Fifth Month on Site

Good afternoon!

I can´t believe I´ve already been on my site for five months! In another five months, Sarah and I will already have spent our first month together here in Panama!

1. School Started!

Recently, the kids started school and many trampling feet can be heard outside my doorway every morning. I attended planning meetings with the school director and teachers the week before school started and now I´ve been helping out in class once a week. They received new teachers in English and Home this year, but they lack teachers for fifth grade, so they´ve spent the first two weeks of class at home--what a shame!

I´m continueing onto English 102, having a smaller class of around 5 students every Sunday evening. The teacher from the school who attends my class said he would like to teach Ngabere before my English class, which I´m really excited about.

2. Baptism Weekend

In my community exists one church, belonging to the Seventh Day Adventists. Every year they invite everyone to a baptism weekend down at the river, where they have musical worship Friday night, a Saturday worship service, and then a baptism service Saturday afternoon.

I was told that it was a three hour hike, so I packed up my clothes, sleeping pad, bible, and set out with my host family. Three hours later we were halfway there, I was told. Fortunately, an agency truck came by and brought us most of the rest of the way. Arriving there six hours after setting out, I arrived to find one thousand Ngabere people camped out on the ground, most without tents.

Needless to say, I didn´t get too much sleep as people visited all night and babies cried to the mothers in hunger and nervousness. For our meals, we had community-wide corn drinks and rice with beans.

I really enjoyed meeting new people, watching 150 people get baptised, and taking pictures of my host brother singing in a quartet in front of everybody. Pictures can be found on the Picasa link on the right margin.

3. Environmental Health Update

I´ve talked quite a bit about the cultural part of my work, but there is the continueing environmental health project as well.

In one community, we elected a new latrine directive, I gave a charla on how to pick the pit latrine location, and have a follow-up date to walk house to house to verify that the latrines are located away from rivers, wells, and not too far from the house.

The main line was just surveyed, taking almost 3 days with a team of six each day. We also found a new spring that could be used to give water to five houses up on the hill who aren´t currently connected to the main line. While I was hiking to the spring, I was told to ¨watch out!¨. Not knowing what to watch out for, I turned around to find a six-foot boa a few feet away from where I had just set down my foot. They´re not poisonous, but it did make my heart jump!

In a second community, I sat down with the latrine directive to write solicitudes to the mayor, regional representative, and two government ministries. I´m told that we should expect too much help from the mayor or representative because all their money is being spent to bring electricity along the road to the regional government office up on the hill. We´re also looking for material prices to include in our solicitudes.

In a third community I´m working with, we had a community meeting and then a community workday to clear and survey an existing aquaduct line to connect more houses. I also had the opportunity to visit another volunteer to help make a concrete pit latrine.

4. Biking Mishap

I bought a bike from the previous volunteer, so I´ve been using the bike to make occasional day trips for food and internet. As I was returning back to my site, I heard a pop and found that my bike tube on my back tire had broke. I walked twenty minutes to the stores along the Pan-American highway. Expecting to drop off my bike at the store and head to the bigger city to find a new tube, I found that the store had a bike tube that was just the right size. Not having the equipment to fix it, the store owner said that her friend would fix it for a Pepsi. I accepted the offer immediately, adding a package of Doritos to the deal as well.

I´m thankful to have a community that´s eager to help out a volunteer such as myself!

Well that´s all from here. I hope this update finds you healthy, safe, and in the company of those you love.

Kevin

He has showed you, O man, what is good.

And what does the LORD require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

and to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6:8

Recap of February

Hello!

With the recent marriage date announcement, I didn´t include too many details other details from February. Here is a brief review of the month:

1. Sarah visited! (Host Family trip, On-Site, Beach Birthday)

Host Family Trip

We first went to my training host family´s house, where we spent two days in the hills near Panama City. From the airport to their house, we took an old school bus from the United States that was transformed with a lot of artistic expression into a ¨Diablo Rojo¨, filled with paintings of their family, Looney Toons charecters, or whatever else was on their mind. The bus was packed way beyond the limit, but we made it! My host family has two 3-year old twin daughters and an 8-year old son. They were nervous at first since they hadn´t seen me in over three months, but they warmed up quite quickly. On Sunday during our visit, we went to church and then went swimming in the afternoon, picking up oranges and grapefruit on the way back!

On-Site

After two days with my host family, we took a bus ride west for six hours to my site. It was so wonderful for Sarah to see with her own eyes the people and places that I had been telling her about on the phone previously. Upon arriving, Sarah received a blue dress made by my host family called a nagwa, as well as a Ngabere name, Boja. She´s named after a hard-working woman of the community who always helped out without being asked. How appropriate!

