About Panama

38: back in Panama

2009-03-20T22:28:00.005-05:00

Suddenly found myself back in Panama. I've been preparing for the pilot environmental brigade steadily since the board retreat, but it's hard to prepare yourself to be back in Panama. There are a lot of emotions associated with Panama for me. Pre-established emotions that arise just smelling the air. I see how tired Andri is from work, and how fast the Global Brigades network has grown in Panama. Adriana has a big bull to grab by the horns. Students love it. This week, we'll see how the environmental kids feel. We'll see how Planting Empowerment feels about brigades. We'll see how I manage as a leader. A lot gets put to the test, and in the end, it's all about your attitude at the moment you're faced with a tough situation. That's when who you are matters.

37: Global Brigades Board Retreat

2009-02-24T16:41:00.004-05:00

I'm no longer in Panama, and this blog is no longer about Panama. It's now about my life in affiliation with student-led international development organization. Somehow, having moved back to North Carolina, into a beautiful and loving family life, I've found myself more committed than ever to the mission of Global Brigades. Or, the mission that I bring to the organization, which happens to come straight from my heart. Since coming home, I've been working exclusively on Global Environmental Brigades, working towards the cap of program development phase and preparing to launch a pilot GEB in March. The group is UC Berkeley and will work with Planting Empowerment. I am terrified of the pilot brigade- so much is at stake, I have invested a lot of personal commitment and am aware of the other participants' high expectations. But having attending the board retreat in LA last weekend 'empowered' me with will to get this off the ground. Whatever happens, I will have launched.

36: the first brigade

2009-01-08T18:27:00.000-05:00

University of Central Florida, Business Brigade, December 2008

Kicking off Panama’s Winter Brigade season this year: The University of Central Florida. The UCF Business Brigade was a team of 12 graduate students and 3 undergraduates, accompanied by 2 faculty advisors and a Deloitte business advisor. Leading the group throughout the week, we had in-country directors Andri, Sophia and Adriana, GBB logistics coordinator Pablo, domestic GBB advisor Merrilee, GBB co-founder Catherine and special guest anthropologist Andres. Total: 25.

Day 1: UCF arrived at Tocumen airport and were shuttled to the Casco Viejo Hostel. After checking in, we had a group dinner at Rene’s Café, down the street.

Day 2: Breakfast on the Hostel roof-top terrace bright and early! The group then met at the GB headquarters for a Sustainable Development Workshop led by Pablo. Pablo talked about the people, ideas and movements that contributed to the principles of Sustainable Development, and what the theory implies for development efforts today. The workshop also included a memorable activity in which four students made a gravity-defying human table. Following a coffee and cookie break, our special guest anthropologist Andres presented a workshop on Panama’s indigenous Kuna people. Having worked for two years with the Kuna, Andres’s workshop provided valuable insight into the culture of the Koskuna community to which the brigade was headed. After lunch, the brigade bus left for Koskuna. We left Panama City, crossed the Bridge of the Americas, and entered Veracruz. Arriving in Koskuna community, the local leaders welcomed the group and took us on a brief walking tour of the village. UCF then divided into their subgroups and preformed SWOT analysis with the micro enterprise owners. The SWOT analysis served as a manner of introduction as well as an assessment of needs and capabilities. That evening, after dinner, the brigade took a walking tour of the Casco Viejo, the historic neighborhood in which their hostel was located.

Day 3: Breakfast bright and early. On the patio of the GB headquarters, the group attended a Capital Investment Workshop presented by Sophia. The workshop provided an overview of sustainable micro enterprise development including analysis, capacity building, and investment into productive assets. Over coffee and cookies, UCF divided into their subgroups and reviewed their Community Action Plan, incorporating lessons learned on their first conversations with the community. There were two subprojects: one group worked with a small “tienda” (store) managed by the Junta Local, and the other with a children’s “comedor” (kitchen) managed by the community church. That same afternoon, the UCF brigade put their business skills to work with the Koskuna tienda and comedor. The tienda team investigated ways to increase the store’s ability to contribute funds to the community school and the comedor team looked for ways to improve the kitchen’s capacity to serve free meals to children. The solutions would involve business education in bookkeeping, personal finance, and computer literacy, investment into store and kitchen equipment, and discussions with community leadership to plan for the future and reach their goals. This was the day the comedor group helped the community members discover that they could nearly cut food costs in half if they had a freezer to allow them to purchase and store food in bulk from the traveling wholesalers.

Day 4: The project momentum building, the brigade got straight to work on capital investment and capacity building preparation. Some students made shopping lists and investigated prices while others brought out their laptops and brushed up the workshops they had prepared to present to the community. In Koskuna that afternoon, the group formed an additional educational subgroup, which set up in the community school room to conduct their personal finance workshops. The tienda and comedor groups met with their community leaders and continued implementing their community action plan, deftly making adjustments according to surprise discoveries and obstacles. In both situations, the brigade found that inter-communities relations added unexpected complexities, but were able to come to innovative solutions through group discussion.

Day 5: Before heading out the community, the UCF group went shopping in Panama City, loading up the GB truck with supplies purchased with their community investment fund. The tienda group bought folding chairs for community meetings, the comedor group a new stove for the kitchen. That afternoon, the education group again set up shop in the school room, going over the basics of business management, inventory, and recordkeeping with a group of Kuna community members. The attendees asked questions, relating the material to their own businesses and home economies. The other two subgroups started installing the equipment in the store and the kitchen, integrating capacity building efforts with this capital contribution. Packs of kids ran in between the groups constantly, kicking balls and posing for photographs. The UCF group closed the day with a dinner of fresh fish on the nearby beach.

Day 6: Another morning for purchases: refrigerator, microwave, TV, chest freezer, 100 plates, stock store goods, blackboard, cashier’s box… it’s amazing what $1,700 will buy. This was the last day the brigade would spend in the community, and it was also Koskuna’s 21^st birthday. The tienda group emptied the store space and completely revamped the interior; it looked entirely different. They filled the shelves, took inventory, priced items, installed the microwave, popped popcorn and bought and sold sodas. The students also did pricing analysis on every inventory item to ensure the store no longer lost money on any items. With these improvements, the new products and the attraction of microwave popcorn and a TV, the community store would be able to contribute more funds to the local school. The comedor group installed the kitchen supplies, and set up a tally system on a blackboard to help them keep track of sales. With better kitchen equipment and more attention to inputs and outputs, the kitchen would be able to reach the goal of setting commedor profits aside for free children’s meals on Sundays. The education group, meanwhile, held computer literacy classes, teaching interested community members to use excel for bookkeeping purposes. That afternoon, we had a small celebration of the week’s accomplishments: some Kuna girls performed a traditional dance, we lit an orange birthday cake. UCF had printed certificates of participation for those who attended the business education workshops, and after several thank-you speeches in Kuna, English, and Spanish, UCF’s student leader called out the names and presented each one. The week-end celebration extended into the evening, as brigaders took a well-deserved night on the town.

