Boy has it been a crazy month! As much as it was nice to get out and about in Panama, I really did miss having some stability. Heck, one of my reasons for joining Peace Corps was to settle down in a place for two years after all the craziness of seasonal jobs from northern Alaska to the southern tip of Argentina. So much for that!
So much was left up in the air. I didn’t have answers to where, when, or how until it happened. When we first came to Panama, we knew ahead of time when we would be moving from one place to another during training. By the fifth week, we received a packet of information about our new communities. By the ninth week, we were met by a member of our new community at a Community Entry Conference and then preceded to our sites for a week long visit where we figured out where we would be living for the next few months and beyond. Then after the eleventh week and conclusion of training, we moved to our new homes.
I was told the names of three potential sites almost two weeks after I decided to change sites. Then I visited one of them (which had become the only option) two weeks later for about two hours. And two weeks after that I finally moved to my new site in Coclé. However, not until I arrived last night did I know where I would be staying and parking my stuff. I must say I’ve got a really nice place to live. It is the first house I’ve stepped into, much less stayed in that has painted walls, tiled floors, and screened windows. It’s just like home! (Okay, maybe Edenton is a little nicer… hehe But this is as good as it gets here!) I’m staying with an older couple who are related to the one of my community guides. She does a lot of crocheting and he fixes tv’s as a hobby. And they even have a lady come cook and clean for them! I’m livin’ the high life now!
My room is just being finished, as they moved here three years ago and complete the house poco a poco. So I have a curtain for a door and lack a place to hang or stack my clothes. But hey, I sewed my door-curtains in Chiriqui and have got my own room. I’ve certainly had worse! Ohhh, plus I have not one, not two, but three electrical outlets! Oh the luxury!!! I certainly have enough electronics to fill all of them, but I’ll try not to suck all of their electricity.
I visited a potential house to rent. Ummmm, hmmmm. How do I describe it? It is certainly nicer than some of my friend’s mud huts. It has wooden slab walls and a thatched roof. It does have electricity, though just enough to run a light bulb. I doubt my energy-star refrigerator would work on the homemade electrical job. It does have running water, though it’s about twenty feet outside of the house from a spigot. And I’d need to put in a new latrine, not to mention other repairs to the house which has been abandoned for the past three years. There is a rancho with a zinc roof in front of the house, which they want enclose and make into the living quarters and leave the original house as a kitchen. It is has a leak in the roof and dirt floor, so there’s some work to do before it’s livable to Caribean slope raininess. So it’s not exactly at the top of my list, as it needs work and I don’t get the same amount of money to fix it up had I moved here right after training. We’ll see. If it turns out to be the only option (I still haven’t seen inside of it as it was locked), you can bet I’ll trick it out and make it into a home. I might dig into my stateside bank accounts to do it, or perhaps save up by eating just rice and beans for a while. Hehe I’ll sure miss my refrigerator though! Crazy how you get attached to things…
I visited the school again today, and as I expected, the community doesn’t quite get the difference between my sector and that of the previous volunteer. I just don’t know a whole lot about agriculture, as my specialty is conservation and animals, not plants. I corrected the director of the school when he told all the parents at the PTA meeting that I would be doing the same thing as the previous volunteer. We’ll see, it might just turn out that way! I want to teach computers though and environmental ed instead of just working in the garden. And I’ll even teach the colegio kids English as she did, if for no other reason than one of the teachers for those kids is really nice and I wouldn’t mind working with her.
I’ve got a mountain of names to learn and a maze of a community to decipher. With houses tucked into the trees and down footpaths that cross innumerable streams, it is the picturesque tropical community. But it doesn’t help trying to figure out where I am and where others live. The typical response of “over there” is no less helpful here than “up the hill” was in my last town.
Speaking of which, I had a marathon of a day yesterday. Heck, it already seems like ages ago! I woke up at 5:30am to pack up the last of my things. Then I waited until Franklin came and tried to back his car up to my front door. Mind you, I live up an embankment. I cringed as I watched him first practically flip the car as only half the wheels made it onto the highroad and then hit into a small tree before he gave up. Thank goodness! We loaded up the car and headed up to catch the ladies at church. We made it there just as the service started. I attended Catholic mass while Franklin took a stick to beat the dent out of the bumper.
We then had a little meeting explaining that I was leaving the community and relocating to Coclé. They didn’t get the full story, but it’s just as well. I started crying before finishing my first sentence, thanking all of the women in the community who stepped in as my mothers. I proceeded to give out all the reports, certificates, and money I was holding for the groups as more people in the church teared up. Then came the hugs which as you can imagine weren’t any easier. My little host sisters and Girl Scouts were there and gave me big hugs as well as all the kindergarteners. (They are awaiting their first and second communions and thus got out of school to attend.) Ladies who I never even worked with thanked me for what I had done in the community, and neighbors who never invited me into their homes cried at my departure. It was a tough departure.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to complete two years in Cabecera, but could I really do it all over again in a new place? I was having major second thoughts on things which were only made worse by my boss calling and telling me that he would keep to the rule that I can’t leave my new community for three months. I had specifically asked him about that on several occasions as things came up and he reassured me that he wanted me to come out to help train the new group and again to work on the Peace Corps newsletter. So much for that! I was thinking about quitting altogether because of it, and I still don’t know if they will be okay with me going home in July. (Don’t worry, I’ll come home one way or another!)
After dropping off my fridge, kitchen stuff, and bedding in Penenome, Brandon, Franklin, and I headed on up to Vaquilla. Brandon asked me a couple of times how I was doing, and I think I didn’t respond on at least one occasion because I didn’t want to burst into tears again. The lack of sleep was definitely catching up with me. And that’s about when I settled into my lovely abode here. J
Here’s a description of the next town over called Chiguirí Arriba, about a 4 mile walk away…
“Directly to the north of El Valle is Chiguiri Arriba, a five hour hike away. It is an area rich in history because the nearby Cerro La Vieja was the hiding place of the romantic guerrilla-hero of the campesinos, Victoriano Lorenzo. He fought for the poor at the turn of the century, long before it became fashionable, in the tumultuous days of pre-independent Panama. It is a lush, tranquil area where frogs sing you to sleep and songbirds awaken you. Every hill has its own stream with cool, refreshing pools and idyllic waterfalls. This is truly an area to commune with nature in a tropical rainforest wonderland.”
I think I can get used to it!
