#presidentkennedy

Hello Readers!

I feel like I haven’t given a good update in awhile. That’s because life’s been picking up here a bit, recently. I’ve been—dare I say it?—busy with. . .work. If you’re in the States that sounds like a negative thing, but if you’re a Peace Corps Volunteer FROM the States and you have a Type A bone somewhere in your body, then that sounds like good news to you. (Read: I’m happy to be busy!)

After a year, I feel that my role in the school is a little better defined, and I feel like I know enough about my school/town/province in order to be able to effectively plan activities and know what is and is not going to work in term of getting projects done.

I’ve also picked up another leadership role as the president for this year’s GAD (Gender and Development) Board for Peace Corps Panama. I’m super excited about this, because it means that part of my JOB is organizing a group of people who are passionate about issues like women’s health and youth development, and who are excited about doing projects related to those themes and realizing those projects ALL OVER PANAMA! Woo-whoo (Ask not what your GAD Board can do for you. . . .#presidentkennedy)

Right now the board is gearing up for our Retreat in Boquete in August, where we’ll be revising all of the manuals that we use to give seminars and facilitate camps. We’re also planning to support a Gay Pride parade later this month in Panama City AND we’re starting to put together choreography for a FlashMob dance for World AIDS Day in December. I’m not a dancer, but we all know I love to dance, so I’ll be participating this year!

GAD is part of the reason that I’ve been busier recently, and I feel good about it. I’ve enjoyed my Peace Corps service so far, and it has definitely taught me a lot about myself, one of the lessons being: I need structure.

Let’s be honest: I’ve never considered myself an overly-creative person, just a creative problem-solver. Also, I’m not one of those people who likes to fly by the seat of their pants, have twenty different things going on at once, or who likes to wake up not knowing what’s going to happen today. I like to make plans. I like to keep and agenda and make to-do lists. Peace Corps, though, has forced me to let go of some of those things and be a little less Type-A and a little more go-with-the-flow. You can’t plan THAT far in advance. . .Panama doesn’t want you to. And Panama will fight back.

Now that I have a little bit of structure in my life in the form of GAD Board, I’m ready to bring the old Aja back out of the closet! Who’s got a calendar handy? No need, I’m on it! Emails, emails, emails! –It might sound crazy, but I’m excited to WORK!

In other news, I’m still waiting on my Dad to get his passport and come to Panama ::cough, cough:: AND I’ve  decided that I aspire to be a diplomat in the Economic sector of the Foreign Service (rather than the Management track to which I had previously aspired). This will mean nothing to most of you, but it’s exciting for me! I’ll be affecting international economic policy in your friendly neighborhood Embassy one of these days. ;) For now, though, the graduate school essays are in the works, and we will be hoping to be spending the summer in Charlotte gearing up for graduate school next year this time!

Love and hugs and kisses to my family and friends in the States!

Aja

Radio Shows

Here are some links to download and listen to the radio shows I've done in Darien!

These shows are obviously in Spanish, so. . .if you don't speak Spanish this might be a little boring.

AIDS on Your Radio (HIV/AIDS Awareness): Dec. 11, 2013
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B18OtlFGxYuMbEQtR2s2RHl1M1E/edit?usp=sharing

African American Music in the US (Motown R&B): May 29, 2014
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B18OtlFGxYuMZ0F4UlR0QnNoN0E/edit?usp=sharing

Copy and paste the URL to your browser to get to the .mp3 files of the show from Google Docs. Shout outs to the PCVs, PCRV, Peace Corps Office Staff, and Voz sin Fronteras radio station for helping to make these programs happen!

There will be more in the future! Look out for some more public health/music related radio shows!

Aja

All of the Things (a.k.a.: The busiest two weeks ever)

Things that have happened in the past couple of weeks:

-My teachers went on strike

-Shelby came from the States to visit me!

-Going away parties for my friends that got kicked out of the Comarca

-My one year visit with the Peace Corps Office

-My fellow East Siders and I ran a Frisbee Tournament for about 80 kids

Things that are happening today/tomorrow:

-A goat being killed at my house (this makes the third in the span of a year)

-A radio show about Motown R&B

-Regional Meeting in La Palma

It’s been a crazy busy two weeks, and I’m looking forward to some hammock time in the future once things settle back down!

There have been so many things happening in the past couple of weeks, I barely know how to process it all and report back to you blog-readers.

Mostly I just want to give a shout-out to SHELBY LAKE for making the trip all the way to Darien province to visit me and wish him the best of luck when he moves to Japan, soon!

Now the gauntlet has been thrown, so my Dad better make his way out here to visit. (Has his passport come in the mail yet?!)

