Ode to Mr. Lawrence

I recently heard from my High school mentor, Mr. Lawrence from Claremont High School who is currently teaching AP Environmental at WEBB. Mr. Lawrence emailed asking me about my Peace Corps impressions. He actually caught me on a very reflective day and I actually want to include the email on this blog, I want to dedicate this blog to Mr. Lawrence because he is the reason I joined the Peace Corps in the first place. 


CHS would do well to hire you back and give you a raise. In my biased opinion they are idiots. I was actually translating at a medical clinic last week with Peace Corps friends and my friend Evan's dad (a High School environmental teacher) had brought two of his students with him to Panama to volunteer. I talked to both students for a bit and shared about the Belize trip you took us on in 2005, and about meeting a Peace Corps volunteer in her site. I told them that my AP Environmental Science teacher Mr. L changed the course of my life and I  decided that I wanted to join the Peace Corps when I was 17 years old.  Hopefully, I convinced them to join once they graduate from College, one wants to get a degree in Environmental Engineering, so he would be perfect for Peace Corps, he could work with water-line projects, or water filters, or solar panel well-pumps--all projects that are common here in Panama. I was also talking to him about the Master's International program where you can go to graduate school for a year at Michigan Tech or Florida (all of my engineering friends go there but there is a list of MI programs on the Peace Corps website) and then do Peace Corps for two years, conduct your research, and then return to defend your thesis. I have a number of friends that are doing their Master's during their service. 

Thanks for the offer for letters of recommendation, I am actually thrilled to tell you that I have already been accepted to the Monterey Institute of International Studies, in Monterey, California. I actually only just submitted my application on January 15th and got on email from them with my admissions letter on January 24th. I was at the beach and my phone buzzed with an email notification and I screamed, "I got into Grad School!!!" All of the friends totally lost in and poured drinks and we all cheered. I am really excited about MIIS, which is an extension of Middlebury College in Vermont. It's also pretty cool that the current Peace Corps Panama country director got his MPA degree at MIIS.

I actually also applied to the University of Denver and am still waiting for the admission's committee at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies to get back to me.

I have so many impressions about the Peace Corps. My boyfriend recently got an email from a friend at home that is considering joining the Peace Corps and Nate and I were discussing how he should respond. He felt the need to start the email by saying that if you are going to join the Peace Corps, from the beginning, you should 'lower your expectations.' I don't entirely agree with lowering your expectations. I have been here for over 2 and a half years and I am still an optimist and I am still surprised when things don't work out. I do believe it would however be helpful to initially assume that your Peace Corps work will not have "tangible" results, it might, but more than likely the work that you are involved in will not be tangible or easy to measure.

I think the happiest volunteers are the volunteers with a good senses of humor. A friend recently hosted an inaugural ceremony for a beautiful brick oven that his community committee hopes to create a viable bread making business with. Nick thought selling pizza would be a great way to raise money for the committee. In the end though, no one bought the pizza, they just bought the dough. I don't think the event made very much money because Nick had spent so much on the pizza ingredients. But Nick was able to laugh about it and will be hosting another inaguration--his goodbye party as a final attempt to leave the committee with a little funding. He was able to brush off the initial disappointment and plan for another try. This type of thing happens a lot, cultural differences that you just have to shrug off and try again, and also sell Panamanians favorite bread with a side of their favorite dishes.
If any of your students decide to join the Peace Corps the best advice that I can give them is to bring their patience and sense of humor. And once they are in their communities (their sites where they will be working for two years) they need to find the 'rock-stars.' They need to find the people that want to work with them, those that are passionate and motivated. I found the rock-stars in my community and my service was made so much easier with their help. My friend Natalie used to always make fun of my Peace Corps philosophies but she told me in June that her favorite quote of mine is, "the more rockstars you find in site, the more fun you can have." Now it varies from Country to Country but Peace Corps pre-service training usually lasts about 8 weeks--this is where Peace Corps provides you with training for 2 months, its usually sector-specific training and intense language training. Then you swear in as a Peace Corps volunteer and you have three-months to integrate into your community. Peace Corps Panama really encourages volunteers to stay in their communities for the first three-months. Our program encourages that we just visit with families and get to know our community as well as we can. Our program doesn't assume that we will go in and have projects started within the first month. They really just want us to visit with families, work on our language skills, and get over our initial fear of casually walking into peoples homes (which is such a foreign concept in the US but so common in Panama, I can't tell you how often people came to my house right around lunch time.....)

