Welcome me to Panama

Saturday, May 28, 2011
10:15pm CST

So I'm actually a little embarrassed that it's been two years since I wrote for this blog. I guess it's because, as always, I don't believe that I actually have interesting things to say. But everyone keeps telling me that they want to hear what I'm up to this summer, so I will update this as often as I can. Because our Senior Project Supervisor, or Coordinadora, Lauren is an excellent photographer and admittedly better storyteller , I will relegate myself to uninteresting writing responsibilities. Visit her amazing blog to see for yourself: silentmusingsofamind.blogspot.com

It's been a little over a week since I arrived here in Panama. Already I miss my friends and family back in Houston. It is stiflingly hot here, but I try to pretend like I'm not dying as often as possible so that my beautiful coworkers, Rebecca "BGrubs" Grubman and Lauren "Loha" Havens, can remain jealous of my cool nonchalance while they wilt under this unforgiving sun.

Panama, however, is a breathtaking place. Its lush green paisaje and beautifully brown inhabitants make a wonderful combination that fits the fairy tale descriptions that my dear friend, Mallory Pierpoint, has given me since the day she arrived in Texas. I already know that at the end of this whirlwindy three months, I will be unwilling and unready to leave.

I am working this summer as an Associate Project Director. The description of my position can be found at this site: http://www.amigoslink.org/projectstaff/. Basically, I'm just a Scrooge who happens to live in Panama for the summer. I work with my amazing Project Director (BGrubs), SPS (Loha), and 6 super supervisors (Rebecca, Becky, Carmen, Ben, Aaron, and Madison) to make sure 65 high school age (usually) volunteers have an amazing summer. Because the volunteers are why I come back to this organization year after year.

Anyway, before I get sentimental, let me catch you up on events so far. First was the arrival to Panama after a sleepy 11 hour day spent in airports and airplanes (thanks International Office). BGrubs and I immediately got to work with a maelstrom of meetings and chores, including trying to convince The Miami Mike to let us rent his hostel. He is quite the character, and it took six hours and lots of promises to get him to let us take over his place for the summer. He eventually cracked after discussing it at length with his demon statue, so now I have a place to sleep. We've been meeting with our amazingly helpful partner agency contacts for the summer, some of whom have been popping up in the Azuero 2011 facebook album (which this blog does not officially endorse, but there are pictures) and visiting communities - trying to get the word out about the imminent arrival of our volunteers for the summer.

We also got a chance to go back to Panama City to go pick up Loha on her 21st birthday this past Thursday (yay). There I met some really cool people, including a certain Luis Landero who is proving incredibly hard to find on social media networks, and got to run around the an antiquely beautiful section of the city, Casco Viejo. The panama canal museum (not the one at the canal ironically) was extremely fascinating - I know Adam Cryer and the rest of my former coworkers at Pinnacle could have gotten lost in there for a while. I can't wait to find a book that goes through the history of the canal and the political relationship between the us and panama because of its construction. I was also fascinated by the varied construction projects that are going on around the city. They did a good job of reminding me why I chose Structural Engineering as a career in the first place, and that at some point when I have to go back to school that it will all be worth it. Speaking of which, applying to grad school will not be fun. Who is going to want to help me start, work on, and complete my applications?

Anyway, that's it for now. There's a lot of random tidbits and not a lot of information in this post. Maybe someday I'll get better and these entries will actually be worth reading.

Luz

So here in the DR, light is far from a dependable commodity. In fact, there are times when it's out more than it is on. Thankfully, here in staff house, it's been pretty regular. That was until a nasty storm came tearing through our little city. With the sun still out, it was a nuisance, but the world had not yet ended. However, with darkness coming, things were beginning to look a little desparate. Our fearless leader, Emma Weisser, had a plan.

We got together our most courageous supervisors and gathered war paint. After properly adorning ourselves with as little as the heat would allow, we decorated ourselves in a manner that would appease those that we had angered. Aided with banshee cries and tribal drums, we

threw ourselves at the mercy of the god of luz. We danced and screamed until our throats were raw. We begged and pleaded for the return of the Internet in all of its celestial glory, but to no avail. Then there came a message: all of the members of the household would have to join before we were to be blessed with light. So we gathered our fellow tribeswomen, and as my bloodied hands kept time, we swayed under the tribal sheet, beseeching the powers that be for our beloved luz. And then, like a ray of sunlight, it came, and we rejoiced.

So I thought this was important enough to blog about. Outside in our living room there is a tarantula hanging out under a bucket I had to trap him under. Apparently we have to kill him because Jorge, our native supervisor, says he's dangerous. Wikipedia says he's mostly harmless to humans (which is why some people keep them as pets). I really don't want to kill him. I want to name him Spike and take him home to meet Troubles...

Day 1 - Kind of...

So I've finally convinced myself to sit down and start this after putting it off for so long. It's going to be a long entry so I will try my best not to bore you by adding small anecdotes and my odd sense of humor to the entries.

I left the United States on June 1st after aging an extra six hours in the Miami airport. At long last I got to see my fellow supervisor, Mikal Davis, and so the journey began. When we got to Santo Domingo, we paid an onerous amount of money to the cab driver to get us to our hotel at 1am in the morning. The next day, while waiting for another supervisor, Becca Bolden, to arrive, we proceeded to break as many Amigos rules as we could to prepare for the long haul ahead. Nothing beats smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer on a hotel balcony overlooking a busy street in the capital. Becca arrived, the mini-family was complete, and off we went the next day to our destination: Paraiso.

Paraiso was a lot of fun. It is located in the southwest, about 30 km away from Barahona. It was still balls hot, especially at night, but we stayed cool during the day by walking on the rock beach or chatting in the shade with the Italian family who owned the hotel. We got a chance to go to the larimar mines nearby after a long ride on motorcycles (Amigos rules still not in effect).

On June 6th, we made our way back to San Juan de la Maguana (westish) to begin the project. This summer I am the supervisor of four communities that are spending the summer giving a summer camp on physical education. They are also going to participate in a small development project that the community has decided that it wants. I have two towns that are literally a stone's throw from the Haitian border, and two more towns that are about 25 km west of San Juan. I spend my week riding in small hippie vans whose occupancy levels would put any Mexican to shame (sorry Maclovio) to each of the communities, checking in on my volunteers, forcing them to engage in conversations about their projects, hoping they're not sick, and praying that I won't get stopped at the military checkpoints (who apparently do not understand what an American passport looks like). Each weekend I sleep on a cot under a mosquito net that refuses to stay up with seven other supervisors (now eight- the coup in Honduras has added another memeber to our supervisor team and more volunteers to our family) and our two directors on the first floor of a house on the edge of the city where we pray every day that the water will still be running (today it is not).

So my friends, that is about it. I wish you all a Happy 4th of July. Drink a couple beers for me and I will post another entry when I'm not swamped by work :)