Having visitors is so exciting. They give you an excuse to do touristy things. (For example, I saw the Miraflores Locks at the Canal for the first time last week—even though I’ve been in this country for a year and the Peace Corps Office is within walking distance.) Having visitors is also a little mind-blowing because the challenge is to see how much of your life you can fit into their visit. It’s taken me over a year to get to know Darien (and Panama as a whole) as much as I do at this point, and I want my visitors to get as much of that understanding as they can while they’re here. But alas, the laws of the universe force me to operate within the constraints of time, space, language barrier, my work schedule, etc.

Having a few family and friends from home read my blog on occasion is great. It’s awesome! I get to share cool things about a country that I’ve come to consider my second home (or third? How many homes does one person have?). At the same time, there’s something about having your family and friends see things here in Darien in real time that makes them understand a little more about what my life is actually like. It makes them care a little more about learning the geography and the culture of Eastern Panama. (Because otherwise, phrases like ‘My Darien bus took the Corredor AND skipped Santa Fe today!’  or ‘Chenchito’s has BROCCOLI!’ mean nothing to you.)

So for this, hats off to Ebony and Shelby for having cared enough to save their pennies and sit for hours in planes, cars and buses in order to learn a little bit about my life here in Peace Corps!

To all of you in the States, don’t think I have forgotten about you! I know it’s a lot easier to skip the country and sleep on someone else’s floor under a mosquito net when you’re young and have no responsibilities to kids or ‘grown-up’ jobs. You guys definitely do a lot to hold me down by reading my blog and talking to me on the Skypes! I love you all!

Finally, I want to give one last side eye to my father, Mr. Anthony Ray Kennedy, to HURRY UP ON THAT PLANE TICKET! My neighbor keeps asking me when my dad is coming to visit, and we’re getting antsy over here. When is that passport coming?! Panama is excited to welcome the biological organism that provided 50% of my genetic material and is therefore responsible for my existence as the world knows me today.

Alright, that’s the end of my rambling. I don’t have time to be typing this right now; I only have 11 months left in Panama! My clock is ticking!

See you guys later.

The Yellow Jackets are in Power

I just thought I should at least MENTION the fact that Panama elected a new president. His name is Juan Carlos Varela. Fun fact: He’s an alumnus of Georgia Tech, how ‘bout that? Woo-hoo, ACC wins again, right?

The Panamanian presidential race was expected to be tight, with the three major competitors consisting of a candidate from the party currently controlling the presidency and two opposition party candidates that were making a strong showing in the polls leading up to the elections on May 4^th.

Varela, the immediate past Panamanian vice-president who broke with the governing party in order to field his own candidacy for the presidency, ended up winning the election.

But really I didn’t want to talk about the politics of the elections. I wanted to talk about actual Election DAY. Because that was a trip.

I’ve never been in a foreign country during their elections, so this was a first for me. Leading up to the elections, I noticed increased security at the Tribunal Electoral next to my house. (The Tribunal is the governing body officially responsible for counting the votes during elections.) Also, a couple of presidential candidates helicoptered out to my site in Darien to make short speeches to the voters. I found this pretty surprising, since Darien is so rural and not that many people live out here compared to in the other provinces.

Anyway, so the day before Election Day, I went to go hang out at one of my fellow teachers’ house. The topic of conversation led to the elections, and he mentioned to me that during elections, the different political parties would no doubt be handing out free food.

Free food? That’s all I need to hear.

I notified a couple of my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers of this information, and we made plans that lunch on election day would be on some Panamanian political entity—we’re getting this free food! And thus, I experience the Panamanian democratic process.

I the States, voting is a very private matter. You go to your assigned voting location in your precinct (or receive your ballot in the mail in the case of absentees), you quietly wait in line, then you secretly fill out and submit your ballot. When you finish voting, you leave and go back home/back to work/back to your life as previously scheduled.

This does not hold true for Panamanians on their Election Day.

As my roommate and I approached the school (my town’s polling location), I saw a lot of people milling about, sort of in block-party fashion. We made a bee-line for the first food that we saw being handed out—arroz con pollo and beef—not bad. This food was being handed out by one of the opposition parties, but being that we are gringos and we can’t vote, we didn’t even care who was handing out the food—IT WAS FOOD!

Afterward, we milled about and people watched. It’s amazing how, here in Panama, voters wear their political parties like sports teams. Navarro/Democratic Revolution Party supporters were decked out from head to toe in blue and red, with matching ball caps and vests and everything. Varela/Panmeñista party supporters wore what can best be described as purple softball jerseys with their candidate’s name printed on the back. José Domingo/Democratic Change party supporters had on their José Domingo SWAG, coordinating from their shoes to their hates in the pink and green that you see on José Domingo’s campaign propaganda. It seemed that every vehicle, whether a personal vehicle, public transportation or a commercial vehicle—was sporting a flag supporting one of the major three candidates. Voting this day was not a secret event—people flaunt it as obviously as they can!

