Pana Choco Drank

How to make chocolate like a Panamanian

The next time you chow down on some chocolate cake, a snickers, or even trader joes fair trade organic 70% raw cocoa bar, I would like that my readers take a minute to think about chocolate consumption and the work necessary to produce it. I want to give insight from the chocolate producers’ perspective. Don’t worry, I’m not writing this is make you feel guilty and in hopes that you’ll never eat chocolate again. In fact, I learned and wrote the recipe for something I call ‘Pana-Choco drank’.  For all you chocolate lovers out there, you can try this easy-to-follow recipe and consume chocolate like a Panamanian cocoa farmer!

1.       First, you wake up around 6. If there’s food, you eat breakfast, and head out for the farm around 7 am. Hike up muddy hills and cross rivers with rubber boots. Depending on which farm you decide to visit, you continue walking for 30 minutes or 2 hours.

2.       When you reach your cocoa trees, you look for the fresh fruit ready to be picked. You find what looks to be gems, harvest them with your bad-ass machete, and cut open the fruit. If you find caterpillars, you may be discouraged, but keep looking because selling your cocoa will be the only income you receive for the next few months. Thankfully you are an organic producer so you will receive more pay per pound. Look for other fruits that have healthy seeds. 

Healthy cocoa tree with seed pods

3.       After 5 hours in the farm, no lunch, and 30 pounds of cocoa seeds on your back, bring the seeds home. 

4.       Ready to make some chocolate? Well too bad you still have to wait a week, maybe more, for them to dry. First put the seeds in a large wooden box. This is to ‘ferment’ the seeds and start the drying process. Keep the seeds in this box for ~3-4 days until the milky cream around the seeds (part of the fruit) has dried. It is important to not open the box during this time as it will release the heat needed to dry the seeds.

The white one still has the milky cream

1.            Next, the most crucial step, drying the seeds. If you have a ‘secador’ (a little house with plastic over it to trap heat) lay your seeds out in this secador. If you do not have one, lay your seeds out in the sun to dry. If it is raining, wait until the sun comes out. This could be anywhere from 2 hours to 6 days depending on the season.

Drying in the sun 

Secador 

Seeds in the Secador

5.       To check if the seeds are dry, simply crack open the shell and observe the cocoa nib inside. 

6.       Once your seeds are dry, it’s time to make some chocolate drank! But first you are going to sell the majority of your seeds to the local chocolate cooperative because you and your family are very hungry and need money to buy rice. If it is the ‘off season’ (December-August), you must take your seeds to the office of the cooperative, about 20 minutes by bus, that is if you have money for the bus. If it is ‘season’ you can save that bus money because the cooperative is willing to come to your community and buy your cocoa.

7.       If steps 4 and step 5 were done well, you will earn a whopping 70 cents/pound for your organic seeds. If your seeds are not completely dry, or if traces of chemicals from your conventional-farming neighbor are found on your seeds, you will be lucky to get 40 cents/pound. Why are conventional seeds paid so much less? You can thank Africa and other Central American countries for flooding the market.

8.       NOW it’s time to make some chocolate drank. Put some dry seeds in a bowl and crush them with a large stick. This cracks off the shell and exposes the cocoa nibs inside. After some crushing, shake the bowl in a matter that is impossible to describe. Hopefully this video helps. This magically makes all the shell pieces disappear from your bowl so you only have cocoa. 

Crushing the seeds

9.       Next, put your cocoa in a ‘maquina de moler’. If you are not lucky enough to have had $25 to buy one, borrow someone’s but expect to give them chocolate for your loan.  Grind the cocoa through the maquina until your cocoa is in an almost liquid-paste form and your shoulders are about to fall off. 

10.   Almost done! Form balls from the paste. After a few hours, the balls will harden and are easy to store. When ready, put a ball in boiling hot water, watch it melt, add milk and sugar, and FINALLY enjoy your ‘Pana-Choco drank’. 

I hope this easy, 10 step recipe finds its way to friends and family in the states. Please share your success stories ;)

New address!

