Darien Part 5: We did some work too

Charlie and I teach about how you can use your cook fire as an oven

Charlie's community was awesome- over 40 people came to our Baking & Business class!

"So now we wait?" ... "Yes, but it's worth it."

Since my trip to the Darien was work-based, we made sure to plan some charlas in local communities.  After talking to the two agriculture volunteers, we decided to do an Introduction to Cacao/Baking and Business hybrid for Charlie's community and a Personal Finance session for the women in Sam's.  

Since both were sessions that I've taught multiple times, I was able to relax a little bit more and get to know the communities.  Since I generally work with groups of people that tend to be a little more shy and reserved, it was awesome to introduce topics to the outgoing Emberá.  As it turns out, they have cacao trees, but almost nobody knows how to care for them or process the beans into chocolate.  

And then this perfect Peace Corps moment happened:

Older gentleman: "There's this fungus that grows on my cacao and burns it.  Does anyone else have that problem?"

Me: "Actually, it's a fungus called Monilia and it's all over Central America."

Older gentleman: "Well I want to be better, so what can I do to control it?"

Me: "You can cut the damaged cacao pods off the trees because they're permanently damaged and can spread the disease to other pods."

Older gentleman: "Hm.  Well if they can spread, shouldn't I also bury them?"

YES!!!

Though it may not seem like that big of a deal, I can't put into words how frustrated I've gotten trying to get cacao farmers in my area to adopt simple techniques in the past year.  It's a fight just to convince them how beneficial cutting damaged pods off their trees can be- so to have a farmer come up with the idea of then burying them (which is ideal!!) was super encouraging.  

Panamanians love skits.  They think we're hilarious no matter what we do, so when Sam came out in a women's paruma skirt and I came out in a men's loincloth, they just about lost it.  

Cash flow practice

One of the ice-breakers we played was telephone... though I'm not sure they quite understood how to play since we ended up with the phrase (in Emberá) "What do we say now?"

Business on the Beach

As I wrote about a few months ago, in addition to working as a community volunteer, I was also selected to serve as Peace Corps Panama’s Agribusiness Coordinator for the west side of the country.  It’s no secret I love to travel and meet new people, so I’ve really been loving my new job, which is essentially that plus business education- great, right?  I get work-related leave + travel expenses to visit volunteers on the west side of the country (Bocas del Toro, the Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé, and Veraguas) and help out with any type of business or finance education/projects that are going on in their communities.

One of the four Peace Corps programs currently working in Panama is Environmental Health, which builds aqueducts and latrines and works in health & sanitation.  Many of those volunteers (there are about 50 in Panama and 15 in my region alone) are required to hold Water Committee Seminars in their site to teach community leaders organizations and basic skills in water system construction, maintenance, and basic finance.  Since I’ve been begging asking people to invite me to their sites, I’ve gotten to help with the organization and finance sections of several different seminars in my region. 

A few weeks ago my friend Colleen stayed with me on the way to help out with my neighbor, Travis’s, site and brought her pup, Oso (“bear”).  Of course, when she invited me to spend a weekend in her site, Massy couldn’t be left behind. 

Our gas station brought a whole new meaning to "on the water"

Since he hates being left behind, he loved actually getting to go along this time.  He was such a champ with the boat ride and new environment, and he loved the beach.  The seminar was two days, and while Colleen, Dylan (a new Environmental Health volunteer), and I taught different topics during the day, Massy and Oso waited patiently for the afternoons which they knew would bring walks to the beach.  

Colleen's site is awesome- it's situated on a peninsula between a bay and the beach, and thanks to it's convenient location there are several community groups working on establishing eco-tourism programs.  There's even a restaurant on the beach!  Our charlas went really well and I'm looking forward to returning and seeing how I can help the tourism groups.  

In the meantime, you should check out Colleen's blog.  It's a beautifully written blog full of photography and intriguing  posts about life in her community that really captures the essence of being a volunteer in this part of Panama.  

Makin' Banana Pancakes (and also Banana Bread)

Don't you just love it when you find an error on an already public poster?  The only thing worse is seeing a blatant and simple Spanish mistake in an email to the country director... will this ever end?

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've recently formed a women's baking and business group and this past week we had our second delicious class, this time making banana pancakes and bread with a few of the bananas that are grown in incredible quantities around here.  