After milling about to say hi to some of the people that were hanging out at the polls, my friends and I decided that we were hungry again. Time to have a taste of the gastronomic offerings of another political party! More rice and beef from the Democratic Change party. Pretty delicious if I do say so myself. They also gave us free, cold juices to wash it down.

After playing a short came of HORSE involving our plastic bottles and the garbage cans at the school, we decided to head on home and await the news of which candidate would be Panama’s next political leader. That night around six or seven we found out that Varela won, and thus began the noise in the streets. Varela supporters drove up and down main street honking their horns and screaming in their excitement that Varela had won. I fell asleep that night listening to the sound of spontaneous celebrations in the street.

I was excited that I had the opportunity to really observe the democratic process outside of my home country. It was also a great opportunity to share with Panamanians about how Election Day differs in the United States (voice of Phoebe from The Magic School Bus: In my OLD school. . .)

In other news, shout out to the visitors I will have coming soon! Shelby’s coming later this week and my dad is coming into possession of a passport and has plans to come visit Panama (yay!). My neighbor keeps asking when my dad is coming, so that needs to happen ASAP.

Much love to everyone in the States! Abrazos!

My Friends Left Me. And so did a French guy who never bathed.

There is bad news and there is good news. I’ll give you the bad news first:

THE BAD NEWS

My friends left me.

Due to heightened drug trafficking in the indigenous reservation  in Darien province, Peace Corps has decided to remove all Peace Corps Volunteers from the Cemaco area of Panama. This means that six Peace Corps Volunteers have unexpectedly had  to pack up their belongings and move out of the communities in which they live. (Hint: Some of those guys had been living in those communities for two years. Packing up and moving at the drop of a hat is not an easy thing to do.)

The moral of the story? Kids, don't do drugs. The demand you cause is what's driving this market! The money you pump into this business is the prize that drug cartels are out there killing people for, and it's what drug runners and innocent victimes are dying for.

Sorry to be dramatic. Back to the story at hand, and how this phenomenon is related to my little world.

So, obviously the communities and Volunteers in the indigenous reservation involved got the worse end of that deal. In order to get a moment to whine, I’m going to now talk about myself.

The sites that got closed are the closest ones to me, geographically. I live in the travel hub for those volunteers, and they come over my house to crash or hang out all the time. Not surprisingly, those six volunteers have come to be my closest friends in Panama. Now, the majority of them are moving to the other side of the country, and a couple may even possibly go back to the States.

So that’s the bad  news. It sucks when your friends leave.

THE GOOD NEWS

One of them is moving in with me! Danielle was one of the six who got her site closed, but she is now my new roommate! It’s me, her and cartucho for the next few months. This is super exciting! Danielle’s going to be an awesome roommate. We’ve already hung three hammocks in the new house and we made black bean burgers for the first meal cooked as ROOMIES!

More good news: I’m hoping to try and learn how to improvise (jam) to blues/jazz/pop music?? My struggle-buddy/East Side bro Danny came over to say goodbye to the Cemaco guys and to help me do an English seminar at the university. Danny plays the guitar and is a music snob extraordinaire, so he tuned my guitar, I whipped out my flute, and we listened to Stevie and Dave Matthews Band and Amy Winehouse and everything else and kind of gave Danielle a live concert, haha! Hopefully this improv thing is a skill I can pick up. Danny definitely gave me some helpful pointers.

Also there was a smelly French backpacker that overstayed his welcome camping behind my house. I let him pitch a tent in my yard for a couple of days and shared food with him one time, but then all my super-hospitable Peace Corps friends kept coming over and being nice and offering him beers, so then he kept staying. And kept staying. And kept staying. I was super annoyed by it, but I finally kicked him out today and  he’s gone forever!!! Yay!!!

THE NEUTRAL NEWS ABOUT LIFE

You know how I was indecisive? I don’t feel that way anymore. My mojo was killed just a little when my friends left, but I think coming back to Meteti in general made me realize that I don’t need to stay another year in Panama. I LOVE it here, but in order to move forward (because let’s be real: I’m a goal-oriented person), I gotta do the grad school thing. I think that’s what I’m gunning for.

I’ll be able to waive my fee waivers for both Berkeley and Michigan! That’s $130 saved. I’ll be writing a ton of essays over the coming year. Hopefully it’ll all end in grad school admittance and some money for mah studies. We’ll see where I’m at this time next year. Ya never know where life takes ya, sometimes.

San Blas/Mid-Service Training/WhatamIdoingwithmylife

So, a couple things happened recently. I took a vacation, and then I went to Panama City for Mid-Service Training.

SAN BLAS

Being in the Peace Corps has its difficulties at times, but being in the Peace Corps in Panama most definitely has its perks.

