Encounter with Transvestites

I know I haven’t written in a while but my life has started to become a basic routine. Get up, go to school, read, go to the gym, eat, go home and sleep. That’s it……!! If I am not trying to meet with organizations to bring to the school or doing private English classes, that’s pretty much what my life is Monday through Friday. I didn’t feel the need to waste precious space on the web posting that. Life during the weekends varies. Im probably at the coffee shop reading, watching a movie on my labtop, or watching videos on YouTube. Matter of fact Im at the coffee shop right now typing this. Pretty exciting life right…..? However this is the life that I am now use to. But every so often someone calls me to hangout at night and some of the weirdest things happen.

One day another volunteer and I was walking back home on a Saturday night. I was way too tired to keep up so he was a little ahead of me. About halfway from home I hear him yelling across the street at a group of women on the corner. I don’t know what there are saying to each other but whatever it was it seemed interesting. So I sped up , by time a got up to where they were, one of the women in a deep raspy deep voice hisses at me and says “ssssss sssss sssss ssss “hey gordito venga aca” (hey chubby come here). I looked over to see a group of figures with no waist,,,,, or curves ,,,and hair that looked suspiciously too long. I said to my friend OH MY GOSH IS THAT A MAN HISSING AT ME? Yes those are men. Then he continues with his debate with the transvestitian prostitutes or whatever the term is suppose to be. Im not going to get into the specifics of their argument, all I’m going to say is they were in a heated debate over who has what kind of equipment. Probably was the funniest thing Ive heard since Ive been here.

Back at school things continue to fluctuate. Some days are good ones and some days are just disappointing. The good days are the ones where even though I know a lot of the students are behind in learning basic sentence structure in English, they still participate and try. Or when some of them are having trouble grasping what I may be going over, they stay after class longer to get help on how to do it. Of course there are some kids that easily grasp things and have no trouble at all, and I’m glad for them. However knowing that I’m actually being utilized makes me want to get up and come back the next day. But some days are just sucky. Like days when hope is giving to the kids just to be easily taken away. Within the last few weeks the professor in charge of the civil protection club and I have tried to get the fire department and the Red Cross to come to our school and teach the students first aid and CPR. Each organization agreed but on the appointed time they both acted as if they didn’t know that they were supposed to come. Even after they received a formal letter from us and a call confirming if they were coming, 2 days before the event. People that make more excuses than a crackhead caught in a pharmacy, make my blood boil. And that’s exactly who these organizations remind me of. Within 3 weeks I have completely lost patience for them. I am now working on a way to somehow get our own CPR dummies and I will teach them myself. The motto I have been told from our trainers is to not teach anything that other Panamanians can them, just make the connections to make it possible. But when things like this happen, I go by the motto “if you want something done you just have to do it yourself”.

Evaluating the last ten months

I entered into Panama August 18 of last year, rounding about to about 10 months living in the country. Time has been going soo fast for me. I can still remember the day that I got on the plane to come here and the feeling of curiosity of what was next to come as if it were yesterday. As I look back from today I get a feeling of accomplishment and also failure.

I think that I have come a long way considering that things that use to bother me. For example, I have got over my fear of using public toilets and outhouses, but only between the hours of 7am and 6pm. I have bathed in a creek without freaking out when bugs were crawling on me and lived without electricity or running water. I no longer get frustrated when people cut me in line, talk over me as if I wasn’t there, when someone is 2 hours late, when people try to plow their way in and out the bus, little kids writing chino on my apartment windows when I’m obviously not Chinese, and all the pull handles being on doors that should be pushed.