First I want to thank the wonderful friends who sent me letters and mail while I was in training! you have no idea how much it brightened my day to receive mail.

Now that I am in site I have a new address! You can find it in the 'contact info' page of this blog.

Some potential awesome goodies:

Cliff bars
Duck tape
Kids books in Spanish, small ones!
Deck of uno cards

Any other snacks and goodies would be great! Let alone just words of love! Also if you send something please tell me so I know to look for it when I am in the city

Look for the Bear Necessities

My first 3 weeks in site have been a roller coaster. Peace Corps mandates that you take the first 3 months to integrate, better your Spanish, and build relationships. The point is to get the community to trust you so when it comes time to work they will actually want to work with you. The first week was very mundane and repetitive. I went house to house, explaining what Peace Corps is, what types of projects my sector works in, and why I am not starting projects right away. I also had to explain many times that I am not here to teach English, nor do missionary work, nor give money.  It was a slow start, but as I have spent more time visiting I have had great conversations and am starting to feel like a human again and not a song on repeat. 

The ups, highlights, and laughs

The day of the election I learned how to peel plantains. Well, I didn’t learn but tried it. Imagine peeling an unripe banana with a knife. They all laughed as I destroyed plantains while the women next to me peeled them perfectly

Three of the teachers live in the community during the week and go home on the weekend. But since they live in the community I have spent quality time with them and think I will be able to work with them in environmental education.

After school I have taken kids out to “hacer ejercicio” –do exercise. We run, do push ups, jumping jacks, and sit ups. When they are tired of that we play soccer or volleyball.

I play cards with my neighbors almost every night. We have a joke going that if I lose I need to call Obama to bring a golden trophy for them. If they lose, they need to call their newly elected president to bring me a flush toilet and clean water.

My little host brothers always play the “Bear necessities” song from the jungle book, but in Spanish. I love seeing them dance to it

Made a hot chocolate drink from raw, unprocessed chocolate. Soon to come is learning how to make chocolate from the cocoa seeds themselves!

Had a group of children teach me how to wash my clothes in the river

Ate rabbit for the first time, I have never seen a rabbit here but I’m told they are the size of dogs and weigh 20 pounds

I have learned words and phrases of Ngobe, their local language.

Made coconut bread from scratch and cooked over a fire, not from the leisure of an oven. The two women, Bexaida and Lily, and I made the bread with are part of my host family. They both have 2 children and both of their husbands work in Panama City to provide for the family. Both are 21 and can cook just about anything.



Bexaida, my host sister



Lily with her daughter, grinding coconut

Got invited to work on the farm. Treacherous 2 hour hike up a mountain but gorgeous view of the Atlantic coast and got to work on my machete skills.

 

View from the farm

 

 

 I also work out in our garden with my host brother. “Cleaning the yard” means chopping tall grass with a machete. I was trying to chop off old leaves from a plantain tree and without realizing that the trunk is very soft, I accidently chopped down the whole tree!

Tree I accidently cut!

Below are pictures of my beautiful community!

 



Road to my community



kitchen for the school



School with a soccer field in front



Some of my favorite men



Cecilia and her granddaughter. She is an amazing medicine woman that doesn't speak much Spanish but I will contently listen to her Ngobe for hours 



Katerina reading the Three Little Pigs

 



My little brother helping me clean the yard

 

Some of my best friends, yes they are 8 years old

The downs, challenges and struggles

Screaming children, everywhere I go. Anytime.

Missing cheese, milk, yogurt, and cold beverages.

As I mentioned, the monotony of explaining Peace Corps. But now that more people are aware of the program, they are eager to start projects and are constantly asking me when I am going to hold meetings

Spanish. No doubt its improving, but still struggle with vocabulary, fast speakers, and telling stories using certain grammatical tenses.

I feel tired all the time due to my diet. Boiled bananas, rice, bananas, plantains, fried bread, bananas, bananas, if I’m lucky chicken and lentils, bananas.

While most speak Spanish, I feel isolated at times when they are all speaking in Ngobe. Or approach me while speaking Ngobe when they know I don’t understand but they think it’s funny.

