New Song: Up All Night

Pretty sure you guys will like this new song. Well if you have any music sense that is. Share this one as I think others will like it too. You can also download this one too.
Up All Night by californiaadam

Teach Me How To Dougie. Or Whatever

So you can go ahead and make this video viral if you want:). Teaching the kids how to dance the dougie to a song that I'm pretty sure your not supposed to the dougie to.

Betrayal

Things are getting a little weird up in here. Things are happening and I'm not sure where they are going to go. For starters, a bunch of the directors of our artisan/business group along with myself just found out/realized that Solomon had been receiving 5% of sales of everything they make or sale including tours. I'm sure there was a meeting at some point where Solomon said something like “so I'm going to take 5% of the stuff we sell because we will sell more” and everyone nodded yes while staring into oblivion. I'm glad the others eventually realized that this is outrageous and that it is probably not right that the person taking the order over the phone is getting more money than the person creating the product that takes two straight days. Everyone also just realized that the tour guides are making about half as much as we are paying the owners of the farms to walk through them. This is absolutely ridiculous and when I saw this almost lost my shit.

I specificly remember when we planned out all this that there was no percentage for anyone selling the tour and that we would give about .50 to each farm for each tour. It just so happens that the tourists walk through Solomon's and his brothers farm during the tour so you can see where the money is going. It's not that all this is shady. I guarantee that he presented this to the group and they stood there in silence. It more that he about 10x smarter than most people in the group and he knows he can get away with it. Here is an example of the pure genius of another member of the directors. To measure out sugar quantities for each bag of hot chocolate mix he was filling up small plastic bags of sugar of once ounce and then stapling them shut to later be used to put into the mix and sell. There are 2 ounces of sugar in each bag so the next person had to open the staple on two bags and pour the contents into the mix. I simply asked why he didn't just measure out 2 ounces each time and pour it into the mix and he said that was probably a good idea. Solomon has the advantage.

So since a couple people are just finding out all this crap about how he is raking in the dough while everyone else is scraping by me and three of the other guys had to hold an emergency secret meeting to talk about how they were going to go about presenting all this to the rest of the group and wanted to know what I thought about it. I kida felt bad going behind Solomon's back but I knew that if we brought all this up with him present that he would take over and get his way. We talked for hours and they are going to have a meeting with the whole group to try to resolve all of it. I think my best word of advice was for them to do a silent voting system so no one can see if they are going against them. We will see. I won't be there I can tell you that.

As for the other stuff, well that's getting weird too. Well not weird. Just changing. We have a lot of tourists I'm pretty sure it has a lot to do with the article that I wrote and the time of the year, but the thing is that is has been raining non stop and people seem to be slipping everywhere. I think it's funny when I see tourists show up in sandals and shorts like this was the beach.

I've started some preliminary stuff in looking for good houses to make water tanks for as I've been starting to plan for a group of high school kids to come down for 3 weeks with their teacher from the states to bring some money and do a project. I that sounds like pure hell to a lot of volunteers as they usually don't like sharing their site with anyone and the don't like young adults usually and especially from the states. I on the other hand don't mind. I worked at a summer camp for most my life and loved it. I think it will be a great learning experience for the kids and for the community and it will be kind of a last big hora as I will be leaving 3 months after they arrive. That's right I only have about 9 months left. Crazy huh? It's gone by so fast at some moments and slow as a snail in others. The next couple months are going to fly.

Other weird stuff. I got two types of amoebas at the same time and had blood in my stool. That was fun. I sat on the couch at our regional house and watched movies all day trying to forget about the knifing pain in my stomach. I had to be close to a toilet anyways as their was no warning as to when the little worms wanted out. Tonight is domino night and its right next to my house so its going to be loud. I've found the only way to get around it is to play along with them that way I'm less annoyed at the slamming of dominos. Until next time....

Help!

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Chicken Versus Turkey

Damn Turkeys are freaking mean. I'm pretty sure this is the same turkey that chases me sometimes.

Mucus, Coffee, and Day Dreaming

I laid awake most the night listening to the pounding music of the bar down the street try to drown out the noise two volunteers were making in the room next to me. It sounded as if they were wrestling while trying to kill a pig. You figure it out. I was also very sick with globs of green mucus oozing out of my nose. I was not in the greatest of moods yet I was not mad. It made no sense. I should have been fuming. Anyone else would have been at least slightly annoyed, but not me. I had come in earlier that day to meet with Solomon to look at a couple different options for internet. He was there to file an official police report for the guy in our community whom stole three hundred bucks from the artisan house. His mom went to the river to wash clothes and boom. Money gone. Their after him supposedly. I was feeling like a wet piece a horse shit and internet face time on skype with my parents and Michelle was what I needed for sure so that's what I did. It was refreshing seeing and hearing them and even though I was real sick everything seemed better for at least a little bit.

During that time using the internet I decided to down 3 cups of coffee of which I now blame for me not being able to sleep. But it was still strange. I had crashed mentally only hours before but lay awake in bed tossing and turning and switching things on and off like the tv and my phone. A couple things came up swirling around my mind during this really long night. One, I should do more writing. Two, I should do more writing that is part of something bigger. I know that when I put my mind to I can write and I can write well and I feel like I have been not using what some would call my “potential”. I started thinking to myself what I could write if I wanted to start doing it more often. I had started to write down some personal stories, of which there are many, but had grown bored with trying to put everything into a time-line as well as scared that people would start coming after me with an axe when I released it. I wasn't painting people in the greatest of lights.

So decided that I was once a great story teller and will be again. Well, I wrote a couple short stories once that people seemed to like. Well, my step brother seemed to like them. That was probably considering that as soon as I learned how to type and barely old enough to make anything coherent, I wrote a story about a bunch of kids falling into a well and then trying to escape. One by one each one died a terrible and graphic death until eventually at the end we find out it is all a dream. Until the main character actually dies in real life and the story ends. Real nice huh? Ya, my step brother really liked that one but I think it might show a little bit of disturbing behavior. Not sure why my teachers didn't pull me out of class and lock me in a room just to make sure I wasn't going to bring a meat cleaver to school. I guess it was the early nineties.

So I laid awake thinking to myself “I'm going to write great stories again”. I'm going to write a story about a boy who goes to a foreign land and runs through the jungle with special tiger shoes and barely misses branches as he jumps from one rock to the next and then comes to a clearing where he almost falls off a 1000 foot cliff and is saved by his great tiger claw grip shoes. That's what I'm going to do. I thought about how great this story was going to be. How the plot was going to be this kid learning this great lesson in life and how he was going to open up some magic door within time and space and find the answer to everything old and magical within the confines of this small jungle village of a people trapped in time. Yes folks. I was dreaming. I was just still awake.

I woke up with about 3 hours of sleep under my belt and with one of the suspected pig killing culprits knocking at my door to use the hot water in my shower. I stumbled across the street and got some coffee. I was going to need some time to recover from my mucus, coffee, and day dreaming hangover.

Chispiando

Written and played in my little house. You can hear how close everyone else is to me on this one. Hope you guys like it. It's an all acoustic one:
Chispiando by californiaadam

The Power, The Chinese, The Farming

I'm sitting in the dark corner of a Chinese restaurant in Almirante. I came into town today to wash my clothes and use the internet. I immediately noticed a problem when I stepped out of the taxi and looked into the buildings around me. The power is out here and there is nothing I can do now. No internet. No air conditioning. No clothes washing. It wouldn't be too bad if I wasn't extremely tired and annoyed as I have been for the last three days or so. I can't really pin down my crankiness. I just know that it's there. It has been more and more frequent. I'm thinking it might have something to do with the holidays. But then again, it might have something to do with just being run down.

I feel like there will eventually be a point where I feel good in the morning and not dragging myself out of bed after falling back asleep 5 times at around 9am which is pretty late here. There was a time when I was getting out of bed at 6am. I had energy. Now days, and especially if it's raining, its hard to get out of bed. My main group of work is too busy to listen to me and it feels like tours are a second thought these days. Some of that is due to the protests over the large electrical transmission lines and the other is due to this gigantic meso-american farm project funded by the world bank that my community just became a part of. Because of it they have to work almost every day in their farms.