Day 7: Saturday was UCF’s final day in Panama, and a well-deserved fun day. In the morning, we bought locally-made artesanias and that municipal market, and many made off with Panama hats. That afternoon, the brigade had Luis drive the bus all over Panama City, catching up on the sites. Adriana proved to be an excellent tour-guide. In the evening, the whole gang of 25 met for a special night at Las Tinajas, were we ate at long tables, drank sangria, and watched the poleras perform traditional Panamanian dances. Catherine and Andri joined in and boogied.

Day 8: UCF left for Tocumen early that morning, Andri and Sophia waved them goodbye and the airport. All around a great first brigade, and we look forward to welcoming UCF back in May!

35: MIDES

2008-12-06T17:55:00.003-05:00

The morning after the crazy 18-person 6-course thanksgiving dinner party we threw at our house, my cell rang at 8am. Hola? I squaked. The lady immediately starting rabbling directions on how to get to the office for our 10 am meeting. I scribbled them down. The Ministry of Social Development? Neither Andri or I remember setting up that meeting, but off we went. Turns out Emily Boland, our U.S. embassy connection, had sent them our brochure and they got excited about meeting us. They tried reaching my cell, but it was turned off for the two weeks I was in the states. The surprise meeting went very well; they should us a video about their Redes Communitarios, networks of community leaders who identify development initiatives and bring people together to improve quality of life. Sounds like what they are missing is the funding and external action to get projects off the ground, which is where our brigades come in. We hope to set up a partnership agreement with MIDES next week.

34: Pajaro Jai

2008-12-06T17:47:00.002-05:00

I got back to Panama City, after two weeks off in North Carolina, and asked the humid, noisy air that greeted me "why? am I back here?" But the following morning, I was reminded why Panama. Andri and I boarded the Pajaro Jai: a large wooden sailboat built with native wood, deep in the Darien jungle by indigenous Embera and captained by an ex-Peace Corps volunteer. The boat sails year-round, docking at ports in Europe, Asia and the Americas, raising awareness about indigenous ethnicities and opening markets to developing enterprises, making headlines. We sailed around with Jim, the captain, his Embera crew, a slew of Peace Corps exec.s, USAID folks, the U.S. ambassador, lots of NGO offspring. Only in Panama. Looks like the first brigade is going to be a blast, not only do we have Radio Exitosa covering their last day, we may be having a barbeque on the Pajaro Jai!

33: El Salto

2008-10-29T14:54:00.003-05:00

Early Monday morning, we piled into the car and headed southwest to Santiago. At Santiago, we were met by the Patronato engineer Alejandro Guerra who took us onward to Santa Fe. After checking into the Santa Fe Hotel, a charming mountain bunker perfect for student groups, Ing. Guerra drove us up the slanting mountain to a model farm called El Salto, named after the 20-something breathtaking waterfalls that bleed the jungle. El Salto is one of the Partonato's showcase farms, notable not only for it's balanced permaculture of cacao, beans, coffee, rice, tomatos, oregano, citrus and bananas, but also for it's secret treasure: the falls. The farmers have worked with peace corps volunteers to construct two beautiful cabins of polished wood tucked into the trees and hope to start agritourism, integrating offering accommodations with raising awareness around organic agriculture. The farmer showed us the cabins, so far unused by any guest, and the waterfalls, still visited by only very few foreigners. Standing on the fragile moss covering the boulders at the base, I asked him whether he was sure he wanted to share the treasure with tourists. Yes, he said, they needed to extra income. Back at the ranch, we met with the farm governance and talked about what a business brigade project at El Salto could look like. Like many we've met with before, they were most interested in "capacitation" on how to run an agritourism business, and the opportunity to convivir (get to know, literally "live with") the brigaders. The doors to this rare, unexploited reserve are open to sustainable development.

32: Penenome

2008-10-23T09:22:00.002-05:00

Sleepless from a night of scratching the painful and plentiful bug bites leftover from the Darien, I got on the 6am bus to Penenome. At the Hotel dos Continentes, I was met by Ing. Rojas, an agricultural technician for the Patronato de Nutricion. Like Planting Empowerment, the Patronato has a unique strategy of approaching their cause -which is combating hunger and poverty- that incorporates sustainable land and resource management. The Patronato is a trust that buys land, established collective granjas (farms), promotes sustainable agriculture, then helps the farms buy the land back at the original price, and establish the farm as a legal entity. We visited three such granjas that day, the most beautiful I have ever seen. At the first, where a hobbit-like farmer padded around between flower-lined beds, tilapia ponds, rice paddies, and organge groves, we outlined a project supporting agritourism on the farm. The farmer made us raspadura (sugarcane juice) using an ancient trapiche (horse-drawn mill) and walked us along the ridge of his mountain-terrain to a waterfall surrounded by patches of novios (pink wildflowers). The farm is conveniently located on the way to Parque Omar, so with a few connections to the tour companies, a business plan, a website, and some cabanas, the site is perfect for eco/agrotourism. The second granja was a collective coffee farm, where the farmers hope to add value by processing the beans before selling to Duran. The third was a mixed vegetable farm, beautifully backgrounded by a towering, rounded mountain, and rested into a quiet, lush rainforest. The farmer, not surprisingly, wants to specialize in culantro, and is looking for methods to preserve, process and potentially export the perishable, but high-value crop. He picked 20 sweet oranges for each of the 20 volunteers I told him averaged a brigade.

