Hola Matt and Lisa

Ring of Fire

2009-02-01T11:38:00.006-05:00

We ate our rooster Mateito for Reina's birthday, and he tasted great. It was our first experience eating an animal that we raised, but it was easy because Reina killed and cleaned him. We knew he had to go because he was getting really fat and slow. Reina made a Panamanian classic, rice and pollo guisado, which is chicken stewed in a sauce made from tomato paste, onions, peppers, garlic, and culantro. We had a nice little birthday party, even though Reina and Arturo ate after everyone else. Families almost never eat together here.

In health news, Matt's knife wound healed up nicely, gracias a Dios.

He's glad not to be among the hundreds of men with very sharp machetes harvesting the sugarcane that grows all around our town. It's smokey, dangerous work. They burn the cane to get rid of the useless leaves and drive out the snakes. Huge fires snap, crackle, and pop and billow towering plumes of black smoke. Because it hasn't rained in six weeks or so, the leaves burn right up, so the fires don't last too long. Still, the summer winds blow a steady stream of ash into all the houses here. Our floor gets covered with these long strands of charred leaves that crumble on contact with the broom. Air quality is not at its best right now.

They say burning the cane reduces the yield by a few percent, but it's worth it for the farmers because the fields grow so densely you can't work in them until they're thinned out. It makes a dirty job even dirtier, however, because the guys who have to stack and haul the burnt cane get covered in sticky grime. Many workers cover their heads and necks with shirts to keep that stuff off their skin as they carry huge loads on their shoulders.

Not all the cane gets cut by hand. The processing plant (ingenio) La Victoria has some very large tractors with big jaws cutting cane day and night. But they can't be used on uneven fields, and none of the other landowners have these machines. And even when using tractors to cut and load cane into trucks, you still need a lot of workers to run the operation and prepare the fields for next year's crop. They burn any leftover leaves, and guys with shovels fix up the ditches that drain the fields. The cane starts growing back right away, but miles of pipe has to be laid down to water the fields before the rainy season returns in several months. Tending to the pumps on our murky river and connecting all the pipes is a big job.

In the ingenio meanwhile, hundreds of people are running machines and loading trucks and taking care of business. Arturo is working six days a week operating a forklift. He works there every year from January till the end of the harvest (zafra) in March. Then, like many men here, he finds another job. In previous years he stayed with relatives and worked construction in Panama City for a while. Those jobs pay around $400 a month for new workers, which is good money. Last year, though, Arturo was hired by a European company that's surveying land way out in the countryside to provide people with titles to their property. His job was to drive their cool Nissan 4x4's into the monte and help set stuff up. The company made a video of Arturo and the crew crossing rivers, motoring up muddy hillsides, and towing other trucks out of the muck with a winch. Unfortunately, all that fun only lasted a few months, so the family's been living on whatever they saved up for a while now. That means lots of rice and soup with yucca and beans from the backyard and not much store-bought stuff.

But now Arturo's back at La Victoria, driving the forklift from 3 to 11 p.m. The plant processes sugarcane 24/7 because it costs a lot of money to shut the machines down and start 'em back up again. The plant is in the middle of nowhere (though you can see the smokestack for miles), so everyone is brought to work in old school buses. Tio Cornelio, one of Abuela's sons, and Tio Abel, one of Arturo's brothers, are two of the drivers. They get to park the yellow buses in front of their houses. Sometimes if there's a special event in Santiago, like the Virgin Mary procession in November, the sugar company lets one of the uncles drive everyone to the city for 50 cents instead of the $1.15 we usually have to pay for one of the daily mini-bus trips.

Some of the jobs inside the ingenio are year-round positions, but most of the farm work is temporary. There are not enough people around here who want to cut and pick up cane in the blistering heat, so a large percentage of the farm workers are indigenous people from the Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé. They come here with their families and live in abandoned houses or makeshift camps in the small wooded areas on the edge of town. A dozen people are camped out right now across the street from our house. They live in a little pavilion with a zinc roof and a tarp for a wall. The women cook on open fires and watch the kids all day, although we have seen at least a few kids as young as 10 heading back from the fields covered in black grime.

Obviously many of these farm families have hard lives. Cane cutters make $10 a day or less, and many of them spend a chunk of that money on liquor each Sunday. But we see many women accompany their husbands to town on these days off, which may reduce the drinking. The women wait outside the store where the men drink booze in a dingy side room with a pool table. The kids will be waiting outside too, wearing their shorts and rubber boots and drinking orange drink from little boxes. When the dads are done, they walk home with their families. Fortunately we see most of these families carrying back a week's worth of rice, sardines, and fake Spam.

The liquor of choice for people who want to get blind drunk is called seco, a clear firewater made from sugarcane in a neighboring region (the cane from our town is made into sugar that's bagged and sold in supermarkets or made into candy). Seco tastes nasty and makes you feel nastier the next day, but it's quite popular because it's dirt cheap. Some people mix it with milk or juice and drink it on ice, but most of it gets consumed straight up. A liter bottle is just a few bucks, and they sell them everywhere, including corner stores and barrooms. The main brand of seco is owned by a man who up until last week was running for president of Panama. He is now running for vice president on the ticket led by Panama's supermarket king.

Now some Peace Corps news: in two weeks we're taking two jovenes from our town, siblings Arturito and Glenny, to a week-long seminar in Chiriquí province on health, self-esteem, HIV/AIDS, and making the right decisions in life. Over 40 kids will be there, with a dozen volunteers leading educational sessions and games during the day and sports and other activities at night. We hope the participants will learn a lot and go back to their communities and be leaders among their friends. It's also a great opportunity for them to get out of their home regions, meet new people, and see a bit more of this very beautiful country. Arturito and Glenny have never been west of Santiago, so this will be an exciting trip. The seminar is run by the Peace Corps Panama Gender and Development group, which Lisa helps run as vice president.

Lisa also attended a recent two-day seminar in the mountains, where she taught small-scale coffee and vegetable growers about business. She returns to that village for two more of these sessions this month, and she's planning a similar venture for our own town with both business and agriculture volunteers. The seminars are important because almost all of the business done in Panama involves agriculture, and most of the people who work the land have not been to high school.

Matt was also busy in January editing and producing La Vaina, the Peace Corps Panama magazine. He and his friend Lee worked for several days in the PC office near the canal, which is great because of the view and the very powerful air conditioning system. The magazine can be read at the website of the organization Peace Corps Panama Friends.

Thanks for visiting our blog! And thanks again for the Christmas cards! We were especially pleased to read Gramma's lovely letter. We send our love to her and all our friends and family. Peace!

Mateo, Adam, and Lisa hang out in the front yard. Adam is about 9 months old, and he loves to eat watermelon, which is now in season.

Farmhands collect cut cane in the field right by our house. They have to haul it up ladders to get it into the truck.

These workers are standing atop the truck, making sure it all fits.

This is one of the ladders they use to load the cane. Everyone here uses homemade ladders.

This guy is making boards from huge mango trees cut down across from our house. They were awesome trees, but the homeowner didn't like all the leaves messing up his patio. The photo at the very top of this post shows another mango tree up the street as a bunch of cows walk by.

These kids are squeezing honeycombs they found in the woods. They said the nest was made by Africanized honeybees. They gave us a bottle of the honey and it was great!

Holiday Informe

2009-01-07T09:47:00.010-05:00

First some sad news: Our pollito Lisita died the evening we made that last post on this blog, the one with us posing with the Christmas wreath and the birds. A chicken illness of some sort went around town recently, even killing all the hens at the school finca, so Lisita must have had that. Matt and Boli buried her in the backyard. The other chicken, Mateito, weighs about 8 pounds, according to our neighbor Abuela. Everyone says we should eat him soon because his meat will get tough as he ages. We don't know what we'll do with him yet.

Abuela (grandmother), by the way, is called Abuela by people of all ages all around the neighborhood. Her many sons, who are cousins of Reina's husband next door, are called Tio (uncle) by all the kids. The daughters or the wives of the sons are Tia (aunt). Matt sometimes gets their names confused, so he calls them Tio or Tia just like the kids do. In fact, if you don't know someone's name here, you can always address them as what they are. Kids call other kids niño (boy) or niña (girl), you can call any stranger joven (young person), and there's always señor and señora. Amigo(a) or hermano(a) work well, too. And say you see a cute little kid whose name escapes you, you can just call him papi. Little girls are mami. All teachers are maestra(o). Someone in the street the other day called Lisa licenciada, the title they use in Panama for people who have a bachelor's degree. But getting back to Abuela's family, Matt should really get their names down because they have great nicknames. A few examples: Cornelio is Corne (cor-nay), his twin Guillermo is Guille (gi-yay), brother Marcial is Marci (like Mount Marcy), Cecilia is Chila (chee-la)!

Abuela has 8 or 9 children and bastante (lots) grandchildren, and most of the families live on the same 2 streets. Everyone's always hanging out together. On Christmas Eve, Lisa made sugar cookies with a big group of grownups and kids. She showed them how to roll the dough, cut out Christmas tree shapes, and bake and decorate the cookies. Baking is not very common here, and most ovens get used for storage. The family we lived with during training kept bread in their oven, but more recently we've seen people go out and catch these little fish, put 'em in a pot full of water, and leave 'em in the oven overnight as if it were a refrigerator. They fry 'em up the next day for breakfast and lunch. Yum!

Anyway, Abuela's family is very good to us, and we ate lots of food with them during the holidays. We also celebrated Christmas and New Year's with Reina and her gang, of course. Awesome arroz con pollo! And we stopped in to pasaer at the home of our old host mom Lucila. As you may recall, they live across the street from the little market that doubles as a sketchy cantina most weekends. Lucila's husband Virgilio, or Giño (heen-yo), hates all the noise, so he was visiting family out of town. But we celebrated during both holiday weeks with Lucila, her daughter Any's family, and her son Alejandro. We all sat out on the porch chatting, eating grilled pork and bollos (steamed corn things), and watching all the merriment in the streets. For Christmas Eve we were joined by former Peace Corps Volunteers Mike and Cara, who served in Morocco. They were in Panama for a vacation, so they looked up volunteers to see what life is like in the countryside. It was great to visit with them and hear all about service in Africa.

On Christmas Day, Mike and Cara headed west to the popular mountain town Boquete, near the Costa Rican border. Now that summer's here and it's hotter than ever, we were sort of jealous, so a week later we went up there for the night. It's gorgeous! We took a chiva, a little van, way up into the mountains north of town and hiked around for a while in the clouds. It felt great to have a sweatshirt on! And it was really cool to see all the rows of coffee bushes and big spreads of beans out drying. Further up the ridge, almost to the border with Bocas del Toro province, there are farms with beautiful raised beds of black earth growing some of the most robust vegetables we've ever seen. We got to hang out for a while with a celery farmer and a Ngäbe-Buglé family during our hike, and then another farmer drove us back down the mountain and through the mist to Boquete in his ancient Toyota 4x4 diesel pickup. That outing was after we'd already walked around most of the town, had coffee and a strawberry milkshake at a coffee finca, and gone to Mass in English at the church. There are many norteamericano retirees in the area, but only 5 of them were at Mass, so they were delighted to see us and they had us introduce ourselves at the end. It was actually kind of nice. We also saw damage from the bad flooding Boquete experienced during Thanksgiving. A lot of the hotels along the the river that runs through town are fixing their properties, and there are earthmovers in the riverbed working to deepen the channel. The streets are in good shape, but a bridge remains broken in several pieces in the river. It was good to finally see this popular destination. We had a totally tranquillo time, stayed in a nice hostel, ate delicious burgers and fries, and encountered only 1 annoying person (some folks complain about all the gringos).

Here in the Central Provinces, meanwhile, it feels good to be in a new year and a new season. It is hotter right now than it was before Christmas, but it really cools down at night, and you can sleep comfortably. We rarely put our fan on, and most nights we even use a light blanket. It was getting very dank, moldy, and muddy with the torrential thunderstorms we were having every afternoon during the latter part of 2008. We don't miss the rain, but our garden certainly does. The blistering heat, which came on us all of a sudden, dried everything right out. Now we're scrambling to get water on the plants in the morning and evening. It's a pain because to avoid hauling water with a bucket you've got to get Boli and Arturito to rig a few hoses to their backyard sink. There's barely any water pressure, and the prcoess can take forever, but it's far better than hauling water. Hopefully everything will hang in there and the kids will stay into gardening.

In other news, Matt had to get stitches (only 3) the other day because he was sharpening a big kitchen knife without paying attention and cut his wrist open. He lucked out bigtime because it was on the side of the wrist, away from the veins, so he wasn't bleeding bad at all. It was just a really deep cut, and he could see down to his bone. Ouch! He was also fortunate to get a cab and then a bus to get him to the hospital in about 40 minutes. Once there, he lucked out again and got to see the doctor everyone agrees is the best doctor in our province. Having the wound washed and stitched up, even with the anesthetic, was nauseating. Lisa had to wait outside the room! And Matt thought he was going to pass out. But he felt OK after a few minutes and went straight to McDonald's for a fried chicken sandwich.

Thanks to everyone for the cards and emails! Happy and Prospero Año Nuevo!

This shot was taken from the Toyota pickup as we headed down the mountain. The sun was starting to burn off the mist.

These coffee beans are growing out in the woods. When the beans get picked, the red fruit is removed so the pit can dry out and later be roasted.

This celery is really good looking! Everyone in Panama cooks with celery, especially when making soups.

Here's Matt down in Boquete. The strength of the sun and the temperature during the day were perfect! But it's probably not as comfy when it's raining all the time.

This is the river that caused all the flood damage. You can see how high up it gets and how close some buildings are to the water.

