Site Envy, or Work I'm Doing Elsewhere

Every now and then I get this feeling. I go to another volunteer's site and I see nicer stores, or parks, or well-kept gardens and friendly neighbors. I look around and get that unsavory feeling: site envy. I've been placed in a community and I've grown to love it and the people who live here. However, there are moments when I wish things could be just a little bit different. Sadly, this feeling now arises, without fail, once a month.

I have been collaborating with an English professor who works in my district capital, a larger town in the equivalent of my "county." One day back in May, I was at a Ministry of Education English Department meeting. This man approached me and asked if I could come to his classes once a month and give seminars to his students to occasionally provide them with native pronunciation and an opportunity to practice with me. This professor has pretty darn good English. Furthermore, he was willing to plan these lessons with me, and even came to my small town to do said planning. This, namely teachers who take that kind of initiative, is almost unheard of. So a part of me was sad that he doesn't work at my school. Part of me wishes I could always work with this guy, because then the possibilities would be endless.

This site envy only got worse when I visited the town where he works. My standards for what constitutes a nice town have really dropped. The first time I saw this town, I felt a tingling in my pants brought on by the following things:
-A pretty church with a priest who gives mass there every week. (My little chapel has a priest that has to rotate between the churches in the area. It's annoying, because if I want to be a good Catholic, I have to walk up to an hour to church in another village.)
-a park with benches, a little pavillion, and kids' playscape
-Chinos, or small markets with varying amounts of good, sometimes American products. I also appreciate the chinos because they're usually run by chinos, Chinese people. That would be a nice, four-person (one family) splash of diversity.
-An infoplaza, an internet cafe with free access to all. I could spend several posts about the opportunities this could open for the members of my community.
-A waterfall. I mean, who wouldn't want one of those?

During the second seminar this professor and I had last month, the school's art teacher pulled me aside and showed me an art exhibit she had organized with the School of Fine Arts in Santiago, in collaboration with the National Institute of Culture. There were works from the university students and high school kids alike: paintings, collages, and even sculptures (done by the high school art teacher herself). It was a great way to showcase the kids' talent and expose them all to art, which is seriously lacking out here in the interior. I was salivating because I could never imagine this in my school. It proves that with committed teachers, good things can happen.

(My favorite painting at the exhibit)

What is this picture supposed to be? It's just kids in a class, right? Yes, but it's also Panamanian students, normally characterized by crippling shyness (pena), walking around and participating, doing a guided speaking activity. The implications of this seemingly mundane picture is what Teaching English volunteer high-fives are made of.

Today I had a successful English seminar by the waterfall. We took the kids out and taught some nature vocabulary. Then we taught them how to say "I see..." and "I don't see..." Then the kids got to go exploring and use their vocabulary or ask us about new words they wanted to know. Then we got back together as a group and the kids shared with each other. "I see butterflies. I don't see tigers." It doesn't seem like much, but in a culture where kids would sometimes rather take the failing grade than give an oral presentation, this is nothing short of amazing.

So some of the work I've been doing shows some visible, albeit small, success. Baby steps. Now if I could only have the same effect in the school they sent to me to work in...

A Day in the Life

The past few posts have all been about trips I’ve taken out of site. When looking from an outsider’s perspective, it dawned on me that, to some, it might seem like I’m not doing much work. Well, there’s an ounce of truth to that, but it doesn’t owe to a lack of effort on my part. Let me give you an idea of what a day is like. Of course, no day is typical, but this is a breakdown of a recent day.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

???: Roosters crowing, but it’s not light out yet.

5:45am: Begrudgingly get out of bed. Set a pot of water to boil. I mix a pot of hot water with water from the outdoor bucket to make it bearable. Start making oatmeal. (Never used to be an oatmeal person.) Both burners of the electric stove are on, so the lights flicker. Whenever I leave the room, I turn the lights off immediately to conserve energy. The lights have shorted out on me before.

6:10am: Eat breakfast while watching an episode of The Boondocks, ripped from the Internet.

6:30am: Shower/bath. Carry a bucket of lukewarm water, totuma, soap, shampoo, and shaving tools. Today I shave, which is no fun. Rarely turns out well without a mirror. I can see my breath. Chilly.

6:45am: Get dressed. I'm feeling lazy, so instead of doing the dishes, I just pour water on them and save the work for later.

7:00am: Walk to school. Five-minute walk on the gravel road, slightly uphill. On the way I see chickens, horse droppings, and kids in their uniforms. The older ones clutch the hands of the younger ones.

