Tech Week & Site Announcement (aka Lessons in Flexibility)

This blog is going to encompass a lot of very intense experiences and it’s not going to do any of them justice. But I have to try because the longer I wait to write about the things that have been happening, the harder it’s going to be to capture how they felt.

Alright, so two weeks ago was “Tech Week” in Penonomé. The point of this week was to be paired with an English teacher and do a crash-course version of what our next two years will look like. We were supposed to spend the first day or two observing, the third day co-planning, and the last two days co-teaching (as per the holy trinity of TE).  

Unfortunately, very little of that actually happened in my experience. I was paired with a really motivated third grade teacher at a beautiful elementary school in downtown Penonomé. The first day I observed her and everything was great. The second day, school was cancelled for a teacher in-service, which, while interesting, was not very helpful for the purposes of tech week. The third day, my teacher was too sick to come to school so I was moved to a nearby high school to partner up with another trainee’s 7^th grade teacher.

Although this teacher was also AMAZING, the trainee who’d been working with her for the last two days had already made plans, so I just observed again. By Thursday I’d caught whatever illness my first teacher had and was too sick to come to school. Friday I came in, determined to at least get one day of co-teaching with this rock star teacher…but surprise! A dentist came to the school and gave a talk about dental hygiene to each 7^th grade class exactly when they otherwise would have had English.

So, although I didn’t get to put much of our technical training into practice during this “tech week,” I did learn the important lesson of being FLEXIBLE. These are the kinds of challenges I’ll have to face in the next two years, so I might as well start dealing with them now. School might be closed for strange or seemingly insignificant reasons. Teachers get sick or don’t show up and there’s no such thing as substitutes. A teacher might have a great lesson planned and instead all her students have to attend a surprise assembly on dental hygiene. Who knows? Better to just go with the flow and not let changes of plan get you too disappointed.

Anyway. Another reason why tech week was so intense was because the last evening we received our SITE ANNOUNCEMENTS (cue dramatic music and lightning crashes in the background). All week everyone was a bundle of nerves waiting to hear where they’d be spending the next two years of their life. Finally, Friday afternoon all 50 trainees from Group 76 gathered in the Penonomé branch of University of Panamá. In the front of the room was a giant map of Panamá with stars on each of the places where a trainee would be sent. In the back of the room was a crowd of Regional Leaders, current volunteers, and other PC staff also waiting eagerly to find out which of us would be serving in their province.

One by one the Program Managers described each site and then called the name of the trainee who would serve there. The trainee then had to walk up to the map, find their star, and place their picture on top of it. They started from the west and worked their way east...and as more and more of my friends ran cheering up to the map, my heart began to pound. I’d been hoping for a small, indigenous site. These types of sites are mostly found in the western provinces of Bocas del Toro and Chiriqui…I watched as those stars disappeared and my name still hadn’t been called.

Finally my program manager said something to the tune of: “Next in the province of Veraguas is the town of San Francisco. It’s half an hour from the city of Santiago and it’s famous for a beautiful colonial church. This site would be perfect for…Roxana!”


In that moment all the air in my lungs imploded into a tightly squeaked “oh.” 

I stared at the map for a second in disbelief as everyone starting clapping before I could fake a smile, get up, place my picture, hug my program manager, and sit back down with my site description in hand. I was hoping for a small, indigenous site in the mountains. Instead I’d been given a purely latino suburb of a huge, centrally-located city.


After everyone was placed, we split up into our province groups to meet our Regional Leaders and ask questions. The current volunteers from Veraguas tried to cheer me up by telling me about all the great restaurants (including a Cheesecake place?!) in Santiago and how I’m so lucky to have amenities like paved roads, electricity, running water, trash pick-up, cell phone signal, and even wifi! The more they talked, the worse I felt.

One of the biggest reasons why I joined the Peace Corps is because I wouldn’t mind serving under conditions of hardship, so I feel it’s my duty to do so…because if not me, than who? There are people in Panamá living in extreme poverty and I was prepared to live WITH them, learn from them, and hopefully empower them. Having wifi and living close to a Cheesecake Factory were definitely not part of the vision I had for my service. I felt guilty, confused, and crushed.

After the placement ceremony was over, our group spent the night in cabanas at a nearby beach. I was still sick, exhausted, and now overwhelmed by my site placement, so I wasn’t looking forward to a night of celebrating. Thankfully, my amazing support network of G76 friends didn’t let me stay mopey for long. Folks in my group, including people who I’d never really talked to before, made sure I was okay and helped me to change the way I was thinking about my site.