But I would say out of all of the things that have happened I believe I have become a more patient and maybe a bit nicer. The Panamanians have taught me a lot about communicating with people. They are more concerned about what the other person has to say instead of what they want to get across. And for the most part they are concerned about people’s background and general welfare. Honestly I was not like that what so ever before I got here. I was more concerned about the point at hand and did not need any extra details. So I try to practice these principles and be more social. Even though sometimes trying to be social has backfired on me. When I first arrived here I met a girl that is an English teacher. She wanted to display her English skills so she acted as my translator in a conversation I had between her mother and the women that I use to live with. That was the last time I talked to her up until about a month or ago. I saw a very small women her sitting with her friends occasionally glancing at me at a salsa class that I went to. I immediately recognized her as my former translator. I walked over to her with a big smile on my face and said, “Hey haven’t seen you in a long time, how are you”? She looked up and said “Que”? Then I repeated, “How are you”. She then again said “Que” but louder as if I didn’t understand her. At this moment I thought in my head, I know this girl isn’t going to act stupid make me look like a creep in public when I was just trying to be nice. Then I said in the don’t act stupid tone in my voice, “I know you speak English”. Then she said yes I do, ooh my mom told me she talked to you the other day. I was a bit disturbed for 15 minutes after that. To top it off another volunteer that came to the class said “That’s what you get for trying to talk to people, that’s why I talk to no one.”Lesson learned.

But I believe that I failed to do the things that I first strived to be when I got here. I have found myself falling victim to the slow paced life here. I’m no longer the busybody that I once was. It seems that I am more concerned about fitting in than making change happen. When the fact of the matter is that I have never fit in anywhere. I have always been known as the odd or different one, so what makes me think that it would be any different in another country. I have only a short amount of time here and I’m moving at a slow pace as if I am going to live here for good. The contributions I have made to the school do not feel it has been enough to me. I haven’t grasped the culture, way of life and advanced in the language as fast as I wanted. And it’s my own fault, because I haven’t put in all the effort that I need to. Frankly, sometimes I just feel intimidated by the bar that I set for myself. I thought before a year I would be speaking Spanish as clearly as a native, and have multiple projects in the school going on. I have 2 months to reach a year and the things that I thought were going to happen aren’t. During my last night in the states on vacation last week, two friends of mine gave me a dog tag with a map of the world with “Don’t be intimidated to change the world” engraved on the back. Sometimes the smallest things can change the way you think. I realized that there is no reason not to make things happen, the only thing that is standing in the way of accomplishing the things that I came here to do is myself. Even though I didn’t make my one year goal, that doesn’t mean that I can accomplish my second year goal. I need to use less energy into concentrating what is going on in the states and in the past, when I need to concentrate on what is going on here and the present. Don’t get me wrong. I still want to be involved on what’s going on in the life of my family and friends, it’s just that my mind needs to be here and not all over the place like it has been.

After spending probably the best 2 weeks of my life back home in the states, Ive come to realize that most of everything is the same. No buildings have moved, gas prices are still high as hell, this person still doesn’t like that person, and subway sandwiches are still 5 dollars (I think). The only differences are the some of the relationships you have with people. Some stay the same; some become closer to you in your absence, some you can no longer relate too, while others drift away from you because you can’t give them the attention that you once use to have the time to. It makes you come to realize that you don’t have control over those things, just an influence that you have to use wisely. I just hope that the lack of my unwise decisions over that influence hasn’t ruined those slipping relationships, and the lessons I have learned from being here will make the future ones better.

Latin People Time is noooo joke

This week began the 4 day seminar over how to form a small business. A couple of months ago after doing a small assessment of the high school that I am working with, I noticed that there isn’t a strong program for entrepreneurship. So I asked a local organization here in Panama to teach the students business principles and how to start their own after graduation. After the seminar I asked all the students if they enjoyed it and what could be improved to make it better. I made sure to say give me your true opinion and not something I would expect to hear. Surprisingly only one person said that it was boring. They all seemed to enjoy it and gave their full participation. It was good to hear all of those who appreciated the effort I put into making this happen, and all the request to repeat the seminar for another group of students.  The seminar consisted of one day explain what is Ampyme and how they are involved with the formation of small businesses also the different types of business. The next day was over the relationship between the boss and employees, and on the third day the students had to make their own business and present it. This was the coolest part. To watch them get up and explain their products, even though I didn’t understand half of what they said. So I would say overall the seminar has gone well, the only issue I had is the issue with time here. I wrote a formal letter to the organization confirming the time and the date of the seminar. It was scheduled at 9 o’clock in the morning. The students and I sat waiting for them to show for an hour and a half. When they arrived it was like everything was on schedule or something. No explanation for the tardiness or anything. So the next day I didn’t go get the students at 9 because I figured that they would be late again.  I sat in the lab waiting for them playing with my laptop. When they finally arrived an hour late homeboy got an attitude with me because the students weren’t in the room ready, because he has other appointments. To make it more annoying, my boss happened to make a surprise visit and get there the same exact time that they did. I think I was set-up. The next day we agreed to push the time back to 10 o’clock. We had the students ready and set up to go at 10 o’clock. They presenters didn’t show up till 1115. I have always thought that my people running on CPT (Colored People Time) is crazy but this is on a whole new level. Latin people time is no joke.