Expectations are high. Problems and potential projects I have heard community members include:

Aqueducts and latrines. The aqueduct does not function properly and dries up often. There have been stretches of 5 days without water in the faucets. Not to mention not every house has a faucet and those families need to carry water from faucets to their house. I have only seen about 10 latrines in Santa Marta when I know there are about 50 houses. Talking about this problem has been challenging in many ways. First off, I have zero experience in this area. Second, it’s been disheartening telling them I have experience in this area and that my group does not work in these types of projects. Fortunately, I have a meeting next week to meet all the other volunteers in Bocas del Torro. I plan to ask other Environmental Health volunteers for support. I am afraid that if the issue of water is not address than it will be difficult to motivate the community about conservation and the environment when they struggle with a necessity of life. I also want to motivate the community to form a water committee. Right now there is nothing but 4 men who volunteer to fix the tubes when they are broken. A committee could keep track of the aqueduct, charge the community for water so when pipes break there is a sum of money for maintenance, and could contact national agencies if there is a bigger problem with the aqueduct.

Reforestation. Wood is used for everything: houses, fire stoves, to make boxes for drying cocoa seeds. Many realize that the aqueduct is drying because there are less trees to protect the water shed. This is a project I can do!

Trash management. While I have seen way trashier of places (like my training community or places in the states) there is still an interest in trash clean up. Where I lived in Santa Clara, people burn their trash outside. But in Santa Marta it’s too wet so people burn trash inside their house. Luckily there is not a lot due to the limited stores and products here, but I have still walked into houses with the fresh smell of burning plastic. Burning trash also uses wood and doesn’t help the reforestation issue.

Education. MEDUCA (ministry of education) and ANAM (Panamanian equivalent to the EPA) have an agreement that mandates environmental education be in the curriculum. ANAM and MEDUCA have written guides for teachers, but the teachers complain that the guides are too vague, too advanced, and that they have no time to incorporate it. But there are other problems related to this such as many teachers are only in a school for a year (refer back to my “Stay in School” post), class is only for half the day 8-12,  and much time is wasted on poor classroom management techniques. Many CEC volunteers help the teachers with the environmental guides and lesson plans.

Ecological stoves. This is a type of stove that still used firewood but it made from a clay like material and the flame is enclosed as opposed to having an open flame which uses more wood and creates more smoke. There is interest in having one at the school and one at the communal house that is used for events.

Efficient farming and economics. Many people in my community sell cocoa seeds to a cooperative called Cocoabo. I have not been able to research much about the cooperative but if any readers find anything interesting please let me know, since I only get internet an out once a month! People in my community receive about 40-70 cents for a pound of organic seeds. Conventional seeds are paid less. This is obviously not very much and explains why my community is very poor. While I cannot change the consumer-producer trickle down effect, capitalism, or exploitation, I can help in other ways. There are more efficient harvesting and drying methods that could increase the farmers yield. My boss said that every year there is a chocolate training that I can attend to learn these techniques.

Botanical house. Still a little fuzzy on this issue. ANAM built a house that is supposed to be for botanical medicine and health center. It was built about 5 years ago but is still not open. I went to a community meeting to try and investigate. However half of the meeting was in Ngobe or very fast Spanish so I did not get very many details. I plan on talking with a community member soon to get another explanation.

 

Artesian group. Have no money to buy materials and complain that they do not have the time or money to go into more touristy areas to sell their products.

 

There are many possible projects to consider and it seems like my time here will be very busy. But the community is going to need to prioritize what they want. When my boss comes in August we will have a community meeting, where the community will decide which project they would like to work on. But until then I will be observing, learning, adapting, and sweating J

 

 

 

Officially a volunteer!

 

The last few weeks of training were jammed packed. We hosted a community analysis, which is something we are all going to have to do ourselves in our communities. We presented to Santa Clara 4 common projects that CEC volunteers work on: reforestation, home/school gardens, trash management, and eco stoves. About 20 people showed up (average turn out) and they voted to work on trash management (thank goodness, this place always reeks of burning trash!). A current volunteer who extended for a third year has been helping out with our training and when we leave for our communities she will stay to support Santa Clara with this project.

