Experiencing the Steppe

The wind whips through the steppe in an all consuming roar.  Every once and a while, the wind bursts will lull into a gentle breeze, revealing the hidden chirps and songs of the feathered inhabitants of this harsh environment.  Yet with each new burst of wind, the flap of clothes or the whistle through hair and clapping through shrubs and grasses create a staccato of sounds.

It's amazing that with as much wind that whips through this landscape that rocks remain as sharp as they are, giving the impression of fresh frost wedging.  I would have expected more rounded stones from wind erosion, slowly molding and reshaping the seemingly barren landscape.  Yet the steppe is very much alive.

Each jagged rock is covered in an assortment of lichen from the curly fruticose to the sheet-like crustose.  Browns, greys, and plate greens with speckles of yellow and orange add depth to the tan stones.  

Between the rocks in small patches of soil an amazing diversity of plants take root.  Succulents grow close to the ground, while grasses blow in the wind.  Flowers are interspersed between the other vegetation and range from delicate white to eggshell, straw-like flowers to little blue and wind-beaten yellow trumpets amid a mat of pink.

Ants travel through the rocks and under the wind breaks of the plants.  Some carry little pieces of lichen to take back to their nest to share.  Others seem to search or patrol through this arid landscape.

In a country renowned for its "big blue sky," there is so much more to experience and explore when one just takes a moment to notice. 

Histo-what?

Imagine living in a rural farming community with rivers and streams flowing down the mountains and through the center of town. Imagine going to sleep with bats flying around your room and feeling lucky that they can’t bump into you inside your mosquito net. Imagine waking up to the call of the ever-present chickens around your home and community. And imagine making abono orgánico by digging up soil and mixing it with gallinazo.

I lived in such a community as a CEC volunteer and loved it. When else in your life can you live in such a beautiful place where you are welcome in every home, and people offer you brindi on every visit?

However, I did have intestinal woes which lasted much of my service in that community. At times I would stay in bed in the fetal position hoping the abdominal pain would go away. At other times I would make strategic trips around the community, knowing which latrines were well taken care of when nature made its urgent call. I downed enough antiparasitics, antibiotics, dewormers, and steroids to evict whatever may have been living in me at the time.

I returned home in late May of 2010. I immediately started education classes and accepted a position teaching high school Biology. As a full-time student with a full-time job as a first year teacher, I was exhausted on a daily basis. Who wouldn’t be? I still had a little cough I left Panama with, but overall I felt pretty good. I didn’t even get the flu or a cold from the variety of pathogens the kids seemed to fill my room with on a daily basis.ng the abdominal pain would go away. At other times I would make strategic trips around the community, knowing which latrines were well taken care of when nature made its urgent call. I downed enough antiparasitics, antibiotics, dewormers, and steroids to evict whatever may have been living in me at the time.

I started out this school year with a sore throat that just wouldn’t go away. I was seen by ten doctors and specialists who each mentioned they had never seen anything like it. Possible diagnoses included tuberculosis, parasitic infections, fungal infections, and even cancer. CT scans, bronchoscopy and laryngoscopy with cultures and biopsies, blood tests, and urine tests were all performed.

When several of the 35 tests came back positive, I was admitted to the hospital with a diagnosis of disseminated histoplasmosis. With Google on my side, I learned about the disease. Histoplasma capsulatum is found in soils in river valleys. Bird and bat droppings enrich the growth medium for the fungus causing highly contaminated soil. Histoplasmosis is caused by the inhalation of Histoplasma capsulatum spores from contaminated soil. The spores become airborne through disturbing contaminated soil. Patients who develop clinical manifestations of histoplasmosis are usually immunocompromised.

It all made sense. My community seemed like a perfect place for the fungus to grow. My job description made my contact with the spores likely. And months and months of chronic diarrhea would have certainly compromised my immune system. Plus, the first described case of histoplasmosis was made in Panama.

The infectious disease doctor described the likely course of events. The middle and upper lobes of my right lung were infected with histoplasmosis during my service and just chilled there without my awareness. It ate away a ping-pong sized hole which with time walled-off from the rest of my lung. Eventually the fungi entered my bloodstream and settled in my throat. It was there that the fungi ate away at my epiglottis and surrounding structures, swelling them up like a balloon and causing the pain, trouble breathing, and swallowing problems that kick-started my search for a diagnosis.

With a diagnosis, treatment began. I was started on Amphotericin B infusions through a PICC line (think chemo) lasting four hours each day. My reactions to the medicine eased through a week in the hospital by pre-medicating with Tylenol, Benadryl, and morphine. After another week of outpatient transfusions, I began treatment with Sporonox, an antifungal medicine that I will be taking daily for at least the next year.

I learned a few lessons through the course of diagnosis and treatment:

Document everything! Many of the drugs prescribed during my service were recorded in their Panamanian names that doctors here could not decipher. Some papers in my medical records requested from the Peace Corps Post-Service Unit were missing and others belonged to other volunteers, including a positive pregnancy test with the name and social security number of another PCV. Also some medical complaints were lost in translation: an infected bug bite for which an antibiotic was prescribed was recorded as swollen due to a fall. Keep a medical journal.

You know your body better than anyone. The general practitioners insisted that I had a viral infection when antibiotics didn’t work. So I started going to specialists and got the ball rolling. A radiologist kept me in isolation for an entire day thinking I had TB even though I didn’t have any other symptoms of the infection. So as soon as I was let out, I went to an Urgent Care for a TB test which was negative. A nurse in the hospital failed to follow the infusion protocol for my drug. So a call to the duty nurse who rectified the problem. Don’t be afraid to speak up.

Love your health insurance. I never thought health insurance was particularly important. I was young, healthy, and invincible. My employer paid my premium each month. I accidently signed up for the better plan this year and paid an additional $30/month out of my paycheck. Boy am I glad I did! The medical bills have added up to over $70,000 while the medication I now take costs about $1,000/month. My out-of-pocket has been about $5,000 so far. I would have been screwed without insurance.

Applying for FECA benefits is not scary. It seems like a daunting amount of paperwork to gather and months to wait when you feel like crud. My doctors were less than forthcoming with providing the required paperwork listed on the form (CA-2). After several requests, I finally sent in what I had and figured I would send any additional paperwork as requested. Just two weeks later, my case was accepted. Reimbursements were also not as difficult as listed on the Peace Corps website. FECA actually only requires one form (OWCP-915) and receipt to process a request instead of getting each provider to fill out a separate affidavit (OWCP-1500) and medical notes. Organize paperwork by provider, not date, to make things easier in the long run. And did I mention document and keep copies of everything?