Speaking of water, this is where kids in our town go swimming. It's a tiny pond out in the cane fields that's fed by a big drainage ditch. The water is usually pretty murky. Matt has been swimming there twice, but only during the summer when the water was clear.

Three generations (l-r): Any del Carmen, Any, and Lucila, our former host mom. This shot was taken during Christmas Eve festivities.

Here's Abuela! That's one of her grandsons on the right, but we don't really know him because he lives in Panama City. Abuela lives in a little block house behind a huge block house that Marcial is building when he's not working as a cop for 8 days at a time. The project will take years to complete.

Here's a typical barbershop scene from our community. Arturo has clippers, so guys just drop in whenver. This shot was taken during the confirmation party for Arturito and Glenny.

This is Diego, a relative of Reina's family who lives across town.

Here's Reina, Arturito, and Glenny before the confirmation Mass in Santiago. Matt was what we call Arturito's sponsor, but here they use the term godfather. Either way, Matt is very honored.

This dance party we held during the last-day-of-school fiesta last month. Kids from each grade actually dance together, even kindergartners. The music was very loud, but we stuck around for arroz con puerco and cake.

Anibal broke his arm when he fell off his horse. He always goes out to work with his grandfather on horseback.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-23T15:27:00.005-05:00

We wish our friends and families back home a Merry Christmas! We miss you! We'll celebrate Christmas with the neighbors, a few former volunteers from Africa who are passing through, and, of course, Lisita and Mateito. Below are just a few more photos from recent weeks. We have lots more to share! And we have lots more to do in 2009. Prospero Ano Nuevo!

We were up in the mountains a few weeks ago to work on the mud stove we built with the restaurant and tourism cooperative. The 2nd burner wasn't getting hot enough and the body cracked a bit because it wasn't given enough time to cure. We made some adjustments and fixed the chimney, and the members plan to coat the stove in mortar. Once again, we had a great time visiting with these folks, and we'll be back soon.

Here's the view from downtown, near the cooperative. The mountains of Veraguas are beautiful!

Arturito and Adam hang out by the family car. Note the Panama flag on the dashboard. Everyone here is very patriotic.

Samuel rides to his finca on a cart. We forgot to ask what he was hauling home. Anyway, this is the view from our front yard. We don't see any mountains (you have to hike out of town for that), but it's still a fine place to live and work. And the people are muy amable. Come visit!

Desfiles y Fiestas

2008-12-23T14:33:00.007-05:00

Volunteers from around our region celebrated World AIDS Day December 2 with a parade, Mass, and education program in Santiago. We were joined by representatives of the health ministry, the Red Cross, and other organizations. After the Mass, we talked to dozens of city residents about HIV/AIDS, and we gave away condoms.

Our friends Ellen (left) and Laura were part of the team. Just about everyone wore red shirts.

Members of our group posed for this photo with Red Cross folks. Our friend Teri (fourth from right) organized the event.

Volunteers carried a banner and red umbrellas in the parade to the cathedral. Like 99% of the days in Santiago, it was hot! But the program was a success, and we plan to do more in other parts of our province. Talking to strangers about HIV/AIDS was not as hard as we thought it would be.

There was very bad flooding in western Panama during Thanksgiving week, so we had to move the volunteer dinner from Cerro Punta (by the Costa Rican frontera) to El Valle de Anton (in the mountains closer to Panama City). Many volunteers from Bocas del Toro, the Comarca Ngabe-Bugle, and Chiriqui could not attend. Still, 60 or so people cooked, ate, and had a nice time visiting at Hotel Los Capitanes. The Peace Corps did a great job making sure everyone was safe and sound. And many volunteers joined relief efforts before and after Thanksgiving.

Here's the hotel. We were able to use the kitchen, the whole dining room, and another conference area. The owner is very nice! It was still the rainy season, so it was chilly and wet. The mist was hanging over the mountains the whole time, and you couldn't really see the views.

Our friend Bhoj was really hungry after living for weeks in the jungle without any substantial food. Bhoj joined Matt, Lisa, and a dozen other workers in the kitchen the evening before and Thanksgiving morning. Lisa made 9 pumpkin pies out of zapallo, squash. They tasted like the real thing!

This float was at the huge procession honoring Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal last month in Santiago.
The Mass before the procession was packed. This is our cathedral, Santiago Apostal (St. James). The church sits at the top of the main street in the city, Avenida Central, next to a lovely park.

Here's Lisa walking with the contingent from our town. Our tribute to the Virgin Mary included a little rancho (you can see the roof of it) that contained local agricultural products. Carrying an umbrella was a good idea because the sun was very intense. Mucho sol!

Everyone lined up on side streets and waited for hours for the procession to get rolling. This old sign is for one of the many shoe repair shops in the city.

Pre-Thanksgiving Activities

2008-11-25T19:36:00.013-05:00

Boli and Edwar are seen here fishing in a little creek way out in the country. See photos at the end of this post for more details (the photos posted here somehow got out of order).

The fishing party (l-r): Boli, Mango, Edwar, and Elyer. Elyer is holding a piece of sugarcane (see below).

A few weeks ago we went to our friend Emily's site to celebrate the 22nd anniversary of her town's Ecoclub. There was a parade featuring Ecoclubs from around the Veraguas/Azuero area with their school bands. Then there was a large eco-fair featuring food made with vegetables grown by the kids. A teacher who works with the club had us all try batidos de zapallo, or squash shakes. They tasted like pumpkin pie in a shake. In the picture above the kids were making yucca and roasted pork all wrapped in banana leaves. Yum, yum! Ecoclub President Luis (left) is friends with young people in our town.

There were so many people at the fair after the parade! The kids in white shirts and straw hats were part of a traditional dance group. The fair was held beneath a big new pavilion at the primary school.

These ladies in lilac, the color of the town, danced in unison to a marching band in matching suits. This is a very Panamanian parade routine.

This youngster is a drummer in one of the many bands in the parade. Most marching bands in Panama practice three monoths a year, October, November and December, to get ready for the many parades honoring Panama's independence from Spain and Colombia, Flag Day, Mother's Day, and other big holidays.

The bugle players above are from the private boys school in Emily's town. They were probably the best band in the parade. They all wear khaki uniforms to school, where they study agriculture. The local Ecoclub had a lot of environmental banners. One said, "Planting trees and plants native to our region preserves our watershed." Deforestation is causing water pollution and other problems throughout Latin America. Viva Ecoclub!

Before the parade we went to Mass at the church in Emily's town (notice the lilac trim). Lisa also went to a Mass here recently with our next door neighbors to honor Saint Michael.

Lisa had a meeting one day somewhere else, so Matt went fishing with some neighbors. They hiked an hour through the fields to get to the mud- and debris-choked streams some folks fish in during the rainy season. Luckily, the snakes heard the gang coming and took off! Boli took this photo.

This picture shows the campo with an approaching storm in the distance. The sugarcane (right) will be cut after Christmas, but some of it can be cut now for personal use. During the fishing trip everyone chewed on some cane to enjoy the sweet juice. Unfortunately Matt and the fishermen didn't make it home before the storm hit. They were covered in muck upon returning home.

Edwar and Boli went for a dip in a spring out in the middle of a sugarcane field. This water is nasty, but the kids don't care.

The boys caught about 6 of these fish, using sticks, lines, hooks, and worms. They made Matt take 2 of them after they fried 'em (above). People love these little fish in our town, even though they're tiny and full of bones. Most fishermen use nets, yielding way more fish. Matt prefers cans of sardines in red sauce, a Panama classic.

Here's Lisa showing off someone else's Panama hat after the parade. If you're out hiking around or working in the fields or watching a parade, you need a hat here! Lisa's wearing this one the cool way. Our pal Andrew is seen at right. Happy Thanksgiving to our friends and families! We miss everyone in NY and Nueva Inglaterra, not to mention CA, OH, and ONT. We pray you're all doing OK, especially Don. And we hope you have a nice holiday. Thanks again for checking out the blog!

I Love Panama

2008-11-14T12:56:00.008-05:00

Here's a view of the yucca trees in the field behind our house. The other day we helped the neighbors cut weeds and they gave us several huge pieces of yucca, which is excellent in soup or fried with ketchup and eggs. When you want to harvest this crop, you look for trees with a bit of broken earth at the base, indicating the root is big enough. Then you dig it up with a machete. The tree can then be stuck back in the ground to grow new yucca.

Christina, a second-grader, is seen here drawing a pumpkin during one of the English classes we held just before Halloween. All the kids learned Halloween vocabulary like candy, costume, and ghost. And everyone drew their own Jack-o-lanterns to hang up in school.

Like Christina, the kid in the middle used a cup to make a perfectly circular pumpkin. All the Jack-o-lanterns were bien pretty. Whenever we have an activity, like drawing or playing a game, teaching is a lot more fun. For second grade and up, we try to have the students take a few notes, practice speaking a bit of English, and then do a related project.

This is Paulita, a neighbor who invited us over to celebrate her birthday November 13. Before the cake, we had rice and shrimp (arroz con camarones) made by one of her daughters. It was a real treat. While we were hanging out on the porch after supper, a relative called to wish Paulita a happy birthday and find out what was going on. We heard her say, "The Gringos are here!"

Reina, Lisa, and Boli made the popular corn drink chicheme the day before Matt's birthday. It's a soupy drink made of boiled corn. Evaporated milk and sugar are added after the cooking. It's especially good served really cold after walking around in the heat. But it's also good warm with a dinner of eggs and bread. The neighbors like it with hotdogs and fried dough.

Before they made chicheme, Reina served guacho, a beef stew made with rice, yucca, tomatoes, and other vegetables. The green leaves floating in this bowl are culantro, which grows all around our house and goes into just about every dish. Even though it's hot out all the time, Panamanian soups are delicious.

On Matt's birthday, November 11, we taught birthday vocabulary and played pin the tail on the donkey. While Lisa got the blindfold ready, our friend Socrates clowned around for the camera. The game was a big hit, but the kids were almost more excited to look at the pictures Matt took.

Matt posed for this photo with his birthday mug. He picked it out himself at the dollar store. It was a really nice birthday. After school, Reina made chicken and pasta for Matt, Lisa, Matt's boss Tim, and Tim's parents, who were in Panama for a visit. In the evening, we went to a barbecue with several volunteers at our friend Laura's house. Thanks for all the cards and e-mails!

And here's Elyer. His dad and uncles work the little farm behind our house. And his little brother Edwar is one of our best English students. In this photo Elyer is wearing Lisa's glasses. He and cousins Arturito and Boli wanted to test them out. The shirt is from the presidential campaign of Ricardo Martinelli.

Arroz con Pollo

2008-10-31T07:43:00.006-05:00

Lisita (above) and Mateito are spending most of their time outdoors, wandering around in search of bugs and worms. They also eat feed (alimentos) to get fat. They eat all day, but Lisita the hen is a lot smaller than the gallo Mateito.

Here's their plastic washing machine house. The roof is made of a hood from a Toyota pickup truck. This area is in a roofless addition next to our house. When it's raining like crazy the machine gets moved to our kitchen because everyone says these birds will get sick and die if they get too wet. The pollitos are too dumb to take shelter on their own, but we're trying to train them to go in their washing machine.

Lisa led work on our 100-square-foot vegetable garden, which includes the raised beds you see in the backround. After just a few days, the squash (zapallo) is really taking off. The garden also has yucca, corn, peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Note that Lisa now has rubber boots, a must-have in the rainy season.

Matt and Bolivar helped make the raised beds, which ensure the crops don't drown in all the rain. The beds also give plants more air and allow you to use only the best topsoil and compost. We made compost of dirt, plantain leaves, kitchen scraps, sawdust, egg shells, coffee, tea, and whatever else we had on hand. It made a nice black mezcla. The palm tree fencing behind Matt and Boli is there because we didn't have enough chicken wire to enclose the whole space. This garden's a good project because kids are helping out. Hopefully, they'll get their families to start their own gardens. Everyone here needs more veggies in their diet because the focus out on the fincas is on starches or sugarcane that gets sold to the sugar company.

This is a typical evangelical church in the countryside. This one's in Cacao, Los Santos, where we went on a field trip with our co-op to see a rice operation. The message in red letters on the rear wall of the church says, "Jesucristo es el mismo ayer, hoy, y por los siglos."

Here's Lisa out in the rice. This valley north of Tonosi is very beautiful, with miles of green rice fields surrounded by knobby mountains. Rice in this area is cut by big tractors. The grains get broken off the stalks and taken to a plant where they're husked. In smaller operations, people cut each stalk by hand. After the harvest in our town last month, individual growers put big tarps on their lawns to dry the rice. When it's dry, they remove the husks by beating the rice with mallets in wooden basins. Sometimes 2 people will work the rice at once, like 2 drummers taking turns beating the same drum.

This is Edgardo, president of our co-op's education committee. He's a cool guy who cracks a lot of jokes. We went on the field trip to see this irrigation system, which is on wheels and extends for a few hundred yards. It allows this farm to grow a lot of rice in usually dry fields. Our co-op needs something like this if it wants to dramatically increase rice production. But these irrigators are really expensive, and there's only 3 in Panama. The co-op, which makes its money with sugar, wants to grow more rice because the country is experiencing a big rice shortage right now.

Kids

2008-10-14T15:45:00.007-05:00

The kids in our town held a parade recently to celebrate the many ethnic groups of Panama. Our friend Jaime (above) dressed up like a hunter or warrior from one of the country's many indigenous tribes. In the background you can see our neighbor's dog Teri, who likes to follow us everywhere.

Many of the girls wore the traditional dress of central Panama, the pollera. The boys in the background are wearing real Panama hats, which are round and usually worn with the front turned up.