Our host families also threw us a despedia, or goodbye party. We learned and presented Michael Jackson’s Thriller dance, which was AMAZING! There was food, dancing, pinantas, and a traditional stunt which includes a group of people climbing up this greasy pole. We were told that the trick is to get drunk and attempt to climb 500 times until the grease has rubbed off. Since none of us were drunk, we tried the latter strategy. The group started with 6 guys and after an hour, me and 2 other girls decided to jump in and ruin our clothes to give it a try. We eventually built a human pyramid and one of our bosses, of all people, climbed up the rest of the pole and received the bag on top.

 

Things have not been all fun and games though. There has been tension with families and trainees, stress on certain trainees who need to reach a certain level of Spanish on their Language Proficiency Interview before they can go to site, and tension on the community for water. The rainy season has begun and while I still do not know the exact reason, the community’s water gets shut off after it rains. Hypothesis is that the aqueduct gets clogged with leaves and debris. Regardless, our community went 4 days without water. All families have a back up tank with water, but normally the water will only be out for half a day. People are very poor about conserving water. After one day, my family ended up using almost all of our 200 gallon tank.  Yes we do need water for washing, drinking, bathing and cooking, however in this time of no running water, I saw people mopping the floor, make tea and coffee every other hour, washing dogs, and filling their inflatable pools.  I didn’t realize how much my schedule depended on water until I had to start buying water bottles at the store just to splash off after sweating all day, or saving a few extra hours in the day to do laundry in the river.

However the tension subsided when it was time to leave our training communities. We said our heartfelt goodbyes to our host families of Santa Clara. We spent 4 days at headquarters for some last minute paperwork and seminars. I will give a warning to prosperous volunteers (another challenge with water); pester and pester and pester for your water filter. Peace Corps Panama policy is that only volunteers who absolutely need water filters are going to receive them. Seems like a fair policy but ever since we found out where our sites are, there has been an ongoing struggle with water filters. The medical office only received 2 people who needed filters in their site, me included. However after we visited our sites several other volunteers were sick because of water issues. They had to approach the medical staff several times only for the staff to tell them that they need to get approval from our bosses that the sites were actually lacking in clean water. During this miscommunication fiasco, we were swamped with other things we had to do and the medical office never approached us with answers or filters. I am now writing this blog on a bus to my site with no filter. I called the medical office to see if I can have a filter sent to my site, only to be told that the secretary didn’t know what I was talking about and that I need to email the main medical officer. There are other ways to get around the issue such as chlorine and boiling, but I have felt inadequate support from the PC health office.

On a happier note, we went to the US Embassy for our swear-in ceremony. I am no longer a trainee and officially a volunteer! The house was beautiful and full of delicious hoeurd’ouvres  The ambassador was an awkward yet friendly man, and we met other representatives of national agencies here in Panama. The country director, language teaches, and other staff were all there to congratulate and celebrate with us. After that we hit the city for a night of celebration and dancing. My bosses stayed out later than I did! We had a few days before we had to be in site so we spent some time at Nueva Gorgona beach.

 

I didn’t think splitting from my training group would be this hard and it is going to be empty not seeing them everyday. I have really started to make stronger ties with my fellow volunteers in the last few weeks. My service and volunteer life is about to become real. While I have had challenges during training, I have lived in a fantasy of comfort, schedules, cold beverages and friends these past 9 weeks. My life is about to change dramatically when I walk into my jungle-hidden community with no electricity or gringos. But probably one of the most important things I have learned in training is that I am not alone. While I was applying for the PC, many asked what motivated me to be “dropped off in a third world community all alone”.  But I have felt an incredible amount of support from my fellow volunteers (new and experienced), my bosses, the security coordinator, my Spanish teachers, and other PC staff. Additionally, I look forward to building a bond with my community so I am not “alone” there and know I will be able to go to them for anything  I may need. I see my PC family developing and am so grateful to start embark on this opportunity.

 

Drumroll.....Santa Marta!!

