My group had an amazing thanksgiving together in Panama
City. I was trying to explain to my host family that I was going to be gone for
a few to celebrate a US tradition. When they asked what we celebrate I told
them that Thanksgiving was a day to be with family, enjoy the company of
friends and gorge ourselves to the point of discomfort - I left out the part
about the day marking the subsequent pillaging of the indigenous. I tried to
convince my family that we should have small Thanksgiving of our own in which
we gleefully slaughter their aggressive, bloodthirsty turkey, but for some
reason they did not like the idea. I am still not sure what role that dumb bird
plays, but I will find out and report back soon.
Our Group 75 Peace Corps Thanksgiving consisted of the
volunteers cooking an enormous meal with yours truly organizing the kitchen and
cooking the turkeys. See the photo above to visualize my quick-bake turkey
preparation strategy. I de-boned the birds, put my arms in the body cavity, and
tenderized the meat through aggressive shadow-boxing. It worked wonders.
Heading back to site tomorrow is turning my head back to my
projects and my excitement about getting going on what feels like a few
concrete projects. We had another meeting the day before I left for
Thanksgiving and, although only a few people came, it felt very successful. We
have decided to create two groups: a community chicken management group and an
“improved” stove group. In addition, I am working with a man named Marco to
build ram pumps for a part of the community without water.
Chickens!
There are about 100 houses in the town of Guabal and about
20 families that grow chickens to sell as broilers (chickens to eat). As we do
not have electricity or refrigeration the chickens are sold live and there is a
pretty small window (about 2-3 weeks) in which they are in prime eating shape. The
problem the community has identified is that all the families buy the baby
chicks from an outside vendor at the same time, which means there is about a
month with more chickens than the community needs, followed by several months
without chickens. We have not figured out our strategy for solving this problem
yet, but it will have to do with staggering production so there is a more
consistent flow of chickens throughout the year. We just need to find
consistent access to baby chicks or start raising our own. More on this later!
Stoves!
The vast majority of the families in Guabal cook on a Fogon
– an open fire with three stones placed around the fire to accommodate a pot.
It works pretty well, but it is quite inefficient. Although outside groups
would identify less deforestation and better health (due to a chimney for the
smoke) as reasons to start using more efficient stoves, my guess is that most
families would say that having to look for less firewood is their main
motivating factor. Luckily, there is outside money available for projects like
this because they lessen deforestation.
Water Pumps!
The water pump I built and wrote about in my previous post
is a hit in the community – and I am stoked! I built this pump for purely
selfish reasons (watering my crops) but it has turned into something a few
people are very excited about. There are about 15 households that do not have access
to the aqueduct, and with the current technology cannot get access due to how
their houses are placed. My friend Marco wants to build a couple of these pumps
to fill a large storage tank for these families. Honestly, I am slightly
hesitant to dive right into this project because I do not fully understand how
to figure out the capacity of the pump and I want to make sure it can supply
enough water for the needs of the families. I will need to figure out the pumps
full capacity before seriously getting going on this project.
There are so many great ideas for things to do in my
community that there is no way for me to be sure, at this point, of the exact
nature of my work. The three projects described above seem to be the first on
the “to-do” list, but things may change. In the coming posts I will likely be
sharing more ideas we have spoken about and sometime in the future narrow these
ideas into more concrete projects. Hope you are enjoying the posts, comment
below!
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