This is our pal Catalino. He's seen here at an environmental seminar hosted by our branch of Ecoclub, the international youth group. We were very pleased he was there because he's never been to a meeting or anything else official that we've been involved in.

Here's Lisa laughing during a game, or dinamica, at the Ecoclub seminar. We held the event in the 6th grade classroom of our town's primary school. Note the nice tile floor. Several local men installed it during a recent school vacation. All the upkeep on the building and grounds is done by parents and good citizens. Behind the school, the kids have a 2-acre farm with corn, rice, onions, peppers, and tons of other stuff. They also study agriculture, and each class goes out to work on the farm (finca) once a week. On those days the kids show up wearing rubber boots and carrying machetes. Cool!

The participants gathered for a group photo outside the school. Missing from the photo are the 3 young people from another club (Luis, Luis, and Carolina) who came to lead the seminar. They brought a laptop and we used our co-op's projector for the presentation, which covered things like deforestation and dengue fever. We also had cookies (4 kinds!) and Tang because you can't have a meeting without treats. Our neighbor Reina made chicken, rice, and red beans (porotos) for Luis, Luis, and Carolina. It was pollo guisado, which is chicken stewed in a red sauce with peppers and onions. Delicious!

Speaking of chicken: Meet our new pets, Mateito and Lisita! The other day Boli from next door came by and said some guy was giving away pollitos, so we asked for 2. They arrived 15 minutes later in a cardboard box, where they lived for a few days until Matt built them a new house in the shell of an old washing machine. A student of ours gave the birds their names. The neighbors say this type of chicken doesn't lay eggs, so we'll probably eat them, even though they're really cute. Like Teri the dog, they follow us everywhere. Right after Lisa snapped this photo one of them pooped on Matt's shirt.

Here's another shot from the parade as it passed by our house. The sign says, "We respect our historic legacy." The sign announcing the parade said students would pay tribute to each ethnic group in Panama, including the gringos. We were honored!

Thanks for visiting our blog! We send our love and good wishes to Lisa's dad, who broke his leg and had to have surgery yesterday. Get well soon, Don!

Trabajando

2008-09-30T12:32:00.005-05:00

We went to build a stove in a nearby site, up in the mountains, where these guys were working on a new rancho. They're part of a tourism cooperative, and they hope to have public events in this structure. Next door, the co-op has a restaurant, where we built the much-needed stove of mud, sand, and straw.

The stove is much-needed because the cooks are using these fogones, fires surrounded by rocks, behind the restaurant. They have to breathe in a lot of smoke, and the smoke even blows through the dining area at times. The ladies who run the operation are looking forward to using the stove after it cures in 30 days. Co-op members were very kind to us, and they fed us lunch and breakfast. Muy rico!

We posed for this photo with part of our work group. As you can see, the stove is in a new area with a zinc roof. They'll install a chimney when they find the proper metal pipe or other material. This project was a breeze because they had all the supplies ready at the start of the day, and the whole posse worked very hard. Our friend Ellen (second from left), a volunteer in the new tourism and English teaching group, is helping the co-op.

Lisa and Ashley mixed up some mud and sand to coat the outside of the stove so it will look bien pritty. When we were done, it did resemble a huge chocolate cake. We were especially pleased because the stove is in the center of town, so lots of potential stove builders will see it. Let's hope it works well!

The area where we were working is one of our favorite places in Panama. The weather's mas fresco, the mountains are beautiful, they grow coffee here, and the people are really nice like they are in the rest of our province.

This big barn is up in the Comarca Ngabe-Bugle, the indigenous area way west of us. Lisa was up there assisting with a coffee/business seminar run by our good friend Ed from Boston. Ed is the Peace Corps Panama coffee coordinator, and he works with producers to promote organic methods, better business practices, etc. Lisa will return to the Comarca for two more sessions of the seminar.

Thirty-seven people participated in the seminar, including this woman wearing the traditional Ngabe dress. She's seen here with a drawing of her finca (farm). Teams did drawings to help articulate plans for their farming activities. Lisa and Ashley also gave charlas on time management and how to hold effective meetings.

The two young ladies in the center of this photo, Viviana and Yaleyka, are members of our town's Ecoclub. While Matt was in the city working on the PC magazine, they and two other young people accompanied Lisa to a big Ecoclub seminar. Dozens of kids were on hand to form a regional alliance of clubs and discuss environmental protection projects. Participants were given vegetables to plant in their hometowns.

Mateo and Adam posed recently for this photo in our living room. We're trying to put together a big photo album for the family.

In other news, we returned home from the stove project and delivered talks and slideshows to several families on how to make these stoves. Our calendar is getting booked up again, and that's the way it ought to be. Time is flying down here, and we can't believe it's almost October. Happy Birthday, Caitlin!

We forgot to mention in previous posts that Irving Saladino won the Olympic gold medal in the long-jump. Felicidades! He's an amazing athlete, and the Panamanian people are extremely proud. Fortunately, we got to watch him win live on local TV.

And one more news item before we go: the country's largest political party, the PRD (Partido Revolucionario Democratico), had its presidential primary recently after many months of high-profile campaigning. Balbina Herrera defeated Panama City Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro and several other candidates. The election is in May.

A Year in Panama

2008-09-09T12:44:00.007-05:00

Here´s our cooperative´s traditional dance group dancing during the co-op´s annual meeting. The girls are wearing polleras, Panama´s traditional dress.

Lisa kept the vote total during the election of officers at the annual meeting. Voting took forever, as every one of the 150 members who showed up voted for 3 candidates by stating their names out loud, in front of everyone.

Here´s the beach we got to visit after our recent business plan seminar. Turtles nest here and the townspeople make sure they´re protected.

This shot looks back at the mainland from the beach. The boats, or lanchas, in the background are built by one of the guys whose family fed us during the weekend. We had really great fried corvina, the best fish down here, not to mention excellent rice and beans and fried pork.

This bar and mountain are in El Valle de Anton. The PC Gender and Development organization had a meeting there (at a pizza restaurant, not the bar). The mist-covered mountains here are really beautiful.

This is our good friend Amilkar, who taught himself to speak English. He studies physics at the big university in Panama City, and we hope one day he´ll come to the States to get a degree at MIT or RPI.

Boli helped Lisa clear the area for their new vegetable garden (huerto). People love to cut grass and weeds with a machete, stooped over so the blade cuts almost parallel to the ground. It´s not much fun.

This is the big cage full of iguanas our friend Angelica keeps in her backyard. Her family eats one or two a month. They say it tastes like chicken, but we have yet to try some.

Boli, Adam, Lisa, and Glenny (l-r) posed for this shot in our living room. Adam´s gut is growing muy rapido. But he´s really cute!

In mid-August we marked our 1-year anniversary in Panama! To celebrate, everyone in our group has to go to the city to submit to all kinds of medical testing so the PC can see what´s been crawling around in our bellies for the last 12 months. We´ll also get a chance to catch up with the whole gang from training.

Speaking of training, Lisa spent a week near the city teaching new business volunteers about PC stuff, including how to assess your community´s needs. Matt stayed home to teach English, visit with the neighbors, and read the Milagro Beanfield War, a great book. Reina and the kids made sure he was fed. One night they made Matt fried beef with rice and salad, which everyone ate while watching the Red Sox beat the Yankees. They carry almost every Yankees game here on one of the networks everyone gets.

When Lisa got back, we hosted a new couple working in the business program for a weekend visit. We did the same thing a year ago when we were trainees, getting a chance to see how volunteers live. Our guests last week, Ben and Lisa, were really fun and they got to witness our cooperative´s annual meeting. The huge event featured lots of financial stuff, the election of new officers, and tons of food. They slaughtered a cow and grilled it and many folks, including Lisa and Lisa, helped make bollos (steamed cornmeal things shaped like sausages) the night before. Sadly, the discoteca scheduled for after the meeting was canceled because the DJ backed out at the last moment. We still had a great time, though.

In other work news, 30 teenagers from our town filled a bus to go to the health fair we helped organize in our buddy Andrew´s site an hour away. Our group, which filled a whole bus we chartered for the occassion, was really into it. They participated in all the charlas and games and had a lot of laughs. We also had a great lunch of chicken, rice, and potato salad made for the 100-person fair by a local restaurant (fonda) owner. Lisa and our friend Ashley gave lectures on HIV and AIDS and Matt and buddy Shawn talked about self esteem. Another 10 volunteers led other charlas and helped keep things running smoothly. The Red Cross and other agencies were also on hand, so the day was a big success.

A few days ago, we helped people in a nearby coastal town prepare business plans. Lisa worked with a lady named Florentina who hopes to open a restaurant, and Matt worked with a young guy named Oliver who wants to build three cabanas for tourists. Five other volunteers worked with people on similar ventures. The attendees can now go to banks or other sources with very professional business plans that include all kinds of stuff like income projections for the next five years. When we finished our work, we got to swim in the ocean and beneath a waterfall. Lisa also held little baby turtles that nest on the beach.

Later this month, we´re compiling information on our area for tourism guides and we´re going to build another lorena stove up in the mountains. Matt´s also heading to Panama City to work on the next edition of the PC Panama magazine.

Back in our site, everyone seems good. Reina´s baby Adam is getting bigger every day and the kids are working on a garden with Lisa. This week they aim to start their long-awaited compost pile to improve the soil. The land is all cleared and ready to go. Some yucca and tomatoes and pineapple are already started.

In leisure news, we got a cool cloth hammock and strung it up in our living room. When the sun´s not out, or if you`ve got a really good breeze running through the house, you can sit in it during the day. But it´s most comfortable for morning and evening reading. It is the rainy season, but it remains hot, hot, hot most days in sugar country.

But we ain´t complaining! We´re ready to be here for another year, si Dios quiere. As always, thanks for reading our blog. And Go Red Sox!

Trip Home Part III

2008-09-01T13:25:00.004-05:00

Here are more photos from our big trip home. We were quite impressed with Minnesota. And we had a ball staying in downtown St. Paul, dining and touring with a great group of Vermonters and New Yorkers.

We visited this cool park in Minneapolis the day after Tim and Jen's wedding. Jen's dad led an awesome tour of the Twin Cities.

The tour included a stop at the totally huge Mall of America. We bought a great Frisbee here for the kids back in Panama.

Erin and Abby (above) and dad Russ were in Minneapolis to see Erin's brother, so we got to have a long visit.

Matt's has the best burgers in the world! The "Juicy Lucy" is made with cheddar cheese inside the burger. Here we also chowed down on big baskets of fries. This is a classic place and a must for any Twin Cities visitor.

Here's Scott, Lisa, and Cait during Tim and Jen's rehearsal dinner in St. Paul. We had awesome Italian food that night.

Nell, Martha, and Libby posed for a photo at the Italian place. The girls had a great time joking around with Lisa.

Matt and Tim also had a blast. Tim and Jen very generously gave Matt a bottle of really nice French booze and a great book about Colombia.

The wedding was beautiful. Needless to say, Matt was very proud to be the bestman. Cait did the Prayer of the Faithful.

John (left), Tim's dad and Matt's uncle, posed with siblings (l-r) Jean, Mim, Johanna, Margaret, Maura, Mary, Jim, and Martha. The campus where the wedding was held is really nice, and St. Paul in general is a cool place.

Trip Home Part II

2008-08-08T14:41:00.004-05:00

We went to the NH Seacoast one day for a ride with Don and nieces Haley and Devin, stopping in Rye for lunch and Newcastle (above) for a look at the bay.

Here's ZZ! She's really big at nearly 10 pounds! And she's still crazy, but she remembered us and slept with us each night in NH.

Haley, Lise, and Devin posed for a photo by the sea in Rye, where we had an awesome lunch of fried clams.

Ace, Emily, and Lisa are seen here in Portland. We got together for beers, lobsters and steamers! Wicked good!

Don, Lise, ZZ, and Joan gathered for a photo before we left to head back to NY for our flight to the Twin Cities for Tim and Jen's wedding (see upcoming blogs!).

Lise, Jim, Jo, Cait, and Scott are seen here at Cale and Christie's wedding in VT. A sunny, lovely day! They got married at the base of a ski slope, and it was really beautiful.

Here's the gang at camp, including Coa, Jack, Monica, and Justin. Notice the patriotic bunting on the house--very cool!

We're back in Panama now after an amazing few weeks back in the States. Thanks to our family and friends for everything! We had great food and, most importantly, wonderful visits. Sorry we didn't get photos with everyone. As we said above, though, photos and captions from Minnesota will be on future blogs. Meanwhile, we hope you're all well. Thanks for reading, and thanks again for all the hospitality!

Everything's cool in Panama, except the weather. We returned to days in the high 90s, making it feel like it felt in May. We got our house in order and mostly laid low last week. Next week we'll resume teaching, starting off with big slideshows of our grand tour. We're also preparing for our big HIV/AIDS/health fair in a few weeks. Our buddy Andres, the chief planner of the event, won a grant for $1,000 to fund food, shirts, transport, etc. We hope to get a group of young people from our town to attend.

One more thing: Diane, that letter you wrote was awesome!

Trip Home Part I

2008-07-23T11:15:00.014-05:00

We got to take the boat out on Lake Champlain in some nice weather. If you look closely, you can see the Green Mountains in the background.

Here's our new niece Amber! She and her mother and father, Tina and Ed, are doing fine in their Maine home.

Matt and Lisa had a nice visit at 505 with Gramma and several aunts and uncles and cousins. It was great to be there!

Here we are at Cale and Christie's wedding, also in the Green Mountains. We had lots of fun and ate lots of great food, especially cheese.

Cait, Mason, Father R. and Scott posed for a photo after Mason's Baptism. We are very proud godparents!

This photo shows one of the government buildings in downtown San Jose, Costa Rica, and some of the mountains that ring the city. Our trip there from the border by bus was very scenic and quite comfy.

