They Too Will Pasear

Current Books:

Spell of the Sensuous 

Spanish Notes  

Current Music: 

The Regeton from the neighbors yard

They Too Will Pasear 

July 5, 2015

Pasear is a Spanish verb which roughly means to go visit, but that has a special meaning in Panama. My observed understanding of the word is that it is the act of walking from house to house within the community one lives and entering said houses with a confident “Buenas!” and then passing the following minutes/hours with the members of that house before moving to the next neighbor or returning home. It is how the members of the small pueblo of Santa Rita, where I currently live, pass their free time and it will be the encouraged method of integration over the next two years.

Before arriving in Santa Rita and about three weeks ago, 47 people from various regions of the United States and Puerto Rico converged at a Holiday Inn in downtown Washington D.C. for what the Peace Corps calls Staging. Staging, in essence, is a chance for PCVs to meet their fellow volunteers, learn a bit more about the Peace Corps, and then have a chance to hightail it home to hot showers, the freedom to drive, and endless access of peanut butter.  All 47 of us, 24 environmental health volunteers and 23 sustainable agricultural systems volunteers chose to stick with it and we began the 2.25 year process of getting to know each other. After staging, I paid my respects to the monuments in Washington DC and went to sleep for a few hours before waking up in the early morning to fly to Panama.  

We arrived in Panama and spent the following 4 days in the ex U.S. military base – converted to university/public-resource-center, called Ciudad de Saber (City of Knowledge). The Panama Peace Corps office is located in this city, as well as the dorms where we slept. We were further immunized against and educated on the many snakes, diseases, insects, snakes, environments, allergic reactions, snakes, fungi, viruses, parasites and did I mention snakes that could shorten our period of service, and life in general. They introduced us to current volunteers who told us of the legends and lessons that they had obtained over the last year. We played soccer, slept, ate, and began to understand Panama together and became a cohesive unit of 47, until when two weeks ago when they tore us apart and separated us by our volunteer title into two separate training communities. I went with the Environmental Health volunteers to the small town of Santa Rita.

I live with a wonderful lady named Mabel and her 25 year old son in Santa Rita. Currently, I sit on a red and gold couch with matching curtains and pillows. Plantains, rice and beans rest on the kitchen counter and are mindfully covered to keep the flies from wiping their dirty paws on our dinner. I can hear my host mom, Mabel, speaking with her brother outside in fast Panamanian Spanish (he is pasearing).  My hair is wet from swimming in the river with some other volunteers and kids from the town. In my house I have a fan and consistent running water, both unusual of luxuries for a PCV in Santa Rita. I spend the majority of my days taking Spanish class in the mornings and attending technical training in the afternoons; separated by lunch and a 30-minute nap in a hammock. I usually swim in the river in the evening, watch soccer at night, and fuel my days with an endless supply of mangoes, maracuya and three meals a day cooked by Mabel.

The Peace Corps does not extract you from comfort and drop you into poverty with no transition. It prepares you, mindfully, in a method that is well engineered, generously oiled, and meticulously maintained. They chip away at your luxuries overtime. You go from hot showers, to cold showers, to no showers. You build friendships in Staging and in Ciudad de Saber, which they quickly burn access to. They leave you with 24 English-speaking friends, a Latin pueblo to pasear through, a fan, and occasional running water as your luxuries. It is a step towards the realities of the next two years, but currently I feel well adjusted, comfortable and content. I appreciate the red couches with matching drapes, and enjoy living with my Panamanian mom and having my 24 new friends close by, because I know that they too will soon pass(ear).