About the giant project: From what I've seen the project seems pretty legit but of course it has its unintended consequences and glitches just like every other aid program done in large scale. I don't want to take away from what they are doing though because I do feel like it is important and I can see that they have done the best with the resources they do have. The basic idea seems to be to find organized farm groups that have farms and pay them to make them better which in turn gives the farmers more money in the long run from increased product and helps in not cutting down more rainforest to put in more inefficient farms. Its a great idea. They are not really paying the people per se, but really just paying for all materials, tools, seeds, and classes they want to take to make their farms better. Its 27k and they have to spend it all is what I was told which I don't think will be a problem.

It is a fact that focusing on increased production on existing farms saves rain forest and other lands. If you can squeeze what you need out of the land you are already using why cut down down more trees. This is why I don't have a huge problem with large scale farm projects. I have a huge problem with the harmful chemicals used in large scale production and I have an even bigger problem with the evil corporations that get subsidies for no god damn reason other than they already have a lot of money and lobby, and whom push out small farmers. I could write 40 pages about that and you can probably tell I'm not happy about it so I'm going to spare you and I both the amounts of time it would take to write and read it. Continuing, so the point is put more into the farms that these people already have and to make sure they are doing right the project calls for receipts for everything, close oversight of the farms and their continuing progress, and the money to be given out at small increments to make sure someone doesn't run off with it. I like it.

Of course what they probably didn't see coming was the fact that the people in the group that have cacao farms that are really old need to do so much work in them ie cut the entire farm down and start again because the trees are too old, and the people that have sparsely farmed land are cutting down what is left of the virgin ground vegetation because it's easy. I will say that about 90% of all nutrients in a rainforest are carried in the canopy and from what I've seen so far the canopy is not being effected much. Another unintended consequence is something that I think is not only unavoidable, but also probably just not talked about as it will only stir up a lot of crap that might take down the whole thing. That is the fact that the people are so busy now, and have to work in their farms I they want to participate, that they are sending their kids to work in place of themselves. Now this is a usual occurrence here in panama, but if it came out that they were promoting kids to work in the farms instead of going to school then I could see some problems. One could also argue that with more money in the family that they would be able to send more of their kids to better schools. I believe that, and I also don't think that missing a little school here is that big of deal as of right now considering Panama ranks 128 out of 138 in terms of education in the world. They could learn more by watching T.V.

So the lady told me that there is no coffee because there is no power. That is because all coffee comes from the machine and is not made on the stove. Oh the good ol days when all you needed was a fire. Oh wait that's how it is about a 5 min walk down the road....

Sandy Pocket

So, shit.

That's how I'm going to start this post because I can. And because I've reading a lot of Hunter S Thompson and got inspired to rebel against my typewriter/computer. And also, because a little bit of shit hit the fan. The fan on slow speed at least. It all boils down to the government here not paying when they said they would. Let me explain. There are these gigantic power lines that trench their way through my community that have done nothing but bring death to the forest and its fuzzies and hurt to the people whom own the land. Now Ngabe people usually don't give a flying crap about what the goes on in the world until it comes to them. Which makes sense because they are usually worried about what they are going to eat that day and which kid they are going to tell to go get the food. Anywho, there are these freaking huge power lines that tower through my community and when the good ol government put them in 5 years ago they plowed the forest over including all the chocolate farms and then erected these huge metal erections.

My community probably wouldn't complain too much if they were actually getting something from the power lines like maybe..hmmmm....POWER! Apparently it's all going to Mexico which seems silly but whatever. They did give each person a small portion of money which I thought was sufficient, but now the manure has grazed the blender. Yes Sr. the power company wants to put another line on the other side of the tower. Well this put the Ngabe into frenzy and the more organized lesser percent of them decided that if the government and the big business were going to get money out of this deal then by god they were going to too. Living here I see the whole thing as ridiculous. How the hell can you put power lines through a town and not even give them power. I do want to mention that I''m glad they don't have power. If they did I would have to invest in a large carton of ear plugs to block the terrible tipico music they play on the radio.

So here is this large company starting to put power lines on the other side of the giant towers and the Ngabes are like “Hell no. Where's are money bitch”? Except they said it in Ngabere. I have to hand to them. They had meetings. They negotiated prices with the government. They set dates and got representatives. Then when the government didn't pay them, they threw a bunch of shit in the street to block it, cooked up some hot chocolate and said it was a protest. Of course they had the typical megaphone which wasn't any louder than someone yelling but sounded cool. So here we are. After days of this malarky the government has said no word and in the mean time half my community is blocking the main road to Bocas del Toro from anywhere else in the country.

Now, I'm not going to take sides but I'm going to point out the facts. Big companies that don't give stuff to the poor people they are hurting are evil. Big companies that tear down the forest are evil. Governments that let all this happen are evil. The Ngabe expect money for everything and never pay taxes. The government did say that they were going to get the money a long time ago after negotiations and they did not deliver........sooooo.... did someone fall asleep while driving the money to the poor people living under these monstrosities. I mean not only are they probably getting all types of third world cancer from these metal beasts, but they are being slapped in the face by the government about it too. I don't know. Those are just the facts. No bias.

So what has this done to my work here. Well, Samuel, our main tour guide and the only one that speaks english has been in the protest for days now. In the meantime I have had to do the tour which is NOT the point of me being here, we have had orders for product that we couldn't send, the stickers for our product could not get through, tourists can't get through, and there is no cell service there so when Salomon goes and someone calls about chocolate anything they get nothing. Failure.

They say they are going to pay tomorrow. We will see. In the meantime a women from my community has had to leave at midnight to go to the city to sell her baskets with a government group.

I do have to hand it to the police. They know when not to screw with the Ngabe. They don't do a damn thing. In fact, they just hang out at the protest and talk to the protesters. Of course there is always only about 2 or 3 cops, but they learned their lesson against these people and that is they are tough as nails and hard as rock and they don't back down. I wouldn't screw with them, but that's not saying much.

So we have that going for us. Great stuff huh? I had to run a tour today and it would have been fine except for the fact that I had worked with the artisan group in the morning filling bags of dirt and I was extremely tired for some god awful reason only known to the worm gods living in my gut. Jesus. I got stop reading so much HST.    

Defining Moment

I stepped off the bus as the musky thick air rushed my face. The difference in climate between Bocas and the mountains of Volcan is remarkable. I had just gotten back from a semi lavish Thanksgiving event involving most of the Peace Corps volunteers here in Panama. The event is a much needed rest for some and a chance to not sleep for others. In any case, it is and was a much looked forward to gathering of epic proportions. The food, the wine, the hot showers, the fluffy down bedding, the crisp mountain air cool and forgiving. Perfect. Of course the best part is always getting to share it with friends. Hanging out with the guys, particularly the ones from my group, is something I've started to look forward to more and more and being so spread out definitely doesn't make that easy.

As I started walking down the dark bamboo lined road I started thinking about my time here and what it really means. As of late I've gone into these philosophical questions and as I keep asking myself what my place in this crazy world should be. As of right now I'm doing what I want to. I'm helping people help themselves and the best part is that I get to see the reward from it. I'm realizing that it's the sacrifices I've made that now make me question my place. Every time I get ill and weak and can't think straight and just want to sit in air conditioning, I ask myself if I'm really doing enough to justify my existence in this place. Of course the answer is always yes, but with only 10 months left of service I simultaneously feel rushed and underwhelmed. The artisan group is busier than ever and I know they must be one of the busiest in Bocas. There is just not much time for anything other than hard physical work. Grinding chocolate, chopping weeds all day, wrapping chocolate, tending to the cacao trees, having meetings, making compost. These are some of the things. What is my place now. Here. Now that we are busy. Now that we have things to do. Pushing for excellence isn't the point and shouldn't be done at this time as pushing them too hard will cause problems and look for the easy way out.