This is the street scene outside our hotel. San Jose is nice, and the weather was very refreshing, with temps in the 60s and 70s.

We had a great trip home for our vacation. These are some photos of the first leg of our trip. It's been great seeing our families and friends in New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine! Good times and awesome food! Today we're headed to Tim's wedding in the Twin Cities and we can't wait to get there. We'll post more info and photos soon. Happy summer and thanks for all the hospitality!

Panama update: our little baby host-brother now has a name! He's Adam, just like our pal from Texas.

Dar-ing the Luz

2008-07-01T08:34:00.011-05:00

Here's our new host brother! He spent a week or so in the hospital, but they say he's doing OK, thanks be to God.

Glenny and her new brother came over to say Hola. He's really cute, but he doesn't have a name yet. It can be really difficult picking a name in Panama.

Reina and the baby greeted neighbors one afternoon in front of our house. They were watching dad Arturo lay blocks on the walls of our addition. The girl on the right, Angelica, is a cousin and one of our favorite English students.

Our next door neighbor, landlady and good friend Reina gave birth, or as they say in Spanish, "Ella dio la luz." Translated directly, Reina gave the light on June 6 (my niece Devin's Birthday) to a beautiful baby boy, who as of this posting has yet to be named!

I've been thinking a lot about childbirth because several of my best friends recently had kids and our sisters are now new moms (bienvenidos a Mason and Amber!). In the campo of Panama, things work a bit differently than in the city or in the US. For example, in the city (where I've sat in a lot of doctors' waiting rooms) tons of parental magazines advertise the latest and greatest super-dooper must-have car seats, cribs, strollers, bottles, breast pumps, high chairs and toys. Recently I read an article in the daily Panamanian newspaper La Prensa about how difficult and expensive it is to plan a baby shower because of all the 21st century gear the baby will need. In the campo, babies sleep in cloth hammocks hanging in living rooms and on porches. As they get older, many kids play in handmade wooden playpens, with smooth sticks as bars.

Also in the campo, some babies don't get names before they leave the hospital, or for many weeks after. Other volunteers have told me that part of the reason they don't name babies right away is because they are superstitious. The name thing must have something to do with fearing the baby might die soon after birth, which still happens too often in this part of the world.

Glenny, Reina's teenage daughter, told us that the baby had been crying a lot at night and therefore it must be the witches (brujas) creeping into the baby's room and bothering him. So she placed a few charms around the room to keep the witches out.

One night her brother Boli came into our house wearing a hooded sweatshirt. Our site is a sauna and there is never any reason to even think about wearing long sleaves, let alone a sweatshirt. We asked him if he was feeling sick. He told us that no he was not sick, but that he had just been holding the baby and at night or in the early morning one has to wear a sweatshirt while holding the baby because if your skin is cool that coolness can tranfser to the baby's skin in the form of a cold spirit from the sky.

But Gracias a Dios, the baby is fine and really cute. Older brother Arturito (Little Arturo), when asked how the baby was after visiting the hospital, said, "Es blanquito (he's really white)!" They love little white kids.

Since he doesn't have a name yet, we've spent many afternoons coming up with some possibilities: Antonio, Juan Jose, Cristobal, Alejandro, Frederico, Marco, Conrad. When we decide on one we like, Boli will go over to his mom to see what she thinks. They like our options, but they're still deciding. The baby can't have a name that someone else in town already has, which is why you see a lot of made-up names (Yaxelys and Nellys are two pals of ours). Boli, whose name is Bolivar, wants his new little brother to be named Lex after Lex Luther from Superman. Boli pronounces it like lakes. They also like Alexis, but our town already has two of them.

Hopefully, el nino will have a name by the time we get home from the States. We leave for Leg I of our trip, a bus ride to San Jose, Saturday!

Lisa's Birthday

2008-06-29T20:57:00.007-05:00

Lise and her pals got dressed up in Panamanian clubwear to go out dancing for her birthday (the boys wore their normal clothes). Most people don't go out to clubs until 11 pm, so the club we went to was taken over at 8 by our big group of Gringos. A lot of people were in town for a PC meeting. We know the DJ--his mom was our host mother--and he made sure we were treated nicely. But the clubs here insist on playing crappy techno music so loud that it shakes your guts and makes your ears ring for days. We must say, however, that Lise had a very nice B-Day thanks to our buddies and the many good wishes of family and friends back home. Thanks, everybody!

Still Busy

2008-06-18T08:30:00.008-05:00

These kids were hanging out with Matt and his pals during a work trip to the Comarca Ngabe-Bugle, the indigenous area in western Panama.

Here's the latrine Matt was working on before the top floor was poured. The government funded this and a few other composting latrines in the community where our friend Dennis lives, about 2 hours into the hills from the city of David.

Here are some friends up in Santa Fe, Veraguas, where Lise was busy with an agro-business seminar with a few dozen farmers. The farmers aim to sell produce straight to supermarkets, and volunteers gave presentations on everything from marketing to contracts. Santa Fe is home to Matt's favorite coffee, Cafe Tute. Matt came up one day and toured the coffee plant.

It's campaign season here, and posters like these are hanging around every town. They like the close-up photos in their campaign art.

Here's Lisa and our buddy Andrew in Santa Catalina during a charla we did on HIV/AIDS. The event was great, but the school had no lights and it got dark too fast.

That's Andrew's house--the nicest house in Peace Corps. These purple flowers are really pretty.

Here's some waterfront real estate in Panama City. Nearly 300 towers are under construction at the moment. But the city needs lots of infrastructure, like a wastewater treatment plant, to keep up with all the growth.

Hola! Lisa's birthday is on June 19! She and Matt are going to the Volunteer Advisory Council meeting in our provincial capital that same day and then going out to eat with our friends. In other news, Matt was appointed to the editorial team of the Peace Corps/Panama magazine, La Vaina. He just spent five days in Panama City working on the 3rd quarter edition. It was just like old times: stress, long days, no pay, computer problems, etc. But it was lots of fun, and we put out a nice 32-page spread that'll be printed in color to commemorate the Peace Corps' 45th anniversary in Panama.

Next week, we're headed back to the big city because we were invited to attend the swearing-in ceremony for the new group of volunteers followed by an anniversary reception at the ambassador's house. We're very honored!

Lisa's also working on official business as the new vice president of the Peace Corps' Gender and Development group, which supports volunteers working on projects like HIV/AIDS education and life skills activities for young people. Our post down here has a volunteer HIV/AIDS coordinator, and there are a lot of resources to do things like sex education charlas, or talks, at schools. We recently joined a half-dozen buddies for a big charla in Santa Catalina, a surf town with a high rate of sexually transmitted disease. We had about 20 young women show up, and it went really well. Our friend Shawn made arrangements for free lodging with the owners of a hostal, and we had lots of learning materials from the Peace Corps. We also got to swim in the Pacific and eat some good fish.

Matt also recently built a composting latrine with some pals in the Comarca Ngabe-Bugle, the indigenous district out by Costa Rica. These latrines are built of concrete block, which is a lot of fun to work with. He loves to pretend he's a mason!

Anyway, you pour a floor, build four levels of block and pour another floor on top of that. The big box is divided in two, with a hole over each compartment. Liquid waste is sent out a little PVC pipe and the solid stuff goes into the box to decompose. Using sawdust on it ensures bugs stay away and moisture is absorbed, meaning a lot less stench. When Box 1 fills up, you switch to Box 2. The Box 1 crap can decompose safely for months and be removed and used as fertilizer many months later when Box 2 is full. This is a nice latrine since you don't need to dig new pits every few years, and there aren't any bugs to spread disease. And they don't stink, as we said. They also offer a bit of permanent sanitation infrastructure, which is a big goal of the Environmental Health program Matt works in. He aims to build some composters in our site, where the water table is really high, rendering pit latrines really nasty.

Finally, we're headed home in less than a month! We can't wait to see our little nephew Mason! We thank the Good Lord he's doing fine, as are parents Cait and Scott. Tina and Ed will also have their little one by then, and we'll be heading to Tim and Cale's weddings and seeing a bunch of family and friends. Ace and Emily: We hope we can get to Portland!

Congratulations to the Celtics! We saw them win it last night in a very lopsided game. Fun stuff nonetheless. In other sporting news, we see Omar Minaya fired Willie Randolph, and Matt wishes he could be home listening to Mike & The Maddog each afternoon. People must be mad. The Yankees are also in trouble. In times like these, we really miss sports radio! We continue following the Sox online and seeing games from time to time. We're especially pleased to see Jacoby Ellsbury, a great young player who can steal bases. Didn't you watch him in Portland, Ace? He's a cousin of one of our buddies here who's a Native American.

Anyway, Happy Birthday to Lisa! And Felicidades to David Ortiz on becoming a US citizen. Peace!

--Matt and Lisa

Making Stoves Part 2

2008-05-09T10:22:00.005-05:00

A few weeks after working at Teri's site, we headed south to our pal Adam's town to build a stove behind an Evangelical church. This project went fast because we had lots of helpers and better luck. The pastor also had a chainsaw, so cutting boards for the form was really easy. The photo above shows the huge pots the church uses for cooking communal meals. We did have to enlarge the form because we made the mistake of building it without making sure the stove would fit the pots. Anyway, it was another good experience, working with new friends and talking about cooking. These stoves, as we've said before, use less wood, concentrate the heat where it needs to be, and help the cooks breathe cleaner air. After this stove cures for 30 days, the church will put on the chimney we made from a rolled up piece of roofing zinc. The top photo shows some of our new pals.

Here's Lisa with one of our best friends, Andrew, who also lives near us and came to work on the stove. Andrew is from California.

This is Adam. He's from Texas. The hat was a good idea because the church we worked at was an hour's walk from his house. And it was hot out!

Here's the church. Inside they just built a stage. Out back there's a rancho with a zinc roof where they do the cooking. Hopefully, the many church members will want to build a mud stove at their homes. And hopefully the Catholic residents of town will stop by to see the model stove at this church.

Here we are taking off the form after we packed in the mix of mud, sand and cow manure. At this point, the stove is ready to carve (fire box and holes for the pots and chimney).

One of the spectators. The hat he's wearing is very common in the countryside, but most men turn up the front brim. This guy looks cooler with his hat his way.

This bird also watched the proceedings. He belongs to one of the half-dozen families that live around the church. He gritars, which means he can howl at you like a Panamanian man when he greets you.

Lisa and Andrew are seen here with a neighbor sifting ingredients of the mix. It's important to have a smooth mix, without rocks, so everything sticks together perfectly. Sifting is a lot of work. But like we said, we had a bunch of helpers (who now know how to build these things) and we were able to finish the job in a day. At snack time, by the way, they brought us a classic Panama treat: ice cold Pepsi from the store and fresh baked dinner rolls. Yum!

Making Stoves

2008-05-08T20:59:00.011-05:00

Howdy all. Sorry it's been over a month since our last post. We've been busy! Matt helped make 3 lorena stoves in the month of April (I helped make two of them)! Two of them were in our province and one was in a nearby province (more photos will follow in another post). The first stove we made was way up in the mountains, at Teri's site. Teri is a sustainable agriculture volunteer, and as it turns out she used to work at a school near us in the States. She works with a women's group in her site, so we helped build the stove for one of the women in the group. The family had a beautiful rancho kitchen (see below) with mud walls.

The night before we started the project we went to the woman's house to look at the base (always an important step). It was a table made of clay and wood. Unfortunately it was very high and she was very short. We mentioned that she was going to have to use a stool in order to cook on the stove, but she assured us that was fine. We also asked about the sturdiness of the table, but she told us it was a year old and when we pressed down on it, it seemed pretty sturdy. We were also a bit concerned about the lack of ceiling space in the rancho, which is important because one needs to be able to really pack down the dirt in the stove with a big t-shaped weight.

So we arrived that first morning ready to work, only to realize that our friend Vidal, who we built a stove with previously in nearby Ashley's site, didn't send up the formuleta, the wooden box used to make the frame of the stove. Because I'm a business volunteer and had the least amount of stove experience in our trio of volunteers, I said I'd walk down the mountain 1 hour to Ashley's site to get the boards for the form. I had heard about a short cut, so I asked some people in town about it and these two men, Jesus and Juan, agreed to take me to the crossing where I could find my way.

10 minutes into the walk (Jesus was in front of me, Juan behind me) Jesus jumped what seemed at the time 5 feet into the air. He put his arm back to stop me from walking any further and thank God because when I looked down a coral, aka deadly, snake was passing right next to my open toe Chaco sandals! If I walked 1 mm further the thing would have bitten me! The men then proceeded to kill the snake, which ran off into the bushes. I was a bit shaken up, but we continued walking. They left me at the crossing and I said I would be fine (even though I was lying and really wanted them to walk the rest of the way with me)!

So, 10 minutes later, I walked down this cleared mountain, on a dirt path, admiring the lake in the distance and the mountains surrounding me, and I was happy because it's so much cooler up there than at my site. Then to my right, about 2 yards away, I see the largest black snack I've ever seen in my life. Within seconds of seeing it, it starts slinking its way up the trail toward me! No joke, the thing started chasing me. Not having a lot of experience with poisonous snakes, I decide to do what Jesus and Juan did, which was pick up large stones and chuck them at the snake. So I picked up the first stone I saw and bam! I got the snake and it and the stone fell down the hillside. The only problem was that I too had to go down the hill! I stopped and stared down the hill for a few minutes and then just decided to run as fast as I could down the hill.

About 15 minutes later, completely and utterly freaked out, I picked up a stick and a large stone and decided I would walk the rest of the way with my weapons. I then ran into Ashley's host dad, who was like, "What the heck is this Gringa doing walking down the mountain with this rock and stick?" Yeah, I felt ridiculous, but I didn't care!