I don’t mean to scare you with any of this, just keep you informed. I certainly don’t regret a minute of my service. I hope you stay healthy and enjoy your time in Panama!

Updates...

Okay, so it's been what? A year since I COS'ed? I figured it's far time I updated my blog with the second half of my service. I think I will be able to recover my files from my dead little laptop, so pictures will follow. (Perhaps I'll do that when school is out for the summer.)

Description of Service

Description of Peace Corps Service

Kerry C. Piper
Republic of Panama 2008-2010

After a competitive application process stressing technical skills, motivation, adaptability, and cross cultural understanding, Peace Corps invited Ms. Kerry Piper to serve as a Community Environmental Conservation Volunteer in the Central American nation of Panama.

Training

Ms. Piper began an intensive 10-week pre-service training on April 16, 2008 in Santa Clara, a small town located about an hour west of the capital, Panama City. The program consisted of language training, technical skills training, and area studies training. As part of the technical training, she took a lead role in planning a day-long environmental festival. She assisted other trainees in the selection and adaptation of age-appropriate activities for over 250 elementary school children in the training community.

The Pre-Service Training included:

• 110 hours of formal instruction in Spanish
• 135 hours of technical training in environmental education and natural resource conservation
• 190 hours of observation and application of conservation techniques in rural communities across Panama
• 30 hours of cross-cultural training related to the history, economics and cultural norms of Panama
• 40 hours of medical, safety and administrative issue training

The In-Service Trainings conducted 4, 6, and 9 months into service included:

• 6 hours of formal instruction in Spanish
• 15 hours of project specific and cross-sector technical training
• 20 hours of training in project management and leadership
• 10 hours of cross-cultural training
• 42 hours of training of the trainer including learning theory and nonformal education techniques

Assignment

On June 26, 2008 Ms. Piper completed training and was sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer. She was assigned to Cabecera de Cochea, a rural mountain community of 270 people in the western province of Chiriquí approximately 10 hours from Panama City. Her primary assignment involved working with an environmental group to promote ecotourism and reforestation and teaching environmental education to instill an understanding and appreciation of the environment in youth.

On April 20, 2009 Ms. Piper relocated to Vaquilla, a community of 1,000 people in the central province of Coclé, just four hours from Panama City. Her primary assignment here involved creating environmental education tools for teachers and fellow Volunteers and facilitating trainings using these tools. In addition, Ms. Piper developed logos and brochures to promote ecotourism, worked with board members of community groups to strengthen leadership skills, taught courses in computer literacy and English, and served as a regional representative for the Volunteer Advisory Council and Editor-in-Chief of La Vaina, the magazine of Peace Corps Panama.

Agricultores y Conservacionistas Senderos de Volcán Barú

Agricultores y Conservacionistas Senderos de Volcán Barú (ACSVB) is an environmental group dedicated to the conservation of the southern zone of Volcán Barú National Park through reforestation and the promotion of ecotourism. Ms. Piper facilitated a series of seminars to aid group members in the development of leadership, planning, and networking abilities. She worked with group members to design an environmental action plan to improve an office used for tree nursery management and hosting ecotourists and to develop and build sustainable trails in the National Park.

Together, she and ACSVB applied for a grant through the Atlantic Panamanian Mesoamerican Biological Corridor Project (CB-MAP II) and the National Environmental Authority (ANAM). Ms. Piper taught members how to use a GPS and map existing trails, a required component of the grant application. She assisted group members in the planning and realization of tours for ANAM VIPs arriving to assess the strength of the group and the feasibility of the project. The group was awarded $40,000 to fund their project.

Eco-English Course

Ms. Piper developed and certified a three-month, 40-hour Eco-English course through the Ministry of Education which combines environmental education activities with English vocabulary pertinent to the budding ecotourism opportunities in her community. She designed lessons with a variety of interactive activities to engage learners. Twelve dedicated students, ranging in age from 13 to 53, completed all assignments with a high level of accuracy to graduate.

Girl Scout Troop

Seeing the need to engage women in conservation activities from an early age, Ms. Piper formed a Girl Scout troop. Seven girls between the ages of 7-13 attended weekly meetings consistently. She taught environmental education and life skills at each meeting, building self-esteem and empowering young women to act on their own informed decisions.

She was awarded a $418 Volunteer Activities Support and Training (VAST) grant through the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) grant to support her troop. She brought four of her girls to the Annual Girl Scouts National Camp in the province of Coclé focused on HIV/AIDS and the environment. Ms. Piper was responsible for 20 young girls in her group, in addition to her own troop. She facilitated daily camp activities and energizers for over 300 campers. She created a meeting bag filled with supplies to implement a variety of activities to reinforce lessons learned at camp. Before her departure from Cabecera de Cochea, she trained a mother to take over the Girl Scout troop and continue supporting the community’s young women.

Environmental Education Tools

Ms. Piper created an effective and easily applicable cross-reference of over 500 environmental activities in the Environmental Education Activity Guides available to Panamanian educators from their National Environmental Authority. She did so by applying themes to the learning objectives of the national curriculum for Natural Science and Agriculture. She then assigned these themes and a teaching method label to each activity. The thematic index enables a fourth grade teacher to create a unit on organic compost by linking dynamic games to explain the theory with practical experiments to apply them. The teaching methods index allows a first grade teacher, who needs to strengthen the reading skills of her students, to draw from a number of environmental stories.

Due to her close interactions with top Panamanian ministry officials, the cross-reference has been incorporated into teacher trainings on environmental education certified by the Ministry of Education and will be included in the next edition of the Environmental Education Activity Guides.

She also translated and adapted activities from Flying WILD- An Educator's Guide to Celebrating Birds, a program of the Council for Environmental Education to create a guide dedicated to the diversity and conservation of Panama’s avifauna. Ms. Piper promoted this new guide to the National Environmental Authority and other NGO’s in Panama to broaden the scope of programs they currently offer. With a $60 Volunteer Advisory Committee (VAC) grant, she was able to create a kit of all materials needed to facilitate the activities contained in the guide which she used with several youth groups.