I found out where I am going to serve for the next two years! At Peace Corps Headquarters we had a large ceremony and it was a very exciting day as our bosses announced where we would be serving.  After our site was announced we placed our picture on a large map of Panama.  I will be serving in the Comarca of Ngobe-bugle, a very large reserved area in Panama. Just some background information, there are 9 provinces in Panama, mostly resided by the Latino population, and 5 comarcas. Comarcas are reserved areas for the 7 indigenous groups that still live in panama. My community is called Santa Marta and it lies right on the border of the province of Bocas del Torro (I hear one of the best and beautiful provinces, also full of coffee and cocoa farms) and the comarca Ngobe-Bugle. This means that not only will I be speaking Spanish but will have a chance to learn the indigenous language of Ngobere. The people who live in these areas speak both. I will also not have electricity and while the majority of houses have running water, I will need to filter it.

 

After our site announcements we met our regional leaders. Regional leaders are usually split up by province and are there to support volunteers, give supplies, and can even come to your community to help with a project. Regional leaders usually live in the province capital so when we have regional meetings every 4 months, it is a good excuse to go to the city, splurge and relax.

 I found out my site with 3 weeks of training left, but one week of training is devoted to visiting your site. Volunteers from the communities agreed to be guides for the PC volunteers. The guides are supposed to show us around, introduce us to people, and answer questions. All guides came to PC Headquarters for a Community Entrance Conference. My guide was a little timid at first (normal for Panamanians but even more so for indigenous people) but within several minutes he gained my trust and was laughing. The conference was composed of seminars in security, the expectations of the guides, the expectations of the volunteers, and what I thought was most important, the volunteers did a skit with all the different roles a volunteer plays: co-facilitator, learner, teacher, change agent, and co-planner.

          

Since we needed to travel far to the west side of the country, we took two days of travel. After the conference we took a bus for 7 hours to the province of Chiriqui, arrived at 2 am and stayed in a hotel. The next day we took another bus for 2 hours. The drive there was absolutely gorgeous as the poor bus motor struggled to ascend into the mountains of rainforests. When my guide and I got off the bus his family was there to greet me and help me with my luggage.

We walked on a dirt road for about ten minutes and there was my beautiful community. I did not see the cement houses that I normally see but saw wooden houses on stilts. I did not see the houses surrounded by dogs barking, but saw tall grass, mango trees, and children. My host mother, soon to be my role model, greeted me with open arms and her three little boys immediately wanted to play soccer.

 

Walking through my community

 

My host mom is an amazing woman. Not only is she caring, compassionate, generous, and patient, she takes care of 3 boys on her own, has 2 farms she needs to maintain, has a store, teaches parenting seminars, and uses a machete like no other woman I’ve seen.

We had a community meeting in order to present myself and the Peace Corps. My community has had volunteers in the past but it has been 7 years and they served in different sectors. I made it clear that I was not here to give money, serve as a missionary, teach English, nor build latrines and aqueducts. My sector focuses on conservation projects such as reforestation, trash management, home gardens, and environmental education. They were all very excited, but overwhelmingly eager to start projects. Some seemed confused that I was only there for the week, and others wanted me to start projects the following day. I also had to explain that once I move there, I cannot immediately start projects. For the first three months the goal is to meet community members, talk to teachers, better my Spanish, and assess the community’s needs. After three months I will hold a meeting with the community to talk and vote about projects. Many seemed to calm down after this explanation but I am sure I will be repeating this 1000 times. Also during this meeting I received my Ngobe name. It is very common for volunteers (and community members as a matter of fact) to have a Latino name and Ngobe name. My name is “Meti”. I am named after a woman who died about 20 years ago. She was described to me as the caretaker of the community. She loved everyone and took care of the community members with botanical medicines. I am honored to be named after such an important woman.

On a social level, everyone in the community was very welcoming. The men were eager to hear about life in the United States and were making jokes about Obama. Older women joked that my biological clock was ticking and I needed to hurry and marry their sons. Younger women were quieter but very generous with foods, sweets, and coffee. Some children immediately ran to hug me while others cried because they had never seen white skin before.