Anyway, the stove took a few days, and we had some headaches, but it turned out really cool. And it was great to be up high in coffee country. The top photo shows the Catholic church in Teri's town. The mountains are full of pine trees planted during the first Torrijos administration to stop erosion and whatnot. Now the land is protected by the state.

The completed stove, on day 3! The homeowners watch as Teri and Vidal finish coating the exterior of the stove with some wet clay.

Matt at the end of day 2! Dirty and exhausted but still smiling! It was hard not to smile because the landscape is so beautiful.

Lisa pounding down the dirt in between the rocks for base number 2! Teri, Matt, Lisa and the homeowner worked very hard to find the perfect rocks to make the base. We built the base all morning during day 2, only to realize that the formuleta (wooden box, which rests on top of the base to make the stove) was too big for the new base, so we spent the afternoon searching for and cutting new wood to make a new formuleta!

Teri's rancho. She has a gorgeous view from her house. Everyone in the country cooks outside in a rancho.

Teri and Lisa at the start of day 1! Notice it was cool enough to wear a sweatshirt first thing in the morning. What a nice change of pace after so much heat down in the lowlands. We look forward to more work in the mountains!

Cashews

2008-04-07T14:21:00.007-05:00

The last two afternoons we've been walking to collect marañon (cashew fruit) with our friends next door. It's the strangest fruit we've ever tasted, but it's really growing on us. People in our site claim it's good for head colds because upon the first bite it makes you cough and your eyes water, but then its fresh clean taste hits you and you're sold (or you hate it and never touch it again). But our real interest is not in the fruit but rather in the 'pepita,' or nut! In the States, cashews are expensive so it's a real treat to eat a bunch of them for free in Panama!

I love cashews! We've been heading out to the cow pastures where there are a lot of trees. You have to pull the nut off of the rather stinky fruit and then bring the nuts, which are enclosed in a hard grayish shell, back to your house so that they can dry out in the sun all day. Then you have to either roast them over an open fire on a piece of zinc until they blacken, or boil them for a period of time. Once they're blackened or boiled, you take a rock and crack open the shell to get to the roasted (or boiled) nut inside. A small bag of roasted cashew nuts are sold in our provincial capital for $1 for a small bag (about 30 nuts).

During Holy Week people in our site make what they simply call a dulce. It consists of freshly dried papaya, orange, coconut, cashews, and “miel de cana” or molasses. They're all cooked together over an open fire in a very large pot. The end product has a sticky, dark, fig-like consistency and is just heavenly. We tried dulces at two different homes, and we couldn't believe how good it was.

Terry, our next door neighbors' dog. She's really sweet and full of flees, poor thing. We feed her any leftovers we have--she's pretty skinny. But she's in far better health than 99% of the dogs here. And she never barks!

Lisa standing on a hill in the cow pasture. It looks like a desert now, but in the rainy season it will be green again. Ages ago, this was a jungle. It was probably a lot cooler then, too.

Mateo standing on top of the water tank. The kids here love to climb trees, etc. and the boys next door are expert climbers and really strong. The oldest brother, Arturo, pulled Matt up onto the tank with one hand.

This is one fat pig! The next day she gave birth to 16 piglets (below), one of which died. The farmer, Miguel, tried to revive it. It was a sad scene.

The mama pig's neighbor. This one has a nice smile, but she really stinks! Even though we have pigs in our town, no one ever eats pork. Maybe it's because these pigs are so gross!

The piglets! They came right out, one by one, covered in slime, and went right for their mama's belly. We see plenty of pigs back home, of course, but we couldn't resist photographing these cute little creatures.

No es autopista: This is not a highway! Trucks from the sugar cane plant race through town, raising a lot of dust and annoying the neighbors.

Here are some of the cows near our house. They've got big humps on their backs, and they get a little spooked by The Gringos. None of them wanted their picture taken up close.

Bolivar and Arturo are great tour guides. They told us all about how the town water tank was built and how it works. It's a pretty big tank, but we can't remember the capacity. It serves 2/3 of the 200 homes in town.
The tank opens on top so you can get in there to clean it out once in a while. Matt has no idea if that's happening, but it really should be. Our town has two wells, and water's pumped into PVC pipes that run along the roads. A lot of towns rely on gravity, with a spring up on a hill, but our town's too flat for that.

Three of the nicest kids in Panama: Arturo (Arturito), Bolivar (Boli) and Glenny. They look just like their parents, Arturo and Reina, who's expecting another boy in June. By the way, all the men and boys wear undershirts like Boli's.

A House of Our Own

2008-03-20T10:04:00.017-05:00

The view from in front of our new house. In every town in Panama, many houses (like the one here) are under construction for years.

This horse belongs to our new landlords. He´s usually cool, but when our pal from Texas tried to ride him, he went a little loco. Short ride!

This is our landlord´s house, and it´s connected to ours by the garage area at left. The family is so nice--mom and dad Reina and Arturo and kids Glenny, Arturo and Bolivar (Boli). They made us part of the family.

Our little pink house with lots of shade! This hammock is one of five in our front yard.

Mateo standing just outside of our kitchen door, in front of an addition that´s ah, still in progress.

Lisa cooking in our indoor-outdoor kitchen. Notice her lime green fake Crocs! Also notice the old washing machines outside the door. We keep it country!

Our new pit latrine. Matt helped dig the hole, which he approved of since this is the dry part of town and their latrines don´t flood in the rainy season (like others around town). The kids had Matt write welcome in front of it. We´ve now removed the wood and are about to add the raised seat to sit on. Then we have to build a house for it. We´ll probably use scrap zinc to make the house.

Our sink area. There´s a shower head back there as well, but we live on a slight hill and therefore there´s not enough water pressure for the shower. They also run the water at the crack of dawn for a few hours and then for a few hours at night. But the bucket-baths ain´t bad since it´s like 90 degrees out!

Our closet area, aka the other half of our bedroom. Plenty of space for all of our stuff. And it´s not too damp!

Here´s our new bed, as seen from the storage part of the room. In this area, the net is a must. We´re sleeping good.

Our dining area. This was taken just before a lunch of tuna sandwiches and tomatoes. Note the presidents on the wall. Just like 505!

Here´s Lisa at the table. Our new gas stove is at right. It´s way better than our old electric stove back home, actually. You buy new tanks of propane right in town for like $5.

Our living room, where we have a world map and a map of Panama. Matt loves to give geography lessons! It´s quite comfy here. And we´re lucky the house came with a couch and a table and curtains.

Noticias de febrero

2008-02-29T10:41:00.010-05:00

Hello, everybody! We're still having summer down here, with lots of sun and no rain, and we've been swimming a few times recently (above). It's hot during the day, but the lack of humidity makes for cool evenings like the best ones we get in New York/New England summers. We don't look forward to the return of muggy, rainy days in a month or so. In the meantime, cutting cane in our community remains a 24/7 job. And they're getting ready to celebrate the feast of our patron saint, Juan de Dios. Every town goes all out for these fiestas, or patronales, with processions, dances, and house decorations.

We just got back from a week of in-service training in the province of Cocle, where we were able to go swimming in the Pacific. Perfect water! They have us stay for these things at a government conference center run by the ministry of environmental protection. It's about an hour's walk from a public beach and there are dorms and a cafeteria. It was great to see our pals, including some we hadn't seen since training. We had whole days of Spanish classes, technical seminars and meetings with Peace Corps officials. They were all very good, especially the sessions led by current volunteers on organic gardens, latrine building and working with the health ministry (which handles water systems).

Thursday, when it was all done, we went to Chitre, a pretty little city on the way home. Matt and some pals went to a baseball game between the provinces of Herrera and Veraguas (the visitors from our neck of the woods). Each province has a pro team that plays a 40-game schedule in the summer. The talent level is pretty good, and we saw some nice plays and OK pitching. It was just about soldout and the fans go crazy, screaming and waving flags and jumping up and down for every little play. The Indios, our team, had fans and a brass band filling one whole section. The Brujas (Witches) of Herrera, a superior team, won. It was a really great vibe! And they sell 60-cent beers and Panamanian treats like fried dough. Baseball is #1 here, and our host family watches every televised game, so it was really cool to see it all.

Speaking of our hosts, we're scheduled to move into our own house March 1. We can't wait to have our own space and cook our own food, but we'll miss these folks because they've been very good to us. We're set to live in a tiny block house with 2 rooms and a porch area where they cook and clean. It's got plenty of shade, which is good for now but could get pretty dark once it starts raining every day. While living here for 3 months or so, we'll be renovating the house we're planning to live in for the remainder of our service. Thankfully, many people have offered to help out.

Before signing off and writing some captions for these photos, we want to send our best wishes to everyone in Burlington, especially Christine and Andrew and Mim and Ed. You're in our prayers, of course, and we're anxious to see you all in July. God bless!

Matt relaxed by the river recently. A group of families took a pickup ride about a half-hour out of town to get to the swim spot. People catch shrimp in these waters with hoop-shaped nets.

Lisa and the son of the truck driver and our pal Lilia (in a Veraguas baseball hat) rode in the back of the truck with Matt.

This is a shot from the recent baseball tournament hosted by our Ecoclub. We had 5 teams, including 3 from our town and 2 from the big city, Santiago (they had the catcher's gear). About 100 people were out for the day, and it was a lot of fun to see. Our host brother, Alejandro, was the umpire. We were really proud of the kids for putting it together. Getting more organized sports up and running is one of our big goals.

These Ecoclub members sold juice (chicha), fried dough, and little white rolls with this orange mayo that everyone eats here.

With our volunteer friend Shawn from New Mexico, we walked 20 miles from our town to a town near Santiago on a pilgrimage honoring Jesus Nazareno. It's the biggest pilgrimage in the country, and people walk to this town from all over Panama the first week of Lent. It took us 5.5 hours, and we were totally wiped out for a while after. Matt still has blisters on his feet. There were thousands of people, and they said Mass all day and all night as the walkers and busloads of city residents came streaming in. It's been really great to participate in all of these Panamanian traditions. We are very lucky!

Lorena Stove

2008-02-09T09:32:00.000-05:00

Our friend Ashley, who lives up in the mountains in a pine forest reserve, asked Matt and I to come up to her site to make a lorena stove. A lorena stove is made of clay, sand, and grass. It´s promoted as being a free, healthy alternative to a fugon, or open air fire. The stove has a chimney, which allows the smoke to escape above the cooking area, which is much healthier than having the smoke go down your lungs. The pictures are in order from bottom to top, sorry!

Matt with a sunburned nose and hot sauce!

Hmm...arroz con pollo and grape flavored sugar drink!

Matt, Ashley and I hula hooped with these girls earlier in the visit. They have several garden hose hula hoops.

It was Ashley´s host brother´s birthday, so her host mom made all the kids in town arroz con pollo.

The mom cooks in the shack at the rear of the photo, and the dad will rebuild the shack over the new stove.

We filled the form poco a poco to ensure even distribution of material.

Matt wore gloves because he had cuts and a bad burn on his right hand.

Matt pounds dirt into the form, which was built atop a table of earth. The form comes off after the dirt is pounded in, and then the family can dig holes for the woodbox on the side and the pots and chimney up top.

Once we sifted the sand and clay, we had to mix them together and then add water and straw in measured proportions. Ashley and the homeowner conducted a test to determine these proportions earlier in the week. We mixed all ingredients together in the wheelbarrow and then slowly layed them into the wooden structure shown above.

Ashley bought cookies and coffee for everyone for helping. This kid had just finished his cookies.

Everyone working! We had men, women and children helping out.

We had to sift the sand with a sieve or in this case old screen to get any rocks out it. If there are rocks in the stove mixture, they could explode when the stove gets hot and crack it open.

Because Ashley works with a woodshop cooperative, the people in this community have access to a chainsaw, which is unbelieveable. It´s on top of a rice peeler, which is a large wooden structure that you put rice in and then use a heavy wooden mallet to peel the husk off the rice.

This is the family´s outhouse. It´s so windy in the dry season up in the mountains that people´s zinc roofs often blow away. That piece of zinc in the background is the roof. It blew off just before Matt decided to go use another latrine away from the worksite. Vidal wants Matt to come and build a composting latrine in the coming months.

We had a big turnout and a lot of help from the community.

Vidal, the homeowner, completing the base, so that we could build the stove on top of it. He build a wood structure and then filled it with dirt. They have mounds of dirt right now because the government is in the process of paving their road.

More views.

Even though it´s summer and not really raining much, it´s still lush and green in the mountains.

Views on the way down from the hike.

Our waterfall guides. They´re brothers and their house on top of the moutain, completely isolated from Ashley´s town.

One of our guides to the waterfall.

The view from the top of the mountain.

Lisa, a guy from Ashley´s site, and Ashley on the way to the waterfall.

The morning before we built the stove, we climbed a mountain to go to this waterfall!

We´re tan!

We arrived in the late afternoon and walked to the lake at sunset. Matt and I were chilly at this hour. I don´t know how we´re going to be able to go home to the States!

Ashley´s community is very small, so we went to every house to remind everyone that we were building the stove the next day. This women has a mud house and a rancho with beautiful flower roof.

Ashley works with a woodshop cooperative. The picture above is their truck! It says, ¨With God I am invincible.¨

Ashley and her pregnant horse, tamarinda.

More pix of our site

2008-01-23T11:26:00.000-05:00

Lisa, one of our host nieces, Lilia, and our host mom, Lucila, in the backyard of our host family's house.

Our host brother's bar. He just had it painted. Atlas and Balboa are names of two popular beers down here. Yeah, this bar is across the street from our house. Luckily it's only open on the weekends.