The next day we took down an old house to make room for a new store. That night she learned how to play dominoes, even beating the locals in her second game! Later in the week we made a trip to town to get groceries, however that night she got sick! We learned together what it means to care for someone when there´s no electricity, no soft couch, no chicken noodle soup, and no car-ride to the doctor. It was great practice because one of us will surely be sick again.

She learned what it means to go to church (4 hours underneath a zinc roof!), go to a community meeting (5 hours long!), or go for a walk (¨These are mountains, not hills!¨). We also got to troubleshoot a clog in an aquaduct line, built a pit latrine, and rode a horse!

Beach Birthday

At the end of our trip, we went down to the beach for my birthday. How special to have my fiancee here to celebrate with me! We got to walk on the beach (getting sunburnt, of course!), swam in the ocean, had a pasta dinner, dodging crabs along the way.

It was sad to see her leave, but she´ll be back down once more before we get married this September!

2. Reconnect Inter-Service Training

After being at our sites for four months, we were able to come together for four days to get more technical training and share ideas and experiences. All 36 members of our group came together, enjoying training sessions during the day and walks to the beach and Settlers of Catan at night.

The first day we presented our community analysis (maps, daily schedules, yearly schedules) and transferred this into future community action steps, involving the community every step of the way and starting a smaller project to build confidence.

Other sessions included proposal writing, water seminar planning, springbox construction, aquaduct computer modeling, and training for building latrines.

I´ll be posting an update for March shortly.

Blessings,

Kevin

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)

Sarah and I are getting married September 4th!

I just wanted to let you all know that after lots of prayer, planning, and petitioning, Sarah and I are planning to get married on September 4 of this year in Daytona Beach, FL!

Sarah just left this past Sunday. It was great to have her here with me. We spent two nights with my host family during training and then spent ten days at my site before spending two nights on the beach. Sarah fit right in, walking and talking with me as we walked around and participated in meetings and project workdays. They even gave her a nagwa (local dress) and a Ngabere name!

We also talked to the country director right after we got here and he said that he would grant us permission to marry as long as she could handle the life here. During the meeting we also presented our health plan, financial plan, and work plan, as well as discussing how her work will not impede my Peace Corps or Thesis work. After being on site, meeting the people, getting sick and getting healthy again, going to community meetings, and getting a better grasp of our daily routine and marital support options, we are excited to get married.

Her work will be in the school, teaching english classes, and tutoring. She will also help me in my environmental health presentations, where her work will be especially effective in reaching the women and children. This will be a great application of her English degree, tutoring experience, ESL and Global Health classes, and her heart to serve others. I´m also excited to have her apply her English major by reading my Quarterly Reports and Thesis!

Thanks for being a part of our story!

Kevin and Sarah

Fourth Month on Site

Good morning!

I will do my best to be coherent, but I admit my mind is elsewhere as I await the arrival of my fiancee Sarah here in Panama City this afternoon. After not seeing her for almost six months, I am truly grateful for the chance to have her visit. She is on a plane from Tampa to Miami at the moment. My host family already gave her a Ngabere name, so you'll have to ask her what her new name is!

The past month or so has had its mix of good and bad. A prime example is watching my first Vikings game as they beat Dallas 34-3, only to hear through the phone that they weren't able to make it to the Super Bowl. At least the Twins will sign Joe Mauer, right?

I don't know if you heard it on CNN or not, but Panama has 10 new graduates of English 101. After conducting their oral interviews in English, our group celebrated with chicken, rice, kool-aid, and dominoes (playing dominoes, not eating dominoes).

On a sad note, my cheap Digicel international calling plan ended on January 15th. The price per minute rose from 3 cents to 15 cents, so I apologize in advance for not making as many phone calls. If you want to chat, email me and we can set up a Skype call!

I have been a proud engineer, seeing the people of my community become better engineers by the day. In two communities, we used a surveying device made of PVC, clear plastic tubing, and water to survey the entire acueduct system. Using the data, I can enter the numbers into a computer program to make a nice spiffy map of their system, complete with horizontal distance, vertical distance, flow, and pipe diameter. During the surveying process, they taught me how to communicate to friends far away by yelling at the top of my lungs in different vocal patterns. We also celebrated a long days work by playing baseball. Ground balls are a bit tricky on the uneven terrain.

Our community also organized wood pit latrine workdays. The owner who wants the latrine built would get the materials ready and cook food while the workers would work all day and eat the food. It's great to see everyone working together to make these beautiful works of art called latrines.

A representative from the Ministry of Environmental Health came and visited our site last week. We were able to have a great discussion on Community Organization and Participation and were able to lay out how the Environmental Health Ministry, Peace Corps, and the community can work together to improve environmental health.