Always eager to learn a new way to cook an old favorite, the women had been asking for this class for awhile now, and even though attendance was a little lower than last time, I'm so glad we finally got to do it.  

 Eager taste testers

We used a campo-friendly version that substituted oil for butter and powdered milk for the fresh stuff and then we even threw in a few cacao nibs and shredded coconut at the end (both local and essentially free ingredients for them).  Not only did it taste delicious, but we also had enough batter to make 1 loaf, 6 muffins AND banana pancakes.  They liked the variety and I liked the excuse to keep snacking on warm moist banana dulces.  

A big part of the class is figuring out exactly how much the ingredients cost and then how much profit could be made if we were to sell x number of batches.  Sometimes we round the numbers a little bit and they're not always encouraged by seeing a potential profit of less than $5, but as I tell them, thats $5 more than they had before AND they get to eat the leftovers.  Sure seems like a win to me.  

Campo Banana Bread

3 Very ripe bananas

3/4 Cup Milk (can be powdered)

1/2 Cup Oil

1 Teaspoon Vanilla

2 Eggs

1 Cup sugar

2 Cups Flour

1 Teaspoon Salt

1 Teaspoon Baking Soda

Mash the bananas and blend all wet ingredients together.  In a separate bowl, mix together dry ingredients and then combine with wet ingredients.  Pour into a greased pan and bake until golden brown and a toothpick or thin knife can be inserted and removed without any batter on it.  Enjoy!

Let's Get Down to Business *

As most of you know, I studied business in college and was really excited to work in business education and development here in Panama.  As most of you also know, now that I'm in Panama I almost never work with business-related stuff.  Well friends, all that is starting to change!

In addition to the women's baking and business classes that I've been holding, several great opportunities have recently surfaced which have given me awesome platforms on which I'm able to work with my nerdy passion of business education.  This past week I helped lead a regional Agri-Business Seminar where we taught about 25 rural farmers about group organization, personal finance, basic marketing principles, and basic legal principles.  

It was a really interesting and educational experience for all us- facilitators included!  Though I never would have considered giving a training on simple marketing themes a challenge, I was definitely thrown a curveball when I realized that not only were many of them lacking in basic education, but some people as advanced as store owners- store owners!- had never even used a calculator.  

The four-day seminar was held in my friend Brennan's site, which is about an hour and a half away from mine.  Sadly, Brennan developed an awful skin infection and wasn't able to be there during the seminar, but he was such a trooper and had everything organized and prepared for us.  Participants were housed with host families during their stay and though host family interactions have become almost second nature for us as volunteers, this was the first time many of the participants had ever spent the night in a place without their families. The way that they warmed up to each other and enjoyed sharing both companionship and knowledge was great to see

Now that I've done the sessions with the help of a few other great volunteers, I'm excited to bring them back to my community, since their truly is such a great need for this kind of information and training.  I can't even tell you how many times people have asked me how I know how to make my money last until the end of the month.  There's a saying here that goes something like, "When there's food, eat it." Though I don't want to lead you to believe that people in my area are starving, as they most certainly are not, there is a tendency to immediately use up any extra resources they have in an unplanned way.  For example, when I would buy TONS of groceries for my host family, they would cook nearly everything I bought the first night and leave us with a huge feast that was never finished and then following days with nothing but the boiled green bananas that they harvest for free.  Same goes with money- when it's there, they spend it on things they don't necessarily need because that's what they've always done.  

I'm so grateful to have had such a great opportunity, and none of it would have happened without Lila, an incredible volunteer who is finishing up her term as Peace Corps Panama's Agri-Business Coordinator (and will be working towards her MBA at an Ivy League this fall!) I definitely learned a lot and am especially excited to share another bit of related news....  

I've been selected to serve as one of this coming year's National Agri-Business Coordinators!  

Though we're still working through what exactly that means for me, I know that I'll be co-coordinating with another great volunteer located much closer to Panama City, and that we'll be in charge of training the incoming volunteers in Agribusiness themes this June, establishing and maintaining relationships with Panamanian agencies, helping other volunteers with business trainings in their sites, and potentially leading bigger seminars like this one.  

It looks like I have a lot of work throughout the next few months and as odd as it may sound, to have a packed work schedule is exactly what I wanted!  

*P.S.  If while reading the title of this post in your head you also automatically sang "...to defeat the huns" then we're on the same wavelength.