Trust Your Gut
When I applied for this internship in October, I had the feeling that I was going to be doing a research project on my own…well, I am.
My first day of work, a week ago today, was quite the shocker.
My supervisor had told me he’d wait for me at 7am in his office.
I was surprised he wanted to meet so early and no one believed he’d actually be there, but he was.
We didn’t get to spend much time together, as he was running off to a big epidemiologists meeting, but he did get to introduce me to and sluff me off onto a few of the people who work with him so I didn’t have to go to the epidemiologists’ meeting with him.
When he introduced me to people he gave them the whole spiel, including who I was, where I study, and what I’m going to do.
After a few introductions, I realized that no one knew I was coming, nor were anyone them already working or going to work on my project.
I’ll admit, that freaked me out a bit.
After my supervisor left, I went out with the team, who’s working on a cacao research project (very cool.
They’re testing to see if it a) decreases hypertension or b)increases sexual potency.)
They work with the Kuna, so after waiting for an hour for the Gorgas car, we piled into the truck and took off for Kuna Negra, a Kuna community north of
Panama City.
It was great; I got to see parts of the city that looked more like the
Panama I was expecting.
I don’t know if it’s good to have expectations like that, but it seemed more normal: neither extremely poor nor extremely rich.
We had to go through a landfill to get to the community and it was like a jungle shanty town, although not all the houses were made of temporary materials.
I got to meet the saila, or leader in Kuna, of the community.
She doesn’t speak Spanish, or at least very well, but she was warm and gave all of us an avocado.
Her name was
America…
After leaving there, we went to the Kuna Congress.
It’s amazing how much authority and autonomy the Kuna have maintained.
They do fe
el their culture is weakening, though.
Some Kuna kids don’t learn the language and many don’t know the traditional dances and ways.
However, you can see the Kuna women walking all over the city as they all wear the same beautiful outfits: bright, flower-printed, wrap skirts; blouse tops sewn onto the embroidered molas they make as the abdomen piece of the shirt; red handkerchiefs on their heads; and beads wrapped around their legs and sometimes arms.
They have many systems in place to allow outsiders in, but I don’t think it’ll be too big a deal to get their approval for my research because there are some Kuna who work at Gorgas with my supervisor and they’re the ones who’ve been showing me around.
They’re helping to orient me to the system and I think will help a lot in me getting through it.
So, yes…my research.
Well, I’m not super intimidated.
I’m going to plan it, which is fine.
That’s what I’ve been working on.
I’m trying to bite off just as much as I can chew but know there will be lots of bumps along the way.
The hardest part will be getting someone to translate and getting a car to take me to the communities.
My supervisor isn’t the easiest to get ahold of, either.
It’s okay.
It’ll work out.
Outside of work, things haven’t been too exciting. We went out on Friday night, and to the pool on Saturday. Sunday was great: three of us went to a beach ne
ar Panama City: Playa Gorgona. I’m feeling pretty okay with my Spanish…I just wish I could speak it more. We don’t really speak it in the house and although I do at work, people are constantly trying to speak to me in English. This country is crazy that way. People you wouldn’t expect to speak English are fluent: like the security guard, grounds keeper, or waitress. There are immigrants from all over, including the Caribbean and India, so that may have something to do with it, but I guess with all the American influence, it’s just something that’s bound to happen. I’m not super happy with the living situation: we’re outside of the city by about 40 mins, and it’s not cheap/easy to get in. I suppose I’ll get more used to the buses soon and it won’t feel like such a drag, I would have just preferred something more central. Ah well. Win some lose some.
