What did I get myself into?

I’ve been warned by the other volunteers that have lived here for a while that the first 3 months in your community will be frustrating and probably the longest 3 months in your life. Its only week two and I’m starting to feel a little bit of it. When in this short amount of time I have already asked myself a series of questions.

When I was in the states I was a target for multi-level marketers. I thought maybe I had a  huge sign on my forehead that said; Hey I want to make money on the side selling stuff  that I wouldn’t use myself. Now I ask Why am I a target for beggars. It’s about the 8th of November and I’m walking down the street blasting things fall apart by the Roots through my Ipod, with my man bag strapped on my left shoulder. I try to take a quick look to the right and the left to see where I am, Crap!!! I’m lost again. I would stop and think about where I’m going but if I stand in one place for more than a minute someone might ask me for money. I already tried the, I don’t speak Spanish card but it no longer works. For some reason every beggar knows how to speak English. I don’t understand how Panama has trouble finding people for jobs that require English speakers when everyone that asks me for money knows it fluently. How am I going to do this? This is a question that almost all Peace Corps volunteers ask themselves. I have been in my site for less than a month and I’m already asking the question. Before I became a volunteer I received a packet of information of the community that was going to be assigned to me. It gave me basic information on the community and what are my potential assignments for my two years. One of the assignments was to find out a way to clear out a field that is located in the middle of my community. If this field is cleaned up and maintained properly the neighborhood  kids would be able to use it for sports and dedicate their time on more productive  things instead of drugs or etc..   Yesterday the son of my community guide asked me to go with him to the cancha (the field). The field is a pretty decent size, enough to play football soccer or whatever sports they could come up with, and at the far end of the field there is a small basketball court where the kids are using it to play soccer. The field is overrun by weeds and the ground is completely uneven. To me it doesn’t seem like a simple lawnmower can fix it. This project will require a big machine to level the ground. It’s easy to see that there is a big need for something to be done. Even though the field has weeds knee high and probably has snakes in it; the kids are still playing on it. When I returned to the house I asked my current host mother about the field and why is it not maintained. She told me that when she was younger her and a few of the  people in the neighborhood would go out there with their machetes and cut down the  grass and spray something on the grass so it wouldn’t grow. She said she’s too old to  continue so she hasn’t done it in years and no one has the money to pay for it to be maintained. But the most disturbing thing she told me was that no one has tried  to do anything about it in 15 years. How am I suppose to get a community involved in fixing this when no one has cared in 15 years. How, me the gringo with the bad Spanish grammar suppose to inspire a community who is having trouble feeding their family and making ends meet to take this serious. Sometimes I ask myself, why am I here?  When I go to the school teachers secretly ask each other why is he here, and what does he want. When one brave soul comes up  to me and ask me directly all I can give them is this broad answer about me being able to give them support when needed and how I can help them with ideas and projects. Truthfully I don’t know exactly what I am doing just yet in the school. My first 3 months are supposed to be dedicated to getting to know everyone and learning how the school works. My community guide usually jokes with me and says everyone thinks that I am a spy. Their reaction is understandable I suppose. I am the first Peace Corps volunteer that they have meet, so it’s only natural that they are suspicious, however it makes my job a little harder. Why did I choose to be poor?  Yesterday I was figuring out my budget for the month and all I could do was sigh. There are different levels of being broke. There is the level where you have some money in reserve but it’s just a small amount. Then there is a level where you have only enough to survive and nothing extra. That’s the level where I’m at. When I was in the States if I dropped a quarter or dime I would just look at it and keep walking. I would say, Pssstt whatever. Now If I drop a nickel, I would probably do a swan dive on the concrete floor to pick it up. It’s kind of early in my service but I hope that I will find my answers soon.