Lilia and her cousin, Anny del Carmen, on our host dad's horse, Morracho, which is a take on borracho, which means a drunk. Don't ask. Our host dad, in the white hat, is named Virgilio, and he worked for 26 years as a supervisor at the sugarcane refinery. Now he farms his family's land an hour outside of town.

Our host nephew, Einar. He's 4 and is the cutest kid ever! He speaks perfectly clear Spanish and likes to stand at the side of the road as cars pass and say, "Hey, hey, hey!" He also talks to the drunks across the street at the bar. It's so funny. Lucila is standing in the kitchen doorway at the back of their house. To her right is a little shanty, or rancho, where she often cooks on an open fire.

Our host dad insited Matt take a picture of me on his horse. Okay, I haven't been on a horse in about 20 years! I was scared and they all laughed at me as I tried to get down!

Virgilio and Morracho.

Matt had Lisa and her friends pose in front of the cooperative's tractor.

Dancing at the first meeting of our youth group. The young lady at right, Karla, is the vice president.

Everyone got in a circle for an ice breaker, or dinamica. Lisa is seen here with our friend Emily, who lives nearby. Her youth group is helping ours get started. The meeting was in our town's casa comunal, a big pavilion. The primary school, the only school in town, is in the background.

The town park, where we hope to plant trees. It's really hot without shade!

One more shot of Morracho. Our host sister's house, which is next to our house, is in the background.

Last week they started burning and cutting the sugarcane. They work day and night to feed the refinery. Some of the cane is cut by machine, but a lot of it is still done by teams of men with machetes. They work in brutal heat, wearing long sleeve shirts and pants to protect themselves from the sun and the sharp leaves of the cane.

They burn the cane to kill snakes before the workers go into the fields. The smoke smells sweet.

Here's Lisa near the entrada to our town. Those are beans on the ground and watermelon in the distance. Watermelon, or sandia, is a huge crop just south of us, but they don't grow any where we live. It tastes awesome!

The road into town. Those mountains in the distance are tall and usually covered by clouds. The views are quite pretty, but if you wanted to walk to town from this point, you'd melt in this heat.

Burnt cane up close. The fields go on for miles, and the cooperative that Lisa works with sells all of its cane to the nearby refinery. That sugar eventually goes into candy and those little paper packs they give you for your coffee. Everyone here drinks coffee with at least 3 of those packs of sugar. They think Matt's nuts because he likes his with just milk.

Cane and smoke.

Christmas Pix

2007-12-29T15:45:00.000-05:00

The day after Christmas we met up with our PC buddies for lunch. Seen here are (l-r) Lisa, Sean, Dennis and Andrew.

Olga´s brother, mother and me.

Olga and her husband Martin dancing on Christmas Day at her aunt´s house.

More dancing...

Olga, Matt and I.

Olga´s baby MarieChristine holding the baby Jesus lawn ornament.

We are so glam.

Her Santa hat lit up. So cute.

Me and Olga´s brother at Olga´s parent´s house on Christmas Day.

Christmas Day in the sun, lounging on the hammock.

Matt and I spent Christmas with my college roommate Olga and her family. It was great to meet Olga´s husband and three year old child. Olga´s brother just got back from China, where he participated in the World Special Olympics. He won several medals. Olga´s Mom told us stories about being a Panamanian in China and not speaking English. She had several escapades on the bus trying to get to the stadium to watch the Olympics. Olga´s sister just had her third baby shortly before Christmas.

On Christmas Eve we ate a lovely meal at Olga´s parents house. It consisted of ham, turkey, arroz con pollo, a large rosca or braided bread, dates, apples, grapes, fruit bread, spiced punch and sangria.

Then on Christmas Day we took a trip to Olga´s aunts house in a nearby town and had a catered Christmas dinner. The men drank Chivas, rum, and wine. Both houses had real Christmas trees and were decorated like in the States. Everyone made us feel very welcome. Thanks so much Olga!

Back at our site, we are eating lots of grapefruit and oranges and looking forward to a birthday party on New Year´s Eve. As for work, we are making the rounds and working on starting our youth group. Matt has a fungus on his back, neck and now face. It´s little white spots, but you can´t see them from far off. We were ignoring it for a while now, but it moved to his face the other day so he went to the doctor´s today and got some medicine. Don´t worry, it will clear up in a few months! Otherwise, we seem pretty healthy.

Thanks so much for being in touch.

Miss you all very much.

Merry Christmas

2007-12-22T10:36:00.000-05:00

Wow, heard about the snow situation back home! Craziness. We miss you all very much and are thinking of you often.

Well, just in time for Christmas, Dell computer hand delivered and installed our new hard drive yesterday at the PC office! They accidentily brought the Spanish version of Vista, so they're ordering us the English version too (no complaints!) We waited 2 months for the hard drive to arrive from the US and it didn't, so this visit was a relief and their costumer service was excellent.

We hope you all eat some pork pie and Christmas cookies for us! We don't know what we'll be eating with Olga's family, but we're sure it will be excellent.

Unfortunately we won't be able to host our annual New Year's Party this year, but from the sounds of it you will be snowed in anyway! Okay, just kidding.

Oh, congratulations to Erin and Russ! They had a baby girl named Abigail earlier this month! Can't wait to meet her next year.

Peace and health in 2008.

Love, Lisa and Matt

Our New Site

2007-12-15T15:21:00.000-05:00

Lisa walking alongside the sugarcane!

There are large expanses of cow pastures.

The cemetery.

The Catholic chapel.

Our room. Yes, we have a bed with a mattress!

Our host family´s house.

For the last couple of weeks we´ve been in our new site. It´s in the middle of country in the Province of Veraguas. It´s an agricultural community surrounded by fields of sugarcane. Yes, it´s hot here, but we´ll take it. It´s much better than freezing--we´ve done enough of that in our lives. I do however, need my shorts. Peace Corps frowns on shorts but in our site nearly everyone wears shorts because it´s just too hot for pants.

Our host family is a retired couple in their 60´s. The father is the president of the agricultural cooperative I´ll be working with and he´s a jovial man who tells a lot of jokes that we laugh at but often don´t understand! Our host mom speaks rapid fire Spanish and is the main caretaker for several of her grandchildren, who live nearby. She´s a bit intimidating, but seems to like us enough.

She´s currenly not impressed that I can´t eat fried food at the moment due to my many illnesses. Wow they like everything fried here. I guess I didn´t realize how spoiled we were with our host family during training. They fed us very healthy food.

Typical breakfast for our host family is thick homemade tortillas (she soaks corn overnight or boils it for a while) then grinds it in a mill and then forms it into a dough the size of a large frying pan and grills it until it´s cooked. Sometimes she puts cheese in the middle of it (don´t get excited, it´s yellow individual wrapped pieces of American aka fake cheese, oh we´d kill for some Cabot cheese!) She serves these with fried hotdogs. Other times for breakfast it´s patacones (fried green plantains) with a fried egg or hotdog.

Lunch is usually white rice, beans (all sorts) and sometimes some meat (chicken, pork or liver), or fish. Sometimes there´s coleslaw, cucumber, or a sweet fried plantain. Dinner is the same as lunch. Sometimes after dinner we walk to the coop and buy molasses cookies, they´re good!

Matt´s most likely going to work on building composting latrines. They´re a type of latrine that doesn´t require a hole to be dug in the ground. The people here all have pit latrines and they´re bad because during the wet season (April-December) they´re full of water. Another project he going to investigate is trash. Right now there´s no landfill, so yeah the trash is all over the place.

There are a lot kids (there are 800ish people in the town) and few youth groups. We´d like to start a girls scout troop and an environmental group. Our closest volunteer has both of these groups in her town and she´s going to bring her kids over to ours to see what the interest level is in our town.

There is a Catholic church youth group in our town, however we only have a chapel and the priest only comes every 8th of the month. We went to mass on Mother´s Day (December 8th down here). It was nice. Two babies were baptized.

Well, as long as we have our health, life here should be much better for us. The people are so generous. We´ve trying to visit every house in the community in the coming months. So far we received bags and bags of oranges, had fresh squeezed grapefruit juice, and agua de pipa (a type of coconut that one slices the top off then drinks the water out of it, and then one cuts it in half and eats the white, milky flesh inside).

Yesterday our next door neighbors, another couple in their 60´s, who don´t have children, made us a typical chicken stew. It was excellent. In addition to the chicken it has yucca, ñame (a root vegetable like yucca) carrots, and squash.

Happy holidays! It´s 85! We have to keep reminding ourselves that it´s December and that Christmas is rapidly approaching. I´ve never been anywhere this warm for X-mas. When I was Spain, Monica and I travelled to Italy for X-mas and it was cold!

Note: Post offices are few and far between here, which is why we don´t write snail mail much and why you Christmas card isn´t there yet!

Pictures from Thanksgiving

2007-12-08T10:58:00.001-05:00

Volcan Baru, as seen from the front seat of our bus back to David.

Most of the country´s vegetables are grown in this part of the country, the province is called Chiriqui.

The day we left it was gorgeous with great views.

A truck full of iceburg lettuce or cabbage, I can´t tell.

Danny serving up some of his town´s coffee. It´s cold (like you need a fleece) where we had Thanksgiving.

Emily, Logan, me, Kelly, Adam and Ashley hanging out after eating too much turkey.

Our bags! We travelled for three weeks before T-day. We shared this room with one of the other couples, Greg and Lisa.

The lodge we stayed at. I took a hike with other volunteers one morning through the jungle and it was amazing (not to mention wet and muddy). The lodge provides rubber boots, which are a necesity.

Micah, me and Adam.

Happy Thanksgiving

2007-11-20T18:01:00.000-05:00

We wish everyone a happy and safe holiday weekend. We´ll miss dinner with our families, but we´ll be meeting up with the other volunteers here in the mountains for a few days. And we´ll have plenty of pavo y papas!

In other news, we got a new site, and we love it. It´s a sugar town in the middle of the country and it´s warm. The people are also really nice. We hope to move there sometime next week.

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers and all the encouragement. It´s been a rough month, but we´re determined to be successful volunteers.

Special shout-out to our pals at SUNY and the paper.

God bless.

Love, Lisa and Matt

Pixs from the day we were sworn in

2007-11-15T17:21:00.000-05:00

These photos from the day we were sworn in are from our friend Ashley. The ceremony was at the Canal Museum in Casco Viejo, the old part of Panama City. After the ceremony we ate at a cool Italian place.

Matt and our friend Dennis, a business volunteer and a Cornell graduate.

Ashley and Peace Corps staff member Gil.

Our whole group on the steps of the Cathedral.

Hey, it´s Matt´s Birthday today

2007-11-11T15:20:00.001-05:00

Okay, let me just respond to everyone´s posts about Halloween. You see, Matt doesn´t really get ¨dressed up¨ for Halloween. He figures out a way to humor me without making himself uncomfortable. He was ¨arroz¨ so our friend Emily took one of his blank white t-shirts and wrote, ¨Arroz, Producto de Panama¨ on it. Yeah, I wore the construction paper chicken fixin´s.

Well, now for the updates. Unfortunately for everyone involved, I got really sick again. Matt and I were at our site for 4 days before we had to head back to the hospital. I was initially diagnosed with ameobas and then sent to rest at a hotel. Unfortunately after a couple of days, I got worse and had to go spend the next 3 nights in the hospital. While I was in the hospital, a piece of Matt´s tooth broke! Lovely.

So, we are currently in Panamá dealing with medical and administrative issues. Matt got his tooth repaired on Friday and I´ve been trying to lay low while my guts heal. Today we went to the Catholic church in our neighborhood, called Don Bosco. It´s a beautiful church built in the 1800´s and has mass every hour on Sundays, starting at 7:00am. The 11:00 am mass was packed. Tonight Matt wants chicken from one of his favorite restuarants down the road from our hotel.

Oh, and Matt´s Mom sent me an email to let me know that I got a check from my former employer because they decided that I should not have had to pay for parking throughout my tenure there. I´m so happy I could do cartwheels...well that might not be a good idea at this juncture! I always resented having to pay for parking! Life is unfair, but sometimes, justice is served.

In other news...my college roommate Olga, who as many of you know, is from Panama, has emailed me. She and her husband and daughter will be visiting Panama for Christmas and New Year´s and she has invited Matt and I to visit her parent´s house at some point. We´re very excited. Olga is currently living in Germany, so it will be great to see her and meet her family.

Stay warm...heard it´s in the 40´s up there.

We´re official volunteers

2007-10-28T15:36:00.001-05:00

Matt and I swore in as volunteers on Thursday. Our group got all dressed up and headed to Panama City for the ceremony. The US Ambassador to Panama, the minister of health, the Peace Corps director, and the head of the cooperative organization that I´ll be working with, along with several current volunteers, were all in attendance. We had to stand up and introduce ourselves in Spanish. It was fun and a reception followed. After the reception we took a tour of the canal museum.

A bit later our group went out to eat at an Italian restuarant in the city. It was good. I had a salad, spinach ravioli and some red wine from Argentina. Matt had a salad and some garlic bread and some beer (he´s on a diet...just kidding).
After dinner we went out dancing! Unfortunately the cheap dress up shoes I bought here in Panama fell apart half way into the night, so I danced barefoot (always questionable).

We stayed out v. late for Matt and I but we didn´t mind the lack of sleep because the next day (Friday) we all piled into a diablo rojo and headed to a beach a couple of hours outside of the city. We all bought food at the grocery store before arriving and ate breakfast and lunch in our rooms and dinner at the restuarant.

Despite the fact that it rained a lot, we still went swimming and played ultimate frisbee on the beach. We´re going to miss our group. It might sound strange because we´ve only known our new friends for 10 weeks, but I think we´re all really close at this point. We´re been through a lot together. This morning Matt and I got up and headed straight for the bus. We said bye to a few people, but I think it´s best to just go and not say goodbye.

