do everything in 10 days so that the materials could be delivered on February 4.

Hauling gravel up in sacks from the river, about 45 min down from my house.

On February 1, I walked around to every participating house with project leaders for the official inspection: to measure the pits and to see the pile of gravel. I was proud and impressed to see that all except for 1 family was ready. Unfortunately, that same week the roads were closed due to the protests so we had to delay material delivery for another week.

Materials arrived! Rolling up the roofing material to haul away.

On Saturday, February 11, materials were delivered in a big truck. The next day, all participating families met at my house to practice building the latrine concrete pad at my 2 neighbors’ houses. For the rest of the week the participants broke up into 2 works groups and built 2 or 3 latrines every day until they were done. I visited the work groups to give advice and help out, but after the first day they were self sufficient.

Construction in a nutshell:

Cover the hole with strong trees, covered by bamboo or old metal and cardboard. Leave a hole for the toilet seat.

Create a form of 140 cm x 140 cm around the hole using wood boards, poles, or even beer crates.

Arrange re-bar and tie it, add handles.

Make cement mix (1 sack with 9 buckets of gravel) and fill the form up to about 10 cm in depth.

Cover and spray with a little water every day for a week, then glue on the toilet seat and built a house around the latrine pad.

Overall, the project was a success because it required a huge amount of community contribution from start to finish. Besides improving family health, a major goal of the project was to teach community members how easy it is to build a latrine, and that they are capable to do it themselves in the future. Most project participants had never mixed cement or cut rebar before, and now they are comfortable with these skills. We are currently planning an inauguration ceremony to celebrate the new latrines with food and certificates.

Are you afraid of the dark?

Question: When was the last full moon?

Let me tell you, it is a lot easier to keep track of the moon cycle without accessing The Old Farmer’s Almanac when there is no light source besides a flashlight at night. The moon cycle also affects planting, harvesting, bug activity, and apparently animal activity.

My nearest volunteer neighbor Emma was visiting on Superbowl Sunday. At bedtime we squeezed into my bed, glad to seek refuge under my mosquito net from the crazy full moon bugs. We woke up several times to my dog and his mom howling at the moon (or werewolves?) but tried our best to ignore it. Next thing I knew, I heard something rustling on the folded tarp under my bed. It sounded like a cat and mouse – or rat – chase, and I really didn’t feel like looking at my cat’s prey. So I attempted to ignore it, but the rustling was relentless. The mouse was putting up a good fight.

Emma got up to go the bathroom. I bit the bullet and shined my flashlight underneath the bed. My cat Meri was gnawing on the hind leg of a wild rabbit the same size as her! I assume she hunted it and then dragged it into the safety of my house to escape the dogs.

2 am. I carried the good as dead rabbit outside into the bright moonlight and stared at it. I didn’t want to listen to the cat eating it anymore, so I stored it inside of a bucket away from my house, and put a pot on top to make sure the cat wouldn’t break in. At this point we were too weirded out to be tired, so we did a bit of stargazing while we were outside.

7 am. I woke up. Was it all a dream? No, the rabbit was still inside the bucket, dead. Emma and I discussed our options and decided that it was definitely still edible. Since neither of us have experience preparing small mammals, I brought it down to my host mom. Within 5 minutes she had washed it, de-skinned it, and cut it up into pieces like it was a regular Monday morning. She kept some for herself and sent me up to my house to make a good breakfast.

Emma and I ate rabbit potato stew while my cat sulked somewhere in the woods over her loss. Her loss, our gain.

Answer: The day after Superbowl Sunday (February 7)

Book Reviews

I read Siddhartha (Hermann Hesse) for my 10^th grade English class and I decided to read it again to see if it is as deep as I remember. It’s one of those books that is good to re-read at different stages of life to reevaluate one’s values. Maybe someday I’ll find Om.

Earth Odyssey: Around the world in search of our environmental future (Mark Hertsgaard): Although a bit outdated with most info from the Bill Clinton era, I enjoyed the author’s case studies collected through travels in China, Brazil, and Sudan. One thesis in the book is that people can’t care about their local environment until they reach a certain level of economic stability. Ie, poor people in developing countries prioritize finding a steady job over saving the world from deforestation. Interestingly enough, the people where I live in Panama seem to be fighting to save their rivers and water sources over the possible economic opportunities a mine could provide. Granted, they simultaneously continue with deforestation and battery littering.

The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald) : A modern classic that I could live without. I can’t blame it only on the fact that it’s a book about rich people with rich problems (thus perhaps tough to relate to with my current living situation) because I enjoy Jane Austen books.

The War Magician (David Fisher): A fascinating true story about a British magician who joined the British WWII effort in Cairo, designing complex camouflage and illusions to confuse the Nazis.

Our Lady of the Assassins (Fernando Vallejo) takes place in Medellin during its darkest drug cartel years. The story follows a middle aged writer who has been abroad for years, and returns to find his city stained by hit man murders. That doesn’t stop him from falling in love with a hitman, and letting his heart break when his lover is killed by another hitman. I appreciated my 2^nd read much more after visiting Medellin.

Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the War on the Poor (Paul Farmer): “One of the central points of this book is that public health and access to medical care are social and economic rights; they are at least as critical as civil rights”. Paul Farmer uses case studies from his work in Haiti, Russia, and indigenous Mexico to show why medical care cannot be provided to only those who can afford it. For example, during a tuberculosis outbreak in Russian prisons all patients were being treated with cheaper first line drugs. Doctors and the government were ignoring the fact that many patients were sick with multidrug resistant tuberculosis, and without access to the more expensive 2^nd line drugs, the 1^st line medicine was only wasting money and further battering the immune systems of these patients. When sick prisoners completed their prison term they were allowed to return to their family, oftentimes passing along tuberculosis to more innocent people. Like usual, Paul Farmer takes a non-negotiable stance when it comes to protecting the poor's healthcare system. Good book.

