Christmas in the hospital

As you could imagine Christmas is the most difficult holiday being here in Panama. Last year, my first Christmas in Panama was spent sitting in the coffee shop and reading a book. I was determined not to have a repeat of last year so I decided that I will not be in my city alone for Christmas.

I was told about a few volunteers going to a hostel that is in a secluded area in the mountains this year, so I also decided to go. On Christmas Eve another volunteer and I hopped on the bus and made our way to the hostel. He told me that it would be a 30 minute hike off the road to get to the lodge. But he didn’t tell me that it would be all uphill with rocks and mud. I was wearing some old tennis shoes without any traction and almost busted my skull two or three trying to climb up the path.

We finally made it up the hill and went to the reception to check in. The attendant showed us to our rooms and I was placed in a dorm room with about 10 other people. When we walked in, the first thing I noticed was a 3 story bunk bed. I immediately pointed to the top and said I’m not sleeping up there. She laughed and said “Naw you’re here in the bottom bunk”.

Fast forward to later that night. I met a few new volunteers that I have never seen and a couple of familiar ones. Everything was going great, good food, good company and it was Christmas eve. Around 1 o’clock just about everyone headed for bed and it was lights out.

Now I don’t know exactly what time this happened, but it was somewhere between 1 and 3 o’clock. When I was sleeping I heard a small crash as if something fell on the ground. I woke up and looked around and noticed that a bag that wasn’t there before was hanging over my bed. So I figured that the bag must have fallen from the top bunk. Then immediately after, I saw something in the air move and heard a big SMMACK on the ground. I peaked over my bed and just thought “you can’t be serious” It looked like an outline of a body. I jumped out of the bed and turned on the lights to see the girl that was on the top bunk was laid out on the ground bleeding from the nose.

OK OK OK OK OK Alec remember remember, its been 5 years but remember whats next. The next 10 minutes I didn’t pay attention to anything to what anyone in the room were saying. Keep her head secure, turn her over, check her airway and see if she has any injuries to her face. That’s when I snapped out of it and realized I needed someone else’s help. When I asked for help of course there was a spectator that yells DON’T TOUCH HER, DON’T TOUCH HER, DON’T TOUCH HER, I WOULD HELP BUT IVE BEEN DRINKING. I didn’t want to be the one to yell at him to shut up because we might need him later so I just kept quiet and acted as if I couldn’t hear him. A volunteer shortly came over to me and we turned her over. At first when I saw her on the ground I thought that something was blocking her breathing because of the sounds that I was hearing, but after turning her over I realized she was snoring. HOW IN THE HELL IS SHE STILL SLEEP? We woke her up and of course she was disoriented. I continued to go down her body asking her if she had any pain and the only answers I got from her was no or she would just stick her tongue out at me. I was stumped. I couldn’t remember how to continue so I just sat there trying to think while others tried to get in contact with the ambulance.

About an hour and a half later the ambulance arrived, but they refused to hike up to the lodge to help get her. Someone had to hike down to the road get the stretcher and neck brace and then hike back up so we could put her on the stretcher and place the neck brace.

Remember how I described the hike in to the lodge? Well it was like that but pitch black and raining now. It took about 8 people and 45 minutes to get her down to the road on the stretcher safely. Since the nearest hospital was in my city two other volunteers and I accompanied her to the hospital.

After a few hours the doctors at the hospital did their assessment and said that she could be released shortly. I wasn’t allowed in the room where they were holding her so I had no idea how she was doing and what her condition was. So I was under the impression to just trust what the doctors said. But the guy that was allowed to go see her said that she was still not able to remember what happened to her and she seemed like she was still in bad shape. After hours of volunteers from the lodge persistently calling and urging the medical officer to allow her to get a CAT scan, they finally did it. They found 2 contusions on her brain and some bleeding. I’m sure that you know, an injury like that is serious stuff. It’s just sad to know that it took all that effort to get the doctors to take her injury seriously and go the extra step to assure that she was fine.

Fortunately she was shortly transferred to the hospital in Panama City and is now resting and under observation. From what I’ve heard she is continuously improving but her it’s possible that her service as a volunteer may be cut short.