31: Nuevo Paraiso

2008-10-20T14:13:00.002-05:00

This weekend's excursion was to the Darien, to visit Planting Empowerment's rainforest plantation. We started off as a large group: Andri, his visiting friend Clarissa, Susana, my friend Sahara and myself. We got on a bus at the Terminal and took it north east to Torti, where PE's local director, Liriano Opua met us to take us to Nuevo Paraiso. Once in Nuevo Paraiso, Liriano arranged for us to stay at with village family, in the care of Rosa Sinespinas. Susana and Sahara stayed with Rosa while Andri, Clarissa and I followed Liriano to see reforestation site, and talk about Environmental Brigade activities. Liriano told us about Planting Empowerment's role in the local community, their sustainable forestry techniques, and how they work to create economic incentive for environmental practices. Andri had to leave shortly after the tour, heading out with Liriano, so it ended up being the four of us girls in the home of Rosa. We hung our hammocks and Rosa decided to kill a chicken for dinner. So it was that we ended up us five women, from five different countries, chased and killed a chicken for dinner. We ate by candle light, Rosa happy as a hen with a brood of chicks, and settled to sleep with the mosquitos. The next morning Liriano came and took Susana and I on to Arimae, while Clarissa and Sahara went back to Panama. Susana, Liriano and I went further into the Darien, towards the thatch huts and children running tires on dusty roads. In Arimae, a large USAID-build structure, housing a women artesanias association immediately caught my attention, as I'm sure Liriano had planned, as we began discussing bring a business brigade to work with the association. Thus the Berkely Business and Environmental Brigades unfold. I took a practice GRE math test on the bus ride back.

30: UN Population Fund

2008-10-16T08:26:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I met Marta Icasa, of the United Nations Populations Fund, to discuss the joint medical-business brigade we are planning for this winter with the Panamanian doctor. We met at the Sheraton Hotel, where she had been attending meetings all day long. I was flustered from the cab-ride where I got stuck in traffic and then overcharged, but thankful that I arrived at the right place close to the right time. Juan Manuel must have really talked GB up to her- he has an Obama-like charm- because she did not start off with the critical disposition some organizations have had. In fact, she was ready to talk about the project in detail, and I was the wary one because of the distance and difficult accessibility of the project site. UNPF works with extremely poor communities in the indigenous Nobe reserve in Chiriqui, aiming to reduce the critical level of women who die in childbirth. Their approach mobilizes volunteers within the community to educate women on pregnancy, nutrition and health, building capacity and empowering women to take care of themselves. Marta has very specific tasks for the Panamanian medical students, filling much needed gaps in skilled volunteer labor. We continued the conversation, to my surprise, over dinner at Marta's house. Juan Manuel, Marta and I sat on the balcony, eating off our laps and talking. I see the importance of a joint-brigade, not only because micro-enterprise development complements health and gender equality efforts, but also because of the opportunity for cultural exchange and the message of international responsibility. Juan and Marta also made a very important point: the need for short-term community development volunteers is especially exigent because the few martyrs who devote themselves to paddling against the tital wave of poverty and misery are so unhappy that they are a dying race themselves. Setting up a rotating influx of specialized volunteers would be much more effective in the long run. Global Brigades can be the organization that manages this task!

29: Corporate Social Responsibility

2008-10-16T00:02:00.004-05:00

Adriana got me in to a conference on corporate social responsibility (CSR), hosted by Panama's national beer producer (Cerveza Nacional) and sponsored by the mega-multi-national SAB-miller. The Peruvian CEO of SAB-Miller was really something. His presentation on CSR (RSE in Spanish) made it clear to me what an enormous role corporations play in sustainable development. For multi-nationals, sustainable development is a business strategy, and those who turn their backs on it are denying reality, he said. The CEO then enumerated the challenges to sustainable development that corporations are facing, and illustrated how, by taking on these challenges, companies are actually taking on a global welfare agenda. And, when multi-billion dollar multi-nationals invest in corporate social responsibility, the scale of their operations is comparable to that of major development agencies. I couldn't believe the CEO of a beer company so effectively, realistically, and un-moralistically prioritized issues of resource use, energy, transportation, poverty, population, climate change and human rights. These are concerns that, despite the urgency, for some reason are not at the forefront of presidential debates and are not making headlines. I used to think corporations were responsible for muting these crises, but clearly modern corporate culture is based on responsibility and proactivity. The limiting factor is not economic self-interest, that is actually the motivator. That made me think- this bail-out is the American citizens' buy-in to save corporations, and we have every right to expect them to give back. I not only expect, but now I look forward to it, because even beer companies (especially those with budgets comparable to national economies) can be radical agents of change.

28: Juntos Podemos and Casa Taller

2008-10-14T18:59:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I visited with Juntos Podemos, a nonprofit associated with the Christian ministry at the CrossRoads Bible Church. The American missionary, Chuck Lund, drove me into the slums of Curundú, to the community center. Juntos Podemos is deliberately 'not a food pantry' nor a day center, but provides children with an alternative to gang membership by creating a positive, educational environment. They are expanding into an enormous warehouse that used to house Gulf Oil, but will now support a dining hall, chapel, computer lab, football field and several small stores. The football field is enclosed by tall wall with barbed wire on top, bravely intercepting the cross-fire of two street gangs on either end. I talked to Chuck about setting up a project there working with the small businesses, but Curundú seems too dangerous for Carnegie Mellon. And the ministry was not exactly in need of further outside funding. Later that afternoon, Andri and I met with Sra. Castros of a community-development organization called Casa Taller. Casa Taller promotes the development of creative thought, and the preservation of cultural heritage through community-based arts groups and a Steiner-esque preschool. Their projects really are beautiful- a gorgeously designed book called "The grandfather of my grandmother, one hundred years ago, was also a child" which is myriad of stories, crafts, rhymes, pictures, and songs from each of Panama's provinces, collected through the voices of 100 children and 100 grandparents per province. Other projects are museum-quality crafts made in far-off communities: large indigenous dollhouses, (thatched platforms on stilts), with miniature earthenware, miniature woven clothes, minute pigs and guineapigs. Although we stayed in her office a long time discussing our respective work, it was very difficult to determine a project on which we could collaborate. So in the end, both visits were at the same time inspiring and humbling.

27: Rolling

2008-10-11T15:08:00.002-05:00

Recently, things have really gotten going. Aside from the steadily increasing number of Brigades signing on, contacts in Panama have been contacting other contacts and connections are finally starting to multiply. Adriana connected me to a woman at the U.S. Embassy who works for People 2 People, and organization that connects communities and projects with supporting organizations. Now that GB is in that pipeline, she forwards me requests for project support. This week I met with Patronato de Nutricion, a Panamanian community-development organization that supports small farmers. The engineers at Patronato were extremely receptive and brought out their catalog of projects (I wish every organization had a catalog of projects!) and a map and we immediately started arranging visits to the sites. Today I met with a young Panamanian doctor who Dr.Hong, the woman who connected us to Veraguas, had put me in touch with. Turns out Juan Manuel wants to form and Panamanian medical brigade and we are planning to have a joint medical-business brigade work on a project in the Noble rainforest reserve. It's a modest progression, all these potentials, but I am finally starting to feel like this program does exist beyond our eager imaginations.