The good news is that we´ll see them all in a few weeks at Thanksgiving. We´re headed back to where I went for my sector conference for turkey! I´m really excited.

I´ll post pictures from this weekend sometime soon. We didn´t use our camera, but everyone else did and they´ll post the pictures soon enough. On that note, I should mention that our laptop is locked away in the city. Unfortunately the hard drive, which is less than a year old, is dead. It might have been the humidity. The good news is that it´s still under warranty and Dell is shipping us a new one in a month. We´re going to have to figure out a better way to store it down here! Ah!

Hasta pronto and Happy Halloween! Oh, I forgot to mention Matt and I dressed up as arroz con pollo for Halloween! Chicken with rice...he was arroz and I was pollo. So cute and thanks to Melissa and Emily for making our costumes!

Site Visit

2007-10-16T15:23:00.000-05:00

We´re back at training after another adventure. We traveled to our site last week after meeting our community guides at a conference in Coclé. The town is beautiful, with views of the mountains and the Pacific, and our hosts are wonderful. We toured the town and met all the teachers and students at the primary school and the government health workers. Matt also hiked into the jungle to see one of the aqueducts. The weather was sunny and comfortable in the morning, misty at midday and very rainy all afternoon. We look forward to living and working here and staying in one of the concrete houses, where we can stay dry and watch it rain. The food isn´t too bad, with large quantities of rice and beans, boiled green bananas, yucca, and a little bit of chicken.

During our visit we were the talk of the town and crowds of children would either stare at us or come joke around. The Ngabe (picture the a with two dots over it and pronounce the word no-bay) are really sweet people. Many of them live in huts without any walls and most of the children suffer from malnutricion. But they love to smile. They are also proud of their heritage and language, and we went to a conference at a school in a nearby city with our community guides about Ngabe life, where we were told to spell it with the a and not an o. The talks there focused on health and development issues, including controversial mining and electric power projects. Matt felt right at home!

While speakers were getting up and talking about the Comarca, Lisa was lying down next to the bathroom. After several hours of agony a teacher at the school offered to bring her to the nearby hospital. Lisa said yes, grabbed Matt and off we went. But when we got there, Matt called the PC doctor, who told us to go to a different hospital the PC has a relationship with. So we got on a bus for a tense ride up the highway and they got Lisa right into a room at the hospital. Matt developed the same GI symptoms shortly thereafter. Eventually they gave us a room with two beds and we stayed for two nights for treatment of intestinal infections. We had lots of IVs and watched a lot of TV. Gracias a Dios, we felt a lot better Sunday and Monday morning we returned to the Comarca. We feel like real PC volunteers now!

This morning we met the host family we´ll stay with for a while, and they´re really nice and their house is cool. We´re also talking with a guy who has a concrete house we can rent after we leave our host family. Lisa unfortunately didn´t get a chance to really talk with the women who run the cooperative, but we had a great meeting with the water committee and several of the women artisans in town.

There´s definitely lots of work to do, including getting the water back on. The town hasn´t had water in over a month because of aqueduct problems, but for now everyone´s got water because it´s the rainy season. After Christmas, when it dries out, it won´t be so easy. But our thinking caps are on, and we´ve got the cellphone numbers for all our engineer buddies.
Training winds down this week and next and then we swear in as volunteers. Can´t wait! Best wishes to everyone.

Lisa's CED group photo

2007-10-06T11:47:00.000-05:00

I had a virus on my flash drive, so this picture did not get uploaded. It's my business group during our technical week.

What we like about Panamá

2007-10-05T18:01:00.000-05:00

Okay, I figured out the keyboard on this computer, so I´ll try to include the accent marks on this blog entry!The other night Matt and I were resting after dinner and decided to each make a list of our favorite things in Panamá (thus far).

Matt´s list:

the lovely people
rice and lentils, habañero sauce and fried chicken
4x4 trucks (Nissan and Toyota)
hammocks
zinc roofs
oranges, bananas and plantains
10-cent packs of cookies
riding in old school buses
watching the Red Sox with our host brothers (ok, the fact that it´s easier to watch the Red Sox in Panama than it is in Upstate NY is a bit disturbing!)
not seeing snakes
using a "coa" (a narrow, flute spade) to dig with
being outdoors all day
listening to drumming practice outside the elementary school
greeting people by saying, "Buenas"
cabbge salad and potato and beet salad
watching skyscrapers being built in Panama City
cooking on a fogon (blocks or stones arranged around the fire)
learning how to work with concrete and block
seeing the Pacific from high in the mountains
telling people about where we´re from

Lisa´s list:

learning slang Panamian Spanish expressions
learning Ngóbe (an indigenous language)
crossing the Bridge of the Americas and seeing the canal and all of the containers
walking up steep hills everyday (can we say, "buns of steel?")
eating exotic fruit and trying to remember which fruit tree is which
wearing dresses and skirts almost everyday
waking up early and seeing the sunshine just about every day!
taking a cold shower at night before bed (it´s the only time I´m cool)
buying snacks at the little stores in town during our class breaks
sleeping under a bug net (I feel so safe and I am--there are a lot of bugs in Panama!!!!)
saying the word chancleta (sandal), over and over again
talking about nutricion and health 24/7
traveling to the cold part of Panama near the volcano...I do miss fall, but ah not that much...
talking to my host Mom at night (she has 3 boys...I think she enjoys talking about girl stuff from time to time)
coming home for lunch everyday and not knowing what we´ll be served (today it was an awesome chicken soup with squash, yucca, and rice on the side)
being tan for the first time in about 10 years!

More pix and our diagnoses...

2007-10-01T18:04:00.000-05:00

La iglesia del Carmen in Panama City. Matt and I went for a walk around the city and were just in time for mass in this air conditioned, beautiful church.

Volcan Baru, on the way to my business sector conference.

Lisa at a beautiful hostel in the province of Veraguas (we just visited it, but did not stay overnight). Marilyn check out my necklace!! I love it. Thanks again.

A outside view of a coffee factory we visited with the mountains in the background.

Our medical diagnoses...

Matt has a minor tear in his right shoulder, specifically the labrum, which should heal in a month. He just has to take it easy and it should heal on its own.

I have a parasite and a bad head cold. I had to take some medicine to kill the parasite and then take some more meds. in a week or so. I feel better already.

I did not take any pictures of our cultural week because I was sick for most of it. So, the picture of me and Matt will have to wait until next time.

Oh! One last thing. We have a cell phone now. It does not cost us anything to receive calls from the States, so if you want to call us, send me or Matt an email and we will email you back the number. We would love to hear from you!

A few bumps in the road...

2007-09-26T10:36:00.000-05:00

So last week Matt and I were apart from one another. Matt and his evironmental health group were building latrines near where he and I will spend the next couple of years. It was especially rainy last week and on Wednesday he was pushing a full wheelbarrow down a really rough dirt road and he flipped over the wheelbarrow and landed on his right shoulder. The next day he had to travel to his sector conference (to meet all of the current volunteers in his program) so he decided to not seek immediate medical attention and see if it would improve with time.

On Saturday afternoon he travelled to see me and realized that he should get an X-ray. So first thing Sunday morning we got up and went to the hospital. They took a regular X-ray but it didn´t show anything. The orthopod who saw him assumed he had torn his rotator cuff, but told him he would need an MRI to see the damage. So, Matt talked the the PC medical office and they suggested he travel 6 hrs. back to Panama City for an MRI. So, he left first thing on Monday morning. He had the MRI on Tuesday afternoon and will get the results today. They suspect it´s a minor tear based on his mobility.

His injury sounds very familiar to me! Unbelieveable!

On Monday morning I headed to where Matt and I were supposed to spend the week. I went to what the PC calls ¨Cultural Week¨ aka when you live in a community near and/or similar to your permanent site. I lasted until yesterday afternoon! I had diarrhea all day on Sunday into early Monday morning. However, I then started to fell better, but couldn´t eat much food. Then on Monday night I woke up with a sore throat, so that on top of intense stomach pain resulted in a trip to the private clinic an hour and a half a way. So, last night I stayed in a hotel with my regional leader (a third year volunteer who stays on to help other volunteers in site), who´s really nice. Anyway I have to go back to the doctor again today so they can figure out if I have a bacterial infection, etc. Luckily, the clinic is within walking distance from the hotel (although yesterday we took a cab because I couldn´t walk!) I´m feeling better today, but still on edge, if you know what I mean.

So yeah, please keep us in your prayers! We need them this week especially!!

--Lisa

Our site announcement

2007-09-15T10:53:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday they announced where we´ll be spending the next two years. We´re going to the indigenous reservation 1 hour from where we visited a couple of weeks ago. I´m going to be working with one of the largest artisan cooperatives in Panama. The group has around 50 members and all but a few of them are women. They even have a store where they sell their goods, which include dresses and bags. It sounds wonderful. I´m going to help them with basic accounting and marketing. Many of them can´t read or write so it will be a challenge.

Matt is going to be teaching health education, nutrition, and perhaps English, as well as digging some latrines and working on the aqueduct, which has some problems. There has only been one other volunteer in this site and that was 8 years ago, so we are essentially starting from scratch. Matt and I are now learning the indigeous language. It´s an historically oral language and ah, is proving to be a bit difficult to learn, but I´m sure it will be fine.

We will have running water during the rainy season (8 months out of the year). During the dry season we´ll have running water 2 hrs. a day. Whether or not we´ll have electricity will depend on where we live in the town. There are 1,500 people in the town, which is quite sizable, but one has to keep in mind that these people are spread throughout the mountains and not really very close to one another. We will have a half hour chiva (4 wheel truck) ride to our site from the main road. It is about a 1 1/2 hour hike if you can´t catch the chiva. I haven´t seen the road yet, but I´m positive it´s a dirt road.

There´s another volunteer who lives a 1/2 hour walk from us. Another volunteer Steve, who in our group, will live 1 hour from us, which is excellent because he is an engineer and Matt may need his expertise from time to time. There is only one other volunteer from my group going to this reservation and he will be a couple of hours from us. He´s a native speaker and a computer genius so I´m psyched to have him somewhat close to us. He´s also a New Yorker. He´s from Long Island.

Another thing that Matt is very excited about is that we are going to be in coffee country! And our site has coffee opportunities. So, all sounds good at this point. Right now I´m at the mall in Panama City on my way to a city in the middle of the country for my week long technical training. I get to stay in a hotel. Matt is ah, headed back to the reservation to build latrines all week. He will be staying with a host family. Pobrecito!

After this week, Matt and I will travel back to Brian and Amanda´s house in the reservation (see previous post) for our cultural week. We will stay with a host family for the week.

I´ll try to post a few messages this week. I´m sorry there are no photos of Matt!! He´s the photographer and I´m the blogger. I´m not quite sure how this all came to be. It should be the other way around! I have the camera with me this week, but next week I´ll be sure to take pictures of him. He´s loving life!

Peace out.

Trip to the mountains

2007-09-09T15:11:00.000-05:00

A group of our friends hanging out after classes one day.

Amanda, Brian and Lisa on the mountain. We stayed for the weekend at their house.

This area is being farmed by Ngobe families. It is totally beautiful.

Views of the Pacific ocean from the mountaintop.

Isn´t it gorgeous here?

This house was built by a volunteer who lives near Brian and Amanda. He has spectular views from the front of his house.

Brian and Amanda´s house.

Hey, hey, hey.

I’m posting some pictures from our trip to the indigenous reservation in the western highlands. We had a great time with our hosts, volunteers Brian and Amanda. They cooked for us every day and were very generous hosts. On Saturday we all took a five hour round trip hike to the top of a mountain. We could see the Pacific on one side and more mountains on the other. We absolutely loved the people we met and hope to be placed over there.

We find out of Wednesday where we’ll spend the next two years. We’re so excited! We have an idea about where we’ll be, but we don’t want to jinx it. Oh, in other news, one of our host family’s chickens had 5 babies. They are so cute. Some are black and some are yellow.

We still have Spanish classes everyday. My class is organizing a softball tournament and I’m helping with organizing people to make food to sell, etc. We’re hoping to raise enough funds so that we can buy books for the library. Right now there are about 50 books total in the library and none of them are for children. It’s rather sad.

We’re also hoping to start a reading program at the library. We chatted with the librarian and she said that they don’t have any programs at the library. She had never heard of a program where parents take their children to the library to hear a story. I told her it was very common in the U.S.

Matt’s technical training is going very well. Yesterday his entire class spent the day building a latrine for a family with little means who lives outside of the village. He’s a bit sore today. We’re staying very fit despite the excessive carbohydrates. We have two large hills that we climb to get just about anywhere.

We’ll email on Wednesday to let everyone know where our site will be. If you haven’t noticed, we can’t mention specifics on the blog (PC regulations).

Hasta pronto…

Lisa & Matt

Volunteer Visit

2007-08-29T18:22:00.000-05:00

Hey Everyone!!

On Friday Matt and I are going to an indigenous site 6 hours away by bus on the west side of the country. We´ll stay with a married couple for 3 nights and get a chance to see what they do. They are both in Matt´s environmental health program, and they´ve been here a year. Right now we´re in small city near our training town, and we´re about to go the grocery store and out to eat. We´ll post pictures of our trip next week. In the meantime we´re both healthy, happy and well nourished, gracias a Dios! (Lisa has a minor heat rash on both of her arms, but that´s to be expected!)

Some pictures

2007-08-26T12:11:00.000-05:00

My Spanish class has 3 other students in it, but on this day a couple of classes got together to play bingo.

The back porch to our house and the chickens!

We have lots of eggs!

The front porch. Lisa looking very happy to go to school for the afternoon.