Suffice it to say that in my community I found the rock stars, one of which was my host sister, Sara Gutierrez. She made my service. She was always there for me. I remember specifically one evening I was planning a movie night at the school. At that time the indigenous Ngobe's had been protesting against mining in their area and had closed down the Pan American highway for 2 days. I wanted to show my community members Avatar to do a little bit of environmental education and a little indoctrinating. I had ordered the pizza's from Dominoes hours earlier and the small community bus had picked them up. I had the projector set up, chairs, and Sara was just finishing with the pop-corn. And about 15 minutes before the movie night stared the power went out. I was alone at the school because Panamanians usually arrive about 45 minutes late. Sara called me immediately and told me not to worry, she was on her way. She just had to stop at the Kiosk for candles. She waited with me until the power came back on and we hosted the movie night together. That night was the first movie night but we must of hosted over 10 movies nights during my service. We also showed 'Even the Rain,' 'Motorcycle Diaries,' and 'Brave' to name a few. Sara was always there combatting traditional gender roles. I remember we were building a wall at the school for the recycling shed and I didn't have enough money in the budget to pay for sand, so she told me to come over to her house. When I got there she had already found 30 empty sacks and two shovels and told me we could get the sand from the river. As I struggled up the hill with an incredibly steep incline with one thirty pound bag of sand, Sara was carrying two. Sara actually is currently the president of the recycling committee and is working towards establishing a program similar to a municipal waste collection program in our community, currently ten houses are involved. During my time in site the two of us established recycling at the school every two weeks and got several community stores to send their recycling to the school as well. We also hosted a class for 18 women for 8 weeks to learn how to re-use materials to make products as a supplemental income. We also went to the US embassy in Panama City with 5 other women to teach the embassy workers children how to make simple things with recyclable materials. Sara and I worked really well together. She actually asked me to be her baby girls god-mother, and I actually baptized her daughter last June. When I was leaving site, Sara told me that she wouldn't be as close to my follow-up volunteer because it would just be too hard. I told her that was unacceptable, that she had to look out for my follow-up. I actually had dinner with Sara last week in the provincial capital and she said she wasn't able to stay away. That her and Carolina have a special relationship as well and I am so happy about that.

I would also advise that Peace Corps applicants apply to work with community economic development, environmental conservation, and environmental health. The education volunteers seem to struggle the most because they have to put up with a lot of bullshit. They don't have as much freedom and are usually assigned a community counterpart. Teaching english is hard--especially if it is your assigned job. It's more fun if teaching english is something you do one afternoon a week. Teaching math is are hard too---just a word to the wise--you will deal with a lot of formality and corruption if you are assigned to an education job. The happiest teaching english volunteers that I know in Panama are happy because that are also working with other things like teacher trainings, ultimate frisbee teams, recycling programs and environmental clubs, etc.

So my Peace Corps impressions in summary: The work that you do may not be tangible--but that's okay. You might be working with youth development teaching about self-esteem, self-image, over-coming traditional gender roles, etc.--but that work has an impact. Don't be discouraged if your not building an aqueduct or building composting latrines. Not everything in development work is tangible. Also, maintaining a sense of humor is very important. The country you are working in will sometimes kick your ass for no reason. Panama is difficult when I need it to be easy and easy when I am anticipating it to be difficult. Also, find the rock-stars which is a synonym for finding the hard/motivated workers that are going to work with you and that have your back---you need them more than they need you!! But the amount of projects that you can do will be based on their help. 

I also forgot to mention what I am currently doing: I am working as a Peace Corps Response volunteer in Chitre, Panama which is the largest city in the Azuero Peninsula in Southern Panama. I am here for 9 months working directly with the Municipal government and the Ministry of Education. I am essentially trying to prove to the Municipal government that recycling is possible here once they provide the education and actually follow through with collecting it. Today their only method of dealing with trash is burning huge quantities of trash everyday. I wish I had a way to measure the dioxin levels of the local live-stock and food production to actually get their attention. At the moment I am woking in 4 schools, 3 elementary schools and 1 really large high school to teach about recycling and host recycling collection days at the schools every two weeks. One school last year actually made 995 dollars in two months selling their recyclables to the local recycling center, so one school did incredibly well. The high school however only made 9 dollars in two months. Behavioral change can be tough but I am lucky that one school is full of rock-star parents and teachers (the elementary school that did well). I will officially finish serving as a Peace Corps Response volunteer on May 24th, so I only have 4 more months to work and enjoy Panama before heading home to Claremont. 