I sometimes wake up now thinking that I'm a different person. That is a weird statement that could be taken in a couple different ways so let me explain. I wake up non-defined. I wake up with a blank mind. It doesn't matter what my friends do back home. I haven't seen most the people I love for awhile and not as often as I should and I'm different because of it. Not bad. Not good. Just different. I'm not defined by the things I once had. I'm not defined by my ambitions. And I'm certainly not defined by the people I know half way around the world. What I am defined by here are my actions and my words. They mean everything. I work, I'm a worker. I take charge, I'm a leader. This is something that is different than back home. It takes getting used to. It's not better. It's not worse. It's different.

My thoughts and mood have changed in the last month and for good reason. The holidays are approaching and it's always a weird time. I've always had mixed feelings about the holidays as it was always a time of turmoil and indifference for me. A time of stress. Great stress. Especially as a kid. I do remember Christmases/ Hanukkahs that I enjoyed and I definitely liked Thanksgiving as a kid, but for the most part, holidays remind me of times that weren't so happy and that had nothing to do with how many or how expensive the presents were that I got. I can't pinpoint why those times seem so dark for me. I guess it was the shuffling back and forth between my dad and mom's houses and the expectations and the step brothers, mothers, and dad's and the lack of attention combined with a complete distrust of parents and authority all together. I'm sure someday a shrink can figure it out. In the meantime. Here. In this place now. Something has changed. I'm on the way out. I'm starting to think about my future. I've realized things like I want kids. Soon. A whole bunch of defining things that are yet to be defined.

When only the words you speak make you the person you are, you have more at stake. When each word you speak carries this kind of weight it is only natural to make each syllable count as your mistakes and triumphs may resonate for the span of a lifetime.      

Dreamin Away in Bocas

So, its been a long time since I've put out any new music so I decided to come up with some new stuff. I've definitely been inspired by events and things going on around me down here and I hope to record some more new songs like this one. You can hear that the night in the background is well alive and the recording isn't the best as it was done in low quality on my iPhone but its something and you can hear the song well enough. Hope you enjoy it.
Dreamin by californiaadam

I Can Machete Too

So I decided to finally go to the finca with my neighbor. I wrote about it in the post before this so I'm not going to go over it again. The sounds are what they make while working. I think it helps to release stress. Its 8 min long so enjoy every second of it.

Why We Lost the Vietnam War: Just Another Day in The Finca

I wiped the sleep from my eyes and tried to peek through the boards that make up my wall to see if the store was open. It wasn't and I had exactly 30 minutes until I was due to follow my neighbor, Beli, up into his farm to work all day. The community store not being open was a problem as it held whatever I was to make for breakfast and lunch. I got ready and packed all the essentials. Camera, two bottles of water, water filter, machete, iphone, machete sharpener. The store opened and I darted towards my delicious future of eggs for breakfast and pb and j for lunch. Just in time. As my feet sucked themselves into my boots they were already gone with me running after. There is no “lets go” here. There is just looking into the eyes and then walking away.

I caught up quickly and could already feel the weight of my long pants, long sleeve shirt, and heavy duty plastic boots. This was going to be a grueling day but I was ready. Only the night before I was bent over in the latrine feeling the effects of amoebas crawling around in my stomach looking for a fight. I gave it to them. I swallowed 4 cloves of raw garlic and woke up with enough energy to keep my promise to Beli that I would work with him. Now the challenge was keeping up.

I've written before about the sheer strength and endurance of the people here but I feel like I need to go over it again. I've never seen any one group of people such as them that are able to climb straight up a mountain for 2 hours without stopping, without eating before hand, and without drinking any water and then rest for five minutes and start working. I've also never seen anyone take a punch like a Ngabe. After talking about for so long I finally got to show Salomon what UFC was one night. He was interested, but quickly came with a statement I will never forget. “A Ngabe would beat all these guys” is what he told me. I quickly explained that these were highly trained fighters that spent half their lifetimes working towards this moment. He responded with “have you ever seen a Ngabe fight? They don't give up and you could never choke a Ngabe like these guys are being choked. They are just too strong”. The thing is is that I don't doubt it. These guys punch each other in the face as hard as they can for fun after working all day hiking up mountains swinging machetes and carrying 100lb sacks of cacao on their back for a mile at a time. Did I mention that they pretty much only eat boiled green bananas and many sleep only on planks of hard wood. Tough.

There was 4 of us which is the normal working group and I was hiking right behind Beli with the others following. Machete in hand and boots sinking into fresh deep mud I felt alive. That was until half way up when I was sure my heart was going to stop all together. It was only 8 in the morning and the sun had only been up for awhile but it seemed like we were trapped in a sweat lodge on a treadmill pointed straight up. I knew I was falling behind when the boy that was part of our work group and half my age started pushing me up the hill from behind. I was struggling and trying to keep up was taking its toll. About ¾ of the way up I called for a break to no avail. Wasn't happening. We were almost there and a lot of work to do so stopping was out of the question except to fill our containers with water from the stream. I filled my water bottle filter as I knew I would need it.

As we made it into the farm I could feel my body going into a state I can only describe as shock. It seemed that it had deified all expectations and decided to find a second wind. We got straight to work only stopping to sharpen machetes. Almost no talking was done with most communication coming from the grunting, screaming, and yelping that is the work yell of gritando. Think Tarzan going through puberty stepping on a nail. I quickly got into it and I was in the zone. Slashing ground cover with the rainforest canopy above. Little light escaped to the forest floor as my machete sliced through shrubbery, small trees, and long hanging vines all while yelling the call of a jungle worker. It was liberating and the sounds from the other workers worked as an energy builder like no other. Each one calling out for the next one to work harder and yell louder. Hours peeled away only stopping to drink water and sharpen machetes.

Other than one snake and one large owl most animals stayed away with reason. We made our presence known and they were wise to take heed. Soon the rain beat down on us and slowed my body down to a crawl. Eventually looking like a mad man swinging a machete in the jungle aimlessly switching hands as blisters began to swell and muscles began to fail all together. I was spent and knew the hardest part was ahead.

We spent another 30 minutes or so finding what we would cook for dinner which was baby fern heads and a type of cilantro before we started to make the decent down. It took every little bit of energy I had left in the deep core of my body not to fall down each muddy cliff and rocky grade we went down. A normal trail would have been a switchback. That just takes too much more time to a worker where time is the enemy. Straight up. Straight down. You fall, your in trouble.

I made it down and crawled into my house to pass out into the hammock only to wake up 30 minutes later in the sweltering heat my tin roof started to put off. I smelt terrible and looked even worse. Muscles barely able to hold myself up I struggled to get to my shower.

So this is why I think we lost the Vietnam war. There was just no way we were ever going to be in good enough shape and tough enough to withstand the same conditions they were accustomed to and evolved around. Just wasn't happening. Gringos don't belong in the Jungle. I'm living proof. 3 days have gone by and I'm starting to get some control of my legs back. I expect to make a full recovery by next week.

Worth the Pain

Weeks have started to go by much slower now. I'm not sure what exactly it is. Well ya I do. It's the fact that right now I pretty much have the work habit of a slug. I had the ol Ascaris Worm about two weeks ago and took the first set of pills to kill them. I also had a cold at the time. And yesterday I took the second set of pill to kill the eggs that hatch later. I can now see why many people here just don't have the energy to do anything. It seems to just suck a ton of energy from ones body leaving me feeling like getting up and going to the latrine is a big deal. I'm hoping that after today I will start to get back some of my energy but it seems that these things take about a week to flush out. In the meantime I've having to suck down coffee to stay away and getting up in the morning is a chore.

The weather has been off and on lately between nice cool breezes and scorching hot sun. Last night it rained like hell and didn't let up until mid morning. It's a nice change and gives the illusion at least of some type of season down here. For the most part, there is the rainy season and the not as rainy season. We seem to be in between both.

