Our iDesign team is a bit of a funny thing. We fell into our routine on day one, and fell into our roles pretty well by day three.
Each day we would rise around 6:30am with every intention of being ready for breakfast by 7. Each day, we would be just a little bit late, but gratefully eat whatever boiled bananas, lentils, oatmeal, or fry bread a neighbor-lady had prepared for us. All but one of us would drink the “hummingbird coffee,” a watered-down and absurdly-sweetened version of the familiar drink, and then we would bust out for the day.
On our first, we tromped through the soccer field at the center of town, then along the chiva track, then some eight miles to the spring source with the best reputation for year-round flow and clean water. While the mountains of Panama are awash in rivers, the surface water is unfit to drink (especially with their livestock in and around them), and there is a three month dry spell each spring in which most things dry up.
After measuring everything that we could think of about the spring, we began the topographical survey, measuring with a tape between two poles of equal length on which we would hold the Abney levels and read the angular difference (to within 4 degrees of accuracy). (With this information we would later triangulate our ground surface and vertical distances.) We would also take a GPS reading at every survey point and every proposed faucet site.
From Thursday to Sunday we did this from the tail end of breakfast until the rains began at 2pm or so. At each home we would ask how many people lived there (to which we always received a variety of answers), We got caught in the rain once or twice, but the amount of work that could be accomplished squinting through moist lenses and scribbling on damp paper (not to mention the impossible task of drying out clothes in 85% humidity) was scarcely worth it, and we would instead make our way to the village restaurant where a sassy lady with pants (a rarety) would feed us her tasty interpretations of spaghetti, rice, and other wholesome foods. On rainy afternoons we would either work on assembling our water quality, survey, or population data or go wandering through the village, smiling at the kids and asking questions to the womenfolk. After dinner we would make our way back to the municipal building and play cards with our Peace Corps friends until we had to sleep again.
It was fun. There were moments when we wanted to throw our Abney levels down whatever ravine we were struggling with, or when one more corrective comment would have sent me into grumpdom, but we were generally happy. There are moments that stand out amongst the rest: when the kids let us in on a soccer game, when a neighbor’s little boy went streaking around the breakfast shack, when two neighborhood girls stopped by and asked us to sing for them, and show them how we like to dance.
I have mixed feelings about “development work,” and a general distaste for charity, but whatever passed between our team and the Ngobe, the shy smiles, the flowing warmth, the shared vision, and the mutual curiosity, was something rich and interesting. Our team may not be “right” in the imposition of our culture and our values, and the natives might not be “responsible or self actuated” in their invitation to our team, but whatever our reasons or means of coming together, our shared vision is something special, and something that I will hold onto during these next few weeks of intensive design preparation.
rebeccabender 