It came back to flexibility: I may not be serving somewhere remote or with a lack of resources, but that doesn’t mean my service will be any less meaningful. The teachers in San Francisco asked for a volunteer to help them with English, and here I am. Also, I’ll have opportunities now to work on bigger projects than I would have if I’d been isolated in an indigenous reserve. Instead of being disappointed about what my experience WOULD have been like somewhere else, I started to see the possibilities that were open to me in the place where I’d actually be going.

After our site visits this week, I had the chance to talk to my program directors to see WHY they placed me where they did. Apparently they see things in me that I’m still working on seeing in myself. They think I’m capable of initiating some big things, so they wanted to put me in a place where I’d have the support and resources to do anything and everything. I guess my one director actually wanted to place me in an even BIGGER city, but thankfully my preference for a smaller site was taken into consideration.

I don’t really believe in fate or signs from the universe or anything like that, but…I’ve been handed a heck of an opportunity to grow here, and you best believe I’ll make the most of it.

Spoiler alert: Turns out my site is great and I already love it there. But more on that next week. :)

One Month In!

Hola everyone! It’s hard to believe we’ve only been here a month and some change. Then again it’s also hard to believe we’re not even halfway done with training. SO MUCH INFORMATION... It’s worth it, though, because I’m finally starting to feel confident in my English-teaching abilities. Hooray for that!
Let me fill you in on what I’ve been up to for the last few weeks! Starting with my volunteer visit!!! So, a few weeks ago we each went to visit a current TE volunteer for a week to see what real Peace Corps life is like. The volunteer I visited has been serving for a year with her husband (who is a CEC volunteer) in the south of Panama in the province of Herrera. Words barely begin to describe how beautiful her community is. I’ll just let you see for yourselves:

Here is the view from the front porch of her lovely cabin (note the “Howler Monkey Mountain” in the background):

Her site is on the rural side and would be considered “medium-sized” with around 100 houses. Spending the week in this type of close-knit community definitely solidified that I want a smaller site. It was so nice to be able to walk around with my volunteer and feel like everyone knew her as we passed and wanted to talk to us/offer us fruit.
At this point I want to introduce you to a term you’ll be hearing a lot from me in the next few months: pasear. To “pasear” means walking around town, visiting people, sitting on their porches and chatting while they offer you coffee and snacks (fruit, tortillas, pieces of sugar cane, potentially an entire meal, etc). Because everyone is just hanging out on their porches after dinner anyway, this is the perfect opportunity for a volunteer to get to know her community. My first three months in site will pretty much be: observe in the school all day, pasear all evening.
Anyway, my week with my volunteer was like a beautiful vacation from training. We pasear’d, we made delicious food, we played music and sang, we attended a town baile (which is so much more than just a dance), we napped in hammocks, we had deep philosophical conversations over breakfast, and we worked in her garden (I learned a lot about compost this week, you guys). We also went on an intense hike to a sort-of-secret waterfall:

So, above all it was a fun week. We did more than just relax, though! This was my opportunity to see a TE volunteer in action, so I went with my volunteer to the school and saw how she works as a resource for the English teachers to help them practice their own English and to plan more engaging, interactive lessons.
This is something that’s important to understand: TE PCVs are not in Panama to teach students English. The goal is to be a resource (as a native English speaker and as a person trained in TEFL techniques) for our Panamanian counterparts to improve their own abilities as English teachers. This way, even after we leave, they can continue using the skills we helped them develop. Three cheers for sustainability!
Something else I loved was helping my volunteer facilitate an English club meeting after school. Her school (like many Panamanian schools) has students who come from smaller, far-away communities. These kids stay in a dorm during the week so they don’t have to hike three hours every day to get to class. Once the school day is done, though, there aren’t typically any planned activities for these kids. So having a game-based English club was something fun and educational for them to do. This was definitely one of my favorite moments of my visit. :)
A major take-away from this visit was that Peace Corps life is going to be extremely self-directed. There is no boss to report to every day, no rules saying we have to spend X amount of hours doing this or that…everything is up to the volunteer. If I have awesome, motivated counterparts, I could spend every day in the school working with them. If I think I could be more helpful doing secondary projects outside the school, I could do that. If I want to plan a huge seminar for all teachers in my region, I could do that! If I need to just take a day to decompress in my hammock, I could do that too. I’m going to have to be a very organized, motivated, self-sufficient person to be successful at this job.
But I look forward to growing to meet that challenge.
Next week we’re going to Penonomé for “tech week” where we’ll be paired with an English teacher and putting all our training into practice!!!
And at the end of next week we get our SITE PLACEMENTS. Ohhhhhh my gosh. I’m so excited to find out where I’ll be calling home for the next two years!!!
We had an interview with our Program Director and he asked us for three adjectives to describe our perfect site. I said small, mostly indigenous, but close enough to other volunteers that I could still collaborate on big projects/seminars. We'll see what happens! Truthfully, though, my attitude is what matters- it doesn't matter what kind of site I get, it'll be up to me to make the most of it.
Well, hasta la próxima!