The Artisan group is even more busier now with a new grant project funded by the World Bank. The money is going to help farms be more productive which has been proven to save rainforest. The thinking is that if your able to squeeze more out of your farm, you won't have to cut down the forest to grow more stuff. I still think we need to outlaw beef. I know it sounds crazy but I see first hand what just 400 hamburgers does to a forest. Damn those Germans for creating something delicious and damn Americans for over producing and subsidizing something to death. On another note, I haven't eaten beef in about 9 months now. I can't go completely off meat down here just because I'm pretty sure my immune system will revolt and start dismantling my body while I sleep, but its a step.

Back to the Artisan group. They are working hard. Tons of time is being devoted to this new project and rightly so. I've been working on getting this whole giant solar panel and cacao machine grant together and it looks like I'm actually getting somewhere. There happens to be a fund available for such projects and I've already done most of the leg work. The last thing to do pretty much is this huge excel sheet that plans for profit and savings so when it comes time to replace things with the machine they will have the money. I know they will save the money and I know it will be fine without this thing but my boss wants it done and I guess it is about time I at least looked an excel sheet down here. I usually just start writing numbers down on a piece of paper and put them in magical squares of which I erase and write new numbers every ten seconds. I guess I could save some trees.

So I already told you I feel like crap which is a given but having less than a year left has given me hope that everything is going to be alright. I swear to god that this country is trying to kill me slowly and I hope by the end of it I still have the gift of sight and smell. I have gained weight and tons of people have noticed. There are a couple reasons for this. When I first got here I was looking pretty healthy and a little jolly around the mid-section for a skinny dude at least, but when I got my first round of soul stripping diseases I lost a ton of weight. Almost fifteen pounds. Yes, I had six pack abs from not eating for a week and constantly clenching my stomach from puking, but I looked more closely like Guy Pierce in every movie he has been in. In the past couple months since I have had more time I have been hitting the home made weights pretty hard along with the Johnny Cakes (home made coconut bread) and it is starting to show. People in my community comment on it. Volunteers. Even my boss told me I'm looking better. This is at least a lot better to hear than the usual “holy crap you look terrible. Have you been eating”?

The usual rashes and bug bites and weird skin crap is still haunting me, but I've at least started to live with it. When I get a chigger bite on my genital region now I just poor rubbing alcohol on it and hope I'm not killing any chances of kids later on in life, or at least normal ones. I cut my hair short again. Just about as short as last year. Almost the exact same thing happened too. I told the person cutting my hair that I just wanted a little cut off the edges but to leave the top long. Buzzed the whole thing. This time I didn't look into the mirror with horror. Instead I was relieved and it felt good not to have to worry about it. I can see why every guy here shaves their hair. The world is harsh here. You don't need another problem like lice or sweating yourself to sleep as your hair raps around you.

The holidays are coming. Yeppy. It pretty much means nothing to me down here as people don't really get into the holiday spirit. I did see one Christmas decoration last year, but people don't give presents. That would take money. The hat I bought for Solomon last year he still wears so I guess that was a good gift. He still owes me money so I'm going to be as generous this year. I would like to do something else than eating by myself for Christmas. I guess I did have dinner with some travelers last year but it was lame and I felt like I was by myself. It was funny when the Asian girl tried alcohol for the first time and after the first drink puked it up.

Anywho, Solomon and I begin our trip to Boquete this weekend to raise money to buy a solar panel and to talk to stores about our products. We shall see. I think it will be fruitful. Just going to have to deal with the crazy gringos out there is all.    

Sam: A Tale of Heartbreak and Triumph

The following will appear in the local newspaper here in Bocas del Toro next month: 

As a Peace Corps Volunteer we get two years to live, learn, teach, and help in almost any way shape and form we can in our communities. It never surprises me when I tell people how long we volunteers are here for and they respond with gasps. The truth is that two years is very little in the world of sustainable development and is even less time to get to know all of the people, customs, and things to do in any given area. It is safe to say that I learn something new every day in my community and many of those things will stay with me forever.

Since helping start the Oreba Chocolate Tour earlier this year I had become increasingly interested in the life story of our principle guide, Samuel. Not only was this a person in our community that spoke near perfect Caribbean English, but he could build beautiful houses, confidently run tours explaining everything about organic cacao farming and chocolate making, and seemed to be a part of every community project here. Hearing bits and pieces of Samuel's history during our frequent chats only solidified the notion that here lies someone truly interesting. As people come and go in Bocas del Toro sometimes staying for one day, sometimes for months or years, they rarely get to see or hear the many stories of the very diverse group of people that have helped make it what it is today and recording the story of Samuel seemed to hard to pass up as I knew his was one of heartbreak and triumph like many other in the region. And now I share Samuel's story with you.

Samuel was born in Almirante in 1962 when the only thing around was the Banana Company. The town was different back then and as prosperity rises and falls so does infrastructure and services. As many do not know, there was a time when Almirante had a bowling ally, airport, and cheap comfortable transportation on the rail line. But things were not meant to be and as any place that relies solely on a one product company, things change and business isn't always good. Back in those days all the roads were gravel and there was only one big store called Lucky Strike. With the population being close to what it is today at 90% Afro-Antillean, Bario Frances became part of the hopping new neighborhoods and where Samuel lived with his family. The Peace Corps even had a presence in Almirante in those times constructing houses for workers and then teaching them how to construct their own. Samuel, being Indigenous Ngabe, never really thought it was strange that all his neighbors and friends were Afro-Antillean and even with racism running rampant in other parts of the world and region at that time, nothing seemed out of the ordinary for him. As he explains it, the people around him liked him because he could speak their language as many other Ngabes could not which would cause problems.

In the time before the banana business and tourism, Bocas Del Toro was sparsely populated by the different indigenous that still have a large presence today. In the 1930's, with the start of banana production came workers from all walks of life and places far away searching for good work. There were no roads in Bocas back then and nothing connecting Bocas to the rest of the country. On the coast, just past Kusapin in what is now the Comarca or “Indigenous Reservation”, boats full of mostly Afro-Antilleans coming from Colon in the Canal Zone would often stop to rest in these areas sometimes staying several days. As stories of a better life and the promise of good money came along with these people, local indigenous started to get curious. As many indigenous felt that they could not leave their communities due to age or having many young children at the time, the practice of gifting a child to passing boats in hopes of a better life became common practice. It was this practice that would eventually bring both Samuel's mom and dad to the Almirante region leaving with separate families both around the age of 9 and to never see their families again.

Samuel's father was given to a french family at first whom treated him bad and worked him hard. At the age of 10 his father worked for the family all day only to be abused and treated like an animal. After 3 years of this his father decided he had enough and moved in with another family that had come straight from Jamaica. The difference between the two households was instantaneously noticeable as the new family was warm and caring and grew to love the child. Samuel's father felt the same about the new family and was so relieved to finally be in a place where the people cared for him that he eventually took their last name which was Dixon. Traditionally, Ngabe people didn't really have last names, just a first name and the location that they came from but when the banana company told them they needed to have a last name to get paid for their records they had to pick one. Consequently, because the list to get paid was in alphabetical order many chose names such as Abrego and Becker as to get paid first. The name Dixon wasn't too far down the list and to respect his new family Samuel's father gladly took it.

As many of the indigenous soon found out, working for the banana company wasn't always an option for them as jobs were given priority to people that could speak English. Because of this the Afro-Antillean population had a little bit more money than the Ngabe back then and could pay people to take care of their farms and this is what his parents did. His father worked in the cacao farms of a local Afro-Antillean family starting at the age of 11 for 25 cents a day, 8 hours a day in 1935 and even though the work was tough, he could earn enough to save a little. His mom did the same and both learned English in their respective families and both learned how to grow and maintain cacao which would end up being the two skills that they would pass down to Samuel who would in turn use to lead the Oreba Chocolate Tour. When Samuel's parents met they found they had a lot in common. They were both young and hard working indigenous Ngabe that came from the same area and they both searched for a better life possibly working in a farm of their own one day.