Environmental Education Guide and Trainings

Ms. Piper took a lead role in modifying the goals, objectives, and indicators of the Community Environmental Conservation (CEC) Program as a member of the Program Advisory Committee. The Committee decided that a comprehensive manual to guide trainees through Pre-Service Training and help Volunteers to meet the goals and objectives of the CEC Program during their service was essential to the success of both CEC Volunteers and the program.

She drew from her experience teaching in rural Panamanian schools, work with environmental groups, and research from documents published by the North American Association of Environmental Educators, Peace Corps Information Collection and Exchange, and other experts to write chapters on environmental education and conservation in Panama with a fellow Volunteer. She then edited all components and used Adobe InDesign to publish a comprehensive training manual for Peace Corps Panama Trainees and Volunteers. It guides Trainees through the basics of environmental education, instructs them on how to approach Panamanian schools, plan interactive activities with teachers, train teachers in environmental education, build leadership skills in community groups, create environmental action plans, build networks between community groups and government agencies/NGOs, and implement project plans. It also includes anecdotes and case studies from the best practices of current Volunteers and an appendix full supporting documents.

Using the CEC Reference Guide, Ms. Piper facilitated 6 hours of In-Service Training on environmental education for 13 Group 63 CEC Volunteers and 32 hours of Pre-Service Training for 17 Group 65 CEC Trainees. She developed training plans addressing the preparation and professional development needs of environmental educators using Bernice McCarthy’s 4MAT system (motivation, information, practice, application) to engage participants of all learning styles.

The National Authority of the Environment of Coclé invited Ms. Piper to co-facilitate a week-long, 40-hour continuing education seminar for 39 Panamanian teachers. She translated key sections of the environmental education guide for use in the seminar and presented the information with numerous hands-on activities to apply the learned knowledge.

Graphic Design for Ecotourism Groups

Using Adobe Illustrator, Ms. Piper designed logos for five environmental groups from Chiriquí to Colón. These groups have used their logos on letterhead, signs, and polo shirts to promote their projects to other community members, tourists, and agency personnel. She also designed an English-Spanish brochure for Albergues Navas, a bed and breakfast near Omar Torrijos H. National Park in Coclé, which can be found in tourist information centers all over Panama.

Project Management and Leadership

Project Management and Leadership (PML) is a training program to create transformational leaders and strengthen groups. Created by Zach Barricklow and fellow Volunteers in G56, this program has grown to become a cornerstone of many Peace Corps Panama Sectors. Transformational leadership is a process that cultivates the ability to grow and stimulate positive change beginning on a personal level, moving to a group level, continuing to a community level, and eventually extending to an institutional level. Through this process, community members begin to cultivate qualities of a transformational leader.

Ten sessions guide participants through the individual level of influence to the institutional level. In each session, participants practice various skills that they can bring back to their families, groups, and community to become stronger leaders and more successful managers of projects and initiatives.

Training community members, in what at times are abstract topics, is facilitated through the use of a facilitator’s guide and participant’s manual. Ms. Piper revised the "Project Management and Leadership" manual by designing more worksheets and improving the flow of the document. She facilitated a total of 98 hours of Transformational Leadership seminars for 56 participants in her communities and in national seminars.

Secondary Projects: Computer Literacy and English Education

At the request of the director of the General Basic Education Center (CEBG) Vaquilla, Ms. Piper taught 150 hours of computer literacy to 244 elementary school children and 9 educators, during which time they achieved competency in basic computer management, Microsoft Word, and various education software.

Vaquilla receives an average of 50 American tourists a week who arrive for a rural tourism experience. After touring an organic farm, they are treated to a presentation of folkloric dance at the elementary school and lunch in the home of a local family. Few of the tourists speak Spanish.

Ms. Piper taught English classes at the request of the Tourism Group, covering basic conversational phrases, food, family, and home. She also taught classes in the middle school modeled after the successful Eco-English course she developed.

Secondary Projects: Volunteer Advisory Council and La Vaina

The Volunteer Advisory Council (VAC) is a group of Volunteers consisting of a 4-member board of directors and 9 regional representatives who meet once per trimester to discuss issues and concerns facing the approximately 160 Volunteers serving in Peace Corps Panama.

Ms. Piper was elected by her peers as the regional representative for Coclé. During her tenure, she pushed for improved training and response to security incidents and participated in a roundtable discussion with the Country Director, Programming and Training Officer, Safety and Security Coordinator, Training Director, Assistant Training Director, and VAC board of directors.

La Vaina is a 60-page magazine published three times a year by the Volunteer Advisory Council of Peace Corps Panama. La Vaina strives to inspire and entertain rather than simply inform Volunteers. It is distributed to all Volunteers and staff in-country, as well as Returned Peace Corps Volunteers and NGO partners. Volunteers and other readers should be able to pick up an issue and enjoy it a day, month, or even years after, gaining insight into Volunteer life and development work in the field. Each issue of La Vaina has a theme creating a cohesive publication.

Ms. Piper managed three cycles of La Vaina. In the months prior to publication, she solicited articles from Volunteers and others who can shine light on the topic, including Peace Corps staff, agency personnel, and community members. She also solicited artwork highlighting the talents and experiences of Volunteers to illustrate each article. Just prior to the publication of each cycle, she dedicated a full week in the office to edit articles, layout the pages in Microsoft Publisher, and delegate tasks to her assistant editors.

Language Skills

Ms. Piper has achieved an advanced competency level in Spanish during her service and has effectively used Spanish to communicate in all of her different projects and daily social interactions.

Close of Service

Ms. Piper completed her Peace Corps service in Panama on May 25th, 2010.

Pursuant to section 5(f) of the Peace Corps Act 22 U.S.C 2504 (f) as amended, any former volunteer employed by the United States Government following her Peace Corps Volunteer service is entitled to have any period of satisfactory Peace Corps Volunteer service credited for purposes of retirement, seniority, reduction in force, leave and other privileges based on length of federal government service. Peace Corps service shall not be credited toward completion of probationary or trial period or completion of any service requirement for career appointment.

This is to certify in accordance with Executive Order No. 11103 of 10 April 1963, that Kerry Piper served satisfactorily as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Her service in Panama ended on May 25th, 2010. She is therefore eligible to be appointed as a career-conditional employee in the competitive civil service on a non-competitive basis. This benefit under the Executive Order entitlement extends for a period of one year after termination of the Volunteer’s service, except that the employing agency may extend that period for up to three years for a former Volunteer who enters military service, pursues studies at a recognized institution of higher learning, or engages in other activities that, in the view of the appointing authority, warrant extension of the period.