Training-palooza!

**note: this post is a week behind, because the PC office internet is being
mean to me. So from this point forward, posts on this blog will be published by
my sister! Thanks, sis!**

Hola from Santa Rita!

It’s been a whole week here in the training community and
let me just say I’ve ever had such an AFFIRMING experience. Even though it’s
been crazy busy, there’s some little thing every day that makes me think I made
the right decision in coming here. This is where I’m supposed to be and even
though it’s gonna be hard, I WILL be able to make a difference. You guys, I’m
gonna be so good at so many things by the end of two years it’s already blowing
my mind.

And with that introduction…lemme fill you in on what I’ve
been up to this past week!

Sunday we moved to our training communities! The CEC
trainees are all living in one town and us TE trainees are living in Santa
Rita. It’s on the smaller side as far as towns here go, although we’re about a
twenty minute bus ride from a big city. The houses are all made of cinder
blocks painted really fun, bright colors. Some people have indoor toilets and
showers, some have latrines and outdoor showers. Some have washing machines,
some wash clothes by hand. Most everyone has a hammock. Most everyone has
chickens and a guard dog. Most everywhere is BEAUTIFUL.

Our group of trainees is spread all over town with different
host families. I live with a mom and dad in their 30s (fun fact: my mom’s
nickname is Cookie), their 13 year old son who is a stereotypical teenager
(always on his phone and way too “cool” to hang out with me), and their 7 year
old daughter who is already my best friend. My host dad works as a driver in
the bigger cities in Panama, so he’s not here during the week. My host grandma
lives in the house next door and there are aunts, cousins, nephews, etc. also
nearby. This is my house:

It seems like most people in this town are related SOMEHOW.
It’s very different from my small, spread-out family from the US, but I love
it. There’s always someone to visit, some child to play with, always someone to
make you smile. If I ever feel lonely in Panama it will be entirely my own
fault.

I have so much more to say about Santa Rita and my host
family, but I wanna actually FINISH this post tonight so I can use the internet
plaza’s wifi tomorrow, so it’ll have to wait for another time.

I do want to talk about training though. Let me give you an
idea of my schedule for the past week:

-Wake up 6:45 AM, take a bucket shower because the water is
already out (It’s the dry season...long story I’ll tell another time.)

-Eat the breakfast Cookie made...could be a tube of boiled
polenta called a bollo, could be fried yucca and chorizo, could be hojaldre
(which is basically funnel cake), could be patacones (fried, mashed plantains),
but definitely COFFEE. One part coffee, one part sugar. Ay ay ay.

-Go to language class at one of the other trainee’s houses
by 8 AM. I love my language class. The teacher is challenging us to use more
complicated Spanish, but she’s really patient at the same time. Later on in
training, our class is going to do some kind of community project to put our
Spanish to use.

-Come back home for lunch at noon. Typical lunch might be
sancocho (soup with ñame and chicken). Maybe a slice of pineapple from the
freezer to eat on the way to class. Mmmm.

-Go to technical class from 1 to 5. This takes place under
some nice old man’s covered porch. Here Peace Corps staff and current TE
volunteers have been giving us all the tools we need to be successful future
volunteers. We’ve been learning everything from Panama’s education system, to
Peace Corps’ approach to development, to TEFL strategies, and even just how to
integrate ourselves into our communities. Super helpful stuff. Especially for
someone with no formal teaching experience.

-After class our group usually does some type of exercise.
We’ve done yoga, this week we’re going to do Zumba, but my favorite thing is
climbing the loma. The loma is a big hill just outside the main part of town
and this is the view from the top:

-After we’re good and sweaty, I come home, take another
bucket shower, and eat dinner with the family. Dinner is always some
combination of rice, beans/lentils, and fried meat. If I’m really lucky we’ll
have a salad of tomato and cucumber slices. Although the other day Cookie did
make a big pile of squash instead of rice! My goal this week is to help her
cook dinner & learn how to make some of this stuff myself.

-After dinner I usually play with my host sister and one of
the little cousins who are always hanging out in our house. We might watch tv
or play my ukulele (they’re getting pretty good for second graders!). They’ve
taught me Panamanian card games in return, so it’s an even trade. I also might
help Cookie and my host grandma to peel beans that grow on a tree outside our
house. I might also do laundry (as evidenced by this pic of our backyard):

-By 9, I’m in bed texting or writing in my journal…and by 10
I’m out cold. Not even the roosters at 4 AM can wake me anymore.

And that’s a typical day for me! It’s busy and hot, but FILLED
with awesome moments. For instance tonight my friends and I were hanging out
eating duros (a bag of frozen fruit juice) when we saw a SLOTH climbing along
the power lines.

