We killed a goat, so I got a table.

I'm pretty sure that I mentioned before in this blog that we East Side PCVs get together and kill things.

This time it was a goat. . .again. (It was DELICIOUS!)

Two of the East Siders had family from the States coming out to their sites around the same time, so because I am in the travel hub, somehow it came to be that my house hosted a goat roast. As in we killed and roasted a goat outside of my house. (And by 'we' what I really mean is Mateo, Laura, Danielle and Rachel because I did nothing, I just live in said house.)

Really I just wanted to mention this event in order to provide context for an anecdote of how things work in Panama. We roasted a goat at my house. As goat is being chopped and prepared, the construction workers that are building a hotel behind my house (yea, that's a thing) decide that on this day, I really need a table outside my house to wash my dishes (which I do). The conversation went like this (directly translated):

Owner of hotel/store across the street: "You need a table outside your window."

Aja: "Yea, I would like that, but where am I going to get the wood from?"

O: "We have wood over here."

A: Ok, cool.

Translated into more direct language, the conversation looks like this:

O: "You want me to build you a table?"

A: "I don't have any wood. Are you gonna give me wood, too?"

O: "Yea."

A: "It's a deal, then."

So then a couple of the construction workers hop across the fence and hammer the thing just under my window. Another indirect conversation takes place.

Worker: "I hammered a nail into your wall. It needs to be hammered from the inside."

Aja: "Oh, ok, go ahead then."

W: "But my feet are dirty."

A: "It's okay, I'll clean it up later."

--Really it was like--

W: "I'm gonna walk all up on your lineoleum floor with my muddy feet cuz I gotta hammer those nails in, just to let you know."

A: "Alright, thanks for letting me know. Hammer away."

And thus the table is given unto me, and henceforth it has been written that I will give them goat at some point. That's fine. All the leftovers are clearly staying at my house, and we had a lot of goat, so if all I have to do is give some leftovers and I get a free table, that is what's up. Ahh, Panama and your social traps. Old clueless Aja would not have realized what was going on. Looka me and my social skills!!!!

I got rid of all extra goat this morning when I heated it up and sent it across the fence in a pot along with some plastic plates, napkins and barbecue sauce. In a matter of minutes, goat was gobbled up and pot and sauce were returned unto me.

Pana-people, y'all are a trip sometimes!!! Gotta love it. AND gotta love this table that just happened to my house.

AIDS on your radio/HIV+

I told you all I would keep you posted whenever some project idea came to fruition, so here it is.

I was on the radio again. This time I wasn't singing Katy Perry.

International AIDS awareness day was on December 1st, and in order to celebrate, one of my fellow volunteers (shout out to Danielle!) decided that we should do something in Meteti to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS.

DONE. We decided to have a radio show to educate about HIV and AIDS. We all know I love radio. (I live across the street from the station, remember?) A third volunteer decided to help us (thanks Kerri!), and then I realized. . .we're discussing a sexual health topic with all female voices on the air. We need some testosterone up in this!

Luck was on my side, as there happened to be a lot of Peace Corps Volunteers floating around my site during this time. (I live in the travel hub for Darien and the Comarcas Emberá-Woounán, remember?) I asked a couple of the guys if they would help out, and we ended up drafting two volunteers (Nate and David, whaddup) and a staff member who was in the area who works in the Peace Corps office (Ben is awesome!). Vóila! Just like that, we have two genders evenly represented (in the binary sense, at least ;) ).

So the show happened. We scheduled and hour long show beginning at 7pm, when a lot of those campesinos who don't have TVs are listening to their radios. During this time of night, the radio normally encourages people to text the radio station and send shout-outs to their friends and family. We decided to use that for the AIDS show, and we asked the radio station if we could borrow the phone for our program and instead of shout-outs, have people text in their questions about HIV/AIDS. Two of us in the program were on phone duty, taking listeners' questions and reading them on the air so that the others could take turns answering. People in Darien began not only to text, but to CALL the radio station's phone with their questions (that means they SPENT MONEY on a phone call to ask a sensitive question)!

THE SHOW WAS SUCH A SUCCESS! We covered what the HIV/AIDS virus IS, how it is and isn't transmitted, and how you can protect yourself from the virus. In the beginning, Danielle and I were a little worried about how a sensitive topic would be recieved coming from what is technically a Catholic radio station--this was Peace Corp Panama's first venture onto the radio--but the response has been overwhelmingly positive, so far! People have been commenting to Peace Corps Volunteers about how much they learned. One older man even called into the radio to thank us for providing answers to some questions he had been having for years. The benefit of our arrangement on the radio is that people were able to anonymously ask questions that they may be too embarrassed to ask otherwise, and recieve answers.

