I recently finished a 6-week JA program in the local elementary school. I taught 3 3rd grade classes, 3 4th grade classes, and 2 5th grade classes, for a total of 180+ students. It was really challenging (see past posts about education in Panama), but very rewarding. For those of you unfamiliar with JA, it is a program that business people can sign up for (and I encourage you all to do so!), through your employer. You take a morning off each week and go teach elementary school students about basic business and economic concepts. It's really great because the students get exposed to material they probably would not study otherwise. And JA provides all of the materials and a facilitator's guide that has lesson plans. JA is present all over the world, but started in the States and has the most participants there. (Random, I actually found out my grandpa taught JA back in the day.) It's been a great experience and the kids had a lot of fun. Here's some pics from my classes:
Kids playing a business management board game.
the crew heading out to culecos
each town has 2 reinas of carnaval, one represents calle arriba and the other represents calle abajo. calle arriba is generally made up of the more well-to-do people, some may call them snobs. calle abajo is for the hood. both queens prepare all year for carnaval. they need to raise money for their costumes, floats, fireworks, and promo materials (mainly big posters of glamour shots that everyone in the town puts in front of their homes). each day the reinas come out, in a new elaborate costume and float, and parade around the plaza where the culecos are (see below). a float with a murga also follows them (see below). people cheer or yell at them (depending on if they are calle arriba or calle abajo). sometimes it gets ugly and the opposing calle sings songs about the girls, detailing who they've slept with and mistakes they've made (all in good fun, of course). when both have paraded around they shoot off fire works and the two teams "dance battle." at night, they come out again and parade around in yet another crazy costume and float. they also light off more fireworks.on the last night of carnaval, the queens have a showdown. starting right before dawn (right before it's lent and you have to be good again) the two queens begin to light off fireworks. whoever can light off more, wins. this year i sat (very tired) at the plaza from 4am to 5:30am waiting for the reinas to come out. they were both shooting off their fireworks, but, clearly, calle abajo was winning. that girl had wayyyyyyy more. she shot them off til 8am. no joke.
la murga
the murga is a band that follows the reina around on its own separate float. it is made up of some percussionists (cowbell!) and a lot of horns (trumpet, trombone, etc). they play music to which the reina and people in the crowds dance. there's usually a bunch of entourage peeps that are on this float to. this year i saw: kids is condom tees, transvestites, hooches, you know... 
the water is probably the best part of carnaval. kids and adults run around squirting people with water guns and pouring buckets of water on people. and you can't get mad. it's the law down here. from sunrise til 5 each day, be prepared to get wet. sitting in your car in the traffic with your window open? walking down the street in your new dress? it doesn't matter. you're going to get sprayed/splashed.the culecos are a ton of fun. basically, they're when huge water tankers line the sides of the plaza and spray people down. everyone comes to have fun, so the plazas are packed, especially in the big cities. the plaza is also lined with vendors selling beer and street meat. so basically, you get drunk, go get sprayed with water, yell at the reina as she comes around, and then stuff your face with fried and grilled items. what a day.carnavaleando tip: when the reina comes around, follow her murga around the plaza, dancing and jumping around. it takes awhile, but you get to see everything that is going on and all the hyphy kids do it.
atop the water tankers are people from companies and political parties. they throw out free tee shirts and water bottles and other labeled goods. some also have dance contests. the hooches come out in full force for the contests and the winner usually gets a free phone or something. they even had contests for the boys and girls this year. i saw some 7 year olds shaking it like video twerkers...weird. even weirder? the boys' contest. 4 to 13 year olds were made to dance one by one, but not alone. the grown women promo hoes with their boobs out grinded on them as they danced and their parents cheered them on. oh panama...nighttime
after getting wet all day, you go home to rest and eat dinner. then, you go out again. in the plazas, the reinas come out in a new outfit and on a new float. other reinas and princesas come out to, in polleras (the traditional dress). there are outdoor discotecas all over the place.the most well-known discoteca is PH. it get poppin about midnight and lasts til 4am every night. around 2am, some headliner comes out and performs. the best part is that a bottle of seco (the national liquor) is like $10. i am so over the $80+ bottles at the club back home.
so basically, carnaval is amazing. water, skimpy clothes, booze, street meat, reinas...AMAZING. i will definitely miss carnaval when i return to the united states of (boring and unfestive) america. and i encourage each and every one of you to go to a carnaval in latin america at some point in your lives. it's pretty tiring, as us americans haven't been prepared for such a long festival of debauchery, but you won't regret it.