This is my life now. It’s crazy to think we’ve only been in
this community for a week. It’s already starting to feel like home. Alright, that’s all
for now. This week (the 16^th to the 21^st) I’m going on a visit
to a current volunteer’s site to see what real PCV life is like, so I’ll have a
lot to say soon! Until then, keep it real, U.S.A!

Week Zero

Well, I made it. I’m here. I’m in Panamá. 

This week has been insane in a good way. We’ve been staying in the Ciudad del Saber (the City of Knowledge) since we arrived. This place is a former US Military base from back when the US was controlling the Panama Canal. Now it’s a compound of NGO and International Aid offices, including the Peace Corps! We’ve been staying in these very nice air-conditioned dorms on the campus and walking a few blocks to the PC offices for training sessions:

The training sessions have been all day long, cramming in tons and tons of information and logistics. We met our APCDs (who are like our supervisors) and they’re really kind and helpful. We also had language interviews and got placed in different level Spanish classes. I’m in the top class for TE volunteers, but I still have a long way to go before I feel totally confident and fluent. 

I feel like a lot of my language growth will come from me letting myself make mistakes and not getting too nervous about trying to make every word and conjugation perfect. Apparently this is something I’ll be telling Panamanians a lot about their English. Current PCVs say it’s a struggle to get their students to “dejar la pena” (let go of their shame.) 

Language aside, we’ve had a lot of sessions on how to keep ourselves safe while we’re over here. Protecting ourselves from theft and assault and giardia and roundworms...all those nice things. We got mosquito nets and we start taking our malaria pills tomorrow, so hooray for not getting malaria!

Everyone on the PC staff here seems GREAT. I’m so glad these are the people who are watching our backs. All the current volunteers who came to Panama City to help us with training still have positive attitudes after 1, 2, and even 3 years of service, which is encouraging. They’ve been super helpful and patient answering our million questions. 

In the evenings after our sessions, we’ve had free time to get to know each other. We’ve been exploring, playing Frisbee, doing yoga, having ukulele jam sessions, etc. I already feel so welcome with these people I just met a few days ago!!! We’re from all over the US, but we’re crazy enough to be doing this now, so we’ve all got something really substantial in common already. 

Some facts about us: We’re the 76^th group of volunteers to come to Panama and we’re all either Teaching English (TE) or Community Environmental Conservation (CEC) volunteers. There are 50 of us total, and 24 of us are TE. Although we’ll be spread across the country once we get our sites, we’ll still have opportunities to visit and collaborate on projects.

 Friday night we had a field trip to Panama City’s Albrook Mall, the largest mall in all of Central America. We got bus passes and Panamanian phones and just kinda marveled at the endless maze of stores. That brings me to a really important point I wanted to talk about in my first blog post, but I ran out of time: Why are we serving in Panama? Isn’t it pretty well-off???

Well, here’s the thing. Panama’s big CITIES are well-off. Panama City is as developed as any big American city. There are a lot of very wealthy Panamanians who live in the city and in the nicer surrounding towns. But once you get so much as half an hour outside the city, the gap between the urban elite and the rural poor is VISIBLE. More than 65 percent of Panamá’s rural population and 95 percent of the indigenous population live in poverty. Panama has one of the most unequal income distributions in Latin America. So…that’s why the Peace Corps has been asked to serve in Panama.

Today we visited a current TE Volunteer’s site to get a taste of what our lives might be like after training. She lives in El Cacao, which is a small town two hours from Panama City by public transport. We got there in less time on our private bus, winding up the steep roads. When we arrived, she gave us a tour of her school:

Several other volunteers from nearby sites came as well and they all shared what they’re working on and we spent hours asking them questions about life as a TE PCV. It got my spirits up big time. Then we went to the volunteer’s host family’s house and they made all of us lunch. All of us! How nice is that?! 

Apparently this was a typical Panamanian meal: rice, plátanos maduros (cooked sweet bananas), potato salad, and chicken. We also drank chicha, which was fresh fruit juice with sugar. Sooooo good. There is zero chance I will be going hungry here. In fact, I might have to work a lot harder than I thought to LOSE weight haha!

We got a tour of the town and did a little scavenger hunt asking random people in her town about what it’s like to live there. Most everyone had brightly painted cinderblock houses with tin roofs, with latrines in separate buildings behind the house. This volunteer’s site did have electricity and running water, which is great. They did lack some infrastructure we take for granted in the US, though, like paved roads and trash pick-up. 

Despite this, the area was GORGEOUS. There were beautiful birds and orchids everywhere, green mountains in the distance, hot but with breeze and a little rain, dogs and chickens all over, adorable children running up and talking to us… This is gonna be a-okay.

Tomorrow we move to Santa Rita to live with host families and start our more TE specific training. Wish me luck!!!