Finishing up

I have one more day of training tomorrow morning. (I leave my hostel at 6am to get into the office, and then leave the office to get into the training community by 8am.) Our regional meeting starts at 9am... yep, won't make that. And the volunteer/pc office part of the regional meeting starts at 11 or 12pm. I might make the end of it. Most important part is that I'll make the beach overnight. lol It should be fun!

Then I get back to my community the next day (wed afternoon), pack up, clean up, have a visitor on sunday to pick up my fridge, and leave sunday afternoon to get back to the city for my language interview monday morning. Oye!!! Then monday/tuesday I have to get a blood test, close out my bank account (I just got my reimbursements deposited, so I've got a wad of money in there right now. Yeah, don't want to think about carrying that cash on me...), meet with everyone under the sun in the office to sign my forms and finnnnnnallllly, catch a plane back to ya'll! (I'll be staying with my host family for my pre-America introduction.)

Election day

I was on house arrest until 3:30pm today, as all of Panama couldn't leave their houses until they got census-ed. It only happens once every ten years, and in the long run, it's probably more efficient than how the US does it. Maybe not... Anyhow, Isaac and I were staying here at the hostel and we had food stocked up as we couldnt' leave to get any (and no stores would be open anyhow). We started getting hungry and antsy around 11am. I went down to the fridge and found someone ate ALL our food: a tupperware of super delicious ginger pasta with loads of veggies, and another big tupperware of more pasta waiting for fixings. ARGH! So now were were trapped, hungry, and antsy. Luckily we still had some chips and salsa which held us over until we were counted and released later in the afternoon. We beelined it to the grocery store just to get out of the hostel for a bit. I got fruit and yogurt which I had been craving, while Isaac bought and downed a whole liter of chocolate milk.

We went out to dinner around 7pm when all businesses were allowed to be open... only to find that most kept there doors shut. So much for dinner at the good vegetarian restaurant. We still had a good dinner and chatted a whole bunch. It's going to be weird to leave such good friends behind. Isaac and his wife, Melissa, bought a coffee farm in another volunteer couple's site in Cocle. They'll be returning to the states (Vermont) after planting the farm. (They bought 10lbs of coffee seed from me and the president of the coffee group in my site.) Melissa's parents are in DC, and she's going to go to the Outer Banks with some girlfriends from home at some point, so I'll see her around.

I'm working on my presentation for tomorrow. I was just going to set the trainees off with an assignment, but I found a much better way of explaining everything from a chunk of the presentation I did last week. So I'll present that info better and then set em free.

Oh I can't wait to be home!!!! I just want time to learn a ton and have fast internet and libraries and coffee shops to do it in. :) I'm looking at sublets. I think I want to be walking distance to a bar. hehe. I really need to meet people, and I don't want to have to worry about driving and all that.

COS prep

I left my fridge with some chopped veggies and fruit in the freezer. It's all in little tupperwares. I hope it survives the week until I get back. I also had a tupperware of some kind of new fruit (it's like a melon, green and a little spikey on the outside, green on the inside with a hard seed pod in the middle filled with lots of fleshy seeds, and starts with a "g"). It didn't taste as good as I hoped, and accidentally left it in the fridge. Eww. I don't want to think about it. Hopefully nothing will be able to get inside of the plastic container and make it really yucky.

Hmmm, in other news, as I said, I've got my dentist appt tomorrow. I started my meds today, but Lourdes (PC Medical Officer) had a full plate today, so I only started on the paperwork and she checked blood pressure, pulse, and weight. I feel like last week I was probably 10lbs lighter since I had no water in me. Oh well, at least I'm healthier now. And that's an improvement on when I had my tummy probs. (When it was hurting, I wouldn't want to eat anything, so I'd just have brownies or lemon cake or whatever I could bake and just read in my hammock or bed all day. Not the best diet and exercise plan!) I did some squats the other day as part of an exercise routine and man... I don't know if I was still dehydrated some, or just since I had stopped it for the week I was sick and a couple more days when i was out of my house, but geeze! My quads were still telling me about it today walking down the stairs in the bus terminal today.

Last week in site (well, weekend since I got back Friday afternoon), I chugged out lesson plans for 20 hours of training. I've got 12 more hours to come up with a plan for. (I forgot to tell our Programing and Training Specialist, Carlos, that I'm not going to do plans for the 8 other hours of Week 4, nor plans for Tech Week (Week 5) which is all day every day, or 40 hours more. Every hour of planning takes almost a full page of writing justifications, learning objectives and procedures. Once I cover all the trainings that I'll be personally facilitating, I'm gonna call it quits!

Plus, I'm putting together the training manual. While the Goal 1 guide for "environmental education in the schools" is pretty much done, we decided at our last meeting that instead of doing two separate guides, we'd do one big one with getting started, goal 1, and goal 2. That means that to make it easier in the long run to integrate everything, I've gotta pull out all the material from goal 1 and move it from Microsoft Publisher (which is a beginner's kind of publishing program that doesn't let you move things around easily) to Adobe InDesign (which is much easier to work with in that you can move chunks of documents around instead of page by page and update changes, like fonts and tables of contents, in the book all at once). Only problem is that I have to copy and paste everything from one to the other. And for our goal 2, "environmental action in the community," everyone is working on different parts of it, which they should be sending in April 9th. So it's kinda weird trying to set up the pages without knowing what I'm going to receive... and trying to start writing intros to each of the four objectives without having all the info that will be going into each section. Perhaps I'll take these days of my COS meds and hold off on the other work until my boss starts paying for me to be in the city instead of the med office. :)

It's weird talking to other PCVs who are COSing (close of service, aka leaving at the same time as me) as they are just chilling in their sites until they leave. I feel like it's getting to be crunch time with everything that's happening right now. Well, I'm not doing much in my site right now either. A guy was supposed to stop by my house for computer lessons so he can then take an air conditioning repair class through the national training center/institute that does all kinds of job training for rural Panamanians. I'll have to find him when I get back to site and ask him what happened. To his credit, I came back to site on Good Friday (so he was probably in church most of the day), then there was Saturday (which even if it's not a designated religious holiday, my people always celebrate every day for nine days before any religious day), and then Easter Sunday (which is about as churchy as things get in a Catholic community). When Kayla told me that there was a 5 hour mass on Thursday just leading up to Good Friday and Easter... I decided (seconded by Kayla) that i wasn't going to go near the church until it was all over as I didn't want to get sucked in and spend (is that bad of me?) all that time when I could be getting other things done.