My closest volunteer is only a 15 minute walk down the road. I visited him and his community. He gave me great advice about what to expect in an indigenous site, what to do if I find a scorpion in my clothes, and offered his house to me whenever I needed to cry or eat something else besides rice and boiled bananas. I feel comforted to know I have a support system so close.

I visited my host mother’s farm. She has primarily cocoa, but also a fruit called pifa (no me gusta), platanos, bananas, and guava. She told me how little she is paid for the cocoa seeds and the process of harvesting. I wish to fully explain this in a blog post when my Spanish is better (as I did not understand everything) and after I have visited more farms (most of the community earns their income from cocoa). I think it is important for followers to get a view from the farmers’ perspective in the cocoa industry.

 

Old cocoa shells used for compost

 

Cocoa farm in the middle of the jungle

 

I also spent a morning machete-ing tall grass with the men. This opened doors for conversation about gender roles. A few advised that I be careful because this is a man’s job and my body couldn’t handle it; others said the women could use help with the cooking. After all the talk about gender roles in training, I was able to finally apply what I learned. I explained that I am going to respect their culture, but in return I expect them to respect mine. Many women in the States do arduous labor and many men can cook. I am capable of doing all and want to learn all the roles of daily life. I also will be able to immerse successfully if I bond and work with both genders. In response to my feminist rant, I expected scoffs or further arguments. However, the men immediately apologized and asked if they had offended me. They seemed intrigued that men and women have different roles in different parts of the world. Even though this is not going to change what they have been doing for years, I felt successful in getting them to think about these things. Little by little!

My last day in my site I became very ill and actually had to leave to go to the clinic. Everything was fine. I warn my family that I am going to live in a province notorious for its water quality problems so “getting sick” is just part of my life now!

Tech Week

After 4 weeks of training, we have visited sites, have discussed and practiced topics from gardening, trash management, adult learning behaviors, cross cultural behaviors, how to approach and work with teachers, teaching in school, expectations of counterparts, national agencies and how to approach them formally for support, behavior changes, and how to hold community meetings. All of what we learned was applied during a week called tech week. All CEC trainees traveled to Valleriquito in the province of Las Tables. The current volunteer and many members of his community greeted us with open arms. My host mother for the week, Deda, is an amazing woman that I hope to have the chance to visit again. She lives by herself but her 2 sisters also live in Valleriquito (also amazing women) and her kids live close by. She maintains her own farm, makes incredibly beautiful artwork and crafts with gourds, embroiders her own sheets, and loves her community.

 

Dedas house

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The neighbors talked about how social she is and described how she is out spending time with friends and neighbors more than she is in her own house. Recently retired, she lives comfortably but is always treating her neighbors with recently harvested fruits and handmade gifts. She made amazing food and juice; I ate more vegetables during this week than my entire time in Panama. She was very sympathetic and compassionate. She asked me how I was feeling, how was I adapting to the culture, language, and life far away from my friends and family in the states. I actually stumbled over my Spanish in trying to answer, and after the conversation I realized why. No Panamanian has yet to ask me these questions. I realized that my host family in Santa Clara never ask how I am doing, nor ask about my family in the states. Others have asked about my personal life, but I don’t think they can relate to leaving their home for two years. Since living with Deda she has already called me several times to check up on me and chat.

During the week we discussed topics of gender empowerment and classroom management. However most of the week consisted of facilitating. We taught in the school garden as a group and also taught in the classrooms in pairs. The current volunteer held a community meeting and we presented the basics of organic composting, and even facilitated some hands on activities. After we presented the volunteer spoke with his community about the current trash problem and brainstormed ideas on what they could do to fix the problem. Seeing the community involved was very inspiring yet terrifying.

Inspiring: the community was very excited to participate. Almost 70 of 150 people showed up to the community meeting and many voiced their opinions. Everyone was excited to do the activities and helped others when there was confusion.

Frightening: there were moments when many people were speaking at once and getting off topic. Many stated things they wanted to fix but the volunteer had a hard time getting community members to focus on solutions, or even steps towards a solution. They wanted quick fixes or even for the volunteer to do things for them. The volunteer had to explain several times that this is not sustainable because who would manage it when he leaves?

