My Last Post, Editor's Picks

Dear Readers,
It's hard to believe, but I am finally closing my chapter in Panama.  Two years had always seemed like an overwhelmingly expansive amount of time.  Looking in the rear-view mirror, it's all flown by.  Soon I'll be moving on to other projects, leaving this Peace Corps blog behind as a point of reflection for a future self.

Looking back over the 100+ posts, there are a few that personally resonate more than others.

• Touring the Americas, A Mental Journey
• Who Was I Then?
• The Pursuit of Happiness
• A Letter to Solaite
• 100 Days Left
• So You Wanna Join the Peace Corps? - Part 2

I started the blog in an attempt to document this time in my life.  Somewhere along the line, I picked up a small audience.  Thank you to all that have followed along the past couple of years.

I've really appreciated the positive feedback I've received, so much so that I want to continue blogging in the future.  Stay tuned...

Thanks again!


Sincerely,
Austin (Oti Grabu)

Ti Ta Basare

Ti ta basare.  Visiting others.
After leaving my site for the last time, I took a few days to get out to some other volunteer sites.  I visited a pristine beach in the Comarca Ngäbe-Bugle, tried my hand at some paddling, went on some cool hikes, and helped build a composting latrine. Here's some photos of my paseo.

I threw this photo in just because dogs are a good indicator of poverty level.  So sad, but important to share.

Cacoa

Inside of the cacoa pod .  The white flesh is edible (and delicious).  The seeds in the center are roasted, ground, and separated from the butter fats to make chocolate.

Goodbye Calante

My last trip into site I stopped at the internet cafe to follow-up on a job interview back in the States.  Minutes later, I was seated in a dugout canoe with a live chicken two feet away and baby chicks scrambling around at my feet.  This is completely normal.

Hours later I found myself in an indigenous community with kids running and calling out my name.  A group of adults came over to my thatch-roofed hut to discuss my departure.  One of the women stayed on porch to tell me, among other things, that if she were younger and didn't have a family, she would have courted me.  This is all completely normal.

A day later I found myself on top of a hill just outside Calante eating fermented pifa with an old grandfather figure in the community.  Little piglets decided to cozy up next to my feet while we talked.  Again, perfectly normal.

Even with how routine the strangeness of my life has become, my last stretch in site still felt like a dream.  I found myself pausing throughout each day as if to galvanize all the moments that had made up my two years here.  Everything has taken on new importance.  The final conversations and goodbyes.  The time playing with the kids. Sunsets.  Bathing in the river.  There's a tacit weight hanging in the air.  Everyone, myself included, finally understands that my time here is up and soon I'll be home-bound.

Even with the excitement of starting a new chapter elsewhere, I know I will truly miss this place.  It's been hard to put to words.  I'd love to wrap a bow around my thoughts, around this time in my life, around my growth, the happiness and sorrow, around this place, the juxtaposition of majestic beauty and arresting gall of its people.   It may be something I never fully understand.  Maybe the arc of understanding extends years into my life back in the US.  Either way, my time has been profound if not abstruse and I'm truly thankful for the time I was able to spend in Calante.

Anecdote #5,714: An Evening Visitor

It's 7:30pm. There's a storm in the distance.  Visitor traffic is light at this point in the evening.  If someone comes over at this hour, it's because they want something.  Something can be broken down into three categories 100% of the time: pain killers, candles, and/or food. In this case it's food.

"Oti, my mom is sick."
"What are her symptoms?"

(pause)

"Oti, she's hungry.  She wants something so that she can make soup."
"I don't really have anything for soup."

(2 minute pause with thunder in distance)

"My little brother was crying this morning from hunger."

(Oti gets onion from room, gives to Marcelo)

 (Marcelo takes onion, gives no thanks. Remains on porch)

 (Oti thinks about how the onion was obviously insufficient)

"I'm hungry. All I had to eat today was holjadre (fried dough) and coffee. We went to our finca and there were no bananas.
"Do you have pifa?"
"No."
"Yucca?"
"No."
"Dasheen?"
"They're too small."
"Let's go get some yucca from my yard."
"We don't like yucca..."
"But you're hungry. Are you sure?"