I cleaned off my desk. That was a big improvement. And hung up all my clean clothes that I washed. We didn't have water Sat afternoon or all day Sunday, so I didn't wash the other clothes and sheets I had waiting. But I did put clean sheets on my bed. My kitchen is pretty clean too. I accidentally left a bag with two onions in my food storage bag (where I keep my dry goods like beans). It didn't do so well. I could have rescued them, as only the outside layer was bad... but with my tummy, I just chucked the onions to the skinny dogs and annoying chickens. Plus, onions are like $0.60/lb. I can afford new ones when I go back next week. :)

Speaking of which, Kayla's b-day is April 11th. So we're going to the beach for the night... and then that following morning, I'm supposed to catch a bus in Penonomé at 6am to get up to Chiguiri Arriba at 7am to kick off the medical gira. (The US Army is bringing doctors in to treat the people in my area, and I think veterinarians too. I'm going to be their translator. lol, I hardly know how to describe all the things that go wrong with me in Spanish, so it should be interesting. I can at least talk to my gente and ask enough questions to get to what I need to tell the docs. They just better not use their slang on me. aka, Women with a stomach ache is the polite way to say they are pregnant, etc. We'll see! I'm just hoping that some of the docs will be cute and around my age. Heck if there is a cute one, I might put in another week of translating with them in the next town they head to. lol!

Kathryn, one of the girls who attended my Culture Week in site last September, is coming to help out too. She's a good friend and is going to spend the night at my house for at least one night. We'll have a girls night, which I'm looking forward to. I just hope she doesn't pick Monday night... as I'll just be arriving back to my house after a week of being away, and it won't be pretty. I think I need the cleaning fairy to come through. (The two air mattresses that popped a while back are folded up in a corner in my bedroom, no doubt collecting some kind of mold. I don't know if I should just bury them, burn them, try to haul them out of my community to dump in Penonome, or give them to one of my neighbors to try to fix. Decisions...)

Hope that catches you up some!

Electricity

Sometimes a Volunteer can’t help but be out of site. In order to do our job and maintain our wellbeing, we have to pop out of site every once and a while to visit agencies, load up on groceries, and reconnect with the outside world. For me, these trips can be accomplished in a day trip to the provincial capital. Other trips out of site for medical, programming, and training are lengthier, requiring at least one night out of site. And when these trips are combined, you better hope nothing catastrophic happens back at home.

This past week, something did: my town lost electricity. You might be questioning my campo-ness if after two years of living in rural Panama, I still can't live without light. That’s fine by me—I love electricity! While my electric treasures ate up my Settling-In Allowance and then some, they are worth every penny to me. Instead of buying my food bit by bit, I can literally load up on fruit, veggies, and meat in Penonomé’s Public Market. Depending on how long I’ll be out of site, I can let green tomatoes ripen in the crisper and fill my freezer with pineapple and papaya which will be ready for a great smoothie upon my return.

Typically my town loses electricity at least once a week, though only for a few hours at a time. Usually it’s out in the morning when I want to boil water for a cup of tea or around dinner time when I have a pot full of beans to cook. I’m flexible; I’ll wait, skip the meal, or go pasear.

Evidently, the electricity went out soon after I started my hike out of site. It was back on by the time I arrived home days later. However, the surge blew out my power strip, which protects all my kitchen appliances including my electric stove, toaster oven, blender, and refrigerator. The good news is my appliances survived. The bad news is my fridge was without electricity for a whole week.

How did I know that my electricity hadn’t just se fue-ed that day? The varying states of decomposition of produce told part of the tale. I surmised that the pile of dark green mush in the freezer was once a head of broccoli. The pumpkin had turned into pudding. The black bollo shapes were the once-green guineo chinos I received from Señor Toribio shortly before leaving. The sprouts growing in a cartucho on a carpet of fluffy, white mold were a gift of frijoles nuevos from Señora Berta. I was looking forward to those treats.

The three fruit flies that escaped when I first opened the door of the fridge told the rest of the tale. That may not seem like many, but these probably emerged from one of the thousands of maggots squirming over every available surface inside. I carried each load of spent food out of my kitchen, through my office, across my porch, around my house, and to my compost pile. With each trip, I’d make a pit stop at my sink to rinse off the larvae crawling along my fingers and across my wrists. I carried the shelves and drawers out of my kitchen, through my office, across my porch, and down the hill to the sink to wash and sterilize.

I then tackled washing the fridge itself with a sponge and a load of soap. Each swipe of the sponge lifted countless larvae from microscopic goo to gluttonous round ones to dark, crunchy chrysalis. While they were dreaming of their metamorphosis to reproduce and continue the species, I was doing everything in my power to stop it. I raced the sponge out of my kitchen, through my office, across my porch, down the hill and to the sink. Repeat.

At various moments throughout this three and a half hour cleaning spree, I’d feel ticklish—not unlike a soft touch or a slight breeze, bending the fine hairs on my body and exciting my tactile sense. I’d look and no doubt find a juicy, white worm wiggling to and fro on my shoulder or a small, almost anorexic youngster on the back of my hand. These too experienced a truncated life cycle.

Once I finally finished, I headed into the center of town to buy some food for dinner. While the selection at the kiosco is limited, I pieced together a decent meal. In my kitchen I chopped up an onion, carrot, and culantro, dumped them into a pot, poured in a bit of lentils, filled it up with water and a packet of Costilla Criolla, and put it on the stove. I turned the small, black knob to about medium heat. The little orange light didn’t go on. Great, the power was out again.

Mom, here's a guide to my Spanglish:

campo (a place way far a away, or someone who lives in the boonies)

pasear (action of going around to people's houses to chat and visit... almost always resulting in getting a full plate of rice and beans or some kind of food or drink)

se fue (left, went away)

bollo (baked corn meal in a tube shaped by the corn husks... I'm not a fan of them as they don't have much taste.)

cartucho (plastic bag)

guineo chinos (Chinese bananas, think big bananas that are more cubic than round)

frijoles nuevos (new beans)

kiosco (little store consisting on about three rows of 5ft long shelves, selling essentials like rice, beans, and soap)

Costilla Criolla (Panama's version of beef bullion cubes)

Carnival!

