Mosquito Coast Education

In late Oct we were invited to help out with with a series of educational workshops in three communities along the Caribbean coast. First we traveled to the province of Bocas del Toro and then took a boat four hours along the coast heading back toward the center of the country. All the communities were within the borders of the comarca (indigenous area), but located too far outside of regular transportation routes for Peace Corps volunteers to live in the communities as permanent volunteers. Our focus was sexual health education, and HIV/AIDs, with a little bit of environmental education thrown in for fun times. We want to say a big thank you to Robbie who organized the trip, as well as to all of the volunteers that went with us, it was an unforgettable trip!

This is an activity we do with the kids to teach about waste management.

Tom working with some girls on environmental education stuff.

We were also lucky enough to spend some time on the untouched white sand beaches that make the Bocas coast famous.

Back in Panama

Due to Hurricane Ike we got to stay an extra four days in the states! But, now we are back in Panama and getting to work. We had a wonderfull time in the U.S.A. and want to thank everyone for such a good time. October, our rainiest month, is just about here and it has been raining just about every day. As for gardening, we have been working with the square foot gardening method, and are having good results as you can see from the tomatoes below.

As for the youth group they have been busy planting trees in our community and went to a beach cleanup while we were on vacation, so we are very pleased with group. Our next goal will be going to the local bank and have them open an account for the group and working on money management skills.

A house surrounded by rice.

Our amigos in the house ...

A boat passing through the canal.

Life in Panama on a hot day.

Lots of kniting (and a big thanks to all of those who contributed yarn).

One thing we noticed in the states is that the roads all seem very flat
compared to the roads in Panama.

Vacation - Extremely Colorado...

We have been in the United States of America for Vacation, and the first thing I would like to say is "Wow, everything is really really nice".   Meg and I have been busy with family and helping with my sisters wedding.  We are "recharging our batteries" and are looking forward to getting back to Panama and continue with our projects and the village.  

Walking in Evergreen with the family.

Tie die is coming back in a big way.  Meg and her sister and I did this before the Allman Brothers show @ Red Rocks.

The following set of photos is from an adventure into the high country to go 4 wheeling with ATVs.

Climbing up some big hills.

The Winter Park ski area waiting for snow.

Driving along...

All of the red trees in this photo are dead.  See the following link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_pine_beetle.

My dad on the left and me on the right.  Here is a fable that explains this photo...

As a man grew up he did not have the opportunity to take vitamins and therefore he did not grow very tall.  This made him sad.  When he had his first child he made his child take vitamins every day, and his child grew very tall.  And then the man was happy.

Moral of the story - Take your vitamins

---

The Wedding 

The Cake.

Meg and Thomas.

Meghan and Lynne.

Checking updates on the market.

My Dad and his Brother.

The Bride and the Groom.

The Bride and the Groom, shot #2.

The family.

Tiempo, 1 Year, Hills

It is already August and the winter vacation for the students down here is winding down. We have officially been in our village for over a year, and its amazing how much has changed in this year for us as Peace Corps volunteers. I found this quote on a fellow PCV´s blog and thought it was appropriate to share. "A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it" - John Steinbeck. Sometimes the hardest part of the whole PCV journey is the lack of control, or just sitting back and being "here" and "now" and to realize how fleeting the experience is. All that being said, Meg and I are keeping busy and working making this next year as good as the last one.

Just recently, we went to a small presentation on organic seed saving in Panama in which a small group of highly motivated people are working on starting seed saving banks. One of the main goals of this program is to protect the Intellectual Property Rights of the seeds for the farmers and therefore put the seeds into a "public domain" in which no person or enterprise can claim ownership of the genetic material of the seed.

Luckily in Panama, where we live there is still a large portion of people using local and traditional seeds, in which the seeds from the harvested crop can be reused over and over again. However, some unlucky people have lost all of the local varieties of seeds and end up buying hybrid seeds for which they need to buy the seed over and over again year after year. While all of this is fine and dandy, the rising cost of petroleum, (making chemical fertilizers and pesticides more expensive) is placing a huge finacial burden on the subsistence farmers, and as we have begun to see here, less and less people are able to provide there own food. So anyways, its pretty cool to gmeet people who are working on getting stuff like local seed banks started.