(Oti puts machete away. 3-minute pause. Lightning flashes)

"What can I cook with this onion?"
"Anything."
"But we don't have anything."

(Oti pauses, sighs. Only a few more days he thinks)

(Oti grabs pound of rice. Hands to Marcelo)

"Thanks Oti! See you tomorrow."

(Marcelo gleefully bounds down stairs and is gone in an instant)

(Quiet thunder in distance)

Anecdote #5,317: Selling My Stove

As part of my dissolving of assets, I sold my stove.  The two-burner cheap cast steel with finicky connection and separate propane tank has served me well over the two years.  In fact, it was the only thing I sold.  The rest of my worldly possessions were given away by raffle.  For the stove, connection, and tank, I asked for $50.  This was quite a bargain considering everything cost me about $85 in total.

It soon became clear that the price was an apparent steal to those in the community as well.  There was an overwhelming amount of interest and I quickly sold the setup to one of my old host families.

So that got me thinking.  There are obvious health benefits with a gas stove as well as no longer having to carry firewood.  However, there are very few families with stoves.  Most cook over a traditional fogon, or 3-stone campfire.  So why the overwhelming interest?

Is a subsidy project in order?  Would marking the price of the stove down 40% be the key to stove adoption in the region?  Or was my merely offering something at a discount the catalyst?  In any case, it makes for a great econ thesis.

Final Site Photos

It's sad to say, but here are the last photos from site.

• A cool riverside fern
• View from the Kwite water tank
• Sunset from my hut
• Boat building
• Hanging out with kids in Kwite

Mi Despedida

My goodbye party was everything I thought it would be and more.  I thought it would be difficult dealing with people asking for gifts.  It was.  I thought people wouldn't acknowledge any of my contributions.  They didn't.  It was a day I was dreading for weeks in fear of it leaving a sour taste in my mouth.  It did at least for the day.

My despedida was low-key.  I made coffee, chicha, and hojaldre for everyone in the community.  

Attendance was high, higher than it had been for any other meeting in my two years in Calante.  For weeks the community was abuzz, relentlessly asking for my stuff.  I explained that I was having a raffle and that they would have to wait until my despedida.

Oti was having a tombola for his stuff.  Free stuff?!  Forget the countless health presentations and maintaining the aqueduct for two years and teaching English and building a new intake for year-round access to clean water.  Finally we get something out of this gringo!

The raffle featured about forty clusters of items: blankets, clothes, 5-gallon buckets, containers of sundry kitchen items. Community members drew numbers so that number 1 would choose one item first, number 2 would follow, and so on.  The tombola got off to an inauspicious start when I called "one" and my old host mom handed me a torn piece of paper where the "1" was obviously part of another number.  Oddly, no one else came forward.  Coincidentally, no one came up to choose the 11th item.  

After the despedida, most of the community left without saying thank you or goodbye.  A 3-year-old girl came up to me holding the ticket with the number 1 in her hand.  Many complained that they didn't get anything, that too many children had drawn tickets, that I didn't offer enough stuff, that their spouse had received something while they did not, that I didn't know how to run a raffle.  Keep in mind these are full grown adults and everything had been free.  It would have been depressing if everything hadn't been so comically over the top. 

As I made my final hike down to Kwite I thought about the beauty of the river.  I thought about how many great experiences I've had despite my community's shortcomings.  On the bright side, it was not a tearful goodbye.  The community had the courtesy to make it easy for me to leave. That being said, it would have been nice if my last day with everyone hadn't been another notch in the annals of missed chances, another opportunity lost for my community to have shown some signs of grace.

So You Wanna Join the Peace Corps? - Part 2

Close your eyes and picture your future service.  Maybe Peace Corps conjures the image of you walking down a dusty dirt road with children holding your hand.  Maybe you're out on a lake in a dugout canoe fishing with village elders.  Maybe you're teaching in a spartan classroom while the snow falls softly outside.  Whatever the image is for you, hold it for just a moment longer.