Lately there have been a lot of kids hanging outside the classrooms. Having a bunch of kids walking around freely is not good for anyone, especially when the majority is boys. I have witnessed my third fight this week. Seeing a fight always gets me angry. Not because the students are trying to beat on each other, kids have been beating on each other since the beginning of time. It’s because usually when I see one I’m on the other side of the building and I run full speed to go and stop it. By time I get there teacher pops out of a classroom and stops it before I can. I ran full speed in this 90 degree weather and got my clothes sweaty for nothing. At least let me stop the fight if I went through all that.

I can’t believe he just called me that.

Slowly things are starting to come together. I am no longer bored and at school and I am meeting more and more people each week. In school I have been participating in English classes to get to know the students. The good thing about my role in the class is that I get to do all the fun stuff while the professor does the tedious work, like grammar and sentence structure. I basically play games with them and do speaking exercises. Since the high school that I work in is a vocational school, the majority of the students are boys, so I have to take that into account with the activities that I do. My favorite one so far is to have them tell me what they would say to a girl that they first met. Then I would translate it and have them try to spit game to a girl in the class using only English. All the Rico Suave looking guys jump at the opportunity to show off their skills. It’s very entertaining to watch. Besides that I have been organizing a workshop with a nonprofit organization to teach the students how to form their own business after graduation.

Usually something weird happens to me every week, but for some reason those experiences are less frequent now. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is when I was walking to school a couple of weeks ago and I guy stopped me and asked “Do you speak English”. He was tall bald guy on crutches and had excellent English. He actually sounded American. He then asked me if I would give him some money. It was a week till pay day and I only had 5 dollars in my name. There was no way in the world I was going to give him anything. I was dead broke. I told him “Naw man, I’m a volunteer here and I don’t make much money, sorry”. Then he said to me “ATLEAST YOU CAN WALK”. Normally I would feel sorry for him but I’ve been told on many occasions by other volunteers that there is a tall guy that has an American accent that says he is trapped in Panama with no money and needs to get home. He makes up this elaborate story about the embassy being closed so he can’t get in contact with his family and blah blah blah blah… He has already tricked many volunteers into giving him money. I suspect that this is the guy, because I thought I saw the same guy walking without a problem a couple of days before . Three days later I was walking home from school and saw the same guy. This time when I walked by him he mumbled something to me but I didn’t understand immediately. You know how when someone says something to you and you keep repeating it in your head until it makes sense. When I got about 10 steps away from him the words that he was mumbling began to make sense. I never thought I would hear someone call me this in Panama. He called me a “Sorry A** N***A”. That was messed up. I can’t believe he just called me that. I wanted to go back and kick his crutches from beneath him. Then I thought about the chances of someone saying that to me in a Spanish speaking country and started laughing. Luckily I haven’t crossed him again.

