Cooking in the Campo

I would love to see an Iron Chef in the campo.  You'd have to run generators for the fog machines and microphones, but the results would be fantastic.  Bring in two top chefs to compete in creating culinary masterpieces.  The spin, and this is where the ratings come in, is that there's no refrigeration and most of the fresh food you have to work with is a starchy variation on a potato.  Replace Belgian endives with dachin, which is kind of like a tuber.  Replace Shanghai bok choy with ñampi, which is kind of like a big potato.  You get the idea.   While presentation flourishes could give a nod to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, you're still pretty limited.  And there's no refrigeration, so dairy's out, along with all those sauces and pastes lining the doors of fridges back home.  I think it would be a pretty good show.  FoodTV meets Discovery Channel.

In spite of all of this, Peace Corps volunteers all over the world have been inventing some pretty great meals over the years.  For instance, we have our own Peace Corps Panama cookbook which walks a new chef through the basics and also highlights the culinary creativity of some volunteers.

Since blogging is somewhat narcissistic by nature, I'll skip right to highlighting some of my own favorite creations.  Everything can be made in a pressure cooker, does not require refrigeration, and is some combination of rice, lentils, green bananas, and the delectable root veggies listed above.

Green Bananas in Rosemary Cream Sauce
No need for making a rue when you are only dealing with powdered milk.  Add a touch of flour, a little cooking oil, water, and low heat and you've got your basic alfredo sauce.  Add rosemary, salt, garlic powder, and pepper to taste.  All can be thrown into pressure cooker as you're cooking bananas.  If you're cooking with just the pressure cooker, save adding flour until the end to make end result creamier as heat of cooker breaks down sauce while cooking.

Coconut Curry
Rice and lentils plus whatever else you want.  Add about a tablespoon of curry, a splash of cumin, a can of coconut milk, a half tablespoon of ginger, a tablespoon of garlic powder, a half tablespoon of sugar, and some dried basil for kicks.  If you don't have coconut milk, you can buy coconut extract, but only at the Rey in David.  A splash with powdered milk will get you there in a pinch.  Also it's cheaper than the canned coconut milk route.  I crunched the numbers.  It's true.

Pad Thai
Rice, lentils, whathaveyou.  One part soy sauce to two parts peanut butter and two parts sweet and sour sauce.  Salt, garlic powder, basil.  If you have trouble finding the agradulce sauce, substitute ketchup, splash of vinegar,  a bit of sugar and pineapple Tang if you have it.  I'm not making this up.

Chinese Stir Fry
Rice, lentils, whatever.  Soy sauce, oyster sauce, and garlic powder to taste.

Chili
Rice, lentils, the dried soy chunks that you can get at the Romero in David (soy chunks would be welcome addition to all recipes listed).  Can or bag of tomato paste depending on how they sell it.  Cumin, garlic, salt, pepper, oregano, and chili powder to whatever alarm level you want your chili.

So yeah, a window into my world.  Breakfast is usually fried plantains, pancakes, or cereal.  Not bad.  Lunch and dinner is something listed above or a variation thereof.  Sometimes I make calzones by taking any of favorites listed above and stuffing into bread pocket and baking.  Yes, I also bake bread in site and brownies from local cacao.  See, and you were worried about me.  Don't worry, I'm fine.   Having fun prepping for the local airing of Iron Chef next fall.

Brewing Banana Beer

In the wake of documenting a tech week I hosted a few months back, I thought I'd try my technical writing hand at documenting making a batch of banana beer.  While I wouldn't say it's the nectar of the gods, it's certainly been drinkable.  Here's the manual:

CAMPO BREWING - BANANA BEER

Overview
Banana beer is a tasty alcoholic beverage made from the fermentation of ripe bananas. It can be enjoyed on hot sunny days, cold rainy days, moderately warm days, and the majority of slightly cooler days. Usually banana beer is best consumed in the company of others, but can also be enjoyed alone due to the lack of judgment associated with drinking delicious banana beer in solitude.