Congratulations!  You've over-romanticized service.

Before everyone gets riled up, let me mitigate my own bold statement about Peace Corps.  You may very well find yourself in such picturesque locales (I did).  You will have your adventure.  The experience will change your life.  All of this is completely true.

The catch with service is that you're there living and breathing that world for two or more years.  It's enough time for the sheen to wear off that National Geographic image.  And behind the gloss is where the people live their lives.  They were living them long before they were photographed and they'll be living them long after your return to the States.

Part of the over-romanticism is also in how effective you will be.  You will most likely not single-handedly change the world.  More likely, you will affect the lives of a scant few in ways that never seem apparent during your entire service.  There will be community members that range from indifferent to hostile over your presence.  Many will spend the whole two years caught up in wonderment as to why you left the promised land to live in abject poverty.  Perhaps you're being punished, they may think.

Don't get hung up on these things.  While it can be disillusioning, it's also part of the experience.  Over the course of service, your community will (may?) understand Peace Corps and, more importantly, they'll understand you.  And they will slowly let you into their lives.

You will live in a fishbowl.  Over time, you will become a fixture in the community.  Sure you're a novelty.  Sure, some of them just want to milk you for your stuff.  But for some, you'll become a friend.  For some you'll become a mentor.  For some, you'll become family.

No, Peace Corps will not be what you think it will be.  It will be much less and much much more than that.  You'll come back home (maybe early) with stories, plenty of new thoughts about the world, and a few more chapters in the book of personal growth.  You will have felt extreme joy, deep depression, and experienced unearthly shades of boredom... multiple times... and quite possibly all in the course of a single day.

So would I recommend Peace Corps? While I can't say I'm an advocate for boredom or depression, I can say that my two years in Panama has had a profound affect on my life.  I see the world differently.  And for good or bad, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder

After two years I thought I had a handle on Ngabes.  Maybe I don't know all the intricacies of their culture, but at least I know how we differ.  This week I was truly taken aback, bewildered in a forest of invalid assumptions, and it all has to do with landscaping.

Landscaping is a formidable task out here.  With the constant rain there is a tendency for everything to return to the earth.  Pathways don't survive long in the fecund soil and flowers get choked out by indefatigable grasses.  Then there's the children and livestock constantly running through your yard, trampling or eating whatever attempts you make at ornamentation.

Nevertheless, after months I finally had thriving bushes of beautiful white flowers that I've enjoyed over the last year.  You can guess where this is headed to I'll just hit the highlights.

Kid asks to cut grass for a few bucks.  Oti heads to Kwite to work on the aqueduct.  Oti returns to find much of the grass untouched, but the flower bushes cut down to the ground.

Peace Corps gives you a lot of practice learning to laugh in times like this.  Picture the scene, this kid whacking away at my flowers.  "I gotta get rid of these weeds.  Boy, Oti will be sooo glad!"  Meanwhile, back on the gringo farm, the act is nothing short of vandalism.

So I learned something this week.  I really thought flowers (FLOWERS!!!) were something universally appreciated.  This isn't something abstract like how weird it was for me opting to build my house next to the tranquil sounds of the river versus five feet from a neighboring family of 5+ screaming children.  After all, we're talking about flowers (FLOWERS!!!).

Sure I'm upset my flowers are gone, but the feeling is dulled by wonder.  I live in a world where flowers (for most) are weeds.  If it doesn't grow food, what's the point?  My Ngabes see the world through rose-killing glasses.  But really, how do they see the world around them?  Our realities must be so different, influenced by so many divergent and incongruous experiences.  How absolutely fascinating, right?

Water in Kwite!!!

The title says it all.  It's been a lucha, but the community of Kwite finally has clean drinking water!!!

The project has more or less been the oeuvre of my time here and the raison d'etre for my neighboring volunteer, Jon, who lives in Kwite.  Over the last 22 months we've fought an uphill battle bringing water downhill to the community, but water is finally here!

It brings me great joy to finally post these photos.  Kudos and a big "thank you" to everyone that has contributed to bringing water to Kwite!