7:05am: Arrive at school. The bus that brings the teachers from Santiago (the nearest city, an hour away) beats me here. I always try to get here before the teachers. Drop off my empty gallon jugs and say “Buenos días, etc.” to my former host mom, who works at the school kiosk.

7:10-7:50am: 7th grade English with Teacher Four-Foot-Nothing?
Nope. I ask her what she’s doing today. “We’re just figuring out grades and then we’ll discuss next week’s school anniversary activities.” The first week of school is dedicated to tying up loose ends from the previous trimester. A week is lost. If I were to go to a more “normal” class with this teacher, her instruction would go for approximately 10 of the 40 minutes. Then, feeling obligated to fill the time, I would get up and explain the same material in more detail with several examples. I would try engage the students to answer questions in chorus or come up and write on the board. Anything to get them awake. But not today.

7:50-8:30am: Teacher Class for high school English teachers
My initial plan for the class: reinforcement to help improve their English, and a chance for me to offer suggestions for methods and activities, and collaborate with them.
What happened: Teacher Not-Really-Blonde, assertive, dominates the conversation. Talks about how my presence in the classroom is off-putting to students and teachers. Mentions how I get visibly upset when instruction often gets preempted by school activities: band practice for the upcoming Independence Day parades, students poking their heads in selling raffle tickets, movie showings, assemblies, etc. Admits that the way things are done her aren’t the best, but that nothing will change. Same teacher then changes discussion to plans for the 3rd trimester (Holidays in the US). But before the big project, she wants to teach phrases to express emotions like "Wow" and "Ouch." This when the students can’t form simple sentences or read their own homework. Argue with her about that. We agree to phase me out of work in the classroom and work together during two of their free periods every week. Guess that means I don’t have to go to their classes anymore.

9:10am: Return to Elementary school. Go to boy’s bathroom, brand new, which had been locked for the whole past trimester because some kids supposedly threw gum in a urinal. Punishment didn’t match the crime, which infuriates me. Brand new bathrooms with all the necessary amenities locked and inaccessible forces the kids to use disgusting, poorly-kept latrines and discourages them from washing their hands (which, in all honesty, would only consist of splashing water on them anyway). Natural selection compels me to squash a beetle struggling on its back. Those huge bugs are annoying and stupid.

9:20am: Sitting in on 4th grade English with Teacher Meany Pants. He’s giving a dictation quiz of numbers 1-100. (Think about it: 9 year-olds forced to memorize the non-intuitive spelling of words in a foreign language. What were you doing in 4th grade Spanish, if it was even offered to you?) Yesterday, in order to fill dead time during which he was organizing portfolios with all the grades of the previous trimester, I reviewed spelling of numbers. If I hadn’t done that, the only instruction the kids would’ve gotten would have been staring at the book, which, by the way, only goes up to 50. Since the instruction is so flippant and doesn’t really build from one year to another, this is essentially new to them, especially spelling.

9:30am: Meany Pants yells while writing answers. Goes through it all at lightning speed, never giving students an opportunity to realize their mistakes or correct them on their own quizzes or on the board, which the kids would have loved. Then repeats over and over how easy it should be for them.
Students exchange papers and correct each other’s quizzes. However, since half of it is written, and since the kids often copy wrong or don’t pay close attention, they don’t catch all the mistakes. Writing is too often the focus of English class, but since their native language is Spanish, and since they don’t have the basic tools for understanding phonetics and the combination of letters and the sounds they make, you get answers like this:
1: uan
9: nain
54: fivti-for

9:45am: Quote from Meany Pants: “Debes morirte…así habrá más espacio en el salón,” which translates to “You should just die…that way there’d be more room in the class.” Meany Pants says things like this a lot, and delivers lines like that in such a loud, stern voice that students and I are unable to tell if he’s joking.

10:00am: In a period of five minutes, Meany Pants makes racist jokes about both Indigenous and Chinese people. Do I say something? I have before, and it doesn't stop him from saying it in class.

10:05am: Meany Pants finally breaks down differences in spelling. Thankfully I’m there to catch small mistakes in spelling and pronunciation.

10:06am: Teacher’s cell phone rings. Amazingly, he doesn’t pick it up this time. Another identical quiz on Tuesday. Test Wednesday on same material.

10:20am: RECESS. The search for a snack begins. Edwin, the custodian, cuts the grass with a weed whacker.