A member of our own community working for a government agency put together a workday on organic fertilizer. Everyone came with a big sack full of ash, dried leaves, rice husks, horse manure, and even a fermented corn drink. They were making jokes all day on how they couldn't believe the alcoholic drink was better off in the ground making compost than in their stomachs.

Another current project is writing solicitudes for the latrine and aquaduct projects. We will be soliciting help from the district representative, mayor, and two government agencies. Next up will be putting together material and price lists.

The last highlight was our Comarca Regional Meeting. We got caught up on our different projects and even had time for an organic coffee and wine tour. I highly recommend it!

Ask the audience: Vote for your Top 5 photos from my Picasa albums-the link is located on the right margin above. I'm going to submit photos to make a Peace Corps Panama Photo Calendar. Leave a comment below with

1) The Album Name
2) The row and column of the photo

Thanks for reading! I'm off to spend two awesome weeks with my fiancee! Goodbye!

Kevin

Third Month on Site

Significance is found in giving your life away, not in selfishly trying to find personal happiness.
-Gary Thomas in A Sacred Marriage

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but the interests of others.
-Paul in Philippians 2:3-4

These two quotes sum up what I´ve found to be a major theme in my service as a Peace Corps Volunteer: Humility. I´ve been thinking why I feel so fulfilled during my time here, and one of the conclusions I made is how easy it is for me to give my life away to the people here. While I came down here giving my time and knowledge to the people, I´ve received so much more. Examples include a man gathering food house to house to help my host family feed me, my host dad skipping his work to take care of me when I became sick, or the love I´ve encountered in the countless houses I´ve visited.

In the past few weeks I´ve worked with the three communities cleaning their acueduct lines, making community maps, fixing acueducts, giving latrine presentations, teaching english, and visiting houses.

Highlights of the past couple weeks included

1) Celebrating New Year´s Eve with other volunteers on Bocas Island, visiting a beach and even watching some college football!

2) Hosting representatives from the NGO Waterlines, who helped provide funding for an acueduct in one of my communities. They were able to view the existing project, encourage our efforts to operate and maintain the system in the future, and maintain solid communication with the community.

3) Happy Engineer Day was celebrated on January 7th as I receieved a water level surveying instrument, a model aquaduct system, and a GPS unit. I spent almost the entire day putting the instruments together and becoming familiar with the instruments.

The next month´s plans include watching the Vikings game on Sunday, helping build latrines on Thursday and Friday, going to a Peace Corps Regional Meeting at the end of the month, and seeing my fiancee in February after being apart for six months!

I hope you all have a blessed week and hope you´re all staying warm!

Kevin

A Beach Outing and Christmas Celebrations

Good afternoon and a late Merry Christmas to you all. I hope that you all had a chance to celebrate the birth of our Savior with family and friends. Christmas was more simple for me this year. Although I dearly missed family and friends, it allowed me to meditate on the meaning of Christmas without a lot of the distractions and busyness that the season can sometimes bring.

The past two and a half weeks have been very exciting. Here´s a quick snapshot:
--Made latrine holes and floors for two houses

--Finished the seasonal calendar for one community

--Began work in a different community, havnig a general meeting and then walking up to the springbox

--Hosted the regional leader for a day, when we walked the acueduct line, had lunch, and a small interview to see how I´m adjusting to the Peace Corps lifestyle. She remarked that my spanish has improved--I was surprised she could tell!

--Met with a previous Peace Corps Master´s International student, who returned to Panama and is now married and expecting her first child

--Enjoyed Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas Story drama with my community

The highlight of the past couple weeks was heading to the beach near Remedios with my host family just before Christmas for 2 days. We walked for two hours and then rode on the back of a farm truck to the beach--I felt like I was on the Jurassic Park ride as I was looking at all the animals from the back of the truck.

The next day we hiked to the mangrove forest, where we climbed up and down tree roots to find conch shells hidden beneath the tree roots. After getting thirsty, my host dad climbed up the coconut tree to get fresh cocunuts to drink. Returning to the mangrove forest, we went crab hunting. The process is to blindly stick your hand in a crab hole until either you grab the crab or the crab grabs you.

The day was rounded out by finding iguanas in the trees and then killing them with a rock flung by a slingshot. My host father missed the first one, but got the next four on his first shot. In case you were wondering, the meat tastes surprisingly like chicken.

Highlights for the next month include celebrating New Years, visiting with my environmental Health Director, and awaiting the arrival of my fiancee in February.

I wish you all a new year full of family, health, hope and new beginnings!

1 Peter 1:3
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Love,

Kevin

Second Month on Site

Good evening!

I hope this entry finds everyone well and in good spirits. It´s hard to belive Thanksgiving has passed and Christmas is on its way. I´ve missed entirely the changing colors of the leaves, the family Thanksgiving dinner in Wausau, and the arrival of snow on the ground and christmas songs on the air. I´ll have to celebrate the season with you all via internet this year!