26: Costa Rica

2008-10-06T18:54:00.003-05:00

I had to renew my visa, so I took off to Costa Rica for a few days. It felt nice, setting off, to be backpacking on my own again, and I thought about myself at 18, traveling through Cuba in ripped jeans and sneakers. It was a little different this time, I put up with less nonsense and was less impressed. The night bus was just as cold but not as unknown, the hippy-rastafarian-gypsies were too familiar, the guide book a little too corny. But the landscape in the sun was just as dazzling, and despite the trampled tourist route, the mean-looking shacks on stilts and sprays of poor children were just as bitter. I took a night bus to Changuinola, crossed the border at Guabito-Sixaolo, and stayed three nights in Puerto Viejo de la Talamanca. The hotel was called Pura Vida, but it was more like an eco-yoga studio rather than the noisy party the name evokes. I read almost 400 pages of pure novel, ate icecream everyday at 4, and sat at the edge of the sea, where the water met sand. It was relaxing, but lonely. When I snorkeled I felt invisible, and when I ate I was discrete. On more than one occasion, I was asked whether I was "Tica" and I took that as a sign that I was a good visitor. The trip back was more interesting- I ran into a traveler who donated me an unused plane ticket, so I ended up spending a night in Bocas del Toro, drinking vodka and cranberry juice with Sahara and flying back into the airport minutes away from the house in Panama.

25: El Bale

2008-09-25T17:16:00.002-05:00

Following a lead from a Chinese-Panamanian doctor, I had been email corresponding with a Priest in southern province of Veraguas about the possibility of bringing Business Brigades to the rural community el Bale. On Monday, Andri and I drove our "non profit ride"- the Nissan Frontier- south on the PanAmerican highway to Santiago, where Padre Roberto was waiting to show us the rugged road to el Bale. We spent two days visiting project sites and meeting the leaders of a sewing collective, a bee-keepers association, and a yucca-farmers cooperative. We stayed in the ministry, the nuns cooked for us and at mass Padre Roberto asked God to take care of our projects. It was difficult to negotiate and choose, to be shown all the necessities and have to explain our principles on 'scope'. We have to work a certain way to be most effective, and that sadly doesn't include buying that one simple hose that would make a culantro farmer's life easier. At the same time I hear Padre Roberto's sermon in my head: "Never deny a favor to one who needs it. Never say 'come back tomorrow and I will help you'". We did both, sinfully.
But we established two good projects: one working with the Yucca farmers' cooperative to add-value to their product, one working with the bee-keepers association to help the establish an independent business. On the way out, we saw some politics. The ministry started a bee-keeping project as a pilot and sells their honey, branded as "Apiaro Nuestra Senora" to big NGO called ProNinez. ProNinez gives the ministry a good price, and solicits donations for the Apiary because the church represents a social cause. A group of village bee-keepers produce honey and sell to the Ministry, at a discounted price. The village association wants to establish their own independent business "Apiario Manos Unidas" but lack the start-up funds to get production going in the quantity necessary to sell directly to a different buyer. ProNinez won't donate start-up capital to the independent bee-keepers because they are seen as a business, not a social cause. Global Business Brigades does see the connection between micro enterprise and social development, so we've taken on the project.

24: Koskuna Tiendas

2008-09-24T09:04:00.002-05:00

On Sunday, Andri and I drove out the Koskuna community again, to continue preparing the ground and sow the seeds of the Koskuna Tiendas project. This project has a lot of strengths:

Andri and I were introduced to Koskuna by our anthropologist friend Andres, and from the start have been in direct communication with the local leadership. After two visits, we had cleared the ground for projects with two Universities, one of which will come in December, the other in March. One this third visit, we ate Tulemasi in the home of Alcelina and dove into delicate project politics.
University of Central Florida turns out to be the perfect school for this project- their leader is a graduate student who has incorporated the Business Brigade into a 6-credit course and secured funding from the Business department. This group of volunteers will be chosen through a selective application process and while spend credit hours each week working on the project, hopefully following closely the 50-page student-led community-development methodology Andri and I have created.
The Tiendas project is cleverly organized into three sub-projects, each of which connects micro enterprise and social investment. The first subproject is boosting a store run by local governance that contributes to the local school. The second is creating a store, run by the church, to generate funds for the children's soup kitchen. The third is putting together three days of business education workshops, open to the entire community of small store owners and entrepreneurs.

Our visit to Koskuna was exhaustingly rewarding.
We started seated at the community center, discussed, and then walked, followed by a stream of dirty children, to the church, the kitchen, the small stores. For the third project we had originally envisioned picking two or three store owners to work with, but had difficulty finding a store at the 'right' level. Instead we found the three bears: stores with three walls and no roof, or stores completely outfitted by Pepsi and Movistar. Surprisingly, the store owners we talked to reacted strongly to our capacity-building offer, recognizing that small investments in one or two stores would not be most effective. In the end, we asked the community leader to go to each business owner tell them about the December business education workshops and ask them what they wanted to learn. From him we will get an attendance list, be able to reach out that many people with education, and focus the investment funds on building up the school and kitchen stores.
Over Tulemasi with Alcelina, she brought up an important issue we had over looked while discussing the Artesenias project. The three women we had seen as "leaders" of the cooperative saw themselves as sole proprietors and other artisans felt left out. Our mistake was to take photos and names, and associate these with the project; it came across as exclusive. Our next visit to Koskuna will have to involve repairing this miscommunication.
I learned many powerful lessons about how best to manage good intentions and intervention. I saw childish group dimensions challenge our own simplistic assumptions. And I learned that leadership and ownership is a double-edged sword. While these kinds of community-based projects are wonderful learning experiences for Andri and I, I sadly feel that we cannot consider this a best practice. With so many projects to organize and establish, we have to rely on local organizations that already have already established trust and working methods in indigenous communities to be the foundation of our projects.

