Schmoozefest 2014 and other shenanigans

I haven’t blogged in awhile. Why is that? Welp, when you’ve spent a year and a half living in the same place, those things that seemed crazy to you before suddenly become cotidiano (everyday). That’s not a bad thing, though! My life is certainly not mundane, and at the same time, if I update you every two weeks to let you know that everything’s still good, you’re not going to read that.

Cotidiano =/=Mundane. We killed another goat at my house, but I’m not gonna blog about that, for example.

Here's a really long update on things that happened recently that didn’t seem cotidiano:

State Department Visit

I have continued serving as a teaching assistant for the ‘English for All’ English class for high school students funded by the US Embassy and hosted at the private university (ISAE) just down from the road from me. Since the university has an Embassy-funded project (the English class), we make an effort to connect with the State Department when they make visits to the Darien (which tends to be every few months).

We traveled to Yaviza (the end of the Interamerican Highway, just before the infamous Darien Gap, but again. . .now cotidiano for a PCV in the Dirty D!). Once we arrived there, the State Dept personnel flew in on helicopters and attended a short event hosted by APRODISO, a community development organization in Darien. As an aspiring FSO with a touch of diplomacy nerd, I was super excited to be there to watch the small presentation and ceremony to welcome the diplomats to Yaviza. There’s not much I get excited about more than seeing people come together for a common goal, and I kind of internally flipped out during the APRODISO director’s calm yet passionate speech about the unique struggles faced by the people of Darien and the youth of Yaviza. Leaders like him, that are from the community in question, who have a vision of how to empower that community and who make the sacrifices to do it—these are the people that inspire me and they are the reason that I aspire to a career in public service. It was one of those days that kind of brought me back to square one and remind me why I do what I do.

As an added bonus, when I stood up during the beginning of the ceremony and introduced myself as Peace Corps, the State Department personnel kind of got that look like ‘oh, there is another gringo among us,’ haha. To reiterate what I’ve mentioned before, Yaviza is a place with a majority Afro-Antillean (i.e.: Black) population, so I blend in when I’m there, especially. I’m sure that before I introduced myself, the State Department thought I was a local.

The people from the State Department personnel that came to visit worked in the Narcotics Affairs Division. (It therefore makes sense that they would visit the Darien Gap region.) One diplomat was a former ambassador who is currently the global head of the division, and the other was the head of the Western Hemisphere’s affairs for this divison—what bad-ass job titles! (Please allow me some naivete regarding the danger and otherwise obvious lack of glamor associated drug-trafficking issues. Also, please excuse my French. I get excited sometimes and I couldn’t find an equally effective synonym to express the awesomeness of that job title.)

I got to shake hands, make small talk, and take a few pictures with the State Department personnel afterwards, and one of them gave me his card. After consulting my former roommate Danielle about the appropriateness of sending a friendly email, I sent this diplomat a short email to say thanks for his visit to the Darien and to express that, as an aspiring Foreign Service Officer myself, I was really excited to be able to attend the event and to meet him. The best part is—he emailed me back! I WAS SO EXCITED. Since I want to be a diplomat, talking to a diplomat is kind of like what most people experience when they meet an A-list celeb.

The diplomat was SUPER NICE and offered to mentor me through the FSO application process. Diplomats are the awesome-est people. For real.

Schmoozefest 2014

I was thankfully given the opportunity to attend a reception at the Ambassador’s house, or, as I like to call it, Schmoozefest 2014.

The Country Directors (i.e.: all the big bosses) of Peace Corps countries in the Americas, Carribean and the Pacific all held their conference in Panama this year. For this reason, the Ambassador was asked to host an event the Peace Corps staff. The Ambassador in all his awesomeness SPECIFICALLY ASKED: “Can we invite some Peace Corps Volunteers?” This is why Johnathan Farrar is awesome. Or, you know, as I like to call him, J-Money. (Cuz you know we’re tight like that.)*

Volunteers were each invited to bring one counterpart, so I took my co-teacher Veronica, who teaches 9^th grade English at my school. We were both SO EXCITED to go to the Ambassador’s house, and once we got there, we were attached at the hip trying to talk to people as much as possible. I introduced her to Peace Corps staff and she introduced me to some facilitator’s that she had met. Under pressure from Veronica, I even took a picture with her and Juan Carlos Varela, the president of Panama (and a Georgia Tech alum, go ACC)! It was a dream, we both decided. Highlights included:

• Meeting PC staff from DC who had recently lived in Afghanistan for three years heading up USAID’s mission there.
• Eating DELICIOUS snacks that were constantly circulated while we roamed participating in different conversations happening around the room. (The coconut chicken and lemon cheesecake squares were my favorite!)
•  Nonstop wine that kept appearing in my glass. The closer you stand to the open bar, the easier for the attendant to keep an eye on the contents of your glass and never let it go empty.    

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·       Not to harp on the material things, though. Yes, the Ambassador’s house was really nice and the snacks and wine were great, but what really excited me was MEETING PEOPLE! These are people that all work in a line of work similar to what I’d like to do with my life! They were not only awesome people with cool stories, but they were down-to-earth, patient, and genuinely interested to hear about my aspirations to study policy analysis and work for the State Department. It was a dream to be there! My counterpart and I had a blast, and I told her it was a little snapshot into my future life. I’m talkin’ about it, so I plan to be about it!