Materials and Ingredients
(2) bunches of ripe bananas (about 20)
(1) pound of sugar
(1) teaspoon of baking yeast (dry brown Levapan stuff is fine)
(2) 1.5 liter bottles
(1) large pot (big enough to boil 3 liters and bananas)
(1) strainer (wire mesh works well)
(1) funnel (top half of plastic bottle works well)

Brewing
1. Peel ripe bananas. Compost skins or throw into neighbor’s finca.
2. Pour three liters of water in large pot. Add bananas. Bring to boil.
3. Add sugar. Boil for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally so that sugar dissolves completely. (In beerspeak, this is your “wort”.)
4. Let beer cool to room temperature. During cooling, try to keep “wort” from contamination by placing a lid on pot or transferring mash to another clean container.
5. Mash bananas using clean spoon or other clean mashing implement. I don’t know if this step really does
anything, but that’s what I did and the beer tasted pretty good.
6. Pour “wort”, bananas and all, into the clean 1.5 liter bottles. Fill each bottle 1/3 of the way and then
throw half of your teaspoon of yeast into each bottle. (In beerspeak, this is called “pitching” the yeast).
7. Screw cap on bottle. Shake vigorously.
8. After a few hours, carefully unscrew bottle caps partially to let out gases every 10 minutes or so for the next hour.
9. Check on bottle every hour or two for the rest of the day, letting gas escape as needed.
10. Unscrew bottle cap 1-2 times a day for five days to let gases escape.
11. After five days of fermentation, strain banana pulp from “wort” using a clean strainer. Pour “wort” back into the two bottles. You may need to let gases escape 1-2 times for the next hour after transferring back into
bottles.
12. Let carbonation build in bottle for next two days (or more based on drinking schedule).
13. Add ice and friends as needed/available. Enjoy!

The Story of Toto

Sepriano is my counterpart's son.  He's a fourteen-year-old muchacho otherwise known as Toto.  He's a good kid, still respectful, innocent, that kind of thing.  About two weeks ago there was a commotion at Felipe's house. Half the community was gathering at my counterpart's place, spilling out into the front yard.  I went over to see what was up to find Toto laying on his back having trouble breathing.

I guess he'd been like that for awhile, that is, having what seemed like an asthma attack.  He also complained of stomach pains and was writhing in pain.  His writhing was borderline convulsing.  Men in the community were bracing each appendage to keep Toto from hurting himself of others.

In situations like this there is an inexplicable hesitation for action on the community's part.  For me, the gut reaction was to get him to the hospital.  When in doubt, hospital.  But for a Ngabe that sees the cost of the trip, the potential treatment of the Latino doctor, Western medicine in general, replace the knee jerk reaction with a tendency to wait this out to see what happens.

Luckily, my sense of urgency was shared by the teachers, latinos (outsiders) in the community.  After fifteen minutes of convincing, we made a campo stretcher from a tree branch and hammock and starting hiking Toto down to Kwite for a special boat ride to the hospital.  Now special boat rides leave a sour taste in my mouth (see Snakebites for a refresher), but I also didn't have any money in site to help pay for the ride anyway.  I don't know how it was all figured out in the chaotic Ngabere being thrown around that evening, but Toto was loaded on a boat with his mother and rushed to the hospital.

The next evening Toto came home on the regular boat back into Kwite.  Needless to say, I was a little shocked that he was back so soon.  It seemed like to run tests and draw a connection between stomach pains and the onset of an asthma attack, more than a few hours were needed.  It was easy to see what had probably played out. Ngabe teen and mother enter hospital.  Mother speaks little Spanish. Boy in too much pain to communicate as well.  After the Latino doctor scratches his/her head for a few minutes, doctor sends the boy on his way with a few pain medications and says it's a brujo.  That's right, the doctor told Toto and his mother that the cause of his sickness was a witch or demon.  So yeah, I was a little upset to find out how it had all played out.  The good news was that Toto was better.

Fast forward two days.  I'm taking pictures for the Calante soccer team near Felipe's house.  Suddenly, the family calls out.  Toto is sick again.  I come over to find Toto having convulsions again.  When the teachers saw that he was still not well, they called for a special helicopter to pick Toto up in Calante.

