Dos Semanas

Buenas! Well, I have officially been in my site for two weeks now. The overemphasized first two weeks. And it was a good two weeks! I met a lot of people, observed at the school, attended a Padres de la Familia meeting, and twice went up the mountain to take GPS coordinates of the area. It´s actually pretty exciting - the area where I will be working on reforestation as well as eco-tourism is in the process of becoming a national protected area! It´s pretty big news, I´m thrilled. Good timing to be working at the site with the group. It came about because the site, the top of the mountain, looks down onto El Valle and just has an amazing view of the town and out to the Pacific Ocean. And El Valle is a pretty built up town - it´s really popular for tourism and has some rich folk houses. So some big real estate guy or something wanted to buy the land the group in my site has been reforesting for 15 years now to help protect the watershed, and build a big hotel up there to overlook El Valle. So people got motivated and contacted ANAM (the national environmental authority) and now the area is being made into a protected area so no hotel will be built. Yay! But it still leaves us free to build our eco-tourism project. So it´s quite a good thing. It´s not often that a new national protected area is completed. So some of my work in the first two weeks, and that will be continuing for awhile, is working on what needs to be done to make this idea official - such as tromping all over the mountains to take GPS coordinates of the limits of the area to be protected - the watershed. Lots of exercise that I need so all is good. I´ve been getting a lot of exercise in general, since my town is on the side of a mountain and all. And to get to four of the six barrios you have to walk down into a valley and back up to the other ridge. Lots of walking up and down. But all the walking is good for me and it counterbalances the carb and starch heavy Latin American diet. Yay for overeating! The food is one reason I will be quite glad to finally get my own house after three months. There´s just so many times I can eat rice for breakfast. :-p The people in my site are so far pretty wonderful. Very patient and helpful and welcoming and make me feel right at home. And there´s not an overabundance of staring or pointing and general ¨look at the gringa¨happening because I am the fourth volunteer in the site, so they´re pretty used to gringos and all. That and most of the men work in El Valle with the tourism and more gringos, so all is good (P.S. the term ¨gringo¨here is in no way insulting. It´s just honestly what they call Americans. Get used to it, if you come visit you will be called the gringo/a). They´re very enthusiastic about helping me get to know everyone and the community. I´ve been doing a lot of pasear-ing, which is just walking around the community and going to every person´s house to say hi. It´s very popular in this culture - just stopping by to say hi. And yes, it is part of my getting to the know the community that I will visit every single house in the community, all 700 of them. I think I´m about half way there. That goes back to all the walking. :) One little tidbit about Panamá; it is only required for the people to finish school through the sixth grade. Primary school. Most communities have primary schools since this is what is required. Secondary schools can be harder to get to - they tend to be in the larger communities. And you´d have to pay for transportation to get there which many of the families in the campo can´t afford. So most people us PC volunteers work with only have a sixth grade education, some even less. Most people who complete more schooling move to el Ciudad de Panamá or some other large city where they can make more money. This isn´t that big of a deal, another part of the culture that is different and I have to adapt to. There are just some situations where you really realize the difference in education, like when trying to explain that you´re excited to see the Big Dipper because it´s been awhile since you´ve seen stars (too much rain) but they don´t even know what a constellation is. Or you´re trying to explain the GPS work you were doing up on the mountain earlier in the day and you have to try to explain the idea of GPS (which isn´t any easier when you´re Spanish skills are at about a primary school level) and when you say ¨satellite¨they say ¨oh so you were planting and making abono¨No. But, at the same time, it can be fun when they find your National Geographic and all the pictures and although they can´t read it because it´s in English, you can help explain about Polar Bears and all the other things included in one issue of NG. Yay for educating! That´s part of the reason I´m here, right? :) Also, the volunteer who´s been in Cabuya Arriba for the last two years is still there, she leaves at the beginning of September. So it´s been very nice having her around to help explain things and help me to get to know the community. While at the same time she´s been keeping a respectable distance so that I can get to know people on my own and not forever be associated with her. Although I do get called ¨Emily¨every now and then. But it´s definitely been nice to have her show me around, it makes my job a little easier and makes the transition smoother. So yea, all in all it´s been a very good, productive two weeks and I look forward to the next two weeks and even two years! I think there will be a lot of work for me to do and help out with. I can´t wait for people to come visit! (hint hint) ;) I hope all is well with everyone and you´re all doing well. Updates and letters are always welcome. (another hint hint). Talk to you soon! XOXO :)