Carnival was... words just can't describe it! lol

I started off on Thursday at the beach after a big meeting at my site. And then on Friday we drove down to the Azuero Peninsula to celebrate in Las Tablas. One of my friends rented out the house of someone from his site (who then decided that she was going to stay too... leaving us with one bedroom and 15 people!). I'm glad I left early Monday morning, cause my liver sure wouldn't have been able to handle two more days. As it was, I think I was the only one in my group of friends not drinking at the discotecas. It's a marathon, and if I was going to make it as long as I did, I knew I would only be able to handle some drinks from noon to 4pm, nada mas. Well okay, one of the days I played flip cup after we got back to the house, but then called it quits. Oh... lol and I had a rum and ginger ale the very first night, but that was only because the Vice President of Panama had his secret service bring it over to me and my two friends. That was a crazy day! We shook hands with him at the parade, and he asked if he could take a picture of us. Then he sent it to the US Embassador of Panama, with a text message saying, "Your Peace Corps Volunteers are celebrating Carnival in Las Tablas. I'm taking good care of them." Then of course we got a picture with him and that's when he invited us to join him in his VIP area of the club he owns. (He owns half of Las Tablas too, plus the main alcohol company of Panama (Abuelo and Seco rums, and Balboa and Atlas beers), plus Pub Herrana (Herrera?) which is a club in every major city of Panama for all celebrations, fitting at least a couple thousand people in each one. When he introduced himself to us, he told us that he was the VP and all that he owned... as if we didn't know who he was already. hehe) But needless to say, we were taken good care of!

Then in the culecos (the water craziness during the day), we got on top of one of the water tanker trucks and danced and squirted people with the fire hoses. And then we got into one of the VIP areas that are elevated as well above the wall of people in the streets. (I dont' like being squished with a bunch of people, so it suited me well!) And that had an open bar. You can see then why I called it quits at 4pm when that part of the day ends!!!

All in all, it was a great last Carnival in Panama! I'll send pictures as I get them from people, as I wasn't going to chance bringing my own camera. Ahhhh, now back up to site and back to work!!!

I went to the last day of the teacher seminar today. Boy, the agenda wasn't followed at all... Instead of analyzing the environmental education guides (or touching them at all), evaluating the workshop, anything helpful... we listened to a powerpoint on the types of puppets and spent the rest of the day making our own puppets and creating a puppet show in groups. Wow. And they werent' even the puppet shows out of the guides (since the written objective of the workshop was to orient the teachers in the use of the guides). Soooo, that was pretty much a wasted day. I'm out of site again, which means I have internet. Life could be worse. :) And I'm earning major brownie points from ANAM, MEDUCA, and my Peace Corps bosses. Gotta rack those up while I can! I'll definitely have a thing or two to say to the National Director of Environmental Education when I meet with him on Monday. Like... hey, if you want educators to teach EE in the classroom and want them to use the guides you just spent a ton of money printing... maybe in the workshop you should do more than just pass out the guides after five days and 40 hours of sitting through irrelevent lectures and doing random dinamicas (minus the itsy-bit of time you gave the Peace Corps Volunteer, aka me, to explain everything about the guides). Of course, I'll have to be more politically correct when I offer that suggestion.

Teaching

My teacher training went well. I presented a lot of info they had never heard before (always good in keeping attention), and the index that I made addressed all their concerns from the previous person's lecture on how they are supposed to carry EE through all their subjects. Unfortunately, there was some major confusion on the part of the planners, so I had to drop my activities on how to use the indexes. But the teachers were all flipping through them through other people's presentations, so hah! I won and had the more interesting and useful info. :) I go next week to present it in the city with my boss to the national directors. And I'm picking teachers' brains this week in the seminar for more info for our CEC guide.

Lol, you'd appreciate this... Yesterday the teachers were divided into groups and assigned an EE activity to present to the whole group. I was sent to help one group who had what would seem to be a pretty easy activity on vertebrates. They had to draw five verts on different pieces of paper, write what group of vertebrates it belongs to on the back, and string it all together to make a mobile. So they draw a snake and label it a reptile. Good job. Then they draw a dog and label it a mammal. Nice. Then they draw a loro (parrot), pollito (chick), and a pescado (which means cooked fish that you would eat instead of "pes," the animal, but I wasn't even going to go there). They labeled all three "egglayers." Hmmm, okay, so that is a characteristic of them, but that's not their group. It took me 20 minutes of trying to be pc with them and explaining the heirarchy of animals (Kingdom, Phylum, Class, etc), rereading the example in the book "mamífero, ave, etc". They kept arguing back. And finally saying, "What I'm trying to say is, you're wrong." Then one person in my group got it and took an extra 10 minutes arguing with the others to change it to "birds" and "fish." Oye! But then again, it reminded me of EE seminars in the states that some teachers who had NO science background attended.

And I really am leaning more toward middle school science. While I like that high schoolers have more freedom with classes (like opportunities to get into teaching AP Bio and AP Environmental Science), clubs (like a science one ro Wilderness Club, etc), and push them toward internships (like Mrs. Santiago did with me to get me the cancer research one at Stanford)... I could get stuck teaching Chem or Physics or something, which isn't what I'd like. The middle school curriculum is what I'm more interested, and any of them (6, 7, or 8) would be okay. The lower pay of middle school would also come with less work and pressure I think too. So I'll change that sentence in the personal statement. :) Thanks again!

So the PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer, the doctor here) is going to call Washington and fill them in on all that's been happening and see if they will approve allergy testing or whatever other kinds of tests. She said that they have never before approved it, so we'll see on that one. But I've got to stay in the city until at least tomorrow until she lets me know what's up.

She talked to the GI doc again and updated him on my tummy woes. So I have a new med to take at night, and he gave the okay on taking the pills for my face (antifungal). What I didn't know, is that when he went in, he found that my liver was also inflamed some, which is why the dermotologist was concerned with giving me the antifungals with the other meds. OYE!!! I hate this, but really hope that this new one works. "It helps relieve stomach spasms, abdominal cramps, and anxiety related to gastric disorders." At least this will calm my tummy down. I'm banking on it. If not, I'll be visiting you soon! I just really want to get the teacher training done and perhaps finally a bird festival in before I go.

Oye, I'm not happy. So turns out that the anit-itch cream I got from the PC med office had a corticosteroid in it, which caused the initial flare-up. Then the allergist prescribed a cream that also had the same stuff in it, which resulted in a super huge blow up/fungal infection. And now i have a huge patch of tinea incognito (like ringworm but caused by corticosteroids) on my face, covering half my lips, down my neck, up my cheek, and to my ear. ...And it took them a whole month after telling me I should see a dermatologist (Dec 30) to actually make me an appointment as it grew. And the whole thing was caused because of a mistake in the first place. Not happy!