were told about teaching JA. A lot of business volunteers decide to do it, since you're teaching kids to think about business principles and about the economy. I put it off when I got to my community because it was the school year's end. Then, since I already did a lot of youth work and was putting in my fair share of hours at the school I kept putting it off. Finally, in September, I decided to do it. So this October and November I taught 3 5th grade classes a JA course about human/natural/capital resources and the decisions a company must take to make and sell its products.
living in hell. When I finally got over all that, our schedules just didn't work out. Things kept coming off and the visit was put off over and over again. Finally, it got to the point where Franco was going to leave me (only half-kidding) and so I got my butt out there and...I LOVED IT!
horts that they own. One even baby powdered her chest for me. Another neighbor kept dropping by to stare at me. She seemed really excited to finally meet the gringo's novia. She even brought me fresh milk from her cows and homemade tortilla asada for breakfast one day. I suspect she questioned Franco's cooking abilities and felt sorry for me. All in all, it was great...until the hike out.
One Year Down, One To Go
The end of October marked the half-way point of my volunteer service. For one year, I've been living and working in my community and lately I've been thinking a lot about what I've done so far and what I want to do in the following year. I've faced a lot of challenges, and not just the snake in the latrine type stuff. That, I expected. What I didn't expect is just how much cultural vales and norms would affect my work.
“Cultural exchange.” It sounds fun, right? Eating new food, learning new dances, and working alongside people of another culture may come to mind. That's the type of stuff I visualized before coming here. But those images make up the fairy tale of development work. It's really a whole lot tougher.
The biggest challenge I've faced while working has been with the adults involved in the youth cooperative I work with. Although it seems that the point of the group would be to teach kids basic business skills and inspire them to work in cooperatives, most people here think otherwise. Officially, the members are youth, but each member has a parent who must attend meetings and work days. All the while, the kids do NOTHING.
My American ideas clash with the general Panamanian understanding of working with youth. The youth here aren't respected like they are back home. No one tells them, “You can do it,” or trusts them. The idea of empowering them is completely unknown. I've seen plenty of parents sit down and do their kid's homework, and a 3rd grade teacher once told me that at the age of 8 kids “just can't think.” In the States, kids are encouraged to run lemonade stands, get their hands dirty and try new things, and learn as much as they can. What matters is that they experiencing new things and build their confidence. Trying to replicate that type of youth work here hasn't gotten me very far.
The teachers and parents don't understand my American approach to youth work. I've taught the kids to run meetings and organized projects that train them to work as a team, but the parents have been focused on money and that they're losing their influence on the group. One mother said, “I don't agree with CoCo. She thinks the kids should do the work, but that's our [the adults] work.” I almost fell over with shock and left that meeting angry, hurt, and frustrated. How can I feel good about my work here if the locals don't appreciate it? The kids have fun and are learning, true, but their parents and teachers want something else. They want me to do their paperwork and bring them sacks of gringo money. And that's just not why I'm here.
I've been thinking about what all of this means. Where is my service going? I have another year to go, and I'm don't know if I'm so excited about that. Not because I don't like it here. My village is beautiful and I've made some great friends. I love eating Pineapples like Apples and never wearing shoes. But the work is HARD. It's tiring to constantly push along my work with the kids, only to have the adults complain about what I saw as achievements. So I'm trying to plan out the next year and figure out what I can do that includes the kids and both the adults and I will see as valuable. This year, I've learned that I can't just jump into projects thinking that my community members will see their value. My values and their values are based on our very different cultures. Until I can find and highlight some commonalities between the two, I'm not going to get anywhere. So I need to take a step back, breath, and start again.
Looking back on this year, there's plenty of highs and lows. People will ask things like, “Are you happy there?” after reading my blog. Those questions always suprise me, because I love my life here. Being a development worker isn't easy, but it is an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experience. The challenges are huge, but the payoffs are too. Those fairy tale images of development work do exist. Walking into the school and hearing a hundred little kids yell my name is Panamanian accents always puts a smile on my face. And working with my Girl Scouts makes me excited that some of my girls will try to achieve their dreams. Just today, I was working at my kitchen table when kids came by to go to the waterfall behind my house. After awhile, I gave in and joined them. I've learned to appreciate the laid-back culture here (that I may have at one point called laziness). Panamanians really do know how to enjoy life. As I floated on my back in the water and looked up at the jungle canopy above, I thought to myself, “Do I really live here?” And I smiled to myself because the answer most definitely is, and will be for another year, yes.