Thank you Mr. Lawrence. 

I also wanted to include photos of the last couple weeks: in Los Santos, Herrera, Cocle, Chiriqui, and the Comarca Ngobe Bugle.

Vacation day contest: bring it

The peace corps panama director recently sent out an email to all peace corps panama volunteers announcing an essay contest. Three volunteers will win a hardy handshake from the country director and most importantly an extra vacation day! All we have to do is write a one page entry on a day in the life of a volunteer. My competition most likely are the teaching English volunteers as most of them have bachelors degrees in English Literature. Vacation days are a big deal in Peace Corps because we only get Panamanian holidays off. Which is pretty annoying because our communities and schools expect us to celebrate with them on holidays and not to take off to visit Kuna Yala. Ergo on Panamanian holidays Peace Corps volunteers are usually dancing alongside our community members instead of visiting one of Panama's plethora of vacation destinations. So I am entering this contest with one goal: to win an extra vacation day.

A day in the life of a volunteer. I woke up this morning at 6 am with "bachata" blasting out my window. My neighbors can't seem to get enough of Prince Royce's Spanglish version of "stand by me".I have a meeting at the municipal government's office this morning. I have recently started working in the city and I would like to share a brief presentation with representatives from the Municipal government, they are after all supposed to be one of my agency counterparts. The meeting is scheduled for 10 am. I  have time to go to the copy center to print out a copy of my PowerPoint and print out business cards. I got to the municipal governments meeting room fifteen minutes early. Chitre residents pour into the building along with their agency counterparts. Secretaries walk from office to office. The president of the meeting has already arrived along with representative Via Real. It's 10:15 and the three other representatives, Gonzalez, Vergara, and Cedeno have yet to arrive. In Panama being late is the norm, Panamanians have even coined the term, "hora panamena," the 'Panamanian hour.' Regardless of how long I have been working here, the Panamanian hour is still frustrating. 5 minutes is okay. 15 your starting to push it. And thirty minutes later, walking in on the phone is unacceptable, especially for a governmental agency. But Panamanians seem to have so much more patience then I do. At 10:35 all of the representatives have arrived and the meeting begins. The meeting set up is incredibly formal. All of the representatives sit in a horse shoe shape formation, all are behind microphones, all with individual desks and fancy office chairs. The meeting begins will several formalities, "honorable representative Gonzalez? Present. Honorable representative Via Real? Present. Honorable president of the Advisory Committee? Present." The first resident of Chitre to share her project proposal with the committee is Francisca Quintero about a local cooperative in need of land to build their business. Her speech is long and heartfelt and also in Panamanian style full of brown nosing. She knows what she is doing. The committee passes a motion to approve the cooperatives project. The meeting continues with a letter from the mayor who was detained for the day with work in Panama City. More letters are read and approved. The representatives share projects from their districts, they argue, speak candidly, yell, laugh, and continue to do so for 2 hours. Finally the  meeting is opened up to the public. At this point they realize that I wasn't included in the agenda. But there's a meeting next Wednesday, all I have to do is solicit time to speak. I have to write a formal letter to the president of the advisory council and next week they will let me know if I can speak during the meeting. Today I had a PowerPoint prepared, I had printed out pictures of the open dump, I had a letter of solicitation for 600.00 dollars from the municipal government to help fund my recycling pilot project. And in today's meeting they allowed me enough time to share my name before everyone stood up to leave. My next chance to speak may be the 11th or the 18th. I might wait for three hours yet again just to share my name, but I will be there trying to share my project. I left the municipal governments office today somewhat defeated. I went home ate chips and salsa with a Dr. Pepper and wrote out the solicitation letter formally asking to be part of the meetings agenda next week. I walked to the Internet cafe to print it out and walked to the office only to find that they had closed early today. So I walked over to the mayors office and set up a meeting directly with him for tomorrow afternoon. His approval for the 600 dollars may be all I need?

Hopefully I'll have better luck tomorrow. I will take the solicitation letter tomorrow and hope for a time slot in next weeks meeting.