23: Development and Politics

2008-09-17T23:50:00.003-05:00

I have a hard time believing, sometimes, that I'm qualified for this job and that this is the right job for me. Development work, up until now, has meant entirely different things. In Bolivia, it was moving in isolation, being in a dessert and looking for water. Then, development research was living in the land of theory,isolated again, and actually sound-proof. This, is completely different. This is the open sea, the temperamental network. It's all relations and relationships. I kind of flail in it because I prefer to act unilaterally, I hate having to tack every time the wind changes directions. I hope this means I am meant for the top, but it may just mean I should stay on shore. In research land or the dessert. I like politics, but not menial politics. We had a meeting with the director of Environmental Health at Peace Corps where I felt out of place, and a met the director of the Ancon Biological Museum at an arts-festival event tonight, which I botched. So I'm not feeling on top of communications at the moment. My happiest feeling today was swimming across the bottom of the pool, watching the tiles glide silently bellow me. Nothing professional about that.

22: Albrook Mall

2008-09-15T23:11:00.002-05:00

Albrook Mall is one of Panama'a three gigantic malls, not as classy as the MultiPlaza and not as generic as MultiCentro, but right in between, accurately reflecting the absurd and gawdy character of commercialism in Panama. Albrook sprawls alongside the airport, distinguished only by the crayon-colors of it's blocky structure. Within this museum-sized treasury of imported chain stores, you can find a full-sized merry-go-round, a space-age arcade center, a luxury movie theater, cyber-cafes, several food courts, massage centers, banks, dentists, you name it. The theme, literally, is Zoo. Instead of having a directory, there are gigantic statues of zoo animals at every entrance and junction of the multi-story ladder-shaped building. If you ask a ranger-clad mall attendant where a store is, he will tell you 'near the penguins' or 'near the pink hippos'. There are even signs in the parking lots outside the mall with pictures of these animals rather than letters or numbers of wings or stories. The mall's greatest attraction is the store manequins, with the biggest breasts I've ever seen, in suggestive poses and suggestive lighting. So for a good time, go to Albrook Mall.

21: Environmental Brigades

2008-09-11T23:03:00.003-05:00

http://www.globalbrigades.org/project/environment/

Having a blog and a website that reflect your work really affects your ego. On the one hand, it's like a mirror that makes me more aware of what I am and what I represent, on the other hand the media suddenly becomes reality. I feel like I have to constantly adjust my identity to match it. As I meet more and more people who are leaders of projects that geared towards communities and environments, I think about that fine line between ego and altruism. These leaders take on projects that go beyond self-interest, but on the other hand they take incredible ownership of these projects. We all do, each of us want to operate according to our own principles.

19: Architecture, Law and Environmental Brigades

2008-09-10T22:37:00.002-05:00

Steve Atamian, the CEO and founder of Global Brigades arrived Saturday, accompanied by Oisin and John, two architecture students looking to form Law Brigades and Diane, a lawyer looking to form Law Brigades. Their four-day stay was exhausting but rewarding. The had arranged to meet with as many Panamanian non-profits related to their field as they possibly could fit, and Andri and I shuttled them around and translated. Translating between NGO professionals and whimsical Americans is draining. We met with the Columbus School of Architecture, a representative from the ministry of Housing, the director of the Red Cross, the Country Director and Environmental Health a director of Peace Corps, the City of Knowledge administration, Habitat for Humanity and CIAM, an environmental incidence institute. Many, many project proposals and Brigade activities arose out of these meetings, including a design-contest to refurbish disaster-relief tents, ecological housing for indigenous communities, and international law workshops led by the Red Cross. With Steve here we also managed to hire our new country-director the young-and-brilliant Adriana, find our in-country logistics country coordinator, buy a Nissan Frontier truck and start scoping out property for the future Brigade "compound". Steve also decided to launch to Environmental Brigades, and appointed me director. Andri and decided we will both continue working on both business and environmental brigades, but for all practical purposes I know wear the GB polo and within a couple of days the environmental brigades website should be up and running.

18: Microserfin

2008-09-05T18:45:00.003-05:00

Yesterday we had an important meeting with Microserfin, the leading micro-credit lending bank in Panama. It's not non-profit; it's a private financial services business specializing in microfinance, regulated by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry with over 6000 clients. And it's a bureaucracy. I called them up and got an appointment with the director of Human Resources. We had a formal meeting with Sra. Maricella Zamora, describing Panama Business Brigades and what we felt could be a mutually beneficial exchange (quid pro in GRE-speak) with Microserfin. They help us identify micro enterprise projects, we co-finance the loans. She referred us to the vice-president and I wrote a long-email (in Spanish), soliciting a meeting. Very cool.

17: Cable y Wireless: A tangled web

2008-09-04T00:07:00.003-05:00

The internet has been out and about, due to a tangles web of installation procedures and set-backs. One month ago, we signed up for Cable & Wireless wi-fi. After calling them successively, then incessantly, spending days waiting for them to show up and scanning every white van that drove our street, a technician finally stopped by. With a modem. We shared the LAN line for a few days, criss-crossing the kitchen with ethernet cables, while the wireless we'd been pirating from the school across the street came to a timely demise, and continued pestering Cable & Wireless. When we called, they left llamadas perdidas (missed calls), when we left the house, they rang the doorbell. In Ellas, under "15 ways to waste time" number 10 is "esperar en casa hasta que llegue el tecnico del internet". Then, one night, a new technician came by and hooked up a blue wi fi box to the modem. We had wireless for one night, then it went out. We gave up and spent the last two days laptop-camping in the city of knowledge, and then, miraculously, internet came back. Shall I tell the one about going to the Immigration office to extend our tourist visas? Enough said!

16: CREA

2008-08-28T20:12:00.002-05:00

I finally got in touch with CREA Panama, the only organization I knew of in Panama before coming over. David Abernathy, the head of Global Studies at WWC, had email-introduced us. CREA works in the same valley as EarthTrain, approaching the same 'problem' from a different angle. Despite the fact that the Madrono Valley community is home to about 26 full time residents, the two mega-NGOs conserving the surrounding territory have called a lot of attention to local environmental politics. The players in this debate represent typical stakeholders: the natural environment (ecosystem/biosphere) the local community (village people) and two environmental conservation groups. The issue at stake, as articulated by the CEOs of the NGOs, and commented on by blog writers, researchers, volunteers and partners such as myself, is that the el Valle people engage in "unsustainable" farming and grazing practices that rapidly degrade the environment EarthTrain and CREA seek to protect. EarthTrain's approach is to negotiate, suggest alternative sources of income, and when all else fails, buy land at fair prices. CREA prefers to work with the el Valle culantro farmers and cattle grazers by building on local capabilities and try to reform extant practices towards goals of environmental sustainability. So with EarthTrain, we have an Ornamental Plants Project, that offers an alternative source of income, and with CREA we now have an Organic Culantro project, that offers reformed enterprise practice. Apparently, EarthTrain and CREA used to be the same NGO, but split due to ideological conflicts. The way I see it, their strategies still complement each other, although differing in discourse.

