What I HAVE been doing for the last 3.5 months. . .and what I WILL be doing for the next 20.5

As I think I have explained before, the first 3 months in site are really just to get to know the community, work on your language proficiency, learn the culture and have people get use to your presence.  After three months you have a meeting where you invite all of your community and the agencies you will be working with (for me that is ANAM, they are the ministry of the environment) and my APCD (i.e. peace corps boss) comes.  Kind of intimidating to say the least. . .I was one of the last people out of my training group to have my meeting, hence it being closer to 4 months in than 3.  But. . .I’m happy to say it is over, and went pretty well I think. 

It was supposed to begin at 10am, of course there were about 2 people there at 10.  But by 10:45 there were over 30 members of my community (plus an assortment of children), the ANAM person from Cope (the closest reasonable sized town that has real stores and some Fondas which are kind of restaurants) and the ANAM person from Penonome (my nearest city).  I was quite excited, since in order to invite them I had to type up formal letters and hand deliver them to their offices (seeing as I am a wimp that in itself was difficult for me lol), and often time agencies here say they will come and then don’t.  Also, the MIDES (ministry of developmet, the group responsible for giving out the Panamanian equivalent of welfare and also has a women’s group in my town) also showed.   All in all not a bad turn out, there wasn’t much more I could do to let people know about the meeting, I put signs in the 3 tiendas, paseared and told people, made an announcement at the Padres de Famila (like the PTA) meeting and at the women’s group meeting. 

The first part of the meeting I had to show the people what I learned in the first few months.  I made a wheel out of recycled materials (see pic below), every color on the wheel correlated to colored bag with prizes.  The people spun the wheel, I asked a question, if they got it correct they got a prize from that bag. 

Then my boss spoke.  Then we started talking about what types of projects the community wanted.  The people were a little slow to speak up, but in the end the list boiled down to the following

1.       Recycling

2.       Ecostoves

3.       Working with APEP (this is an envl group that TECHNICALLY exists in my community and is in the midst of building a house for ecotourism, this group is the REASON there has been Peace Corps volunteers in the town. . .however they are not very organized.  But after a talking to, we are going to try to fix up there group and really get to work on some things for ecotourism, at least I hope)- this is the project that has the potential to be the most fun, and also I think the most beneficial to the community. . .there are no jobs in my community, literally, bringing in tourists would bring in money and create more jobs, even if only for short periods of time

a.       Building a trail and platform to the big waterfall in my town

b.      Advertising

c.       Planning what tourists can do- i.e. harvest/toast/grind/make/drink coffee straight from the trees, learn how to make sombreros, harvest oranges and make fresh orange juice, clean up trails other than the waterfall trail and make signs, cooking lessons, people to cook for the tourists etc

4.       New/larger/better solar panels for the school- our school has solar panels, but they do little more than power the lights.  Although it is rumored electricity will be coming to the town soon, this rumor has been going on for years.  And even if they were to get electricity, they would have to pay for said electricity, whereas solar panels are better for the environment and after the initial cost are free. 

5.       Reforestation- this is a little more low on the list, there are a few hills in the community that completely lack trees due to cattle grazing and slash and burn so that when the rains come the water just flies down the hills. 

Then, let’s not forget that I also have been and will still be working in the school.  Although I don’t really like it, I teach English to grades 1-9.  Actually the younger kids are a lot of fun, the 7-9^th is kind of miserable.  I don’t know what I am doing and they are all WAY behind where they need to be. One of these days I will write a whole post on the school and explain more into all of this and why I gave in and am teaching English even though it is not in my project description and I more or less don’t like it lol.  I also teach environmental education to the younger kids using hands on activities and will be helping re-establish the environmental club and helping with the school garden. 

So, yea, lot’s of stuff haha.  But, we will see what really ends up working out.  The ecostove project is a continuation of the past volunteers project, recycling was also done in the past but seems to have kind of disappeared. . .so here goes another try.  A lot of what is needed for these projects is the money to do them. . .yay to lots of grant writing. 

But, I will be starting with one or two things and working my way up.  Recycling and ecostove will be first, and trying to get this envl group into a more functioning manner.  Vamos a ver.