One bright spot today: I got on the bus today and sat down next to a very cute old man. He told me as I sat down, "good afternoon my love," to which I naturally replied, 'good afternoon my heaven." He asked me where I was from and noticed my peace corps lanyard. He then told me about a volunteer that he had worked with in the 1970s. He told me that this volunteer had come back several times and is already old with grand kids. I was grateful to run into someone with such a positive opinion of peace corps on a day like today.

This was my experience today. I am currently enjoying an air conditioned cafe and three sweet pineapple empanadas. This evening I have an 'insanity' workout class at the gym I joined last week.

Thanks for reading,
Sonia





Sent from my iPad

Peace Corps Response: My New Job!

Hello blog readers,  

I was recently on a radio show here in Panama known as the Breakfast Show with Gerry D and Sandra Snyder and I happened to share this blog address on the air.

http://www.pbcpanama.com/index.php/this-week/friday The full show will only be available until this Friday, August 30^th on their website.

 For those of you that were interested enough in Peace Corps Panama to find this address, welcome—I am glad that I could spark some interest in volunteer work in Panama and with the Peace Corps. To family and friends that continue to read this blog I need to share my current undertaking with you…  I have recently started a new Peace Corps adventure.  I am still working with waste management and Recycling in Panama, although I am starting in a new area of the country.  I am currently serving as a Peace Corps Response volunteer in Chitre, Herrera, which is 4 hours southwest of Panama City. My position is  “Response Recycling Coordinator.” Which means that I will be working with the municipal government and the ministry of education in a recycling pilot project to create recycling programs in 5 local schools.  I am also hoping to work with an environmental group at the local university to educate 15 university students how to teach about waste management and recycling so that they can reach local schools as well. I have signed on until February, but that date can change depending on how much work needs to be done.

I just got back to Panama last Monday and today was my first day in Chitre “on the job.” Peace Corps Response is a very interesting experience in that it is very independent. I couldn’t imagine a job being more independent than my work during my Peace Corps service, but it seems to be much more independent.  During my service, I was assigned to a community, three host families, and to work-counterparts.  Here in Chitre, coordinating meetings, finding agencies, etc. is all on me. It’s a bit intimidating, hopefully I can meet up with some other volunteers this week so they can help 'show me the ropes." 

Today I was able to visit Chitre’s open dump and it’s a disaster.  The “Landfill” is full of vultures, no lining for leachate, and no sign of improvement.  I actually visited the site with the director of municipal services and he has been working with this site for the last five years.  Under normal circumstances, Municipal waste collection is directly correlated with a countries income. In high-income countries, 10 percent of the municipal resources are spent in waste collection and 80-90 percent of resources are spent with waste management treatment. In low-income countries, it’s the opposite, with the great majority of resources spent on waste collection and very little spent on waste management treatment.  The situation in Chitre is bad, but the city’s dump doesn’t stand-alone; cities all over Panama including Panama City are facing the same environmental issues. Panama City’s open dump, Cerro Patacon has caught fire several times, most recently in the last 5 months.   The government’s reaction however is very hush-hush. No one wants to admit that waste management is a nightmare in Panama. Immediately after the fire began in March 2013, the Ministry of Health said that the air was very toxic. Although later that same day the Ministry of Health retracted their previous statements and said very little contamination would come from the fire.  Initially they were saying that the surrounding neighborhood of San Miguelito should be evacuated and then they only recommended evacuation for those with “compromised lungs.” Once the fire was under control, the government proceeded to give medals and honors to those that fought the “unpredictable blaze.” Cerro Patacon’s fire however was and will continue to be a time bomb that the government will have to find a solution to. The same is true for Chitre, currently though none of the representatives want to admit to the problem let alone contribute to its solution. Vamos a ver que pasara aca en Chitre. I have included photos of the open dump here in Chitre below:

I would also like to share about my boyfriend, Nate Arnold’s Latrine and Reforestation project. Nate for some reason does not want to ask friends, family, or family friends for help funding his Peace Corps Partnership Program Grant. He is hoping to get all 7,000 dollars funded from donors that are inspired to donate. Which is amazing and an impressive attempt to get his project funded, but I am not sure that it will work. For funding for projects of my own during my service I was emailing everyone that I knew through email, phone calls, facebook, and this blog. It isn’t to say that Nate won’t get his grant completely funded the way that he is choosing to do it, he probably can. I just think that if he used social media—more people would be aware of his project and more people would donate. He is currently trying to fund a daunting 7,000 dollars. Which in Panama seems like so much money, whereas in the states 7,000 dollars seems very possible.