Pasear - A Spanish verb, which roughly translates to "go for a walk" is the act of hanging out and chatting with your neighbors.

More Abono Organico

Lunch at the school. School lunch is really good in Panama as it consists of a plate of rice and lentils. As I teach my class after lunch, I am really happy that the students did not have an typical school lunch of the states, which includes about 5 times the RDA of sugar.

Our new cat Zowie, she just started to kill some of the bugs around the house!

Kids playing games on the XO laptop.

Isla Grande - 1 Year Anniversary

The following photos are from a hike we did to the highest hill in the region, in which we climbed the mighty "Cerro el Toro", then decended a long section of stream in which there were about 5 waterfalls and pools.

Hey! Be careful with that machete!

We arrived at the top.

One of the many waterfalls.

Mojao

Earth Day, School, Fish Tanks, and Sugar Cane

The following three photos where from an Earth Day celebration that we did on the 21 of April. These kids were participating in a drawing contest for a grand prize of a soccer ball! The theme was the environment and we had 3 age groups competing for prizes. Later in the day another Peace Corps Volunteer (Mike) gave a charla on Abono Organico. At the end of the day we did a fundraising activity with our local youth group with a showing of the movie Tarzan.

The Judges

A guest charla by Mike on Abono Organico

Marlena likes Iguanas

The following three photos are from my agriculture class that I tought during tech week with the help of the other Peace Corps aspirantes (volunteers in training). First, we played an game relating to how seed beds protect seeds from bugs (it was a big hit with the kids) and then we devided into two teams and built two seeds beds to use for the school garden.



The following set of pictures is the day we poured the concrete for a fish tank that we are building with a member in our community. Currently we are waiting to get the fish eggs, however, I can almost taste the cocunut curry fish dish that I will be soon eating.













The following set of photos is a sugar cane press in action. They use the sugar cane to make sugar cane juice (very sweet) and then the juice is boiled down to make a miel de caña (honey of sugar cane). The miel de caña is very good, and also very dark colored as it still has all the minerals and vitamins in it.

Mangos, Birthdays, and Lorena Stoves

Well, we are currently coming to an end of this Mango and Avacado season. I will not be the first to say it was great. Its amazing how it starts, as the first few ripe mangos are precious commodities in the community. However, soon more mangos start to get ripe then its a normal everyday thing to have a mango. Then suddenly, they all seem to be ripe at once and there all laying in the ground fermenting with lots of flies, and then its over. Next we wait for about 10 more months for more mangos.

The following pictures are from a Fathers Day - Birthday Celebration that we had in our village.

This photo was taken shortly before our dog (Sol Maria) decided to try the birthday cake.

Bling $$$ Bling $$$

These two photos where taken in our backyard as the fog was lifting.

These following photos of where during the tech training week in our village in which we made a Lorena stove, which is an adobe stove made of mud. For more information check out the following wikipedia site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_stove.

After a bit of planning we started to sift the clay to have a small particle size.

Sifting the clay

We did a wet mix in which we added: clay, sand, dry horse excrement, and water. Then we mix it up with our feet, (as they do for traditional mud house walls and the teja (tile) roofs).

Here is the final product drying, it looks like something out of an Georgia O´Keeffe painting.

Winter

Dancing

Chivas are fun too...

Kids at school

All dressed up

Wow, its been a busy few months here. Luckily, the rain is started and its getting a little cooler outside. Sometimes it even gets cold enough to put on a fuzzy sweater. Brrrr!!! In March we did an fantastic adventure to Bocas Del Toro with Meghan´s family. In April we built a micro-dam (wall) to help a local villager get started with a rice tank project. In May we were busy helping the new Aspirantes with training and hosted a technical training week in our site. We just harvested our first green beans and cucumbers from our second garden, which is really exciting and since we don`t have much time left to write we`ll leave you with a few pictures...