San Blas, also known as Kuna Yala, is an indigenous reservation located on the Caribbean coast of Panama, East of the Canal. In addition to being home to the second shortest people in the world, it is also a popular tourist destination for backpackers in Panama, given that it has some of the clearest, most beautiful waters in the world.

Living in Eastern Panama means that, strictly geographically speaking, I don’t live very far from this Caribbean paradise.

A vacation in San Blas generally doesn’t run you too much, and a few of my friends and I got a pretty sweet discounted vacation when a fellow PCV (Amber) had to cancel a San Blas trip with her parents and brother after they got sick following a trip to her site in the Comarca Embera-Wounaan. They had to cancel the trip at the last minute, after having already paid the deposit.

This was very unfortunate for Amber’s parents. It DID however, mean that Amber, three other PCVs and myself were in a great position to take advantage of a discount trip to San Blas. Cover the half of the trip that was not paid for by the deposit and—just like that—we’ve got a four day, three night vacation in paradise!

It was a wonderful break for a Peace Corps Volunteer. We stayed on a small island with beautiful beaches and crystal clear water, we snorkeled over to a neighboring island, looked at beautiful coral and fishes, toured out in the boat, and played beach volleyball for about three straight days.

The best part of the trip? Kuna people. I would have thought they’d be jaded by the amount of tourists that constantly come to their island, but it turns out that they rotate tourist duties every three months. There are many San Blas islands, some serve as homes to the Kuna people who live there. Others have been set up as tourist destinations, with cabins for guests to stay, toilets and showers for bathroom needs, and restaurants to supply meals (included in the vacation package!). A person charged with working on the tourist island is only there for three months at the time, and then returns to their normal life at home while someone else in the family takes up their post for the next three months.

Because of this (I’ve decided), the Kuna people are always ready to play volleyball with us. It’s awesome. As soon as they get a free minute from their duties (driving boats, filling water tanks, cleaning rooms, cooking food), they’re first question is “WHEN ARE WE PLAYING VOLLEYBALL?! LET’S GO!! GET AMPED!!”

And boy do they play volleyball. They have so much energy! We had a lot of good laughs. Mostly at Pedro’s expense, since he was often mentally absent during games and therefore dropped the ball on quite a few plays.

I also, of course, had a fantastic time hanging out with my East Side homies. Their sillyness keeps me in stitches. Needless to say, none of us were ready to leave the island when we did. I don’t think anyone ever willingly leaves San Blas!

MID-SERVICE TRAINING (MST)

MST is a new facet of programming for Peace Corps Panama. The volunteers in my group all had to meet with their respective programs (Teaching English or Community Environmental Conservation) to discuss what is and isn’t working in our respective projects’ programming, the future of the program, and also look ahead to our close of service (which occurs in one short year—my, my how time flies). We closed discussing graduate school opportunities as well as opportunities to extend our Peace Corps Service.

The critical portion of our meeting was exhausting at times, but I’m glad we got through it. Man, it takes a lot of energy to make effective critiques! You have to articulate and qualify your points so that they are well understood, while maintaining a good level of diplomacy so that all parties feel that their points are being understood and considered as well—man it’s a struggle! All of us in the Teaching English project are public service oriented, though, and really want what’s best for the Panamanian people and institutions that we serve, so it was refreshing to have that platform by which we were able to have some input into the direction of the project in which we work.

On the last day of training, we looked ahead at our individual projects for the next year and even went as far ahead as to consider our lives after Peace Corps—we finish service in a year! (Unbelievable.) This was the first time I seriously considered the fact that I won’t be in the Peace Corps forever, and the first time I seriously considered the fact that I MAY not be ready to leave after two years. We talked about opportunities to extend into a third year as a Peace Corps Volunteer and, although I’ve recently been getting pumped for grad school, I started to think that grad school can wait, and having this opportunity to gain full-time experience in grassroots development and to build relationships with the Panamanian people and with the amazing Peace Corps Volunteers that I’ve grown close to—that’s not an experience I’m going to be able to have again. What am I going to do with my life?

Who knows, though? At this point, I’m still very on the fence about it, but I’ve got time to decide! My close-of-service conference is in December, so I won’t have to begin seriously considering extensions until September. My service ends in mid- to late-April next year. Beyond that, who knows? We’ll see where I end up next year this time. 

By the end of Mid-Service Training, I was a little sad to leave my original set of government-issued Peace Corps friends (collect them all!). I never see Group 72, so coming to training felt like a weird high school reunion—I don’t know them anymore! Even so, leaving them after training to come back to my province may kind of foreshadow what it will be like to leave them in a year. I’m going to miss those guys!

But never mind all this crazy talk—we still have another year in this country, and—like I’ve said before—we are going to make the most out of it!