So I am going to include the link to the Peace Corps donation page here to try and help Nate out: https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=13-525-029

The Peace Corps is an incredible organization and I am proud to serve again as a Peace Corps Response volunteer here in Panama. The Peace Corps can be a challenge in that we are expected to do a lot with very little financial resources.  The Peace Corps is made up of human resources that identify problems in their community in health, agriculture, or the environment and dare to improve the conditions working “arm in arm” with community members. The amount of work that Nate is attempting to do will help 43 homes and 285 individuals, which is about 90 percent of the community. For 100 dollars you can help provide a latrine to a family. I hope several people are convinced to do so.  I have included a photo of Nate and I, to help put a face to the name. 

Hasta la proxima, 

Sonia 

Gender and Development Camp, Peace Corps Panama at its best

file://localhost/Users/soniaesquibel/Desktop/Seminario%20Juventil.mov

If not, its on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1-HbZ2BKAA, youtube name: Seminario Juventil

I hope you are able to watch the slide show above. If not I am also uploading it to youtube as well. Pictures are worth a thousand words, but I still need to share my initial reactions to the project that I just carried out. 

To all that donated to the project, Thank you. I wish you all could have been there to see it with your own eyes. It was truly the ultimate "feel good" experience. We were offering these students an experience that they had never had before. Every Panamanian agency kept saying how rare and unique it was and that they should aprovecharlo, take advantage of it and enjoy it to the fullest. And I genuinely feel that the youth did take advantage of this experience and that they all had an amazing time. Our last night one of the most participatory students shared that she hated "despedidas (goodbyes)" and i apologized and told her unfortunately that's what we had planned for the evening. 

In total we had 31 Panamanian Youth attend camp and we had the help of 12 phenomenal Peace Corps Volunteers--Beth, Tali, Danielle, Amber, Kendra, Ruth, Chelsea, Alex, Nick, Andrew, and Whitney. Without these volunteers, the camp wouldn't have been possible. All of these volunteers went above and beyond. 

Thank you to all of the donors! Muchisimas gracias! More to come! 

Be the Change

The Ask: Soliciting funding for a Youth Leadership Camp this May 24-May 28^th 2013

Peace Corps is an exercise in Patience and Perseverance. We come in with all of these expectations, especially me. Several people have told me that I need to lower my expectations. I need to become less of an optimist and more of a realistic optimist. I feel like I am beginning to understand that, especially with my last project as a Peace Corps volunteer.

I am trying to host a youth camp for 40 kids; I have mentioned this in previous blogs. I never could have imagined though how much work needs to go into this. I have to coordinate with other volunteers to make sure that their youth are still interested. I need to coordinate with Panamanian agencies for lectures and resources. And I need to fundraise both within country and back home to host the camp.

I believe all of this work is worth the effort. These 40 kids will be facing a lot in the next few years. They will be facing challenges that are in many regards cultural issues. Just in the province that I work in, 50 percent of new mothers are ages 17-21.  The poverty rate in panama is 36.8 percent, which means 4 out off every 10 Panamanians are living in poverty. And 54 percent of Panamanian children below 6 years of age are living in poverty. These youth face teenage pregnancy and poverty problems. This camp is Peace Corps Panama’s attempt to modify and empower these youth to become active participants in their futures by establishing goals and values. We want them to be well versed in family planning, sexual health, decision-making, self-esteem, and becoming leaders in their own communities.

I believe in these kids and I really believe that they will learn so much at the camp if they attend.

If you can help I would really appreciate it. I have received so much positive feedback from the US and Panama already that I really feel that we can do this!!

The donation page can be found at www.peacecorps.gov then click on donate to volunteer projects. The project is listed under Panama Peace Corps volunteer Chelsea Mackin’s name and is called “Gender and Development Youth camp.”

The following link works too: https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=13-525-015

Thank you from the bottom of my heart. The positive feedback has made me cry several times, I have been so touched by everyone that has been compelled to donate!  But lets keep it coming!!!!

Sonia Esquibel

Crazy Stubborn Peace Corps Volunteer

Panama 2011-2013

I also wanted to include photos of the potential Venue!!!