Snack:
-Crackers and American cheese mini-sandwiches: $0.30
-Empanada from the lady who walks around the school at recess: $0.25

Give out gum sent in a recent package (thanks Mrs. Fenske!). Kids crowd me. I have them form a line, and after I give them a piece, I have them say thank you in English. If I hadn’t told them to, they would have said nothing at all.

10:40 am: Teachers and students drag their feet at the end of recess and I’m done trying to get them on task. I hide out in the computer lab (air-conditioned, under-utilized) and read.

11:30am: Meany Pants sends student to find me, although, according to the schedule, he and I don’t have class together. 6th grade: Dictation on school supplies, a topic from last trimester. In fact, a repetition of an old test.

11:45am: Review of Numbers 1-100. Teachers tries to get me to do the review again. I tell him that I’ve already done it twice and showed him what to do and that he should try it this time. Disagreement.
His thought process: This lazy kid doesn’t want to do any work. He did it before. Can’t he just do it again?
My thought process: I’m here trying to improve the teachers’ methods. Theoretically, when I do something in class, I try and model everything, and then give the teacher an opportunity to do the lesson/review themselves.

Teacher pairs kids up and opens books. Students point to each number and look at word, then repeat after teacher. Listen and repeat. Supposedly, this is meant to teach spelling, seeing as how the next quiz is dictation.

12:00pm: Teacher takes time to explain differences between several sets of sounds:
-v sound and f sound
-Voiced and voiceless th
-Reduction of t in words like twenty
Might be over the kids heads a bit, but at least he's doing something relevant.

12:15pm: Gather gallon jugs, filled with boiled water now cool, go back home.

12:20pm: Quickly eat lunch of peanut butter sandwiches on bread (not toasted since electricity is currently out). Then go across the street to host mom’s house to do laundry. Separate, throw in washer for two 15-minute cycles, wring out each article of clothing, transfer to large bowl to rinse, dunk clothes in and pull out over and over, wring out again, transfer to centrifuge quick-dryer, put up on line to dry.

2:45pm: Finish clothes, go back home, and sit down to check e-mail. First time in a while that I didn’t plop down on the chair in front of the computer as soon as I got home. Search for free online Chinese lessons, since I feel a pang of regret about having given it up. Research my tentative future plan: Peace Corps Fellows Masters in Education program at Columbia University. This would lead to becoming a teacher in New York for a minimum of 3 years.

5:00pm: Go to the store to buy replacement soap, since I used up all my host mom’s soap (a package that I technical bought, but still). Meet two students on the road. They ask to race me. I agree. We start running. My flip-flop thong pops out and the whole thing flies off while I’m running. I keep from tripping, but lose. They ask if I want to play with them over by the basketball court, where the kids play soccer. I say yes. Go to the store, buy the laundry soap, and head home. Go get my basketball and go back to the court, which is filled with kids playing. Kids and I play a bastardized form of basketball for a while. Kids range in age from 5 to 9, boys and girls, all more or less adorable.

6:45pm: Go home since it’s getting dark. Make dinner (heat up previously prepared lentils and cook two eggs). Eat dinner while watching ripped stand-up comedy videos of Eddie Murphy. Yay technology.

7:45pm: Throw dishes in the large bowl, my makeshift sink, and bring the clothes back inside, in fear that it might rain at night. Some of the clothes are still a bit wet, so I’ll have to hang them up again tomorrow morning.

8:10pm: Vitamins. Dental hygiene. More videos and time-wasting.

9:15pm: Bed time. Slip under mosquito net into my foam mattress bed, which bows in the middle. I lie down closer to the edge of the bed and curse the roosters in advance.

So, nearly all my frustrations are centered around school and the culture surrounding education. Serious problems are pervasive. I'm starting to realize that I can't do everything I want to do. Sadly, I base my feeling of accomplishment on how much I can change and improve the way things are done around here, especially since my project is called Teaching English. In all honesty though, that's only one facet of my purpose here. And school doesn't dominate my whole day. While writing this post, I realized that everything else in my Peace Corps life isn't so bad. Compared to others, it's actually quite charmed. The impact I have here is something that may have nothing to do with English, or what goes on during those five hours of school. Know what that means? More having fun, less getting worked up about things over which I have no control.

Isla Grande, Colón

A small group of Peace Corps volunteers and I decided to spend a few days of our vacation in Colón, a northern province in Panama on the Caribbean side. Colón has a high concentration of the country's black population. People from countries like Jamaica, Trinidad, and Barbados came to work on the Panama Canal back at the turn of the 20th century and stayed there. Nowadays, Colón and Panama City host a fair amount of the country's Afro-Panamanian population. It was an interesting change of pace from the homogenous "shades of brown" at my site, and helped me remember the country's diversity.