Since I wrote to you all last, I´ve spent a few more weeks working on site and also managed to attend a Thanksgiving celebration, both of which I´ll detail through words below and through pictures on the right margin.


1. Life on Site

Here are some tidbits that may give you a better idea of what I´ve been up to in my site lately.


Community Activities

House visits--drew maps of current water taps and latrines

English class--I´m teaching a class of about 20 students of mixed ages once a week. Topics this week included contractions, what is this?, and the numbers 1-10.

Church--I´ve attended church Saturdays between 9 and 12 in the morning. They´ve even asked me to help lead bible study and sing in a quartet!

Community Analysis--I´ve helped lead activities like gathering census data, writing down their community history and stories, community maps, and daily schedules.

Work days--I helped clean the cemetery before their Memorial Day and also helped clean the acueduct line with my good ole machete. They´ve told me that nothing is safe when a machete is in my hands, as I accidently chiopped down a neighbor´s bean plant.

Settlers of Catan--You read this right. I taught my counterpart how to play, so next is getting a full group of 4 to play.

Dominoes--My community gathers at my host family´s house to play dominoes a couple times a week. They better look out--I´m beginning to catch on to the strategies.


Phone Calls

Sarah--We´ve been able to talk through a bible study chapter and a Sacred Marriage chapter every week. Phone calls to her are definitely a highlight of my day :)

Family--It was sad not to be with them on Thanksgiving, but I look forward to their visit next year. Emily comes back in less than a week, so at least they´ll have one more kid back in the house for Christmas!

Jon--We chatted over Skype--Panama to Uganda! I´m envious of his household internet connection.

Nate--Chatting with him brought back fond memories of late night conversations in Chadbourne 811 sophomore year.

Marcia--It was nice to chat with Marcia and remember Peter Bosscher together. Conversations at the Bosscher household are a big reason why I´m writing this blog post from Panama today.

Grandma Lorraine--She said, ¨Your voice is so clear it seems like you´re next door!¨I miss chatting with my grandma on a weekly basis!


Daily Study Material

David C. Cook Bible Lesson Commentary

Un Pueblo en Marcha: A Study of the Book of Numbers (Bible)

Ngabere Indiginous Language Training

ArcGIS Computer Program Training


Books I´ve Read Recently

Participatory Analysis for Community Action, Peace Corps

Classroom Management Idea Book, Peace Corps

A Handbook of Gravity Flow Water Systems, Thomas D. Jordan

The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, Yann Martel

The Tailor of Panama, John LeCarre

Sacred Marriage, Gary Thomas

up next: The White Man´s Burden, William Easterly


2. Thanksgiving

A group of veteran Peace Corps volunteers organized a group get-together for Thanksgiving in Cerro Punta, in the western mountains of Panama, north of David by about 2 hours. The air was fresh and cool--I finally got to use my treasured hooded sweatshirt. Strawberries, coffee, and stories were in abundance.

I was able to catch up with quite a few other volunteers about their first months on site and was comforted to know that our stories of adjusting to a new lifestyle, stomach pains included, were common to us all. I managed to fit in 3 games of Settlers of Catan in during the two day trip, somehow winning all 3.

After a morning hike and a reward of strawberries and whipped cream, the Thanksgiving dinner finally arrived at 4pm. There was much rejoicing. Thanks to the efforts of many volunteers, the meal included turkey, ham, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, vegetables, bread, butter, apple crisp, pumpkin pie, and more. I won´t say how much I ate, but if I was counting calories, it may have passed the 5000 mark. After eating rice three times a day for a month, I was definitely very thankful for a wonderful Thanksgiving meal among my Peace Corps family.

Things I´m Thankful For

An all-powerful God, who has done and will do more than I can ask or imagine

A wonderful, loving fiance

A caring, supportive family

Good health and sufficient food on site

Friends and family spread across the US

The ability to serve God through the Peace Corps

A great host family and training experience this past August through October

The ability to maintain contact to loved ones through cell phones, blogs, and pictures

A welcoming, eager group of people to work with on site for the next two years

A fellow Christian to study the Bible with during training

The ability to serve in the Peace Corps and get a Master´s degree, all the while enjoying the experience

A church to go to and Christians to support me on a daily basis

The ability to explore God´s creation here in Panama, the sunsets over the Pacific, the fresh taste of strawberries, the birds soaring overhead, the true joy and laughter of people living in material poverty

YOU, for supporting me in my journey


Luke 1:46-57 says

My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior

for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant...

His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation.

He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;

He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

He has brought down the rulers from their thrones, but he has lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things, but he has sent the rich away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful

To Abraham and his descendents forever, just as he promised our ancestors.


Blessings to you this holiday season,

Kevin