La Laguna, My Future Peace Corps Home...

I would like to preface this by mentioning that these pictures are not of my future site, just pictures that I have taken in the month that I have been here.

This past Wednesday all of us in training were presented with a packet of information on our future site for the next two years (starting at the end of October). I am very pleased with what the Peace Corps office here has picked out for me and eager to go visit.

Boy carrying yucca home from the farm.

I am going to a site called ¨La Laguna" high up in the mountains of Panama. Here are some of the details included in my packet:

"La Laguna is the quintessential Peace Corps site! La Laguna lays high in the mountains next to a small lake with 360 degrees of mountain views around it. The Ngäbe culture is strong, and they rarely see outsiders. The community is reached by one of the most interesting chiva (truck) rides in Panama, followed by an hour hike during which you will be able to see for views that extend for over a hundred miles. You will live and eat in the beginning with a host family in a traditional Nedrini house: bamboo walls and a grass roof. The temperature varies in the mountains - it can be hot and sunny all day, and quite chilly at night! The community will help you build your house and you will fit right in."

Traditional Nedrini homes in Bocas del Toro.

Looking at a map of Panama, start at Panama City and travel west (that sounds odd, but look at a map and you will see that Panama runs east-west, not north-south) along the interamerican highway. Before you get to the city of David (close to Costa Rica) you pass through a town called San Felix. From there I travel 2-4 hours (depending on the weather) by truck up into the mountains (North) and then hike for an hour (East) to La Laguna. The Peace Corps office can´t find a map of Panama that includes La Laguna. A year ago a Peace Corps volunteer stumbled upon it and went through the motions to solidify a future volunteer from my group to work with the community.

Two girls at a dance in Santa Clara.

La Laguna has between 100 and 150 people living in 12 homes. Currently there is a small water system that takes clean water to the school, but it only works part of the year. I have been asked to carry water through the town to all of the houses as well as build a storage tank for water for the community. Additionally, they would like more springs tapped into the system to ensure water year round and account for growth over the next 20 years. Sounds like I´ll be busy for the next two years!

Peace Corps volunteers working on a rain water collection system.

La Laguna is not a Latino site, it is a Ngäbe (Gnaw-bay) site. The Ngäbe people are believed to have descended from the Mayans but no one really knows. The women wear bright dresses and they typically have very large families. Also, Spanish is their second language. They speak Ngäbere among themselves. I have been told that my Spanish will likely be better than many of theirs. Consequently, I am now taking Ngäbere classes. The language is more similar to Spanish than English, but the pronunciation is completely different and going to be a difficult hurdle to get over. Additionally, the Ngäbere teachers don´t speak English, only Spanish. So, I am learning their language through Spanish.

I am running out of time for today. I´ll be out in the countryside for the next two weeks working with volunteers on their projects. I´ll post more information when I return.

Thanks for reading.

Rob

The start of Peace Corps Training...

Since leaving the States about four weeks ago I feel like I´ve witnessed a fair amount of Panamanian culture. But something tells me what I´ve seen won´t even compare to what´s ahead of me in the next two years.

Look in the bag!

I live in a small town (about 1,000 people) called Santa Clara, outside of Panama City. Santa Clara is the location of Peace Corps training, and where the 33 new Peace Corps volunteers are all living and studying until the end of October. Each of us lives with our own host family in this small, quiet community. I live with a retired military officer and a nurse, who have two children: 14 and 25. For Panama, they are a well educated and affluent family. However, there is still a drastic difference from the United States. We have running water to the house, most of the time, but no bathroom. There´s a pit toilet in the backyard, but you have to work your way through all the chickens to get to it. The house is small and made of concrete block, but we do have electricity. Arturo´s (my host father) very proud of the fact that he owns a car, as not many in the community do, and he spends much of his time helping those who can´t pay for transportation to/from the city (an hour away).

Out in the Campo (countryside).

As a Peace Corps volunteer, I am working in the Environmental Health sector. There are about 15 of us in this batch of volunteers. Our work revolves around aqueducts (providing clean water), latrines, and health education. As an engineer, I´ll be working more with aqueducts and latrines than with education. Aqueduct work can involve anything from trouble shooting existing water systems to installing new systems from the ground up. Most of the work with water is located in the indigenous areas of Panama, where small communities bath, wash, drink, and go to the restroom all in the same river. As a volunteer I will help look for springs and design/build a gravity flow system to get fresh water to the communities. In some instances volunteers have to go as far as 10 or 15 kilometers (about 6 to 9 miles) to get clean water. The pipe carrying the water needs to be buried 28 inches underground back to the community, often traversing thick rain forests and geographical obstacles.

Bocas del Toro.

As for the work with latrines, some of the indigenous people use pit latrines, others use the river. To help encourage sanitary living situations, Peace Corps promotes a compost latrine. To keep this simple, a compost latrine is a way of turning human waste into "dry earth" or material that is safe to spread on open ground and even crops (although that´s a little more difficult to convince people of with little, if any, education).

The walk to class.

So far training has been interesting, but I am eager to move on to my site where I will spend the next two years. Right now we spend half our days in language training and the other half in technical training. For technical training we learn about how to work with the resources available in this country to improve the water and restroom situation. We´ve built rain water collection systems off of tin roofs, learned how to poor concrete, worked with machetes and organic gardens, and gone out into the countryside to troubleshoot an existing water system. Also, Peace Corps brings in existing volunteers to talk with us about what to expect and how to adjust.

We have been able to do a fair amount of traveling so far, from the Darien (bordering Columbia) to Bocas del Toro (bordering Costa Rica). I´ll do my best to attach some photos to this article, but the computers here are very slow so be patient with me. For today, I´m out of time. I hope that this gives you an idea of what life is like down here in Panama. I´ll write again soon.

Rob

Welcome to my website!

Friends and Family -

I am not big on mass emails updating you all on my Peace Corps experience. However, computer access is not easy to find in the parts of Panama where I am living and working, and I want to be able to share my experience with you all equally well. Consequently, this blog seems like the best option to keep you all up to date, and to serve as an electronic journal for myself. I invite you all to share this site with whomever you like.

I am always excited to open up my email box and find updates from you all, so please email me when you can (roblittle@gmail.com).

With that, enjoy the site.

Rob