Here is the first view we got of Isla Grande. It was a nice spot, a very relaxing place to swim at nearly any point in the day. The first day, we arrived in the mid-afternoon, had time to settle down and eat, and then went out for an evening swim. It was pretty awesome. The hotel in the middle-right of the picture is where we stayed. If you can't tell, it was pretty darn close to the water.

The island lent itself well to casual walks, but sadly, a fench prevented us from going all the way around. Every now and then we arrived at nice little stretches of beach like the one above.

We spent a fair amount of our time at this one particular restaurant, but it was totally worth it. Great food, pretty chill, and not too filled with tourists. In fact, I could describe the whole trip that exact way. Supposedly, we picked the wrong days to be there. We left on Saturday, which is when things kick into high gear, the music gets louder, and people come in droves. Whatever. I really liked the atmosphere.

One night we went to a restaurant suggested by a sign on the "sidewalk." Roasted chicken and patacones (twice-fried plantains) for only $2.75, or something like that. We found out that the place was actually just a house. The man who served us was a really nice guy. He eventually pulled out this huge, fancy historical encyclopedia and told us about how a Spaniard spent time on the island gathering info on the book he was writing. This man later gifted the restaurant guy a copy, which, according to him, was reserved for the embassies. Nifty. This guy was extremely friendly. He showed us his little cabins nearby for rent, which we plan to use when we come back sometime later. Then, the next day, he offered to give us a ride back to the mainland on his boat.

On our way out, we stopped by Portobelo, another small tourist destination famous for its church depicting Black Jesus, and the forts in ruins along the shore.

The rolled-up khakis were kind of the theme of the trip. I didn't want to bring shorts and get labeled a gringo tourist, but I was on vacation. I had to let loose a little bit. Thankfully, this picture was taken at that exact moment, because only moments later, I slipped in the mud and got those pants super dirty. That almost ruined my day.

We finished strong by having a final night in Panama City before going our separate ways. As it usually happens, we met up with other Peace Corps volunteers, met random international tourists while we partied, and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly before going back to the ol' grind.

Seeing Friends and American-esque Towns

This weekend I went to visit a friend in the central province of Panama, which includes the capital city. She lives close to a tourist destination known as El Valle. She and I were planning to go to our old host community during training for a party. Another friend's host family from training decided to throw her a party for her birthday and invited us to show up and surprise her.

On Friday, I spent the day with my friend's landlord, who is a very kind man and proud gardener. His house, and by extension my friend's house, are covered with flowers and plants that end up in the fancy hotels and resorts of the area. One of those fancy places is called Coronado. It's an upper-class neighborhood, a sort of gated community for rich foreigners. From the Interamericana, the main highway, you can tell you're coming up on Coronado from the high concentration of nice restaurants, fast food, and stores that seem to pop out of nowhere. What I didn't know was just how well those people live. Until now...

This is a view from one of the beachside condos/houses in Coronado. The residents have pools and tennis courts and spas and their own stretch of beach. It's really a very nice setup.

While on that little Coronado tour, my friend's landlord and friend took us to an especially beautiful house with mango (which amazingly still bear fruit even past the normal season) and lemon (or lime, depending on what you see) trees. Since this man sells many owners of these houses the flowers and plants that line their properties and the grounds of the complex, he has run of the place. So the owners had no problem with us taking some limones. No big deal. Here I am reaching up high getting some tasty fruit, all while trying to avoid the thorns.

Something interesting: as you can see, these are green citrus fruits. In my mind, lime, right? The Panamanians call these limón (lemon) as opposed to lima (lime). No matter what you call it, these bad boys make delicious juice. Yesterday, when I went shopping at the grocery store, I had to giggle when I saw people buying limones. Hehe, I got 'em for $FREE.99!

That night she and I traveled to our host community from training for the birthday party. Here you see my friend Becca in the middle holding her birthday cake, and my friend Catherine and me on either side. Her host family is so wonderful: they threw her a party and wanted to make it memorable by surprising her with a special appearance from her best Peace Corps friends.

The next day Catherine and I went to El Valle, a nice town.

We were very wise to choose Saturday to go to El Valle, because the locals were celebrating Semana de campesino. On that day were was a parade with floats and dancing groups and people crowding the streets.

A very colorful fruit and vegetable market and artisan stands lined streets and offered nice souvenirs.

It was a very nice start to my vacation week. And there's more to come!