I have the reputation for hanging out with hookers

The new school year has just begun and it’s time for me to get on the grind. During the vacation I didn’t really do much, only plan activities for the year. So as soon as I realized school was starting in a week I jumped into action. Last week began the planning week for the entire faculty in the school. From 8 in the morning till 12 all of the teachers were required to go to the school and listen to the school changes and the grades that they are now required to teach. The first day of the meeting I quickly realized that I have been slacking horrible on studying Spanish. About 80 percent of the meeting I did not understand, so I sat there for 4 hours daydreaming about all the different types of food I was going to eat when I get back to the states and reading over the articles that they gave in my folder. I didn’t want to spend another day torturing myself like that so I decided to go to Panama City early for errands I needed to run. One of the things I needed to do was go to the office in the city and make as many copies of a book as I could and lug them back to the school. The book is by a friend of mine named Giovanni Gonzalez and it addresses topics such as self esteem and reaching ones dreams. Over the summer I have been trying to create a creative way to get the students to read it, but I had to first get more copies to distribute. Also I had to pick up my mail in the city. It’s a 7 hour trip so I jumped onto the midnight bus and arrived in the city early Tuesday morning.

If you don’t know by now, Panama City is very modern. It’s a place full of tourist and Americans that decided to escape from the states for whatever reason. So more or less, its kind of like being in a small city in the states. There are some aspects about the city that I like and there are others that I completely hate. Like how it seems that everyone is trying to cheat you. As soon as someone hears a foreign accent, Bam!! The price doubles. Especially with the taxi drivers. They will all of a sudden bump up the price or literally steal your money, by not giving you your change. This isn’t the wild west where you can just shoot someone for cheating you are start punching them in the face. All you can really do is just be calm about it and don’t let it bother you. I vowed that I would not let another taxi driver take me for a fool again, so I carry a wad full of ones so I can always give exact change. So when I go to the city, I don’t play around, I do what I need to do and try to leave as soon as possible. After spending the afternoon making all the copies I needed to make and meeting a friend of mine for lunch to get my package I was worn out. I decided to stay in the city that night and take the first bus out in the morning. So I had to catch a taxi to get to the hostel where I was going to stay. I thought everything would be under control. I negotiated a price with the taxi driver before I jumped in and thought I had a pocket full of ones. After he took me to my hostel I realized that I only had a 5 and I owed him three dollars. So I gave him the 5 dollars and waited for my change. Then he told me, that’s it you don’t get any change back. Ok, Ok, hold up what? You told me 3 dollars… Well it was further than you said it was.. What are you talking about, it was a block away from the corner I specified…Well I have to charge you for my extra time…You charging me almost double for the extra 2 minutes… That when I blew up. I don’t want to say the things I told this man in this blog because it was not very Peace Corpsish of me. I guess sometimes you reach a point where you can’t be calm anymore, that was my point. Now that I look back at it, it is kind of messed up that I blew up on that man like that over 2 dollars. Needless to say, first thing in the morning I Ieft panama city as soon as possible.

The next day when I returned back to my province I spent the day helping another volunteer find things for her house. She took forever to decide, so I was literally with her all day walking around the city. I decided to give the meetings at the school another try, I arrived there around 9 in the morning to participate in the meetings. For some reason that day I understood things a lot better. That day I decided to join 3 school committees. One of them is the sports committee, during announcements for who will be participating in each committee, the director of the sports committee decided to publicly name me the referee for the soccer games and some other sport I never heard of. Wow..I never played soccer a day in my life and I have no idea what the rules are. I then asked a professor that speaks English if I understood correctly that she just volunteered me to be a referee. He said..Hey man don’t worry about it, its easy…then he pointed to the door and said I need to talk to you. We walked outside then he said

..Man you have to be careful..Careful, what are you talking about?...You can’t be hanging around those horny girls…Horny girls? I still don’t know what you’re talking about?..Those girls that have sex for money, I heard you where walking around yesterday with that hooker…Man I was with a volunteer all day yesterday..Does she speak English?..Yes she was born in the states.. Really? She looks just like that hooker that ask everyone to take advantage of her services...Yes really she is a volunteer and I know the lady that you’re talking about because she asked me a few weeks ago, but that’s not her. Who told you that?..Im sorry man don’t tell him I told you but he is over there..

So with in 1 week of starting school I have already been the tagged as the gringo the hangs around with hookers. I don’t know how far the rumor has spread but, I needed to cut it off as soon as possible. I walked over to the teacher where the story originated and said to him.