And, look: Princess hair :)
Sweat in Panama
I’m here! Arriving, it finally all sank it; if it wasn’t going to happen then, it probably never would. I honestly felt like I had been told as a child that someday I would go to Panama, and upon arriving that distant prophesy came true. Que emocion! It’s quite the tropical paradise. I woke up on Friday morning, the first time I’d seen the place in daylight, and allowed my eyes to soak up the splendor of all the trees in view. …then, I sat up and saw the US-style military base houses …but, that’s what this place seems so far to be: a tropical paradise that has been dominated by greedy world powers and has soaked up the consumer mentality of the plastic life we in the “north” incorporate into every aspect of our lives. La Ciudad del Saber, otherwise known by its American name “Clayton”, is home to the UN, the Nature Conservancy and other global NGOs, as well as the most expensive school in the country and as many oversized cars and SUVs as any Midwestern suburb. It is clearly a military base and gives me the same impression as the western outposts/forts I’ve visited in Nebraska: blocky single floor standard homes surrounding the central green, which is bordered by larger, more regal buildings, which obviously served a more formal purpose in the days of the gringos. We visited a new “hot spot” they’ve created for tourists and going out and I thought I was in Disneyland. Sticking out into the Pacific, this man-made peninsula (rellenos) boasts many clubs and restaurants, all with a great view of the ocean. But, their plastic canopies reveal how unnatural the experience they offer actually is. Our caretaker here in Panama, a woman who works with McGill, explained her point of view, which wasn’t very favorable and said that Panamanians want badly to be like the US. Today, we went into the city, the five of us. My goodness! I’ve never heard so much honking in my life. It was slightly obscene! We have 4 girls in our group, all wearing summer clothes…and 5 foreigners together. It seems men of this country are slightly more forward than Peruvians and that’s saying something. The trip to city also made Panama’s enormous gini coefficient (a measure of inequality) make sense. Many parts are very “developed” and they’re working to do more. The parts that reminded me of Lima at all were in much worse shape. I actually found myself missing my first Latin American home. Maybe it was poorer, but the wealth wasn’t so ostentatious, and again that’s really saying something. I still remember the Mariot’s chandelier in Miraflores. The group of roommates seems to be getting along pretty well. We’re all at very different places right now and have quite different approaches to this whole thing, but we’re working through it. It’s kind of nice to have each other, but again it’ll be harder to integrate. Apparently, I have become the go-to girl, the mama… or, at least that’s how I feel. I am the oldest, but not by much. Maybe I just feel comfortable faster. I suppose this will stay the same, though, because I’m the only one with an internship in the city; the rest are working here in the Ciudad del Saber!! Speaking of work, my supervisor asked me to be at work at 7am on Monday! Yikes! That’ll be a challenge for sure! I’m excited and a bit nervous – both good things.
One last thing: the humidity has turned my hair into something fit for Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella. Who knew I
had so many curls?!? J
A shot of our street.
The girls of the house.
Epoch -- Panama --
It’s flooding in! I’m getting it. It’s becoming real. I AM GOING TO PANAMA! In two weeks I will be there. It had hit me briefly a few weeks ago as I was showering with the window open and the sun pouring in. I realized then that the seasons were changing and that warm intoxicating touch of the sun would be my happy sidekick for the coming months. That feeling inevitably left me, but now, in El Mundo coffee shop with my current wonderful sidekick, Stacey, reading about dengue fever and typology of water in the Dominican Republic, I just got it again, and this time I think the realization will stay.
It’ll be strange, this trip, so different from the last. I’m going with Canadians, Americans, and one guy from Nicaragua; (what will the Panamanians think when they see him strutting down the street with the four gringas?) not by myself, with my “I’m going to integrate” attitude. I’m living in an elite area, an old US military base, full of UN and international commerce types, right on the canal; not “the city of paper”, close to the airport, a place where my well-off acquaintances in Peru furrowed their brows at the mention of. I’ll be working for an institute, doing research with university-educated people; not in a boys’ home, full of boys from the street with pasts often cited as examples in textbooks of lives we hope no one ever has. I’m going with a university style understanding of “development” and will look at the politics and gender roles in a way dictated by academics and articles; not the un-read view of the world gained from UWC, World-Ex, and my wonderful hippie parents. I’m going with the mindset of a university student doing an internship for the summer: I see the end, I’m not going to think of Panama as my home. I want to learn how to surf. It’s as if the whole situation has turned on its head and I’m checking the opposite box in every category than I did when I went to Peru. But, I’m taking my Peruvian sweater and my now-Mexican Spanish and I’ll be contacting the UWC Panamanians upon arrival. It’s certainly all connected, all contributing to the same overarching goal – even though I’m not quite certain what that is.
Two weeks and counting. Very exciting.
el their culture is weakening, though. Some Kuna kids don’t learn the language and many don’t know the traditional dances and ways. However, you can see the Kuna women walking all over the city as they all wear the same beautiful outfits: bright, flower-printed, wrap skirts; blouse tops sewn onto the embroidered molas they make as the abdomen piece of the shirt; red handkerchiefs on their heads; and beads wrapped around their legs and sometimes arms. They have many systems in place to allow outsiders in, but I don’t think it’ll be too big a deal to get their approval for my research because there are some Kuna who work at Gorgas with my supervisor and they’re the ones who’ve been showing me around. They’re helping to orient me to the system and I think will help a lot in me getting through it. So, yes…my research. Well, I’m not super intimidated. I’m going to plan it, which is fine. That’s what I’ve been working on. I’m trying to bite off just as much as I can chew but know there will be lots of bumps along the way. The hardest part will be getting someone to translate and getting a car to take me to the communities. My supervisor isn’t the easiest to get ahold of, either. It’s okay. It’ll work out. 
ar 
