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!