Superbowl Sunday in the Comarca

I heard on Tuesday that the Patriots lost. Tom Brady’s wife is a poor sport.

Background: Right in the center of the Comarca Ngabe Bugle lies one of the world’s largest copper deposits. A year ago, Ngabes blocked the main highway in opposition of the planned mine for about 4 days until President Martinelli promised he would sign a bill giving the rights back to the Ngabe people. They don’t want the mine because it will pollute the rivers and very little profit would stay with the people. However, the bill was never signed so the Ngabes decided to start protesting again on January 30, starting in San Felix which is my nearest town and the entrance to the mine.

Monday, January 30: I already knew that a protest was planned for the morning but I had to drop two thirteen year old girls off at a Peace Corps-run 5 day youth seminar in San Felix. We arrived at 10 am and saw a bunch of police cars waiting but no one protesting. By the time I left the girls and headed back to site at 3 pm, I saw a bunch of people peacefully protesting by the side of the road. By evening both lanes of the road had been closed to traffic but I was already back home.

Wednesday, February 1: I walked around with some community counterparts to all of the participating houses in the latrine project, as we had previously chosen Feb 1 as Inspection Day in order to verify that project participants did their prep work (dig a 3-4 m deep hole and get 5-gal buckets from before buying latrine materials. We measured the depth (3-4 m) and the width (1x1 m) of the hole and checked to see if they had gathered their 10 5-gallon buckets of gravel from the river. Almost everyone was ready. The plan was that materials would be delivered and the project would begin on Saturday, if the road opened in time. Cell phone signal was turned off all day.

Friday, February 3: Fifth day of road being closed. I hiked a different route (3 hours) to be able to access the road north of San Felix which was still open. Many of the seminar participants and other volunteers were stuck because of the road, but luckily my girls and I could get back.

Saturday, February 4: Well, it was clear that the materials would not be arriving for the latrine project due to the ongoing road closure… Cell phone signal went back out. Everyone stayed at home listening to their radios as the road continued to be blocked and the protest movement spread to more towns along the highway. Things were getting more heated.

Superbowl Sunday (January 5): The first protester was killed in San Felix which caused an uproar. Afterwards the police hauled over a hundred protestors away to a jail 2 hours away, because protestors had already burned down the police station in San Felix. Some government cars were burned in another town. For some reason I couldn’t find any news about the Superbowl on the radio.

My nearest volunteer neighbor Emma hiked 1-1/2 hour over and we tried to replicate the Superbowl experience by lounging in hammocks instead of couches, listening to the radio news instead of watching football, and eating bean egg ramen soup instead of wings and pizza. We had a pretty decent time.

Tuesday, January 7: Cell phone signal came back after 3 days of signal blockage. I didn’t even realize until several hours later because I had given up checking. The government agreed to meet with indigenous leaders so the road was able to re-open. I talked with my Peace Corps friends and found out that everyone was ok.

Since then, things have slowly gone back to normal. Some local families have had their own scares though - my water counterpart´s 16 year old son was locked up in a jail two hours away for two nights because he was present at the protest, and the family knew nothing about him until he had returned.

Now, time to continue with the latrine project!

Road Block

I will write more later, but here is some news from the area. Everything seems to have calmed down now.

Panama mining protest shuts down highway

By AFP

Published Thursday, February 02, 2012

Indigenous Panamanians protesting a proposed mining law have shut down a section of the Pan-American highway for a second day, demanding that a mining ban in their homeland remain in place.

"The situation is going to remain as it is until the government gives us a solution to the mining problem," Rogelio Montezuma, a spokesman for an activist group representing the Ngobe-Bugle people, told AFP.

Hundreds of protesters have blocked the highway, which links Panama to Costa Rica, and held other demonstrations since Monday in order to protest a proposed law to liberalize the country's mining sector.

President Ricardo Martinelli's conservative administration was forced to repeal an earlier version of the mining code nearly a year ago amid violent protests that also saw demonstrators shut down the key highway.

A parliamentary commission has spent months negotiating a revised law with indigenous leaders, who fear that mining will destroy pristine forests and force their people to relocate.

But the protesters have said the revised law does not include an explicit ban on mining in the indigenous areas, which Martinelli was forced to issue during the earlier protests.

Martinelli and his supporters in the National Assembly argue that mining could be Panama's second largest source of income after fees from its world-famous canal linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

To date, 10 mining companies have submitted 25 bids to explore for gold and other minerals in the indigenous areas.

I ate iguana three times in two days.

It tastes like gamey chicken.

If this were Twitter, that would be the end of the post and the rest would be left for your imagination.

The fathers of the 2 families across the road/path from me are brothers and best friends. A few days ago the brothers told me that they were going to walk down to the mangrove Pacific Coast (10 miles? 14?) to hunt crabs, and then take some back here to sell. I lent one of them a dollar to buy batteries for his flashlight, figuring he would pay be back in crabs.

Thirty-six hours later, the men returned without crabs. I asked one of them why. He said that he forgot to bring a machete. Oh.

One would think that means it was a failed mission. But no, they had a great time climbing trees and hunting iguanas. Each brother brought back two live tied-up 2 ½ foot long iguanas and proceeded to invite me to eat with them for the next 3 meals. Luckily, it’s tasty. I considered taking a picture of the iguana, but I didn’t want PETA to get mad at my blog.

(written a few weeks ago)