Years went by and Samuel's parents had still not realized their dream. Even though they had built their own house, working in other people's farms was still necessary. Bad luck had hit the family as well and things didn't look like they were to get much better. Samuel's parents had decided to let a wealthier Costa Rican family take care of one of their babies for a determined amount of time, but when Samuel's father came back to pick the kid up the family told him that the baby had mysteriously died with no explanation. His father suspected that the family grew attached to the baby and didn't want to give it back. The next baby his mother would have turned out to be a baby girl that people had said been “touched by a witch”. The baby was blue and died at 6 months in his fathers arms. The tough times continued and at the age of 40, Samuel's father still worked the same cacao farm he has always worked, saving just enough money after putting food on the table to send Samuel's the oldest remaining siblings away in search of better work. One day after a long day working in the farm his dad went to fix something on top of the house. As many houses are still built today in Bocas del Toro, it sat on stilts and was relativity high. Tired and weak from a full days work Samuel's dad fell from the roof directly onto his head fracturing his skull and breaking his spine. Suddenly his dad was immobile and could barely move putting the entire family at risk of starving since they had no farm to grow their own food. It was at this time, at the age of 9, Samuel started working with his 13 year old brother in the same farm and for the same people his dad had been. As the older siblings had already left the house it was up to the two young boys to provide for the the family. This went on and for awhile as taking care of his dad became harder and harder until he eventually died 5 years after the accident from what Samuel described as vomiting attacks where he couldn't hold any food down. He was 45 years old.

Even though it was commonplace in those times to not go to school at all, Samuel saw the importance in it and attended. Going to school in the morning and working in the farm in the evening put even more pressure onto himself but as he says “it was worth the pain”. To make up for the time lost while attending school he would work double during holidays and weekends leaving little time to study but putting food on the table had to come first and foremost. After a couple years of working and going to school like this the family decided to move to Bocas del Drago where the older brothers had staked out a plot years before anyone else. During the mid 70's the family lived there in relative peace living off the land in finally in their own farms. The thought of earning real money soon came back in Samuel's life though as business started to pick up in Almirante with the banana company and jobs became available. Soon, Samuel and his slightly older brother moved back to Almirante to work for the large company in charge of taking off the merchandise from the large ships and putting them on trucks destined for Changianola. The work was hard but the pay was unlike anything they had ever seen before. Suddenly they were working the same 10 hours they were in the farms but they were now making a great wage of $20 to $25 per day. The best part of the job was that it was paid on a per commission basis which meant that the worth of each package depended upon how much they would get that day. If they could load the packages faster they could make more money and if the packages were worth more they got more money as well. If the packages were nothing but rice, they made less and worked harder, but if the packages were electronics it was a good day. 2 years went by working this job and even though the money was good, much of it was still going back home. After having a perfect work habit and showing up on time for years, one day Samuel and his brother showed up to work a little bit hung over. The foreman, whom didn't like Samuel, quickly told him to go home and that he was suspended for a week. Samuel never went back.

It didn't take long for Samuel to find other work for at this time he knew many people in the area. He had heard about the people that dove for lobster for money but had never tried it, so when some friends invited him to go he thought he would give it his best shot. Growing up near the ocean, Samuel was a good swimmer, but diving for lobsters that were deep was a whole different story. Samuel will never forget the first time he tried diving for lobster. At first it had seemed simple to him. You just hold your breath, dive down, and grab them. As the others jumped off the boat and dove down he soon followed. It was only a 15 foot dive which was a moderate depth for a lobster diver but when he surfaced the water after barely reaching the bottom he immediately noticed the effects. Bright red blood streamed from his nose and a bad headache and earache endured for hours. It wasn't the easy cash he had expected and the toll on his body seemed to be worse than loading boxes, but the money was good and possibility of getting better at diving was always there. Every day Samuel learned to adjust to the depths and go further and further down sometimes holding his breathe for minutes at a time. Months went by and soon the good lobster were going deeper and deeper. The divers soon following. One day there seemed to be no lobster in the shallower water. Hours went by with nothing to show for it. Soon him and the other divers decided they had to go deeper so they headed out to where they hadn't gone before. At Samuel's best guess he dove down 45 feet that day. He doesn't remember much after reaching that depth. Just that once he got back up to the surface he felt really dizzy and found that he could only swim in circles as blood gushed from his ears and nose. He felt like this for a whole week. As Samuel puts it “ in 1983 there were plenty 10 lbs lobsters” and at 1.50 a pound for lobster he could make well over $100 a day sometimes. The money was good and mostly worth the pain but after hearing about other divers dying doing the same thing Samuel decided to give it up. His family still relied on him and being dead wasn't going to help at all.

After only one year of lobster diving Samuel hung up the diving mask for good. Soon he was working for the Chiriqui Land Company loading boxes of bananas on huge boats destined for other lands. The work was grueling and when orders of 100,000 boxes were put in the men sometimes worked 35 hours straight. The men that loaded the boxes from the trucks to the boat worked in teams of 4 groups of 16 and when it was said and done, after 3 days they could get 300,000 boxes of bananas on boats with names like Winter Sun, Winter Star, Winter Moon and The Reefer. All destined for places like Germany, the US, and other first world nations. The work was more than hard as most people could not do it and many quit after only one day. As Samuel puts it “only the Afro-Antilleans and Ngabe that were used to working hard would last”. But it was worth the pain. In one month he could earn $1,000 working while only having to work 16 days a month. While most people couldn't handle one day Samuel worked this way for 11 years. In 1995 he quit and by the end of his time there he was able to work almost every single day of the month. The years of hard labor put his body to the test and during his time with the Chiriqui Land Company he had fractured his finger into a permanent L and wore down his joints badly, but he was able to support a family of 6 kids and a wife and was even able to save enough to start paying other people to work in the family farm.

Working hard loading boxes all those years left Samuel yearning for the simple life and moving to where his wife's family farm was located in Rio Oeste Arriba seemed to be the answer. The cacao farming business proved to be equally hard work with much less pay but the work days were much less and also left time to spend with his family and to fish. When his oldest child showed promise in school, Samuel decided to sell the motor on his fishing boat to pay for her to become a teacher. Cacao farming once again became the main source of income for the family as fishing without a motor took too much time. 4 years went by farming cacao but the money increasingly wasn't stretching as far it used to as prices of food and gas went up along with more and more people living in the house. The choice to search for other work again to support the family was clear and so Samuel looked to the islands once more. His sister had been living and working in the mostly Afro-Antillean inhabited island of Bastiemento so he decided to give it a try too. Samuel soon found himself leaving for weeks at a time only coming back to the family to visit on the weekends. What had once been a tragedy in his family was now helping him and his family keep afloat and send his kids to school. As it turned out, Samuel learned how to do construction during the 5 years his dad was incapacitated after the accident. Because his other brothers were older they were scared to go up on the roof or any high points after seeing what had happened to their dad but Samuel wasn't afraid at all. This meant that whenever something new needed to be built around the house his dad would explain to him how to do it. It became a great way to learn and Samuel picked it up easily. As Samuel puts it “he says he was like a monkey hanging from the rafters”. Samuel would continue to work on the island of Bastiamento and the surrounding islands helping build the many hotels and homes that are there today, but after 10 years of going back and forth between his family and the island he decided enough was enough.

When I showed up in Rio Oeste Arriba I met Samuel and instantly knew something was different about him. He seemed to have a natural kindness about him and his willingness to be a part of everything and help with any project showed me that he really did care about the community and its well being. At any given time he is involved with either building classrooms for the school, being president or treasurer of the school, one of the directors or supervisors of the Artisan group, President of the Neighborhood Watch program, helping build other structures for the community, teaching English to others, or helping run the Oreba Chocolate Tour. All this while him and his wife support the 8 people living in the 3 bedroom house of which 3 are small abandon children that he and his wife have adopted.

