Move-in
Breakfast Thursday morning consisted of coffee and French toast. To some, that may sound pretty ordinary but to me, it was a milestone in my service. For the first time in more than 8 months, I made myself breakfast. Even more important, I cooked in my own kitchen, in my own house. A couple of significant changes: first and foremost, I cook. What I want, how much I want and when I want. While I still eat rice and beans occasionally, they don’t taste horrible and I smother them with soy sauce (salsa chino) or add other flavor. Although I loved my host family, Federico is my closet friend and who I can always count on, the food situation was making life difficult. Being able to cook things like spaghetti, toast with butter, pancakes, oatmeal, has been incredible. Also adding hot sauce, pepper, and other spices has made food enjoyable again.
A second perk is having personal space. If I don’t feel like talking to anyone, I can close my door. Not only is it personal, but no crying babies or loud and obnoxious music playing. Ahh privacy.
In other news…
The AgBiz seminar was a huge success. I had a great time as well as those who participated. The other day Humberto, who attended the seminar, ran up and told me to follow. He showed me his very own “agronegiocio” or “agrobusiness”. Selling local produce, such as dachihin, platanos, shrimp and soda. He made about $40.00 in the past three weeks which is a big deal for people who live in my community. He said that because of the seminar he realized that there was a market for these things inside the community. Everyone wants to sell things in the USA or Europe but fail to realize that much of what they sell is locally consumed. If I fail to accomplish anything else during my service, I wont be upset, because of Humberto’s success. He hopes to grow and sell different products.
Another result of the seminar is that the guys are using accounting vocabulary when they talk about the cooperative. Words like “earnings” “accounts receivable” “investment” and “savings” are being thrown around. When I overhear them talking to each other in their indigenous language and they throw a “ganancias” o “ingresso” in there they turn to me with a huge grin and begin to laugh. That’s progress. You gotta start somewhere, and to me that has meant introducing this type of vocabulary and explaining these concepts. Another thing that I have spent a lot of time on has been explaining the responsibilities of various positions in the cooperative. What is a secretary supposed to do? Why is it important for the Treasurer to be able to add, subtract, multiply and divide?
We are also consolidating the books. In a handful of little notebooks they have written all the financial information down during the past three years. One page has a couple of the members, another has some payments, and in a different notebook are dues from this year. Without MS Excel. As we go through these numbers, about a third of the members of the cooperative are actually active and paying dues. Some even show up to meetings. Before we register for a bank account we need to show IPACOOP (Instituto Panameño Autónomo Cooperativo, the agency in which governs Panamanian cooperatives and who I spend a lot of time working with) our official records.
The Azuero
The Azuero is the peninsula which sticks out on the southern (Pacific) coast, west of Panama City. It is the traditional heartland for latino culture, folklore, and festivals. Due to years of deforestation for lumber and cow pasture there are no trees and it is very dry. However, the people are extremely friendly and the women are beautiful. There are a few volunteers working there and I paid them a visit during the final days of the fair. This included live music, international artisan work, a lot of cows and agricultural venders, great food and small roller coasters. The volunteers who live here have an experience completely different than my own. For instance, a volunteer lives in a block house, with multiple rooms, electricity, running water, friends who are fluent in English and own cars. Wireless internet is on the way.
I am back in David and was in Boquete this morning to talk to the people who buy coffee from my community. Café Ruiz is a fairly well-known and established producer wide range or coffee here in Panama. Walking unannounced into the office, I was greeted by the operations manager and talked for a couple hours. He is familiar with the cooperative in my community as well as some of the issues facing our coffee production. Due to the fact that we are on the coast and low altitude (even up in the hills) we can not produce high quality coffee. Therefore, there is only so much they can buy it from. However, increasing simple post-harvest production processes, including drying racks, will improve the quality and price of our coffee. I was given a design for one such rack as well as interest in helping fund the project. What will make the biggest difference, he told me, was an organic certification. Farmers in my community understand the importance of organic agriculture and cant afford fertilizer or pesticides anyway. Therefore, this certification would benefit the community.
While here in David I stopped by the Do it Center (Panamanian equivalent of Home Depot) and got an air mattress, a set of sheets and a pillow. At the fair, I got a new hat! Back in-site it is now the summer. In my province that means it still rains every other day but it is HOT. I am constantly sweating and bathe two to three times a day. There is a stream a stones-throw from my hut and it is covered in the shade of trees. It also has a spring, where I collect my water for the kitchen. It is here, where I sit in the water under the shade to cool down.
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