Seeing this community meeting was a great part of tech week and we debriefed about what went well, what could have been changed, and strategies for when you hit a roadblock.



The community working together to make compost

 

During tech week we visited another community called Guanico Abajo, about an hour from Valleriquito. This community was right along the beach. We visited a marina that is currently working on protecting sea turtle eggs from poachers. We also spent the afternoon with the woman’s artisan group and they showed us how to make (or at least start) bags from candy wrappers, bracelets from magazines, and purses from plastic bags. To make each of these things can take several days and we only had 15 minutes at each station, but it was a good introduction. We also got some relaxation time at the beach that afternoon.

 

Our last night in Valleriquito, they community threw us a despedida (goodbye party). The community was so impressed with our work that they told our bosses the day before that they were going to throw us a fiesta. We had no idea and we arrived at the communal house surprised with parting gifts (a hand painted plate of Valleriquito), tamborrita music, dancing, and snacks. All of the trainees even had to say a little speech!

Overall tech week was a very beneficial session to my training. We had an abundant amount of opportunities to practice Spanish and practice facilitating. Halfway through training with 4 weeks to go!

We had an extra day to spear before we needed to return to our training communities so a group of us went to El Valle. El Valle is a popular tourist spot in the mountains. We took advantage of free wifi, cool breezes, relaxing, cooking for ourselves, hiking, animal refuges, and hot springs.

 

The Sleeping Indian. Can you see her?

 

 

               

 

 

 

Stay in School

Primary school is kindergarten to 6^th grade. High school is split up into two sections: years 1-3 and years 4-6. In years 4-6 the students are required to pick a specialty. I have met students who are focusing in everything from mechanics to accounting. All the schools in Panama are painted blue and white so you can easily find them. In many schools there are not enough students nor teachers to allow for a full classroom with one grade. Therefore multi-grade classrooms are popular. For example a teacher will have 1^st and 5^th graders in their class and will lecture to one grade while the other grade is doing an activity. The other week in training I taught in a class that had 3 grades!

Critical thinking is not a popular teaching technique. Teachers emphasize on repetition and having the students copy material from the board. MEDUCA, Panama’s department of education, recently enforced that teachers no longer teach this way. However this change is leaving teachers frustrated because MEDUCA is not providing guidance with interactive teaching methods and teachers are not trained to teach any other way! On a brighter note, teachers have been very welcoming to Peace Corps volunteers in the recent months because volunteers have helped teachers in using different styles and also incorporating environmental education in the curriculum. MEDUCA provides school supplies to poorer families. Children receives books, backpacks, uniforms, and notebooks. MEDUCA also supplies the cafeteria with food and will also work with the department of health in providing vitamins and medicine.

In regards to teachers, they have a challenging ladder to climb. After a new teacher graduates they need to earn points to earn a “say” in where they would like a permanent job. A new teacher earns points by teaching in a community for a year, usually far from home and chosen by MEDUCA. The following years they will work in different communities until they have enough points to apply for a place closer to home or where they want to live. Sometimes teachers will travel 3 hours a day before and after class, and in many cases I have seen teachers living in their teaching communities for the week but then will visit home/family on the weekends. Since many teachers do not live in the communities where they teach, they do not know their students on a personal level, will leave as early as possible on Friday and come as late as possible on Monday, or go home immediately after school. In what I have seen and heard from other volunteers, teachers are not the most prepared and this scenario also limits the possibilities for tutoring or after school activities. To make matters worse, if a teacher is sick or has meeting they simply won’t show up and there are no substitutes. In this case students will go home for the day, and some students have traveled an hour to get to school. This system is also hard on the community because students and parents are adapting to new teachers all the time, this is especially true in indigenous communities that are isolated and many educated teachers do not want to permanently work.

In experiencing a school system different from the United States, I am grateful to have received the education I did but will now pause to criticize it. I always had things to complain about when I was in school but now I have been exposed and realize the importance of education in a developing nation.