Que va

In the first couple of weeks that I was in Panamá I remember being in the house of another volunteer, and I remember looking around and I saw a corner of their mosquito net was held up by headphones. And I distinctly remember thinking that they should’ve just went and bought some string. A couple of months ago I needed to tie the PCV pipe that leads to my shower to a big stick that I had jammed into the ground. I had string in my house, but I grabbed a pair of old headphones instead. I don’t know what this means, but if I seem uncharacteristically trashy next time you see me in The United States, maybe it has to do with Peace Corps or maybe we should all think to repurpose instead of discard. Is it more trashy to use an ice cream tub to store coffee or throw that container into a dump?

I think I am going to go to grad school, as a wise friend put it, being a student is just really easy and I’ve forgotten most of what I learned in undergrad. Any pointers on the GRE?

Today I came back from showering and I saw a tarantula in the middle of my room, I hate killing tarantulas because they crunch. I instead summoned my cat and put her on top of the tarantula, she chased it around a bit and then ate it leg by leg, without ever killing it. There is something terribly wrong with my cat.

I have eaten nothing but cow and rice for the last two days. That’s the definition of Mantanza.

I finally had my waste management meeting today, if you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, I mean or twitter honestly, you will have known it was a long time coming. As all things in Panama the best plan A is just to plan on going with Plan D or F. But anyway, I scheduled my meeting for ten so we started right on time at 11:30. The idea of the meeting was to empower the people in my community to write a grant in order to secure funding to make incinerators that I would after translate into English and turn in for consideration. Here are some translated highlights of the grant we came up with. () indicate facilitation.

Mission: To make incinerators (but why?) to burn trash (because?) so it’s not on the ground (but why?) so are community is clean. (okay…)
Process: Buy barrels. Angie makes incinerators (that’s not right). We make incinerators. Burn trash. Have a clean community.
Results and sustainability: Incinerators (AND!?). A clean community that burns trash in incinerators instead of putting it on the ground. (How is it sustainable?) Because, yes (Can you clarify, say more?) We always will have trash (Bueno…).

I think it’s safe to say that I may need to translate the application a little more liberally and fill in just a couple blanks before submitting it. Parentheses and punctuation was clearly never a forte of mine.

I went on a really great trip, I am going to omit a lot of details for unimportant reasons. But at one point on this trip, I found myself with a couple other volunteers and an amazing, intelligent, welcoming local woman who had been our guide and a niece of hers sitting in the sand watching movement in a body of water and just chatting about whatever, and I realized something. As much as some people travel, see the world, I doubt a lot of them will ever make connections with people the way I have as a volunteer in Panama. And tambien no matter how many incinerators I make in new town, sitting in the sand after goofing around in an undisclosed body of water, sharing genuine laughs with people, sharing culture, and sharing memories are what Peace Corps is about. I am here to help, but I am here to experience, I am here to share. My incinerators might not save the world, but maybe they’ll save this community that I live in from filling with trash and maybe they won’t, maybe they’ll only be in use until I leave, but that’s better than nothing.

Sometimes I really stress about being successful and then I realize, I still haven’t figured out what that is.

If anybody is feeling particularly generous feel free to mail me a package of s’more flavored Oreos and a jar of tiger balm, extra strength, I am turning twenty four after all and that’s the oldest I’ve ever been.