The icing on the cake is that I HAVE A RECORDING OF THE RADIO SHOW. Ben, the Peace Corps staff member who accompanied us on the radio, suggested that I ask for a recording of the show. (I wouldn't even have thought to ask if the radio did that!) Thanks to him, I now have had the opportunity to listen back to the program and share the file that is our radio program. Listening back, the show sounded a lot more put together than it felt in the moment. On the air, you can't hear all of the silly faces and panicked gestures we were making to one another during the show!

AAAANYYYWAYYY. Welp, that was a success. I won't tell you about the charla the next day that nobody showed up to, but just know that even that wasn't a complete waste of time. . .I came into possession of quite a few Snickers bars among other things, AND got to make an AWESOME contact at the Ministry of Health. (Did you know my province has an HIV COORDINATOR who works with HIV positive patients? He's been HIV positive for almost two decades, so for the first time in my life, I know someone who is HIV positive.)

Welp, PC success stories. Those don't come at ya everyday, so it's always nice to feel like to actually got something done at the end of the day.

The holiday season is upon us, and I walking around in a skirt and a short sleeved polo! #teamnojacket
Christmas in Panama will be great. All my fam in the States, take pictures and send them to me! I want to see all of your lovely faces. I love you all, and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year's to you, if I don't blog again before then!

Mwaaaaahhh!

P.S. Cartucho says hi.

Vacation (All I Ever Waaaaanteeeeed)

I have seen the other side of the canal, and it was good. Before I get into that, boring stuff:

I turned in my Personal Narratives for Foreign Service (yaaay!). Given my less than impressive score for my first crack at the written exam, I highly doubt I'll be invited to orals, but one can only dream! I find out mid- to late January.

Until then: WORK! I've been trying to stay in contact with the US Embassy, because they have a lot of things that I want (books. . .drool. . .) so hopefully the contacts I've made there could be a help for the projects I'm trying to line up for my Peace Corps service. I'll blog about what I'm up to as these ideas come to fruition (or fail miserably). I'm also struggling to make sure I get my ducks in a row with the Ministry of Education so I can be set up to do plenty of seminars for this coming school year. AAAAND I'm doing a little somethin-somethin next week in my site for World AIDS Day. I'll let y'all know how that turns out.

Okay, fun stuff.

I just finished having an AWESOME VACATION out of my site. On the one hand, I am in Peace Corps, so I do things like sweat on a daily basis and poop in a hole in the ground, but on the other hand. . .I'm Peace Corps PANAMA. I can do things like spend Thanksgiving in the mountains on the other side of the country and then chill for a few days on the beach. . .all on a Peace Corps budget (which ain't much, y'all).

Being a Peace Corps Volunteer is a 24/7 job. Although that doesn't mean I'm LITERALLY working EVERY WAKING MOMENT, it does mean that I'm on the job every second I am in site. There is always some work that I could be doing, whether it be going to school, visiting organizations, or just being involved in the community at large. For that reason, you can never REALLY let loose when you're at home. . .I always have that nagging voice in the back of my mind that tells me I should be out saving the world, beginning with the streets of Meteti.

Taking vacation was completely different. I went shopping in the city and even met up and had drinks with an Embassy contact (on my way to Thanksgiving), and then crashed a couple of nights with one of my G72ers that I had not seen in months (we live on opposite sides of the country and he has a beach site). After that, Thanksgiving happened. I was so excited to see my group members that I never get to see (there aren't a lot of them out where I'm at), so needless to say, hugs happened. After Thanksgiving, I rounded out my West Side tour with a couple of days at a nice, affordable beach resort to celebrate the birthday of one of my East Siders. By the time I headed back to Darien I was SO RELAXED. If you know me, you know relaxation isn't a thing that I normally prioritize, but CLEARLY it needs to move up my list of things to do. Let me tell ya, taking a few days to unwind and take in the beauty of your new home can do wonders for your sanity. I was almost reluctant to come home to Darien, but once I hit the bus terminal, I was glad to be coming back.

Side note: East Siders are awesome, because our region intimidated everyone during the Thanksgiving volleyball tournament. We lost the championship game. :( But we made a tough showing and had a BLAST, and all the other regions were super impressed!

Now I'm back in the land of emails, trying to get back on track for work!!! I'm ready to get some things done in the Dirty D, and hopefully be able to collaborate with others on some projects. I'm ready to pull some people out here to the East Side!

Anyway, in other news I ate myself into a food coma yesterday. I got my hands on some culantro and lemon, so I made a bowl of pico de gallo and ate it with patacones (fried plantains). It was so good. I napped for a solid hour after that.

My kitty is getting fatter! Did I tell you guys I recently found out that she is, in fact, a female? Whatever, I'm a cat lady now, so she's happy hanging out at my house.

Ok guys, that's about it for now. If exciting things happen, I'll try to remember to write it down and report on it. Much love to everybody out there in the Carolinas!!!