Also, I just wanted to mention that the global director of Peace Corps was there (aka, my boss’s boss’s boss) and she was TOTALLY warm and friendly and approachable and I was blown away. Peace Corps is kind of amazing sometimes.

Ovaltine

We killed another goat** at my house. I named her Ovaltine. I told people that was because if later, when we eat her, if you’re hungry and you want seconds, you can just say “more Ovaltine, please!”

Ovaltine and I begun our relationship under awkward circumstances. While on the porch of my regional leader’s house, I called Ovaltine’s owner to ask if he would be delivering the goat to my house that day. He informed me that he had, in fact, already delivered her and that she was tied to one of the posts on my house. I said ‘Great, thanks!’ and hung up the phone.

A little later, as it got dark outside, I left the regional leader house and walked down the road back to my own house. Now, once you leave the road and walk back toward my house, it’s a little dark at night, but I know where I’m going and I’ve made that walk a million times, so it’s no big deal.

This time was different, though. As I neared my house, I had an epiphany. Somewhere in the darkness there may or may not be a farm animal. Did he say he tied up the goat in the front or the back? Didn’t mention. Damn. What do I do? I have a little bit of an irrational fear of farm animals. I haven’t spent much time around them, so I don’t know what they’re going to do! Dogs? Fine. Cats? Fine. Squirrels, birds, bugs? I got that. Goats? No way.

The neighbors were all in for the night. Nobody around to help me through this. I can see the shadow of a large-ish animal moving in the distance. I don’t dare go any closer. I do the only thing I know how to do.

I call Amber.

“Amber. There is a goat. I’m afraid. It’s in front of my door so I can’t go in my house.”

“Aja. THAT GOAT IS NOT GOING TO HURT YOU. You can do it. GO TO THE DOOR. NOW.”

“Noooooo, I think I can see it looking at me. Why is it looking at me? My neighbors aren’t here. Maybe I’ll call Kramer (the regional leader) so he can walk me to the door. You think he’ll do that?”

“Aja, you DO NOT NEED TO CALL KRAMER. Just WALK TO THE DOOR. The goat is HARMLESS. It’s AFRAID OF YOU.”

Yea, this conversation goes on for awhile.

Then, Gracias a Dios (Thank God) my landlord’s seven-year-old daughter appears out of nowhere. She likes to come into my house and watch me do mundane tasks like eat cereal or brush my teeth. I talk to her:

“Hey, Nobelis. I need to get into my house, but there’s a goat in front of my door and I’m afraid of it. Are you afraid of the goat.”

“No. (In that ‘duh’/’wtf’ tone of voice.)”

“Well, can you walk me to the door”

“Ok.”

As I approach the door and look for my key to open the lock:

Nobelis: “Ok, is that it?”

“No. You have to stay here until I open the door and turn the light on so that it’s not so scary.”

By this point Nobelis’s dad and granddad had appeared on the porch wondering what was going on. I pointed out the goat to them and explained that I was afraid of it. They thought that was hilarious.

Even at the time, I thought this situation was kind of funny. It’s just another example of silly situations in which I would never have found myself were it not for Peace Corps.

Dirty D and the Samboozers

The day after the goat roast, a lot of volunteers were still hangin out on my porch. Being the hippie Peace Corps Volunteers that we are, we had a couple of guitars, and a harmonica in our midst in addition to my flute, so we started jammin. As we messed around on our instruments, one of our more comedically-gifted colleagues began to write some HILARIOUS lyrics about a couple of our Peace Corps friends in the Darien. We arranged and rehearsed the song for about an hour and a half before finally presenting it to our regional leader and recording it on an iPhone. When that recording makes it to the internet, I’ll be sure to post it on the blog! We had a great time being silly. We named ourselves “Dirty D and the Samboozers.”

Rainy Day Radio Show

Finally, my radio co-host Danny Vetter and I recently did another radio show! The theme of this one was Rainy Day songs (all Danny’s idea, he’s full of good ones!). We thought this was appropriate for rainy season. The show talks about the different meanings behind the theme of rain in American pop music, and we play some jams for the people of Darien. I’ll post a link to the show below if you’d like to listen. Obviously Danny and I speak Spanish on the show, but if you’d like to listen to the music we chose to play, that needs no translation!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B18OtlFGxYuMdmo3a3JVczJnY3c/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks for reading my blog! Hugs and kisses to all of my family and friends in the States. I miss you all dearly, and yet it does not seem possible that I only have seven short months left here in beautiful Panama. I’ll be hugging you all before you know it!

--Aja

*That’s a lie and we’re not tight at all, I just like to tell people that. He knows my face, though! (That’s something, right?)

**I learned recently that what we had been calling a goat this whole time is actually a short-haired sheep. Tail facing up = goat. Tail down = sheep. Go figure. We continue to all it a goat, anyway. It looks like a goat, alright? Either way, when it’s boiled, shredded and between two pieces of break it looks like my lunch, so that’s what I call it. Lunch.

What I've read, recently:

Shantaram--Gregory David Roberts
Lord of the Flies--William Golding
The Bottom Billion--Paul Collier