He and his wife had been a part of the Chocolate Artisan Group for years now and with almost no monetary reward to show for it. Never the less they showed up for every meeting and planned for the future just like the rest of the group. After I spent months planning the Chocolate Tour business with my counterpart in the community we were left with one important problem. Who could lead the tours in English. Samuel's name soon came up and after months of training and working with our now group president Salomon, everything came into place. Soon we were receiving great reviews about the kindness and knowledgeably of Samuel and our other guide Mauricio and the best part is that they loved the work. As the tour has been running for almost 10 months now Samuel continues to shine. After a particularly busy couple days where we had large groups of tourists I asked if he was tired of the work. He smiled as he turned to me said “ I used to work 35 hour days, now all I have to do is talk about what I already know for 3 hours at a time”. It's more than that though as every tour I witness him give is special to him as he always shares something new about the farm, his life, the history of the Ngabe people, or about the plants and animals that we have here. The truth is that many people are involved in working in the Oreba Chocolate Tour including the cooks and chocolate making demonstrators and they all have different and equally interesting stories to tell. 100% of proceeds of chocolate tour are shared between the workers and the artisan group so the money available for guides isn't great and definitely not near what Samuel has been able to make in the past, but it seems he has finally found his passion in sharing the great wealth of information he holds. Oreba Chocolate Tours run daily at 9am and 1pm and can be booked at the Info-Bocas kiosk, Heiki Hostal, or Casa Verde. All proceeds go to the indigenous community. Please call 664-91457 for more information. So come see Samuel and the others working hard to show each tourist what goes into making chocolate starting from growing the cacao tree all the way to grinding the aromatic beans on a traditional grinding stone in the farm to make chocolate to eat. And if your lucky, they will share their story with you.  

Our Little Spot In Facebook/Peace Corps History

This was posted a couple weeks ago on the Peace Corps Facebook site. Right before Michelle's article!
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150320492655914.340212.110634980913&type=1

In an indigenous community in the Bocas del Toro region of Panama, Peace Corps Community Development Volunteer Adam Armstrong has been working closely with a local chocolate-making artisan association to organize and execute sustainable chocolate production, expansion of the market for their "Oreba" chocolate products, and create agro-tourism around the chocolate-making process.

Several previous Volunteers in the community have helped lay the groundwork for the association's members to have the necessary environmental, sustainable agricultural, and organizational knowledge and skills. With Adam's support, the group has really taken off.

In the last year alone, the association has increased their profits ten-fold. Association members have completely taken the lead, consistently modeled organizational best practices, and have been able to look to Adam to provide trainings to further develop their leadership and organizational abilities, as well as obtain guidance on their marketing, packaging, customer relations, and tour operations, to assure the managerial sustainability of their business. To top it all off, the products are entirely eco-friendly and organic, even vegan.

Check out the Oreba Chocolate Facebook page for more infohttp://www.facebook.com/Orebachocolate

The Rainy Season and Garlic Remedies

The rainy season is back. My body told me so as it decided to get a head cold the first day that it wasn't five hundred degrees outside. About a week ago I noticed that violent thunder and lighting storms were becoming more and more frequent. Apparently that's what happens when the rainy season starts. It just doesn't switch over like you think it would. It has to do it violently. As for now? It was nice today. So nice that my usual cold shower felt....cold. There was practically no hot part of the day. As mentioned before, my body did not like this and decided it would contract a cold. The rain is nice though even though it seems to have scared away tourists.

Going back to health. I haven't had real bad stomach issues in over a month now which is a record for me in Panama. I've tried my hardest to remind myself not to put my fingers in my mouth, go barefoot anywhere, and bleach and filter all my water, but I really think that my success is due to one thing that I have been religious about. I have started eating one raw clove of garlic a day. I chop it up and swallow it down with some water. Almost instantly I feel a little bit more energy and if I'm lucky it will make me want to go to the latrine about thirty minutes later. People in my community kept telling me about this among other remedies and garlic is so available here I thought why not. Well it seems to have worked.

After taking mounds and mounds of medicine including probiotics, hippie drops, Grape Seed Extract, and prescribed stuff that literally tears your stomach to shreds killing everything, apparently the answer has been on my counter all along. I have a theory about this though. As far as I can tell, the garlic isn't killing amoebas or parasites if I have them which I'm quite certain that I do. I think it is merely controlling them to a point that is tolerable. Whether it be killing a lot of them or just subduing enough to make a difference, I still feel like there is something in there, it just doesn't bother me anymore. As you might have read in most of my posts, I've had parasites and worms here about every 3 weeks and sometimes right after I use the medicine they come right back. From what I've learned is that the medicine kills everything in your system. Even the good stuff. So when I was done with the meds I would just contract whatever was around really easy. Now I'm running at about 85% which is good enough for me here as I spent months just laying on my floor in pain.

The woman or girl I took to the hospital apparently is having pain every five minutes now and if you don't know what I'm talking about read the post before this one. Her brother came and got me so I could call the American doctors to see what she should do. The doctor sounded concerned on the phone and said she should go to the hospital as soon as possible. I'm a little worried just from the information I know. I really don't want to hear about another baby dying on the way out and really really don't want anything bad to happen to her. Fingers crossed.

Been doing a little more hiking lately as it has become more necessary. Once was to climb to the top of the mountain that my house faces to take a look at the complete water system and assess what can be done to filter it and to get the flow going better. I found out it's not only doable but cheap. The other hike was really early up into the mountain to a house with 16 people in it. They don't have a good water source and are interested in a tank system. I don't have funds for it now, but they are definitely on the list if money comes around. The older guy living there is an enigma to me as he speaks almost no Spanish.

Days are stretching out longer as the rain keeps the air colder. Next month we will have all new posters for our tour, a new article out in a large newspaper, and we are also traveling to boquete to sell a bunch of our chocolate. Should be a good one. Just need to put something on the calendar for December to look forward to and I should be set. After that month. Its all down hill.  

For the Love of Her Baby: A tale of Healthcare in Panama

I woke up to the sound of Three Little Birds by Bob Marley blaring out of my phone next to my head at exactly 5:30 this morning. I had gotten so little sleep I had forgotten that I set the alarm. It had seemed I had just went to sleep. Not even light yet, I pushed the mosquito net back and climbed down out of my loft bed onto my makeshift bamboo latter. I put all my weight onto it this morning not worrying about it breaking where each piece of bamboo is hung by the next with a piece of twine. I learned twice before that the string wasn't strong enough, but I guess the third time is the charm. As I sifted through my sealed food containers looking for the powdered milk and granola, time seemed to go in slow motion as my body started to wake up. I made the concoction that would be my breakfast and tried to pretend it tasted good as it went down. I had been any more awake I would have thrown it out. After gaining enough strength to get my jean pants and peace corps shirt on I fixed my hair and laid in my hammock as the sun came up over the mountains and stole the cool air to replace it with its hot and unbearable opposite. I closed my eyes and thought to myself that I could probably catch another five minutes of sleep only to open them 2 minutes later. As I refocused on the day I noticed her out the corner of my eye and I knew she had been standing there for awhile just watching me. Waiting for me to see her. She was ready to go and as started to roll off the hammock to great here I notice Nico, the taxi driver walking to his taxi down below. I made no hesitation and yelled across and down to him using the first voice of the day and the only Spanish I could muster on that much sleep and at that time in the morning. “Esperate” “Wait”.

Katia, her mom Marta, and her mom's 2 year old boy all got into the back seat where I was already sitting. As we picked up another passenger on the way out of the community, I tried explaining to Nico that we were all going to the Hospital in Almirante. Silence took over the cab I started to feel more energy fill my body. We arrived at the hospital and I paid my share to Nico as they paid theirs in an awkward exchange of loose dollar bills and change. As we walked in front door I quickly noticed that not as many people were in the waiting room as I thought should be. I was quickly approached by a women who seemed to work there but had no identifying badge or clothes. I was asked what I needed and for a moment I froze. I had made it here only by instinct and now was time to preform. Only after a short scramble in my brain did my Spanish start tumbling off my tongue and into coherent sentences. I started to explain that I was part of the Peace Corps and that I was working with American doctors that had came to my community and had done an ultrasound on her the day before. I then went into how the baby's head was not only large and that this was her first baby, but that the baby is positioned feet down and that she is ready to give birth any day.

