Enjoy these pictures.
Life keeps moving on. I’m starting to feel more accepted by my community, with friendships, conversations, and plenty of jokes. I get lots of laughter. I like to think my community members think I’m funny. The other side of this is that I’m starting to get some male suitors. My host dad thinks it’s great. I’ve transitioned into this more traditional society where I think my host dad is selling me off for a cow or something. I take advantage of it though. I told one of my friends I should have a pageant/contest, which he named “nacionalizarse la gringita.”
As far as work goes, I’m still looking into my options. This is what I have
-Environmental Education in the school. I’ve done a little of this, but I could potentially transition into a role where I teach like one class a week about the environment in my school. I already have started a school garden, too. I want to make it better, get kids learning how to grow organic.
-Environmental group. My environmental group is a little unactive right now, so some injection of energy and reorganization is needed. I think I could use this group towards their current project of tree planting, some trash management, and some environmental education charlas. The environmental group is also part of a network and we have a huge plot in a nearby community that we’re using as a demonstrative organic agriculture plot.
-Trash management. We do actually have a trash truck in my community, pretty rare for Panama. But, what I’d like to bring in is some degree of recycling and composting.
-Youth group. I’d like to start up a youth group, hopefully environmentally oriented. Youth don’t really have much stuff to do around here.
-Teach English. Yeah, not in my job description, but I might cave and teach an English class one of these days. People keep asking.
-Ecotourism promotion. No real tourists arrive to this area, but a new road will be passing through the area in the near future, and a housing development is being built nearby. There’s also a group of people that have already taken a class for promoting tourism, and want to start up some potential tours and hikes.
-Organic Fair Trade Artisanal Sugar Promotion. This is my BHAG (big hairy ambitious goal). The economic basis of my community is making a hard brown sugar cake called panela. So, sugar cane lines my streets, most men have mills to mill the sugar cane and boil it into sugar. And not bags of white industrial sugar, but real pure brown sugar, like people have made it for hundreds of years. Plus, growing sugar cane is organic. They just plant it and let it go. And all the waste is organic and used for fertilizer or firewood. My community has an association. They want to get health certified, they want to get organic certified. They want things to be better. My dream is to get some tourism, and some exportation into better markets for these guys, so they can make some money. I’m not sure how I’m gonna do it. If anyone wants to help me with this, let me know.