As for my tummy, it still hurts, I still have diarrhea (though not liquid style anymore), and I still don't believe that all these symptoms (tummy, face, and blood levels)are unrelated. I'm gonna talk to the PC doctor and make her do more tests instead of just giving me drugs to treat the symptoms of whatever might be underlying this all.

I'm considering bowing out March 15th and heading home. It would be right after a close of service conference for all the volunteers I came in with. I heard it might be possible to petition for a full COS (aka it would be recorded that I completed my service and I'd get full benefits there-in instead of an ET which is early termination).

Tummy woes

All went well at the hospital, but it was kinda weird... Like everyone was asking who was with me, friend, husband, etc. Nope, I came alone. By about the fifth nurse asking me, I was getting a little nervous, should someone have come? But yeah, total hospitalness... check in with admissions downstairs, put all my valuables (cell phone included) in the safe (so then I had no concept of time and just twiddled my thumbs), and then had to sit in a wheelchair waiting to be taken upstairs. On the fifth floor, I signed some more papers, then was taken into a dressing room to strip (but given cool little capri pants to wear under my gown... that had a flap for my butt LOL!), and then all my clothes and my magazine went into a locker. Then I waited some more in the wheelchair, got an iv, and my doctor (Lambraño from before) came. It was so nice to finally see a familiar face, even to know that that same face would be looking up my butt soon enough. Then I was wheeled into another room, and hopped on a bed, where the hospital people read a security kind of statement... which I had them repeat cause I heard something about a "baño" and didn't realize that they were just talking about my Dr. Lambraño. hehe So yeah, he repeated it in English and I was like, Ohhhhh. And then they put the seditive in the IV. I think I was knocked out for all of it, and I definitely took a nap in another room.

When I checked out, I got the results (or at least some of them). There´s some pictures, and a paper with his notes. Basically my colon is red and inflamed, with some spots (ulcers? I'm not good on my medical Spanish). He took biopsies of each of those (seven of 'em). And hopefully that will tell me what I've got. So currently my diagnosis is "nonspecific colitus" with a note that it's probably due to some type of infection. We'll see! Oye, this sure has been a long lotta months of this!

>>Turns out the spots were all sites of infections, but none were active infections. So still no answers but I another round of meds to try to kick start the peristalsis again.

Work update

The training went super well. It was all interactive and new information, so everyone was really attentive and participating and happy for it. Our boss kept saying he was shocked that no one was falling asleep as is often the case with our training when they invite trainers (other volunteers) to help out and they are unprepared and just rehash all the same info in a ¨discussion¨. So we did good. :) I´ll be doing a teacher training with teachers from all of Coclé, maybe others in February (tHE ANAM director forCoclé heard about the training I did and wants me to bef up their training.)

And in early Dec (10 and 11) I´ll be in Panama on a training of the trainers for PML (project management and leadersçhip). Then in January and maybe later too i´ll be training pairs of volunteers with their community counterparts. It keeps me busy as the principal at my school hates me and makes me feel unwelcome there. If he only knew what he was missing. lol

Over the river and through the woods

Craziness... I crossed out of Kaylas community on Thursday night in the last chiva out. Well in the morning on Friday, a MOP (Ministry of Public Works) truck went across carrying gravel to fix the road... and the whole bridge came down! THe bridge just split in half like a V into the creek below and the truck rolled down with it. No one was hurt, but Kayla will be walking for at least a couple of months... and her stores in town probably won´t be restocked until then too. Crazy, huh? It´s been on the news every night since (the first day she was interviewed too) in the section of news that they go through all the problems in Panama that the government has yet to act upon. I think her community feels really forgotten about since they´ve been asking for a new bridge forever and will still have to wait a long time even now that they don´t have any bridge. Oh Panama!

Projects and creations

Geesh, getting people to write all those articles, digging for pictures, and everything it took to put the whole thing together was a lot of work. That's why they say Peace Corps is a 24/7 job! I spent a lot of days last week waking up at 5:30am, getting to the office at 7am, working there until close at 7pm, and then working in my hostel until 2am just to do it all over again. Next time I should have more help. But I'm happy how it turned out. (Did you notice though that I wrote June on the cover instead of September? No one else noticed who looked it over before print, so I'm not taking full blame. hehe)

My next project is putting together a training manual for my sector, mainly on environmental education. I'm also waiting on my Program and Training Specialist (assistant director of my sector) to finally hand back his corrections on my Bird Education Manual that I translated and adapted from an English guide I have. I know I have Spanish words in there, and verbs conjugated... but I'm not sure if people would really say some of the things I want to. That organization in the states (Council for Environmental Organization) will be writing about me in their newletter that goes out to all national parks, nature centers, and anywhere else environmental education is taught. So I'm keeping myself in the game for my return to the states and jobmarket.

We have our Regional Meeting tomorrow, when all Peace Corps Volunteers in my Province (Cocle) join together to present what we've been up to with the government agencies we work with. And then all the Volunteers and someone from headquarters are all coming out to my site for the other half of the meeting and to spend the night. It should be fun, as I've planned it at a cool organic farm. And the wifes of the guys who work on the farm have started extracting essential oils from plants like mint and vanilla to make into soaps, and using the same process have made some all-natural alcohols out of pineapple and mango harvested from the farm. :) Oh, and in a Volunteer Advisory Council meeting I was in last night, I won a grant to finish off my Leadership seminar series I've been doing with groups in town. I've definitely been keeping myself busy!!!

Oh and my new favorite drink is to climb up a coconut tree, chop one down with my machete, open it up with the same tool, and blend coconut with run and frozen papaya. Mmmmmm. Don't worry, I don't climb up the tree too much to make it a regular treat. It's a fun drink for when I have visitors!

Making a house a home

I finally feel like I’m moved into my house. Well, I still have a ways to go, but I’m getting there. I hosted Culture Week and had quite a few guests staying at my house. One of whom was my Regional Leader (RL), a third year Volunteer who works with agency relations, site development, and volunteer support. She stayed with me earlier for a Volunteer Visit (aka my one-year mark). And she was just as frustrated as I was with my lack of tables.