15: Saladino

2008-08-18T23:49:00.003-05:00

Saladino won Panama the country's first Olympic gold medal. Long-Jump. 8.34 meters. Not far from being able to jump across Panama width-wise. Vive Saladino!
A funny thing: I have heard Panamanians refer to Saladino and Noriega with the same comment:
"el vive feliz" meaning that that fortunate fellow made it rich, and in some way left Panama behind. Saladino distanced himself from the quotidian by becoming a champion, Noriega by becoming a villain. Both are considered "feliz".

14: Beat Dance Studio at Fiesta Casino

2008-08-15T00:42:00.002-05:00

On Mondays and Wednesdays Susana and I go to salsa class at Beat Dance studio on Calle 50 y 67 San Fransisco. The class starts with a warm up reviewing the basic step, cross-over, susie Q, left and right turns, diagonal and lateral. Then Leo teaches us the next few steps on the list of 79 pasos, we repeat them into the mirror, and then get quizzed to the music. We tangle our ankles and laugh, hoot at Leo and tease each other. Each two hour class follows a strict schedule and a lot of emphasis is put on memorizing the steps. The class doesn't actually dance much in couples. But they do find places to go out and dance. Tonight most of the Beat class met at the Casino Fiesta, where a live salsa band on a concert stage projected music over hundreds of $50 tables-for-four and several rings of gamblers and arcades. Our group found a niche on the side, pushed the tables against the walls and danced. The women all wore the Beat dance studio polos, hoop earings, jeans and heals. They are very good about dancing by themselves, without needing a lead. I still felt awkward dancing without a partner, but finally appreciated the value in full of being able to do so. Tonight I successfully got and cab there and back at a fair (non-tourist) price and left early enough to avoid man-pressure. I am considering getting the dance studio polo.

13: Night Out- $8

2008-08-10T12:17:00.003-05:00

My first, and maybe last, effort to experience of Panama nightlife. I left the house around nine, wearing white sailor pants, a red t-shirt, orange plaid flats, and my usual black handbag. As I was walking towards the street where I usually wait a good half hour for a cab, a neighbor pulled up and offered me a ride. Antonio works for Chevron, and has been to Houston once. I met up with Susan and we took a cab up to Plaza Cinco del Mayo to find Tonio, a Kuna works for Nathan at Centro Madrono. Tonio tooks us to a Kuna bar, where I got a rare glimpse of the Indigenous nightlife. It was a pool hall that led into a pitch black disco where couples danced bachata while the DJ consistently mopped the floor. We left and went to a new bar next to El Chino (one of the numerous chinese delis) that was having its opening night. It was an amazing site: a huge ruined warehouse, with crumbling walls and rusty banisters. It was empty except for one lounge chair, a folding-table bar and the band set up. Rafa, who works at the hostel, met us there, surrounded by his usual slew of foreign women. These were French, who although they looked like me (petite, wavy brown hair, big noses, uneven smiles) had absolutely nothing in common with me. We drank "heavy metals"- white wine and sprite in styrofoam cups- and waited for the Reggae band to come. Around 1am, Suzi and I decided to dar una vuelta to see if there was anything else going on in Casco Viejo. We passed Ricardo's bar and he seemed singularly happy to see us and said he'd meet us back at the Bar Nuevo. The band finally started around 2am and Susana and the French women left. I spent a few awkward moments in between Rafa and Ricardo who were both talking to me and ignoring each other. Then I wanted to go home and Ricardo offered me a ride. Back at the house around 4am I deftly fended Ricardo off and got a text from Rafa saying he would have liked to take me home. I got up around noon and made french toast, texted Susana and we made a pact now to just go to Salsa classes and watch movies.

12: Tormenta

2008-08-07T10:48:00.002-05:00

It started to rain just as I was heading back to my cabin. We had just finished watching Tarzan in spanish -which made the jungle look soft, bright and cute- Jeff and Foy climbed into their tent in the big common area, and Raul got into his hammock. I got an umbrella and flashlight and walked out to my cabin, thinking about cartoon leopards. I covered everything I brought with my poncho, stashed my backpack and shoes under a table and climbed up to my tent on the loft. From the loft I could see sky on both sides of me (the cabin has no walls) and hear rain amplified on the tin roof. Around midnight the most magnificient thunderstorm started. At first it was flashes of light on the horizon, then the traditional bowling ball rolling from east to west. Then thunder claps like bricks flying through windows and lighting striking vertically in perfect blue lines. I could feel the loft trembling and I wondered if I should be worried, but because no one came and got me I figured I was fine. Tarzan didn't lie awake worrying. My heart was beating though. Then came sudden thunder like cannons firing and echoing over a canyon, rain like a train charging over the tin roof and lighting the lit that entire room and silouetted startled trees for seconds. The storm lasted eight hours, it was still raining and thundering when I woke up at 8 am this morning. The entire bottom floor of the cabin was sopping wet so I was grateful I took the precaution of covering everything I had! This morning we're hopping for no more rain so that we can make it down to the El Valley village and the bus that is to come tomorrow morning to take me to the city can cross the river. Otherwise, I may be here another day or two.

11: Bichos

2008-08-06T13:35:00.002-05:00

Now I am covered in all kinds and classes of bug bites, imprinted on every hard-to-reach spot by Madroño rainforest's rich insectal biodiversity. I have little puncture marks on my arms, dry rashy bites on my angles, stinging scrapes on my chin. In the jungle you don't get tan, you don't stay dry, and you certainly don't feel like swinging from a vine. But it is such a welcome change from the city, from jackhammers in a.m. and overpriced supermarket food. It's nice to sleep on a mattress in a tent, to cook for 5 or 6 with a combination of canned food, hot sauce, and fresh cherry tomatos. Actually last night I managed to swing the creamy asparagus pasta I like to make in North Carolina. Here I don't feel ashamed for replicating what makes me comfortable. The two Peace Corps volunteers and I drink wine at night, watch movies, and talk with some cynism about community development. Jeff and Foy are a married couple from Iowa, living in El Valley, a town of 26, and working on this ornamental plants project. But Jeff and Foy also read, have visitors, paint and carve, and comfortably allow the interest on their savings to exceed the interest on their college loans, as they take two years to live, normally, within a foreign culture. In our effort to be productive, we interventionists sometimes understate the importance of a 'learning experience' which is actually the base of knowledge sharing, which is in turn the base of capacity building. How can anyone hope to 'help others help themselves' if they are not helping themselves? Although I've been told working for a nonprofit is indentured servitude, being a martyr is not professional or practical. I give enough of myself to the bichos- the little black biting bugs!