As we were ushered over into the Emergency Room I thought to myself that no matter what I will not leave this woman’s side. Only 4 months before I had witnessed two births go bad in my community where the women had had checkups and had tried to give birth in the hospital. The doctors were wrong. The doctors weren't there. The babies died on the way out from strangulation. Not again I thought to myself.

As soon as we entered the ER I noticed two very large people sitting to my left and the TV blaring up above. It looked out of place. There seemed to be no one attending to people. The room small, musky and downtrodden. Paint peeled from the walls. The brand new flat screen TV keeping the waiters minds somewhere else. That's when an incredibly large black man sitting down turned and started speaking what I guessed was Spanish. The man was so large I almost didn't notice him and his Spanish seemed to be from a different planet. Dressed in plain clothes the man asked what we were their for. As I explained the situation he shrugged and said what I could only make out as “tranquilo”. My first challenge of day and the reason I was there. There is something that happens in developing countries that is a phenomenon. As soon as someone else has even a little more schooling than someone else, they start giving the orders. As I found out, put that same person in a hospital, they are king.

I started my speech about how it was not ok and that she absolutely needed to see a doctor now. The man stood up and easily switched to English. Towering over me and outweighing me by at least 200 lbs I stood my ground and demanded that she be seen. It worked. She got in. And I didn't leave her side. They told her mother to wait outside as I followed her in and presented my self to any and everyone who walked by. At this time more than ever I was glad to be wearing my nice clothes and my Peace Corps shirt. An hour went by and I was notified that she needed to go to Changiunola in the ambulance, a good hour away. Marta, her baby, and I started our walk through the now deathly heat of the day through the concrete and twisted metal that makes up Almirante on our way to the bus station to meet her.

Only stopping for the little one to drop his pants and pee in the middle of the street, we made it through the heat and into the comfort of the air conditioned bus. The cool comfort of freon chilled my sweat soaked back as I leaned onto the headrest in front of me. We arrived in Changiunola about an hour later and made our way to the hospital. The mid day heat now bearing down on us like a furnace. After a brief talk with a couple different people I was ushered in to the emergency room as Marta stayed in the waiting area with her kid. At first glance, this placed could have almost passed for a hospital in the states leaving out the fact that their were no computers and all records were done by hand.

As I glanced over at the far wall I could see that Katia was sitting in a wheel chair with a gown on staring into the distance. I approached and could tell that she was glad to see me. She hadn't been there long but they had already done x-rays and sonograms so I decided to talk with the doctor in charge. A rude stocky Afro-Antilian lady, the doctor would only give me the answers to the questions I asked and nothing more. I could tell that she had told Katia. I went over and over it wit her. “So you are saying that the baby needs to come out within the next couple days and that we have to make an appointment for that at the end of the hall right?” Katia put her clothes back on and we made our way down the hall. Her 18 year old face looking panicked as I explained to her that they might have to cut her stomach to get the baby out.

As we continued down the hallway I noticed the lighting getting increasingly worse as was the condition of the building. We finally made it into a large room which felt like an underground betting ring in someones basement. This was obviously the old building and it didn't look like they were about to tear it down anytime soon. Groups of people stood in what were supposed to be lines in front of various windows that showed dilapidated names of the doctors they were supposed to see. We waited and when we got to the front of the line the confusion started. “This says that you have to come back in a week to make an appointment” the droopy eyed Latino woman pronounced. “No! She has to see a doctor today. The other doctor just told us” I jumped in before Katia could speak. It was at this time the woman next to her leaned over to say “Ya, it says they can do it today”. We were soon sent to another window to make our appointment.

If this place was a betting ring, then the next window we visited was where you would place your bets. In the very corner of the room with no sign and small glass slider, this was where we were supposed to wait to make our appointment. An hour went by and as we waited patiently I could see the rows and rows of records all hand written some sitting in disorganized stacks. We finally made our appointment and were told to wait at door number 2 which ended up being the kind of door you would think was a sliding door that someone had wanted to be just a normal wall so they nailed it shut and painted the same color as the rest of the wall. We waited. Kids played on the plastic seats in the hallway and Katia stood as I could help but thinking that her feet must be sore by now from caring all that extra weight.

Soon a maintenance man opened the door so he could connect an electrical chord from the doctors office to the bathroom where he was using a power tool. Then, a woman emerged from the doctors office to use the other bathroom. As I was now thinking that we would be waiting for a long time, the woman using the bathroom and wearing street clothes started to ask Katia what she was there for. As with the other nurses, doctors, and administrators she talked to her like she was 5 years old and overpowered her in the conversation. I stepped in and raised my voice explaining how the American doctor and mid-wife had seen the baby and said that it was not only in a bad position but that it had a larger than usual head and that this being her first baby, there was a great chance of problems if nothing was done. The lady took note and looked at the paperwork Katia had in her small trembling hand. “You have to make a copy of this before we will see you” the woman said. “Why, can't you do that here?” I responded. “No we can't. You can go down to the Chinese market or downtown to get it done. Come back and knock on the door when your ready” she came back.

I grabbed the paper and told Katia to wait there and to go in if the chance permitted. It only took me about 20 minutes to get the copy and we went right into the “Specialist” room as soon as I got back. As soon as I saw the doctor I could tell what type he was. The type that takes no shit from anyone, and tells you how it is. A tall white Latino man hunched over his desk making marks on the medical history sheet we had copied while listening to the radio strategically placed next to his hear on the shelf, I could tell this would be short. I explained the situation and how the American doctors thought that the baby was in grave danger. He looked as the documents and shrugged. About 5 minutes and a couple questions later he gave his recommendation. “The baby is in a bad position, but that could change. The head seems normal. Make an appointment for the end of month to come back and we will see how it goes” he said as if this were the final word. I boiled inside and could think of nothing more than to ask if he was sure. “Of course” he said. “Do you have a contact card” I asked. “This is a hospital, of course not” he shot back. I asked him his name and we were ushered out.

Not knowing what to say or think I called the American doctor to report back and also find out why the first doctor had given Katia two prescriptions for something. “What, that lazy motherfucker” the doctor yelled over the phone. After he confirmed with the mid-wife he was sure that the doctor just didn't want to deal with the problem. He also explained to me how the medication from the first doctor we saw didn't apply anymore because it was a crude drug that suppressed birth. The verdict was in and I had the executioners name if need be. I was livid and couldn't help but think that my neighbor's baby along with many others before it had been lost due to the same ignorance and negligence. I asked one more question and stated my response before I left the doctors office. I said “So if she goes into labor in the community, she will have to wait for a taxi to Almirante, and then wait for the ambulance to take her to Changiunola to the emergency room at which time the hope is that someone will see her and that the baby hasn't suffocated? You think that will work?” “It should be fine” I was told.

I walked with Katia, her mother, and her mothers baby to the corner where the bus was to pick us up. We hid behind the little shade available as I explained that everything we did today would help because now they knew more information about the baby and she agreed. Sweat beaded down her young face as she looked out into traffic and smog ripped through our lungs. She would not sleep well tonight or the following nights until her baby was born. Hopefully alive. She placed a hand on her stomach and looked up at me as she quietly said thank you. Another truck went by spewing more black smoke singing my nostrils as I thought to myself that one day these people will have more. Its the patience they posses that keeps them sane. It keeps them alive.

Dogs

Just when I settle in and think I will be accustomed to things here, something happens to wake my ass up. Take last night (technically this morning) for example. I had gone to bed late because of a baseball game that was being played on TV which it seemed everyone in my community was watching at my neighbors house. At about 4am I woke up to the unmistakably terrible noise that is called Tipico music here being blared what seemed to be directly into my house. As I woke up screaming expletives about the shittyness that is my housing location, I tried to convince myself that everything would be fine and I just needed to get used to the sound and fall back asleep. 15 minutes later I climbed down from my loft and walked over to my neighbors house to investigate how this could have happened. I first I thought that maybe my first host brother had broke in and turned the music up as loud as possible and then leave or fall asleep somehow like he used to do when I lived there. That wasn't the case.