I never thought the closest I would be to a moving helicopter would be in the rainforests of Panama.  It was a crazy site having it land right in the middle of the soccer field.  This time one of the teachers went with Toto, ensuring that someone could rip the doctor a new one if needbe.  In a matter of minutes, Toto was rushed away for the second time.

Fast forward two days.  Toto comes back to Calante healthy as if nothing had happened.  He even helped carry the government-issued food for the school children (read: 50 lbs of food on his back) the hour hike from Kwite to Calante.  To recap, leaves in helicopter, comes hiking up the trail fully loaded two days later.

I asked for an update.  The doctors ran tests, blood, urine, etc.  Nothing.  Furthermore, the whole time he was in the hospital, he was fine.  No pains.  No trouble breathing.  No convulsions.  Nothing.  Naturally, the doctor told the teacher and Toto that it was "un brujo del monte" and everyone smiled and acknowledged the diagnosis knowingly.  

Hold the phone.  Am I in a Twilight Zone episode?  Why am I the only one thinking this is craziness?

Fast forward two days.  You guessed it.  Convulsions.  Pain.  It's all back.  Toto has now been bound to the floorboards in lieu of four men holding him down.  And at this point after a special boat ride and a helicopter ride the community laughs when I ask if they are considering going back to the hospital.  After all, the doctor only confirmed the villagers own notions that it was the work of a brujo.

So Toto spent another few days in pain and discomfort.  He would eat occasionally and his only points of lucidness were when he asked for something to drink.  Otherwise, he wouldn't respond to calling his name and seemed to be somewhere else entirely.  Not that I have any reference points other than Hollywood, but he did seem to be possessed.  I wanted to believe that he was faking it, some weird subconscious adolescent hormonal neurological.  Yeah, I got nothing.  I was as stumped as they were sure that he had a demon visitor.  

After a few days, they brought in the big guns (read: witchdoctor).  A woman showed up from the mountains burning tree bark and throwing sage water.  She rubbed ointments and the bark on his forehead and chest.  She threw water around the house to cast off the evil spirits.  And I'll be damned (no pun intended) if after a day and a half, he wasn't better.

Toto's been fine for over a week now.  Your guess is as good as mine.  

Touring the Americas, A Mental Journey

I spent the last two weeks not being a volunteer. I was amazed how quickly I switched worlds.  The first week I visited Daphne in Peru.  We traveled.  We fell in love.  The second week I spent in the States visiting friends and family.  It was a wonderful time.  On the last day, I started to unravel.  I've spent the last day trying to switch back, trying to be a volunteer again.

I think there's been a lot I never processed, thoughts lying beneath the surface.  Thoughts of loneliness, thoughts of longing, thoughts of how hard my time here has been.  I've thought about all these things before, but my time away unearthed clarity and depth I'd never fully realized.  In some ways it's like what my time in Panama has done for my thoughts about home, but in reverse.  I never fully understood how hard it is here because I never fully understood how easy it is back at home.  And it's not the ten types of peanut butter in the supermarket or zipping around in a car. It's just being, being in a culture that you understand, that understands you.  It's like there's been a constant white noise in the background during my time in Panama.  I never really noticed it humming until I left.  And when it was gone, I never realized how distracting it had been.

So what is the hum?  I think some of it may be guilt.  Guilt that I will pack up and leave some day, that I'm not really living at the same level, that my life is more about paying the premium for organic food and going to concerts than it is about eating rice and beans and pretending to be poor.  At the end of the day, I'm different.  In some ways I feel like the community knew this all along, that they were wise to all of this and I've been the one too caught up in pretending to just be me and just share me.

The hum is this idea of disillusionment.  Development work is hard.  After ten months is site, I can't say I have a lot to show for it.  It's been hard to hear friends say how proud they are or how I'm doing such great work saving the world and such. There's been a lot of projects that started but fell through because there was no counterpart to take the reigns.   While I've grown considerably, I can't say that I've given a lot back to the community.  And what little I have given is to a community that doesn't have a word for "thank you" in their native language.