Awkward Moments

These are just a few awkward moments that I have experienced here that I forgot to put in my past blogs

When I first moved here to this city I was assigned to live in a community called Arco Iris (Rainbow). It was faaaar from what the translation says. The only word I can describe this place is the Hood. I lived about 4 houses down from an abandoned building that everyone called the casa de piedra (house of stone). The translation for that word fits perfectly because it also was a crack house. Every so often some shady characters would creep out of the building now and then. There was one in particular that targeted my as his new friend. The first time I met him he said you should be really careful around here, Ill protect you. Then he asked me for 75 cents. This guy weighs a little over 100 pounds and stands about 5’ 5 inches tall. I didn’t think I’ll need his protection. But I ended up giving him the spare change in my pocket just so he would leave me alone even though I have been told to never give him money. Since that day, every time he sees me he rushes over to me to ask for more change. After a while I picked up the habit of just ignoring him. But this one day in particular he decided not to take no for an answer. He did his regular routine of asking me for 75 cents and I did my regular routine of continuing walking. But this time he didn’t just go away. This man followed me for 2 blocks yelling I TOLD YOU TO BE CAREFUL, I WAS GOING TO PROTECT YOU PAPI PAPI PAPI PPAAAPPPII POR FAVOR POR FAVORRRR. That had to be the longest 2 blocks I’ve ever walked.

Back when I lived in my first apartment here. There were a couple weeks where I received constant visits from my neighbors. One day I was in the kitchen washing the dishes when I heard someone yelling my name. It was my new neighbor in the apartment in front of mine. I walked to the door to see what she wanted and she asked could she use my computer to check her email. I thought it was kind of weird but she was cute so I let her in. She sits down and checks her email for about 10 minutes quietly then she asked me what is today’s date? I said it’s the 15^th. Then she began to read her email out loud. “Esteemed client you account is currently past due, if payment of 60 dollars isn’t received by the 16^th your service will be suspended”, then she takes a deep breath and is quite again. I decided this was the perfect time to use the greatest advantage to being a foreigner. I continued washing my dishes without turning around and acted like I didn’t understand a thing she was saying. After a few minutes of awkward silence I asked, SOO do you still live with your mother?

Every Sunday here in David about 80 percent of the city is shut down. The only choices you have are to go to the movies, sit in the house or go to the coffee shop. So it has become a tradition for me to go to the coffee shop every Sunday and read a book. Recently I have been seeing a bald guy dressed in all black just standing in front of the coffee shop. I thought it was pretty weird, so I asked the girl behind the counter why is he there. She told me that he is taking care of the building. I didn’t get it. So are you telling me someone is paying him just to stand there? She smiled and said yes. Seriously? Seriously? She just laughed and said SSSSIIIIIIII. After I got my coffee I sat down and began reading my book. When I finished my first chapter I felt someone hovering over me. I slowly slip my eyes over my book to see who it was. It was the guy from the crack house. Maaann this can’t be happening, I just want to read my book in peace. He again asked me for 75 cents and I tried to ignore him but he wouldn’t move. That’s when I noticed the bald guy in all black jump into action. He power walked from his post, slung open the door and said. HEY YOU, YOURE NOT SUPPOSE TO BE IN HERE, YOU HAVE TO LEAVE NOW. After the guy left the girl behind the counter just looked at me. Well I guess I feel stupid now.

One night I was at the English school that I volunteer at. I noticed that one of the students had a new pair of shoes I said it looks like somebody’s baalllliinn. After that I had to explain what that meant and it became a 15 minutes conversation of other slang words and phrases. There was also another volunteer there from Canada (of anglo-saxon decent) listening to what I was saying. He then said “By time they leave class they are all going to be speaking like this.. YO YO SON, WHO IT IS, WHAT UP MY NIGGG….  BRO. It was an awkward few seconds after that comment, so I just ignored it and continued the conversation as if I never heard it.

Obviously he was about to say nigger and he tried to stop himself. The word actually doesn’t bother me too much but it does make me wonder. What is people’s fascination with saying it?

