In February I headed to Cocle, a province in central Panama, for
our in-service training. During the first week everyone from Group 73 was
reunited as we went to sessions related to grant writing, youth development,
gender and cultural issues, and dealing with domestic violence. The SAS program
also had some time together to cover ag-related topics and take a few field
trips to visit agencies and a pretty dang cool organic farm. Though the days
were long and packed full of activities and information, it was great to see
volunteers who are normally so far from me, and the information couldn't have
come at a better time; I'm feeling much more inspired for my work in site!
Getting ready to drink some locally grown and processed cane-sugar juice
Cane sugar "honey" and the farmer who made it
Since we all work in such diverse projects, we split up for the
second week of training so that we focus more on the topics that matter most to
us. Lucky for me, that meant spending a week learning all about cocoa, complete
with cooking experiments and a "Create your own chocolate bar"
activity. Have I mentioned that I love the perks of my job?
Carly, the volunteer I visited during Pre-Service Training last
year, is actually the National Cocoa Coordinator and hosted the majority of
Cocoa Week in her site in Bocas del Toro. Since there were only 6 volunteers in
training and 2 volunteer trainers, week 2 was also that much more intimate and
laid back, which was a welcome break.
Though I was anxious about staying with host families again, I got
paired with a super nice family who remembered me from my last visit. Not only
did they cook me awesome food and provide good company, but they even sent me
home with a bag of homegrown veggies, chocolate, and coffee!
In the mornings we focused on the various agricultural aspects of
cocoa- everything from grafting and pruning to harvesting and a-sexual propagation,
and in the afternoons we spent more time on the processing side of things.
Obviously this mandated cooking projects and plenty of taste testing. The best
part is, that kind of stuff isn't just for fun. This coming week I'll be using
one of my new chocolate recipes to teach women in my site how to bake (and
sell) birthday cakes!
Visiting COCABO, the local Cocoa co-operative, and learning about bean quality
Apparently the week was going a little too well for me though,
because 2 or 3 days in I got sick with parasite-type symptoms and had to go to
the doctor to get it checked out. Though I certainly never want to be sick,
there's some sort of an odd satisfaction you get from getting a diagnosis of
something other than "Maybe you just ate something bad." At least
that's certainly how I felt when I got to add a new notch to my internal
parasite belt, this time with a pretty nasty Protozoa. Thankfully, a few days
worth of pills and I'm all recovered... For now.
Overall, Cocoa Week was a big (and welcome) catch-up to many of
the knowledge and skills I was lacking, and I'm looking forward to putting what
I learned to use in my site. I now have a small but dedicated group of farmers
that I'll be focusing a little more time and energy on, and we're planning to
do farm inventories and an introduction to record keeping in the coming months.
Seeing as though this will be completely new information and ideas to everyone,
it sure looks like I have my work cut out for me!