The view from over our house, which is built into the side of a hill.

Our house. Matt likes to sit in the hammock and watch it rain.

Our roommate!

Our room and US Army bug net.

A diablo rojo. All the buses here used to be US school buses. Most rides cost between 25 and 75 cents.

Host Family

2007-08-24T12:40:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. It looks like we´ll only have internet access on Fridays for the next couple of months. I´m in an internet cafe right now in the closest city to the small town where Matt and I are living. Our family is super nice and from what we can tell a bit better off than most in the community. We for instance, have a flush toilet, which is a huge deal. Anyway, we live with a Mom, Dad, and their three sons ages 10, 13, and 14. We have our own room with a door that locks, but we don´t need a lock. They´re all so sweet. Our Spanish is really coming along. We have a difficult time understanding our host father because Panamians generally speak really fast and cut off the ends of words. Our host Mom, however is so sweet.

We are eating well. Lots of rich and chicken, and ah, fried items. The family has 20 chickens and a dog named Snoopy, who lives outside. He´s got some serious fleas and howls every night (along with the rest of the dogs in the village) at 1 am. Lovely. The rooster starts his singing routine at 3 am, so we go to bed at 8 or 9 hoping to sleep until 1 or 3. But honestly, that´s my only gripe. Everything else is great. We´re getting a lot of exercise. We live at the top of two steep hills and have to walk all around the village to get to our language and technical classes.

Ah, I feel like there´s so much to share, but I don´t have enough time. I´ll try to post some photos either today (if the computer will accept my camera) or next week. There´s only 1 pay phone in the village and no internet...

Also, this comment is for Dr. Rinella...they´re all freakin´ Yankee fans down here because of Rivera!!!!! Que lastima. And, I can´t say where I am, but that certain someone has a house near where we are...but in a gated, heavily secured area (so I´m told).

Training, August 15-18

2007-08-18T19:44:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone! Tomorrow we're moving to where we'll spend the next 3 months. We'll get to meet our host family, finally. And, Matt and I will live together (there was a possibility we wouldn't.)

Yesterday we had language interviews as well as health and program interviews. And, of all things, a swim test.

Today, we got to go on fieldtrips! We both went to towns East of the Canal. I got to see a savings and loan cooperative and Matt got to see many composting latrines and a spring-fed aquaduct system. We ate lunches with our respective groups and then headed back.

Matt took the camera with him and took some pictures.

New England and Staging

2007-08-14T19:46:00.000-05:00

Hola todos! Directly above is the view from our room.

After a wonderful trip to New Hampshire and Maine, where we had a great time at Ace and Emily's wedding, we're at our orientation. We're at a hotel near Washington, DC and it's really nice. The program here was really well done, and we learned a lot. We studied the Peace Corps mission, safety, culture, and development strategies. We also learned some neat trivia, like Bob Villa of This Old House served in the Peace Corps in Panama. Everyone we met has been really nice, and we're sure we've made many long-term friends. There's around 45 of us from a few dozen states. We had some really good food, including Ethiopian and steamers and fried oysters. Tomorrow morning we leave for Panama! Thanks to everyone back home for helping us prepare for this huge adventure. And thanks to everyone who has emailed me and Matt.

Ace's Fishing Trip

2007-07-31T20:07:00.001-05:00

Jim Driscoll caught this keeper during our fishing trip with Ace a few weeks ago 35 miles off the coast of Portland, Maine. We had a blast. It was Ace's bachelor party, and the six of us caught a bunch of fish and had a wonderful visit. Plug: Captain Rob Odlin, USCG Master and Registered Marine Guide, took us out on his big lobster boat Maine Lady III. He and his mate Kyle are great guys! Check out his website: http://www.fishinganddiving.com/.

Our little white dog, Zizou (ZZ)

2007-07-31T19:55:00.001-05:00

This is our dog ZZ. We adopted her last fall before we knew for sure whether or not we'd be invited to serve in the Peace Corps. She's part bichon and part poodle, and she's Daddy's Little Angel. She's a lot of fun and we'll miss her so much, but she's going to live in New Hampshire with her grandparents. We know she'll be very happy there. And Grandma can't wait to take care of her new baby!

Matt's Last Day at the Newspaper

2007-07-31T19:17:00.001-05:00

Matt's co-worker Diane makes announcements over the loudspeaker in the his office whenever it's someone's birthday or if there's a special occasion. The one she did today needs to be published here on the blog. To truly appreciate the art involved in this announcement one should know that Matt works in a converted barn that has an open space floor plan. It's one big newsroom with desks spread about--no walls, no cubicles. Here goes:

"This may be the hardest announcement I've ever made, which is why I will avoid sentimentality at all costs.
I may be old, but I have learned many things from Matt in his 7 plus years here as the man toiling to my right.
Here is a list of the top ten (she only read the 10 * ones), but all were blog worthy.
*1. Never eat or drink anything that has passed its expiration date because you will die instantly or suffer severe gastrointestinal consequences.
2. As soon as you get up in the morning, or at least before breakfast, start to think about what food you will eat that day, at what time and in what amount.
*3. Whenever you have a food item or anything to which you apply something else, say you are putting that something else "onto it."
4. Whenever you are about to eat a bagel or a roll--hollow it out by removing the extra bread so it won't be so doughy.
5. Cook everything so it is crispy.
*6. Whenever someone yells at you for banging incessantly on everything with your pencil or pen, say, "Excuse me, I am a percussionist."
*7. Whenever someone offers you food you don't want, say, "No thanks, I'm on the seeds."
*8. Whenever you are contemplating eating a large quantity of chicken wings, call it "wingage."
*9. Whenever you come across a standalone caption for which you cannot think of a headline, write Fuhgeddabaoudit, particularly if the picture is of a big turkey.
*10. Whenever you feel like saying something but don't have anything particular in mind, say "buck, buck" like a chicken.
11. Repeat the name Choinsky over and over again, just for fun.
*12. Whenever someone wants you to do something you don't want to do, say, "I am not a promisekeeper."
13. Take care of your teeth, especially if you're Irish.
*14. Let yourself love, especially little white fluffy dogs.
15. Listen to music.
16. Stay hydrated.
17. Keep it real.
*18. Whatever you do, avoid becoming the victim of an insane regime.
OK Matt, I know you may not have planned this down to the last morsel, but it's time to eat. And you may not be a little white dog, but we love you anyway."

Needless to say, Matt ate a lot of chicken wings today. And, they made him swing blindfolded a pinata--I really wish I could have seen that. All good wishes.
--Lisa

Lisa's Farewell Fiesta at SUNY Press

2007-07-31T18:51:00.000-05:00

My co-workers generously had a farewell party for me last week (the ones who, ah, partied the longest are shown above--check out the bird on my shoulder--Marilyn's idea!!)

They decorated our conference room with Panamanian themed decorations which included red, white and blue tablecloths. There were tropical birds and both US and Panamanian flags streaming from the ceiling, and a palm tree with large toucans spouting out slang Spanish expressions (bloody birds).

And then there was the food...breakfast included blueberry coffee cake, bagels, fruit, a chocolate cookie from the Farmer's market, postre de tres leches, and chocolate chip zucchini bread. Lunch was a pizza party w/ salad and at least 1,000 desserts. Thanks everyone, I'll miss you all.

My car has sold!

2007-07-30T09:32:00.000-05:00

Thank goodness.

My car is officially for sale!

2007-07-25T13:20:00.000-05:00

2002 Nissan Sentra GXE, $3,000

Silver, 4-door, automatic, 111,000 highway miles, 4-cyl., 1.8-liter, power windows and locks, tilt wheel, cruise control, am/fm stereo, CD player, dual front airbags, 1-year-old brakes and tires. Drives beautifully. Great gas mileage. Well maintained.

I'll post a picture of it tonight.

--Lisa

Matt's Packing List

2007-07-19T13:49:00.000-05:00

Packs
day backpack (carry on)
large backpack (Campmor)
large rolling dufflebag (red--was Lisa's)
laptop case (still need)

Toiletries
shaving cream
razors/blades
toothbrush
mouthguard
mouthwash
2 deodorants (Tom's)
hand sanitizer
nasal irrigation tube

Medicines
Loratadine (120 pills)
Nasonex (3 month supply)
epi-pens (2)

Shoes
running sneakers
EMS flip flops
brown dress shoes
old work boots

Pants
zipoff, quick dri pants (olive colored)
khaki pants (dressy, for swearing in)
2 pairs jeans (reg.)
1 pair carhartt work jeans
1 pair light weight work jeans

Shorts
blue athletic
khaki (2 pairs)
seersucker

Misc.
10-15 pairs of socks
10-15 pairs of boxer shorts
Boggle
swimtrunks
1 pair sunglasses
padlocks & luggage locks
lighters
dummy wallet (?)
lightweight sleeping bag
generic thermarest (Campmor brand)
flat sheet (?)
cpr mask
hat(s)--baseball
travel umbrella (?)
filet knife
flashlight
hand weights that can be filled w/ water (still need...for Lisa)
camping towel
compass
1 real towel
1 brown belt
portable surge protector (?)

Shirts
Blue line button up short sleeve (JC)
White long sleeve button up (G)
golf shirts (how many?)
t-shirts (work--how many?)
long sleeve cotton shirts (how many?)
1 tie
short sleeve button up (T)

Jackets
raincoat (green)
fleece (blue)
sweatshirt (blue)

Lisa's packing list (for now...haven't weighed it yet!)

2007-07-19T13:25:00.000-05:00

(Matt will carry at least 1/4 of my belongings...and some of this stuff is "ours")

Packs
day backpack (carry on)
large backpack
large rolling dufflebag
purse ?

Toiletries
1 box pantyliners
1 bottle shampoo
1 bottle conditioner
toothpaste
toothbrush
hairbrush
nail kit
hand mirror
2 deodorants (Tom's)
Dove soap (bottle)
1 bottle gylcolic lotion (Upper Hudson Valley Dermatology)
1 bottle face wash (Upper Hudson Valley Dermatology)
1 bottle body lotion
1 bottle sunscreen face lotion
1 bottle nail polish (clear)
mascara
eyeshadow
undereye concealer
nail polish remover
eye makeup remover
1 box tampons
hand sanitizer
dental floss
razors/blades
chapstick
nasal irrigation tube

Medicines
Loratadine (120 pills)
Vitamin C
Astelin (nasal spray--6 month supply)
BC Pill (9 month supply w/ Rx)
Tiger balm
Maxair (rescue inhaler--3 month supply)
Flovent (steroidal asthma med.--6 month supply)
spacer for Flovent
Yeast infection med (1 box)
Sudafed/Guaifenesin Rx stregthen
Antacid pills
Patanol (Rx--eye drops)
portable nebulizer or extra maxair (?)

Shoes
Chaco sport sandals
Chaco black dressy sandals
Dansko dark brown dressy sandals
running sneakers
Muck boots (rubber boots) (?)
water shoes
cheapo flip flops

Pants
zipoff, quick dri pants (khaki colored)
khaki pants (business casual)
1 pair of jeans
black yoga pants (long, cotton)
black pants (business casual)
dark brown linen pants (business casual)

Capri Pants
khaki (?)

Dresses
black cotton dress (just over knee)
lime green dress w/ sparkles for swearing in (halter, to knee) (?)
orange/pink strip sport dress w/ built in bra (just above the knee)
dark tan long Eddie Bauer cotton dress w/ matching jacket (?)
white w/ green & yellow flowers dress (Ann Taylor)
hot pink dress
orange dress w/ dark brown polka dots

Skirts
blue cotton skirt (to knee) w/ matching jacket (?)
3/4 length dark brown cotton skirt
pink 3/4 length

Shorts
pink running
grey running (?)
2 boxer sets (w/ tank tops--pajamas)
linen long shorts

Misc.
10 pairs of socks (5 Smartwool, 3 quickdry athletic, 2 reg.)
15 pairs underwear
6 bras (2 nude, 1 black, 1 sport, 1 strapless, 1 white)
swimsuits (1 bikini, 1 one piece)
3 pairs of glasses (1 Rx sun, 2 Rx regular)
3 hairscarves
10 hairties
sewing kit
lightweight sleeping bag
generic thermarest (Campmor brand)
flat sheet (?)
cpr mask
hat (?) blue one?
travel umbrella (?)
sports tape
quart size ziplock bags
larger ziplock bags
camping towel
corkscrew
1 real towel
1 black belt
1 brown belt
Eagle Creek around the neck card/passport security holder

Shirts
3/4 length cotton purple (EB)
3/4 lengh tan linen (ATL)
black w/ small tan flowers linen (ATL)
white sleeveless (Gap)
dark green sleeveless t-shirt (VS)
2 quick dry t-shirts (OK-5k)
dark purple button up shirt (Columbia)
pink/tan striped perfomance button up shirt (C)
light purple linen button up shirt (EB)
light brown v-neck t-shirt (ATL)
dark brown dressier tank top (ATL)
tank tops/green/pink/grey/off-white
3/4 length super lightweight green print shirt (C)
Other t-shirts (?)

Jackets
water resistant dark purple raincoat
light-weight purple dress sweater (linen)
zip up cotton sweater (which one?)

Electronic equipment
laptop
digital camera in case
flash drive (1 G)
mp3 player
DVDs (?)
laptop lock

Paper Products
2 journals
3 paperback books (carry on)
address book
art kit
stamps (Forever stamps)
writing paper/envelopes/pads
Bible
pictures
pens/pencils
gifts for host family(ies)

Jewelry
cheap bracelets and necklaces
earrings
watch (cheapo)

Snacks
decaf tea (2 boxes--1 black, 1 herbal)
almonds
dried apricots
pistachios
beef jerky
gum