I creeped around the house slowly realizing that Constantino, my neighbor, was sleeping. I could barely here his snoring over the terrible music. Confused and still half asleep I tried shining my light into the window which did nothing but wake up the dogs. After standing in the dead of night for another 5 minutes I just decided to go for it and start knocking on the part of the house that I knew they slept at while calling their names. It worked and Constantino woke up and I explained that I couldn't sleep because of his noise I started to find relief. An hour later I went to sleep. An hour after that I was woken up by my phone.

Soon after I got up and started to wash my dishes from the night before, I heard a dog barking and crying loudly. This is a pretty normal event as the dogs here fight each other all the time inflict pain, but this sounded different and somehow worse. I looked over the corner of my house to find Constantino holding his dog by the neck while beating it with a belt over and over. People walked by and carried on with their days as nothing out of the usual was happening. This incident came a day after I went to Solomon's house to find that most of his dogs were gone along with his two horses. I soon found out that his dog of 8 years had died after giving birth to her last litter of puppies. As I looked for a reaction after he explained this to me I only found his wife making fun of it and laughing. He had given the litter away along with another dog and both horses because as he put it “dogs don't last long here because they get sick and the yard wasn't big enough for a horse”. This made sense and I realized that Solomon is probably one of the more sympathetic people in the community. That said, I don't think I will ever get treating other animals the way that they do but before we all get high and mighty, we do the exact same thing every day without even knowing it. Pigs are said to be smarter than dogs and we torture and kill them every day. It's just that we don't see it, so it doesn't really exist.

Another note that no one probably cares about: It seems that the dog that my ex girlfriend and I had has now gone to her sister who will take care of him. In the little communication that I've had with them both it seems that I might be able to get him back when I get back. I sure do miss that little booger and I can't help but day dream about me and him hitting the open country in a jeep. Me rocking out to Rage Against the Machine and Kuma (that's his name) rocking his freshly cut mohawk hanging his tongue out in the wind. A Pomeranian never looked so good in my mind. 

Dust in the Wind

Its been a rough week. Mentally and physically. Well I guess the physical part was me kayaking at my own will for fun, but still It's been a rough week. Tourists apparently have disappeared from the island and we haven't had a tour in over two weeks which is scaring a couple of the people here. Its amazing actually that once the people start getting a little money in, they start to expect it. Solomon and I have scrambled to the island a couple times to remedy the large falloff and even after talking to three new hotels and handing out fliers, we still haven't had anybody.

In other news, having no tourists for a time did have its benefits. With the help of another volunteer named Jack we were able to what is called PML in Peace Corps which is (for them) a very intensive comprehensive business seminar. Now usually a volunteer would plan for weeks to do this in their site, but knowing that Jack had already facilitated two of these seminars before, I decided to not sweat it. Also, usually the volunteer would have to set up and plan everything from food for the participants to materials and copies of everything. Not so much with my group as I they took care of almost everything. I did have to make some copies, but it wasn't the biggest of deals. Needless to say, the seminar went great and even though I didn't know all of the information as well I should have, having the help of Jack and even Solomon helped. We even invited two women from an artisan group about an hour away. After two long days though I was ready to be done with it.

Probably the biggest thing weighing on my mind right now is the fact that after today the girl that I have been dating for the last 8 months is gone. She is traveling for awhile and then going back to the states as she has finished her service. We always knew that this was coming but it seems that no amount of preparation could have helped. It's hard down here when your used to being close to someone for most of the time you've been here and then they are just gone. There is a lot more I can say but to keep this post lower on the mushy side I will just say that I miss her already and can only hope to see her in just over 11 months when I come back.

I'm starting to recover from my last terrible sickness which is good. That last one was a tough one for sure and I have been extra careful since then as to not get it again. I can't tell what is the worse the amoebas or the medicine. The stuff rips your stomach to shreds and makes it feel like it's on fire and then because it has killed almost everything good and bad in your digestive system, you feel like somebody beat your immune system with a baseball bat. It's hard to pay attention, I'm tired all the time, and every once in awhile I get a little stomach pain. I'm getting better so lets look on the bright side.

In good news, working with the Rotary Club of Boquete it looks like we will be doing a fundraiser for a new solar panel system for our artisan group in Boquete. We are going to do a chocolate cook-off, have raffle prizes and then hopefully raise enough money to buy a new solar panel system so I can teach computer and english classes. That is if I ever get the computer back from the gringo that is supposed to be fixing it.

Other than that I have been in two Domino Tournaments so far and I have to say I love the game. I promised a write up about it and I swear I will do it. Til next time.....

Video of My First Year in the Peace Corps

So I made up a little something something for my first year in the Peace Corps. Its a movie if you haven't guessed by now. It's definitively not the best quality since my computer almost blew up trying to make the damn thing but its something. Some of the pictures are nice some of the pictures look like lego-men. The music is some of my favorite latin music. If I'm able to get a laptop this winter I will be able to create much better videos. Until then enjoy...

Operation Safe Swimming Hole

So I started today wanting to work with the artisan group for tomorrows fair on Bocas Island but it seems that they had everything taking care of or at least didn't want my help. Ever since Solomon has been elected president of the artisan group its kinda been like that. I'm not sure if the power is going to his head or if maybe the group is doing so good that they really feel that they don't need my help anymore but it seems as if I might have to look for other things to do. I've already identified a couple of those things including working harder on the grant for some chocolate machinery, teaching English and working on marketing for tourists as we haven't had a tour for about 5 days now.

I knew that there was a gringo group coming today to do something water related at the school so meandered down there at about mid day. What I soon came up on was just about what I expected from an outside group that just comes and drops shit off. They heard that the tank that they dropped off last time wasn't installed correctly so of course they brought another one which added to the one they had already dropped off and the one that the school bought. I guess the group never stopped to ask about the aqueduct system that we have in the community that could easily be hooked up to fill one of the tanks or just to use straight from the faucet.

So now there are three empty tanks at the school. Two of them way way larger than is needed considering that kids don't really drink water at school and it is just used for cleaning dishes and making cream of wheat. Apparently the guy who came with his gringo friends runs some type of “water aid” program and from what I've heard he charges double the cost of the systems and says its a “processing fee” or some crap. I've also heard that he is running out of useless water installations to do which explains why he brought us another useless tank. There was a “dedicated to the memory of …....” on the tank so I hope that the person that at least bought it for so and so thinks that their 1k went to some good use and not just another giant plastic statue of which it is. At least the kids will have a good time trying to figure out who the hell so and so is for the next 10 years until someone realizes it would be much easier just to connect the community water system to the faucet and they sell the tank to buy computers or books.

I do have to say that there are places where these tanks do good. Like in my girlfriends community. I know that at least there they will use the water and its clean and sometimes they don't have any potable water. I'm just saying it might have paid to do a little research on where your putting these monstrous plastic monuments or wait, it might pay no matter what if your charging to do something that my community can and already has done for half.

So after I talked with one of the gringos that came with the water team about how great of a thing they are doing and about how they were now most likely go to heaven and be forgiven for all their sins, I went looking for a new water spot. And oh did I find one. A community member had told me about this small spot on this small stream pretty close to my house I went to check it out. Only after about 20 minutes of hiking up the small stream I came to the spot I think he was talking about and instantly it became my new favorite spot to swim. As the little kids that followed me there can attest, there is waterfall of about 17 feet that drops down into a small pool of about 10 feet across all the way around. What is great about this is that the pool is deep for some reason. So deep that I jumped from a rock of about 10 feet above and still didn't touch the bottom. I love new swimming spots and I especially love swimming spots that have hidden caves in them that I can't see where weird things might be lurking....