Life
is good. Since my birthday I feel like life has kicked itself into full gear.
Immediately after my birthday I traveled to Farallon, Cocle, where Peace Corps
often holds training sessions for PCVs. In this case, I was there for Reconnect
In-Service Training (or what we call IST). Did I mention that this training
site is a convenient 20-minute walk away from the beach? And, yes I do feel
like a spoiled Peace Corps Volunteer. Despite its close proximity to the beach,
I learned a great deal at IST. For instance, I started off with a little
refresher of the Spanish subjunctive and Ngabere. Then, the veteran EH PCVs
went to work teaching us more about water committee seminars, aqueduct trouble
shooting, rainwater catchment, ferrocement, NeatWorks, and latrines. NeatWorks
is a computer program that can design a gravity fed water system, or what PCVs
usually call an aqueduct, for you when provided with the surveying data, or
essentially the change in altitude recorded using a water or abney level. Call
me a nerd, but I thought it was cool, and I’m looking forward to using it to
help both San Cristobal (my closest PCV Kim’s site) and Valle Escondido. Then,
Louis, or Tolichi in Ngabere, talked about his work on composting latrines. Now
is your chance to really call me a nerd because I am fascinated and extremely
impressed with Louis’ composting latrine work in Bahia Azul. He has managed to
adapt the compost latrine design to account for certain cultural factors of the
Ngabes. In response to the water-washing habits of his community, Louis
invented the Ngabe Bidet that utilizes a rainwater catchment system and
retrofit toilet seat over the unused composting chamber. He has worked on other
aspects of the design as well, including ferrocement seats, in lieu of the
insanely heavy concrete seats. The lightweight seats will not be sealed with
concrete to the base as is customary with the concrete seats, so these seats
can be moved to allow for easier mixing of the compost. Now, the challenge for
me is to get my community to accept a few changes to the design that they have
been building for the past year and a half. Anyway, at the end of the training,
I felt energized and excited to get back to site to get to work.
After
enjoying the rare chance to video Skype with Brad and a Sunday full of baseball
between my community and Bahia Honda, a community on a neighboring island, I
went to work at Kim’s site. Both Eric and Ben from my training group, Group 69
Environmental Health, joined Kim and me in San Cristobal to investigate her
aqueduct. Accompanied by four community members, we hiked to the spring source.
First, we discovered that something (What? We don’t know…) is growing rapidly
in the catchment tank. Second, fist-sized holes have formed in the catchment
tank but had gone unnoticed because of the mud and debris surrounding it. I
have to admit we are still troubleshooting all the possible issues with the
water system, but I’m hoping that we’ve made it clear that poking random holes
into the pipe is bad. Yes, they may have issues with trapped air, but they
clearly don’t need holes that now have nice fountains squirting out of them.
You know, just a thought. We also began surveying the mainline of the aqueduct
with a water level. Unfortunately, the water level can only measure 15 m at a
time, so for a system that is about 1.5 km, you can understand it may seem a
little tedious. Plus, the community members probably now think all gringos, including
their Volunteers, are crazy. On one occasion, I actually had to be pulled out
of (or what I would consider to be rescued from) thigh-high mud. I’m sure I’ve
never looked and smelled so lovely in all my life. Oh, and Ben took a video of
it. Overall, the surveying was a good experience of working directly with the
community and its water committee. Last week Kim and I finished the survey with
a few community members and I hope that in the next week I can report back
saying that I have written up an informe (one-page description of suggested
improvements).
After
working in Kim’s site, Ben made a little visit to my site. He recorded a video
of Hipolito (or Poli), my counterpart, describing a composting latrine. I loved
watching Poli advertise the composting latrine as if he were trying to sell it.
He would make such a good Peace Corps Volunteer! I don’t know what sparked the
sudden movement, but that following Monday Poli and I began working on the
half-finished latrines. Using the damaged, or let’s say less than perfect,
cement, Poli and I attached toilet seats to the base, sealed concrete doors to
the base, and built the frame of the casita (the privacy structure on the
composting latrine). Other odds
and ends involved installing the urine diversion tubes and collecting several
sacks worth of dried grass to line the base of the latrine. Poli really enjoys
making jokes about putting the grass there so that the poop doesn’t plop down
and stick to the concrete base. Gotta love campo-style potty humor!
I
need to jump back in time a little bit to say that while I was at IST, Ministerio
de Salud (MINSA) came to my community and talked with some of the community
leaders about dengue and other mosquito-borne diseases. The result was a push
to clean up the trash in the community that often pool water and become
mosquito breeding grounds. So, Sunday April 7 I was picking up candy wrappers,
tin cans, bottle caps, and more candy wrappers. I made the mere suggestion that
we have a trash collection competition amongst the youth for a prize, and a few
signs and prizes later, we had 25 kids collecting mountains of trash from all
over the community. Seeing the success of the competition, Rogelio, a community
leader and my first host dad, wanted to reward the kids with more prizes. The
following Monday he went to Bocas with two letters, one in Spanish written by
the Kindergarten teacher and one in English written by yours truly. He took
these letters to various businesses, restaurants, and hotels to ask for a few
dollars of support. He received about $10 in total and couldn’t have been
happier with himself. Additionally, some people gave him their phone numbers
for me to contact them. As a result, that Thursday three Canadians came to
visit Valle Escondido. I played the role of tour guide, but luckily they just
wanted to see how the community lives and to take pictures.
I
should also mention that the previous night the Artesanas (artisan group) met
for the first time in three or so years. The Artesanas have decided to use the
$60 that I got as a Volunteer Advisory Council (VAC) Grant to buy cacao from
neighbors. The, the group toasts and grinds the cacao. From this ground cacao,
the women form 4 oz (or there about) balls of cacao. Ultimately, these cacao
balls are sold on Isla Colon for $1, so slowly but surely we are collecting
money to buy poplin to make naguas. I hope to talk about the Artesanas more in
a later blog because a lot of artisan training opportunities have recently
developed.
Back
to the afternoon that the tourists left, I left with them and took the direct
overnight bus from Almirante to Panama City. This visit to the city was for
Training of Trainers (TOT). Sounds silly doesn’t it? Regardless, I am very
excited to help train the incoming Group 71 Environmental Health Volunteers.
Funny thing about this trip, afterwards I realized that Panama has changed me…I
can’t even live in air conditioning. The overnight buses are notoriously cold,
so I simply froze. I arrived in Panama City at about 5 am and hung around the
terminal until 7 am when I took another bus headed in the direction of the Peace
Corps Office.
Probably
only my dad and those who know my dad’s sense of direction can appreciate this
story as pure evidence that I am his daughter, but I can say that I got on one
of the right buses. The bus said “Gamboa,” as in Gamboa Rainforest, and this
bus would pass the Peace Corps Office en route. Unfortunately, I learned that
Gamboa is an hour away from the city. Standing in a packed school bus I
couldn’t see out the windows as we passed the offices and continued on for
another 40 minutes before turning around. I like to look at this little
adventure as a nice tourist visit to Gamboa. From what I saw it looked quite
beautiful! Plus, I still made it to my meeting at 9 am.
Overall,
life is just wonderful and in the next blog entry I’ll talk more about my most
recent adventures.
