Campo Birthday

It's my birthday, I'll kill a chicken if I want to.

Birthdays basically mean you have to kill a chicken. I was very Panamanian about getting on this task, and waited until the last minute. And no one wanted to sell me one. I sort of guilted on of my favorite crazy old ladies into selling me one. So the Sunday before my birthday I stopped by and picked it up, carrying it 30 minutes to Melania's house. It almost pecked me in the face as I tried opening one of the gates. Not cool. Melania was laughing at me as I walked in the house with this chicken, she didn't think I was really going to buy it.

We got to work right away. Melania killing the chicken (I wasn't going to do that) and I was cutting up the veggies. We made arroz con  pollo. Rice cooked with small pieces of chicken and cabbage, carrots, onions, and pepper. Potato salad with beets. Fruit punch. Funfetti cake. All the essentials.

No one knew the words to happy birthday. It took about an hour to get them to finally sing to me and then they sang it more or less correctly, with only a few made up parts ie "and blow out the candles." It was incredibly sweet and I absolutely loved it!!

Excellent celebration of my quarter century!

Junta de Amy

I held my first junta  or work day and I have to say it was pretty fun! Out in the campo people have juntas when there is a lot of work to to, like building ranchos, or more importantly my rancho. I set a date and invited the people. I advertised it on the white board at the store. Twelve guys came along with three ladies to cook. In the morning the guys were cutting and carrying the palm. Around 10 the teacher carried the huge load in her car and they started putting it on the roof. Seven pounds of beef and ten pounds of rice late they ate and continued working. As with any good junta there was chicha de maize or a sweet corn drink. Often it is fuerte or alcoholic, but I went for the sweet option. It's Peace Corps people, gotta keep it g-rated. They finished just before the rain came...and guess what...my porch was dry!

Stove 1 Success!

The building has begun!

As part of the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas grant seminar, 6 volunteers and their counterparts along with several Peace Corps staff came to Los Virotales to build two stoves, and Eco-Justa (the kind I am building for my project) and a tower stove. After weeks of running around like a crazy person trying to organize everything and worrying that something would go wrong, the day was an amazing success!

Everyone arrived at 8:30 am and started off with an intro by yours truly and then the "stove expert" Sixto took over the show. He explained to everyone the process of how to build the stove. Everyone helped a little, whether it be mixing cement or sifting sand or laying the bricks. Asking questions and taking notes. I got the best Panamanian cooks, my host mom and grandma to help cook a tasty lunch of chicken, lentils, rice, and a cabbage and carrot salad. Ollie only fought once.

The second part of the day we built a tower stove, another type of stove many volunteers are using. This type is preferred by some due to the fact that is is free. You need to get some wood to make the molds for the bricks, and the bricks and "cement" are dirt and horse poop. Same thing, everyone got their hands dirty and asked questions.

I was beyond happy with the support of Peace Corps and my community to pull this day off. The families of each stove did their part in providing materials and helping with lunch and coffee breaks. Several people stopped by just to check out what was going on.

Definitely a Peace Corps high!