10: Susana

2008-08-03T10:54:00.006-05:00

My greatest friend here, is Susana, a Columbian, who came to Casa Arias through an interesting story. Susana came to Panama to take a new job, working with architectural restoration in Panama Viejo. She delicately peels corosion off crumbling architectural wonders in Panama Viejo, but found herself living and working with a co-worker who drove her insane. She had come to Panama without knowing anyone, with no plan B. When the oppression of the work relationship became too much, she made the decision to quit, packed her bags, and found Earthtrain, where she now lives. She soon found other work. Susana is round, with curly black hair framing a sweet, strong face, round black eyes under curved black eyebrows, and tiny, round feet. She is wonderfully understanding, always up for a good time, but not afraid to sulk with a movie when she needs it. Susi calls me, emails me, comes with me to salsa, cooks me dinner, helps me with my spanish.

9: Ciudad de Saber

2008-07-30T16:42:00.002-05:00

Finally made it over to the City of Knowledge. Actually only about two minutes from our house in Corozal. Turns out we are living next door to nonprofit world, which is even better than living in nonprofit world. The City of Knowledge is a US army base converted into officespace, apartments and cafes and restaurants specifically suited to international non profit organizations, including PeaceCorps, UNESCO, CREA Panama, Oxfam etc. There you can work in an air-conditioned office, stroll across the street to an internet cafe with crusty European bread, and generally skimp on the humid and dirty Panamanian experience. Yes, it has its appeal, but only if you have worked long enough in the field to not feel hypocritical for living in a bubble. We had a very energizing meeting with the training director of Peace Corps who will be partnering with GBB and has conveniently connected us to Junior Achievement and Hope College. He also gave us lots of Peace Corps sustainable development training info to read up on. No sense in reinventing the wheel. The best this Panama Brigades program can do is populate the non-profit/development network, in my opinion. We provide interns and capital investment to exisiting community-based projects. It's great to be in Panama as Global Business Brigade's Development Director. Even better to be here without a pre-built methodology and a pre-fab office, even though I complain.

8: Koskuna

2008-07-20T23:27:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, Andres the anthropologist took us to Koskuna, a city-based community of Kunas, just an hour outside Panama Ciudad. I got to drive the new rental car some, pretty terrifying in the city. People drive like maniacs; Panamaniacs. Some streets have no lights, people never look, cars you´d never imagine to start chug alongside a plethora of agressive hummers, buses painted with flames and mermaids sway and pump smoke into the hot air, men women and children dash into traffic. It´s gorgeous at night, when families come out into the street wearing sparkly shirts and jeans, flipflops, in a million different styles. So in the morning, after chasing around the city switching cars etc, we drove over the Puente de America, out to the Veracruz beach. Koskuna is a beautiful community, with bright houses, big sky, the sea at one end of a street and vivid jungle-clad mountains at the other. We met with Koskuna leaders and presented our organization. They presented some project ideas. Perfect ideas, like a cooperative to sell the hand-embroidered clothes various women are making. A store to generate revenue for kids meals at a church. Everyone was warm and excited. When the whole group of us posed for a picture, it came out like a pro soccerteam, we all look perfectly coordinated as a group. Amazing, check out the picture. The meeting there reminded me why I want to work in development, the high of feeling that through cooperation we can make life a little nicer for everyone is irreplaceable, inimitable. After touring the town a little, and being invited to eat tulimasi, (coconut-plaintain-lime soup) on two occasions, we went to the beach for fried fish and, finally, a little tanning. The day was perfect except that a policeman stopped us on the way out only for the sake of getting money out of us, carajo.

7: Dia del Carmen

2008-07-17T08:35:00.003-05:00

Yesterday we had the luck to walk by the fisherman's market on the day of St. Carmen. It's the fishermen's greatest holiday and they throw a big party down at the pier. The pier was pumping with music: reggaeton from under festival tents, latin band music played by wandering groups, and a lively carribean-style show tucked into a stall. They served free beer and free food- plates of tamales, fried corvina, criollo rice and empanadas to all who were willing to stand in line. We were, and as we stood there, people came and talked to us, explained the celebration, complained about a fisherman's plight, showed off their language skills. One old man in particular, Eliecer Moreno, was particularly friendly, and ended up giving me his number in case we ever wanted a trip out to sea in his little boat. The market boasts fish that look too heavy to carry, scary lobsters and numerous ceviche options. The style of the fisherman's neighborhood is distinct from the rest of the city; it's dirtier, poorer, blacker, angrier, but also strangely open to foreigners and almost everyone we met told us a) to watch out and b) that they would keep an eye out for us. There are windowless strip bars with signs warning the underage and rows of rooms on the first floor, looking onto the street. There are stalls selling hamocks, rubber boots, hardware and birdcages. Giant Pelicans...

6: Madrono

2008-07-15T20:50:00.003-05:00

We left for Centro Madrono- EarthTrain's sustainable-development-institute/ rainforest-preserve/ecovillage on Saturday morning. We rented a Nissan Frontier and crammed it with five adults, one teen, a five-year old, food for days, baggage, kayaks, and laptops. Once outside the city, the terrain was rough and we drove though walls of mud and rocky rivers. Nathan Gray's EarthTrain is an organization dedicated to preserving cultural and biological diversity, through, essentially, student leadership, outdoor adventure and cultural immersion. We got the inside view: the management perspective. Nathan Gray, one of the foremost environmental leaders of my generation, who came up with "appropriate technology" alongside Fritz Schumacher, as a father of an imaginative five year old, and patron of random nonprofit activity. Nathan had one of his Embra workers, Raul, take us on day hikes through primary rainforest to waterfalls and swimming holes. We saw venomous snakes, giant butterflies, and a Queztal, as we sweated in the heat, suffered bug bites, and stayed constantly soaking wet. At night we all got together in one of the spacious, clean swept cabanas for home cooked dinner, silly games, and BBC's series on "Life in the Undergrowth" projected on a sheet. We slept in tents in cabanas, lulled by tropical birds and active insect life and woken by howler monkeys. We talked with Nathan and two Peace Corps workers in El Valle about the Ornamental Plants project GBB/P4S will be providing interns for. Earthtrain wants to sell potted, native, ornamental plants, raised by El Valle's village people in their store in Casa Arias. Our interns will do the business plan, marketing, and advertising. Andri and I will get to work on an instructional catalog and prepare for a meeting with village plant farmers. The only downside of the trip was when Raul accidentaly drove the brand new rental Nissan into a mud well and dented the fender. The truck is now in El Chepo, in the hands of a mechanic who promises to restore it like new. Hopefully, we'll have it back in time to start moving things into the new house. Until then, my clothes are still in my backpack and I'm sleeping on the floor. Welcome to the nonprofit world!