My house in Chiriquí had a great big table, just moments before I moved into it. Then my renters exchanged it for one half of its size. This time around, I moved into my new house with no tables. My renters were about to take the bed out of the house too when I stopped them and explained that I had no furniture to move into the house. Later that first week, he brought over a table for me to use.

A table was a big improvement on none. However, I have a home office. Yes, that’s right, in the middle of a rural town in the tropics of Panama, I’ve set myself up with an office. Or at least it seems like it. I have loads of manuals that I refer to frequently, currently sitting on the ground in molding cardboard boxes turned on their sides for makeshift bookshelves. I bought a printer just two months after swearing in due to frustrations with customer service at internet cafes. Well, I think my printer might have some problems right now because cockroaches were living inside of it at my second host family’s house. I tried getting all the turds out of it, so we’ll see if it works better now. And then I have my baby laptop, external DVD drive, and mouse. Those I keep in watertight bags when they aren’t in use. And they get a drying out every once and a while with the school’s dehumidifier. Needless to say, I used the table for work.

That left nothing little surface area for the kitchen. Heck, rice and beans don’t require too much prep, right? Okay, so I don’t really eat rice and beans unless I’m out of money for the week and can’t get onions or meat or… oh wait, sometimes the store doesn’t even have those. (I load up on veggies in Penonomé.) I used a shoe-rack, turned food shelf, for my stove and toaster oven and kept my blender on the floor. For a cutting surface, I’d either balance it on the top of the oven or a five gallon bucket. (I’ve got lots of buckets for when the aqueduct runs dry, like today.)

Evidently, my RL didn’t think I could or should live like that. She was doing half the cooking so probably got frustrated herself. I have a couple kids who aren’t (very) afraid of my guard dogs and come to my house often. While I was out, she told them that they needed to tell their parents that I needed tables, one to put my stove on and another for food prep and to eat at.

The very next day, I got a handmade table delivered to my door and moved into my kitchen! It’s super pretty. Okay, so it’s campo style, but you wouldn’t believe the work that went into it. Have you ever sawed boards of tropical hardwood by hand? Oye, I did once in my old site, and luckily, I haven’t had to again. So the boards were cut, and hewn? I don’t know the word, but you know when they shave them down so they look all pretty? (Boards are made by chainsaw, the only machine used in this process.) And the legs of the table are all decorated with an in and out kind of design, cut by machete. I had to go to the city the very next day, but I sure appreciated his rush order.

Upon my return, I was greeted by a second, larger table. This one is made out of even heavier wood, as I have difficulty lifting it and moving it by myself. (My homeboy moved it into my kitchen for me, but I did some remodeling after he left.) I think I’m going to use the little table to eat and work outside on. It’s light enough that I can carry it back and forth. And the new table is lower than the last one, so I can type on it easier, and stand up while cooking on the old one. It all worked out perfectly!

In other homemaking news, I bought some bright fabric to make curtains for my house. I had some already, but they were all random: Winnie the Pooh on one window, Mickey Mouse on another, flowers on some, and green lace on others. Unfortunately, I didn’t measure my windows first. Some were 50” wide like I thought, though others are larger. I didn’t buy enough material, so I decided a two-tone design with a large stripe of color in the middle on the larger ones would look pretty neat. After hand stitching three curtains this way, I hung them… only to realize that my room now looks like the circus came to town. Oh well! It’s better than kids peeking in. (I still need to teach them that they can’t just come barging through my door, though my office/living room, and into my kitchen when they think I might be sleeping… Ah privacy, I can’t wait for that again!)

Once I finish all my curtains and clean up a bit, I’ll show you a tour of my house. Until then, I’ll be thinking about all of you!

Camino Real Gira

Since I haven´t been so great about updating my blog, I figured I better share some of my friends´ blogs with you to give you a better idea of what I´ve been up to. We did a gira or hike through Colon, the province north of Panama City through indigenous villages, crossing rivers, hiking over the Continental Divide, and finally reaching the Carribean Sea in one of the hardest backpacking trips I have every completed. Though we only covered thirty miles, much of the hike was in rivers and then in streams... which still spanned over ten meters wide and over three feet deep. Fighting the current and bracing against the pain caused by sand rubbing off layer after layer of skin around our ankles made for a challenge. Once we finally made it to our final site, an Afro-Antillian community on the beach, we couldn´t wait to take showers and clean up. Though we were to find that the town had been out of water for the past ten weeks. Hmmm, back to the river it was to soap up and rinse off! It was a great experience, packing with history of the Camino Real, teaching and learning about nutrition and alcohol in rural villages, and relying on eachother to make it through.

Here´s Elena´s blog with links to the history and maps of our hike and pictures on Facebook: http://panama.tumblr.com/

Ashely, who lives in Colon where we ended our hike, spoiled us all with her cooking. She's a great cook, and they have more food in their house than a tienda (town store) due to a Costco run while her parents were visiting. Her pantry is probably on par with a typical pantry in the states. Our eyes were wide and our mouths were drooling over it all. She also had a bunch of recipe books, including one called Four Ingredient Cookbook. It is a really pretty book with lots of great recipes that don't call for a ton of different ingredients. Wihle some of them are a little impractical here due to some random ingredients, there are plenty of good ones I want to try. By the tiem Courty visits or whoever comes next, I'll have Hollandale sauce for eggs benedict, soup stocks, and breads and veggie dishes all from scratch. That's the hope at least. But at least I won't be at a loss of what to do when I don't have any eggs to cook or have too much cilantro than I know what to do with.

I just got back from some early morning birding at Gamboa, near the Pipeline Road. They have a huge observatory tower, rising over 100ft from the forest floor and popping out through the canopy. It offered a great vantage point for lots of birds, including a couple species of toucans, bright blue cotingas and danaskis, spotted doves, sloths, and more. And instead of a $60 cab ride, we only paid $18 each for cab ($25), binocular rentals ($5), and entrance fee ($10 for Panamanians). I just love being a Panamanian with all the deals I get with entrance fees. hehe It was a beautiful place though, and I want to coordinate with them for my Flying WILD stuff. And I don't remember if I told you, but they (the marketing and publicity director of Flying WILD in the States) emailed me since he heard from others in the office what I was doing down here and wants to include it in their newsletter that goes out to all the educators using the program across the states. Pretty good networking for when I get back, huh? :) I wrote my boss to cover my tail and make sure Peace Corps is okay with me saying whatever. I can't imagine they'd have a problem with it though, as that's good publicity for them too. Now all I've gotta do is hold the festival in my site! hehe