Panamania

July 2013 During the first year of service I met Marumi, a JICA (the Japanese Equivalent of the Peace Corps) volunteer, during an event organized to create networking opportunities and collaborations amongst environmental volunteers throughout the country.   During the seminar Marumi got along very well with Ernesto (the leader of Piedras Gordas’ environmental co-op) and me.   Although we are both environmental volunteers our organizations have different goals and focuses.   I was assigned to live in and work on projects in a single community for two years, whereas Marumi lived in an ANAM (Panamanian Environmental Protection Agency) complex and travel throughout the country to train Panamanians in various environmental conservation techniques.   Marumi told Ernesto and me that she was interested in coming to Piedras Gordas to work with the environmental co-op and to see some of the techniques that Peace Corps Volunteers use to manage community environmental proj...

July 2013 For the past 10 months maestro Gabriel (the headmaster and one of the teachers at my school) had invited me to come to his house in Santiago (a provincial capital 3 hours from Piedras Gordas) for the weekend.   Each time he invited me I already had previous engagements for the weekend, or something else I preferred to do; so I kept turning him down.    To be perfectly honest I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of spending the weekend with him and his family.   Gabriel is a nice enough guy, but he comes off as a bit uptight and is not someone that I considered to be particularly fun.   He frequently goes on tirades against reggaeton music and popular Panamanian culture, and absolutely refuses to dance (which is unheard for Panamanians).    However, after months of pushing back the trip to Santiago I felt obliged to spend a weekend at his home with him and his family.   So when I finally had a free weekend, I told Gabriel and we organize...