The hum is a lack of stimulation.  I have my books and my thoughts, but most of my interactions are with kids or adults asking for me to buy them something.  Spending two weeks talking about life, about projects underway, about music, about food, all came so natural.  In looking at my time here, it's extremely fulfilling in many ways, but I never felt so complete as I did being away.

So all those thoughts fluttering in my head made for an interesting plane ride back to Panama.  It wouldn't be healthy to live in these thoughts day in day out for the next year.  It also wouldn't be healthy to suppress it all.  So the last day has been processing, determining what the rest of my service will mean.  How do I take my growth over the last year and use it make a meaningful impact in my remaining time here?  How do I find the inner resolve to not only overcome my disillusionment but become a motivational force in the community?  How do I take the knowledge of the community and culture acquired over the last year and implement positive change?  This is what my service is about.  I'll chalk up the first chapter to personal growth and building the fortitude to making the second year a success.  Now I roll up my sleeves and put on my volunteer cap.

Peru

I know it's not exactly in the theme of the Peace Corps blog, but even volunteers need some time off.  I was lucky enough to spend a wonderful week with Daphne.  We spent a few days in Lima then took a train into the Andes.  We stayed in a ranch-style hacienda, taking day trips to get off the beaten track, checking out artisan goods at various villages in the area.

Words for Potential Volunteers - General Comments

I responded to an email from someone thinking of joining the Peace Corps asking about engineering and the two-year commitment.  I figured it made good blog fodder, so here it goes...

Thanks for the email.  It's hard to put the experience into a neat little email.  First, let me just say that every volunteer's experience is different.  I had talked with many returned volunteers before leaving for Panama.  I think their experiences varied considerably.  Some found themselves in rural settings like me, others working in larger cities.  It all depends on what positions are open at the time of your application.  It also depends on your interview, where your engineering background will place you in certain sectors of work. 

I would say that my engineering background has helped in terms of designing and explaining gravity-fed water systems.  That being said, I don't do a lot of engineering out here.  There are other engineers in my group that are doing their master´s (MI) here in Panama and do more engineering as part of their work.  Generally speaking, the designing of aqueducts is about as technical as it gets and it isn't too theoretical.  You probably won't have to break out the fluid dynamics book to design a good system.  On the other hand, there is the whole social engineering aspect of designing a good system for a remote community with little access to capital or replacement materials.  That's where the challenge comes in.  To keep this idea short, you probably won't do a lot of engineering, but your experience will make up for it in what you'll take away by stepping into someone else's shoes and trying to design something appropriate for their needs.  It involves deconstructing a lot of what you learned in the classroom and opening yourself up to the people in your community.

The two-year commitment can be hard at times.  Looking forward, the time seems so long.  Looking backward, the time seems to have flown by.  Everyday is different.  Everyday is interesting.  After being in my site for almost a year, I completely understand why two years is the minimum.  Development work is a slow process.  It takes a long time to understand the community dynamics, who you can work with, to find out what the community really wants/needs.

I would definitely recommend the experience.  It has certainly shaped my world view and will add context to the rest of my life.  It's also the hardest experience I've ever had.  I've found that the bugs and the heat and lack of electricity and buses that don't run on time aren't the things that are difficult.  It's the cultural differences. It´s finding the common threads between you and a community worlds apart that is the challenge.

I had a romantic idea of development work, that my community would accept me with open arms.  In some ways that's the case.  I'm a part of the community, participating in their meetings, eating meals in their homes.  But it doesn't necessarily equate to a full understanding of why I'm here and us picking up shovels to build an aqueduct.  Most people are still trying to figure out what the Peace Corps is, let alone meeting for a work day or health presentation.  It's a challenge.  You'll have bad days.   There will be days where you feel alone and you just want to go home.  But then you fight through it and are rewarded tenfold.  And you'll find yourself growing and changing in ways you never even thought about.  And I think it's that experience that will make you a better engineer in the end.  You'll have a set of experiences that set you apart from your peers and are applicable to any context because it's life experience.  You'll come back two years older and thirty years wiser.

I hope that helps.