5: Casa Arias

2008-07-10T08:56:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I spent the entire day at this computer. Collaborating on the "Program Plan". The Plan is to get everyone on the same page, both organizations behind this joint project. The idea is to create a business development internship program that benefits interns and host organizations equally. So Plan 4 Success, my organization, makes sure that students get the most they can academically and career-wise, and Global Business Brigades makes sure the project contributes to the sustainable development of Panamanian communities. We are here to choose projects that comply with these two sets of criteria and set up a system around this joint P4S-GBB program. Then we actually have to run it too. The great thing is that planning this program requires trips out to communities, research of development and microenterprise, and setting up headquarters in a spacious new house. So yesterday we wrote a first draft of the "Program Plan" and today we need to sign a lease and furniture shop. It's still very cloudy here, and noisy at night. There thousands of ferel cats living in skeleton buildings, alien-chinese delis, fresh juice stands...all of the typical stuff. It's not so strange to me, it's like turning the page of a picture book, just a different image.

4: Casco Viejo

2008-07-08T18:43:00.003-05:00

For now, we are staying in Casco Viejo, the old city of Panama. It's picturesque and dilapidated, well-adapted to backpackers but also sometimes unfriendly. My Hostel likes to juggle me from room to room and there's a European Cafe on the corner where you can get anything from Abbas Sill to Brie. The real estate agents love it. For now, Andri and I are working out of Casa Arias, an apartment GBB is renting from an organization called EarthTrain. On Saturday we will be going out to visit the rainforest site of EarthTrain, to talk about the internship program. Untill then, we are working on our project and trying to figure out how to furnish the house we plan to rent. It will be P4S-GBB headquarters. We will rent out a room, and share the space with interns. Right now it is empty, furniture is expensive and we need to rent a truck. So somehow things need to come together. I'm ready to unpack, ready to find my place in this city, ready to be more confident in what I'm doing here. All that will come.

3: Ustupu

2008-07-06T16:12:00.003-05:00

For breakfast we ate shrimp, fried plaintain, coffee and tang. We were served a traditional plantain-coconut soup (with lots of lime and salt) and boiled pink fish for lunch. For dinner we each got a rock-shelled red crap too big to fit on a plate, with claws about the size of my hands. Having passed through congress, and signed our names in a slim notebook of visitors, we were permitted to tour the island, visit the school and clinic, take pictures and drink beer under the stars, accompanied always by our guide Andres, and Natalie, our two new best friends. The Kuna made sure to charge us for various things along the way and every child shouted out a million holas and we walked through the muddy alleys. Some streets were so narrow that the straw eaves of neighboring houses met. In the afternoon, Andri and I met with the leaders of the retirement community, each with their formal position titles, clean worn clothes and small notebooks. We discussed the possibility of establishing some projects with the Kuna for the interns of our organizations. The Kuna are very experienced in receiving and evaluating project proposals. Although they are commited to preserving the traditional condition of their islands, communities and culture, they are not opposed to solar power and internet, both of which they have. So on the one hand you have the latrinas, which are platforms built over the sea, with a hole in the floor, from which you poop and pee, and other the other hand you have mac labs running on solar power. When we left the community early the next morning, they gave each of us gifts. Mine was a blue beaded bracelet, with a black and yellow dolfin.

2: Kuna Yala

2008-07-06T15:21:00.003-05:00

We flew to Kuna Yala in a small crop plane, at dawn. From the window we saw the entire comarca, which is the Kuna people's sovereign territory, spill out into little islands. Kuna Yala is composed of many small green islands, but the people prefer to pack themselves in pretty densly on just a few. We landed on Ustupu and were taken by motorized canoe to another community where Andri's anthropologist friend, Andres was waiting to meet us. Andres is small, charming, young, passionate, and very in love with his pretty girlfriend Natalia. Both are Columbian. Andres has been visiting Ustupu as part of a research project headed by Japanese social anthropologists about globalization an indigenous identity. Or something. There were no other tourists on the island except a group of evangelist missionaries, whom we did our best to ignore. We spent two days, riding in hollowed out tree-trunk canoes, cleverly outfitted with motors. We ate fresh fish three times a day; shrimp, lobster and entire gigantic crabs. It was rainy and hot and grimy. The people live in stick huts with heavy straw roofs, the women dress in colorfully embroidered traditional dress, little kids are mostly naked, the boys look hip hop stars. On the first night we were there we were required to present ourselves to the community congress. We entered the dark congressional house and watched the Sahila, or community leader speak to the elders and others who came. The Sahila wore a Panama hat, a button-down shirt, a tie and sandals. He spoke powerfully and angrily, shouting and re-composing himself. Eventually the translator asked Andres to stand and explain the purpose of our visit to the community. Andres was nervous, but he knows the Kuna well enough to know what to say. Plus, the Kuna love Andres. After he spoke, the Sahila adresses the four of us and told us the we were not brought there by chance, the same loving entity watches over all of us, no matter where we come from and that he wanted to make sure that we left the island with a good impression of their culture. Then he asked each of us to speak. When Natalie and I each took our turn there were audible murmurs of approval from the men in the crowd and the translator drew out our statements nicely. I left feeling honored and warm, but also humbled. We went to sleep in hamocks, close enough to hit each other as we rocked.

1: Arrival

2008-07-06T15:09:00.003-05:00

The night I arrived in Panama City I met my co-worker, Andri, who is tall and awkward, but as I've found out very dedicated and intelligent and caring. My backpack was delayed so we hung out at the airport and talked and talked and got almost everything on the table immediately. He dropped me off at my hostel, where I'm staying now until we move into the House. At dawn the next morning we left for the national airport to head off to Kuna Yala, a strip of island communities belonging to Panama's indigenous population.