They have a little saying here in Peace Corps Panama about “Poco a Poco.” It translates to little by little. They often use it to refer to the slow pace of change. If you thought you were going to show up in your community and on day two be changing the world…think again. Fast paced DC life is behind, people take a laid back approach to things, and change is always slow. Think about your work as poco a poco. In some ways this is true. Now well into my second year of service, I have much more direction and work than my first year. It take a while to really know your town and for things to start happening. That’s why a Peace Corps volunteer needs 2 years.
But, after today I have a new definition for poco a poco. I’m gonna say it also means take things a little at a time, as far as amount of work. After months of showing up at school and working and nothing happening, I came upon two great ideas. First, my recycling collection is going slow, even after 3 months not many people have brought stuff in and the end of the year is upon us. Why don’t we declare a competition of the classrooms with a prize for which class brings the most? Second, why don’t we introduce Panamanians to school photos? You know, class shot, individual shot, sell them? Both these started this week, with me serving as recycling coordinator and counter, photographer (actually, basically just call me Jostens, I’m in charge of the whole thing down to printing). The principal of my school talked about the ingenious idea of taking class pictures to sell, said probably soon every school would be doing it, but that our school was the first. Just, I wish I’d only had one ingenious idea at a time.
So, this morning as I was trying to count beer cans, take pictures, and keep orders, I realized I had too much. Trying to organize first graders to take pictures while another kid throws a quarter at me saying “my mom wants to buy that picture of me” and another kid comes up with “how many points does third grade have, did you see the entire wheelbarrow of cans I brought?” I started to go crazy. It was like waiting tables at a full restaurant again. I’m sure the kids could see it. But, ultimately, enthusiasm is contagious. And getting kids excited about bringing all those beer bottles their dad has sitting around behind the house, and getting a class photo (where probably 90% of families don’t own cameras). I felt I was doing something good. Especially after a year and a half of poco a poco.