Junior Achievement

Every since the day I was accepted into Peace Corps, I have been asked to conduct a Junior Achievement program into the highschool that I would be assigned to. If you don’t know what Junior Achievement is, it’s a program designed for students from middle school up to highschool about business principles. Back in the states I taught the program once to a group of middle schoolers in a summer school program. It’s fairly easy to implement, the only thing you need to really do is read and follow the directions of the teacher’s guide and your pretty much set. When I was asked to do it again, I figured it would be just as easy as before. But according to the Peace Corps model, you have to do everything with another community member so that when the volunteer leaves it would continue without them. I had no idea this would be a problem. At the beginning of the school year I asked the business professor would she like to try out the program with me. I gave the complete program to her so that she could look it over. I put her in contact with the people that are in charge of the program so that all her questions could be answered, but in the end it didn’t work out. She said the program doesn’t work with her class schedule and Junior Achievement is not willing to adjust it for her. I said Ok, maybe we will try it some other time.

Five months later, here enters my boss for the second year visit. We did the regular routine of having a meeting with the teachers that I work with. The only difference this time was that the principle and vice principle was both out for seminars that week. So they were replaced by this guy who is an administrator. Till this day I had no idea what his purpose is. All I know is that he sits in the office and talks really loud and that everyone tells me to stay far away from him. So while we are in the meeting my boss keeps pushing this idea that we need to do Junior Achievement because she feels that I am concentrating on English classes too much. Usually when someone comes from the outside of an environment and tries to push their own agenda without knowing what is going on in that environment, usually problems are caused. As soon as everyone looked at me and said who did you talk to about this program already, the only thing I can think of was, CRAP Im going to regret this!!! I said Peggy. So the administrator that I was talking about earlier ( I don’t remember his name right now so let’s just call him Napolean for now) looks at me and says you and her are going to do this next week in a commanding voice. I have been told in the past that I have a problem with authority, so maybe that’s why my face started to cringe and my throat got hot when he said that. I felt it would be best for me to just shut up. He then says also you’re going to march in the parade with us next week. I am not a fan of parades AT ALL but I just said “fine” and stayed quit. The next week I sucked it up and went to march in the parade. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It was actually entertaining, because of the 2 professors that marched on the side of me. Both of them were wearing high heels for a 2 hour march. I was soo intrigued to see who would last the longest. One was wearing brown heels that were moderately low and the other was wearing bright red high heels for clubbin. I was torn. The red heels seemed like the obvious choice to break down first but she had the biggest calves for a woman I have ever seen in my life. It was a difficult decision. After an hour and a half the teacher with the brown heels quit and jumped out of the line and disappeared into the crowd, while the teacher with the red heels made it the whole way without one complaint. I was impressed.

The week after that I was walking to English class when I hear someone scream my name. I turned around to discover Napoleon pointing at me, “COME HERE. I told him that I need to go to class. “which class”-“English class”-“No you come here, we need to talk. Remember what your boss said…blah..blah..blah”. I didn’t understand the rest because he was talking soo loud and soo fast I just wanted to put my hands over my ears, spin around and yell ..SHUT UP..SHUT UP.. SHUT UP!!!My face began to scrunch up again and the hot feeling that I had in my throat returned. I calmly said, I will go to the office and see you after I get done. After class I went to the office. He told me that I am going to do the Junior achievement program next week. Before he continued I stopped him and said “with which professor?”-“All of them”-“I don’t understand”-“Every teacher is going to help you out”. This made so sense to me at all. Then I realized that I was told the week before that because of finals exams there would only be 2 weeks of classes left. Then I said hey we are not going to do the program this semester because there is not enough time. “What, remember what your boss said” “yea I know but the program is for 2 months and we only have 2 weeks”, “no your boss said next week”, “she doesn’t know what she is talking about, she has no idea what is going on”. Then he started to pout like a little kid that lost his toy and kept saying “I don’t know, I don’t know”. Till this day I still don’t know why he would say “I dont know” to me that phrase just doesn’t seem to fit there. Anyway this is when I looked around the office and saw everyone freeze. No one looked our way but they all stopped what they were doing and tried to hide that they were listening. After that little show down between us it’s been pretty awkward. But just when I thought it was over, someone from the meeting told the teaching that I offered the Junior Achievement program earlier in the year that I said that she isn’t willing to cooperate with me. Well at least I went a year and a half without anyone at the school being pissed at me. That’s good right?