Hey, man I saw you yesterday but you didn’t wave at me….Yea I saw you I was driving..Well it’s ok, I was real busy. I had to show another volunteer where she could find things that she needed for her house…A volunteer?..Yea a volunteer, she lives in Bocas..She’s one of you? Yep..Oh I made a mistake…What do you mean? I thought that she was one of those horny girls..No, If I was to get caught with a hooker, I would get kicked out..Oh, I was worried that you were going to get AIDS, those girls are dangerous.

This is already going to be an interesting school year.

Panama, where street hustlers are made

Panama is the place where street hustlers are made. At ever corner there is someone trying to sell you something, fruits, vegetables, candy, bootleg cds, movies, whatever. The strangest thing I have seen so far are people walking around selling the most random things like qtips and super glue. Like as if I were walking down the street and someone said hey I’m selling qtips and super glue,, ..Oh snaps that’s exactly what I need for my for my qtip house that I am making!!! Someone has to be buying it if every street vendor has them!! So I’ve decided that if anyone approaches me on the street I just keep walking or if they somehow stop me, I only speak to them in English. Every so often I run into this lady trying to sell me the most random stuff. The first time I saw her she said Hey my brother, Bocas or Colon. (Bocas and Colon are the places here where most of the black people live). In english I said.. neither I’m from the states.. Then she tried to sell me some used brown tap shoes. Where shot got tap shoes, I do not know but I’m pretty sure that I don’t need any. I said no then she said ok, give me a dollar. I just walked off. Two days later she saw me at a restaurant eating and she tried to sell me a pen. I again sad no, then she said give me a quarter. Two weeks later I just finished ordering food and I heard someone from across the room yelling Hey..Papi.. Papi.. Mi amor..buy this mirror..I know you speak Spanish, I heard you clearly speak it..Heeeeyy, Heeeeey. I just kept on eating as if I couldn’t understand trying to hold in my laugher. After a few minutes of her yelling the man behind me starting laughing for me. The most awkward one was when I went to go buy a phone card for my cell phone. I usually go to the same place to get them, actually it was the same place where a roach jumped out of my man bag. A lady that was walking by heard me speak to the vendor an immediately stopped me and asked what my name was. I was kinda confused why she went out of her way to meet me. I looked her up and down and she reminded me of a real estate agent. Her hair was recently done and she was dressed up nicely. I told her my name then she asked where I was from. As soon as she asked that I looked over her shoulder and saw the guy who just sold me the phone card shaking his head as mouthing NNOOOOOOOOOO. That’s when she asked me if I would like to acostar with her for 20 dollars. Then I said no thank you but ask they guy behind you, I think he might.

Right now it’s pretty active in parts of Panama. Recently there has been a law passed that will allow mining here in the west side of Panama. This will allow outside companies primarily foreign to come to Panama for copper and gold deposits which may be amongst the highest in the world. The environment will be destroyed and the indigenous people that live there will be drastically affected. It’s horrible what will happen to these people if they follow through with the mining. A friend of mine in Ecuador told me that in situations like this the poor people will be exploited while the rich who caused all of this will be sitting on an island drinking mai tais. It’s sad but true. So there has been protest all over, and people storming the streets with their signs yelling. These people are clearly pissed. The interAmericana highway has been blocked for days because of the protest, making traveling to Panama City a pain. I hope that hurry up and settle this because I need to get my mail in Panama City. One of my biggest goals here is to stay off the news, so Im going to keep myself here and stay far away from riots as possible.

Ungrateful little farts

Recently I decided to try a new venture. The first day I arrived here in Panama I decided that I was not going to teach English. I didn’t want to get involved in trying to explain the grammar and why this word changes here and why not there. Most definitely knowing that I have bad grammar myself. How am I supposed to teach good English grammar when I always confuse when to use, was and where. After being here a few months, many people have wanted me to teach them English, or have asked me to proofread their English assignment. It reminds me of how I use to ask my Spanish speaking friends to edit my papers at the last minute. They are now getting their payback. I’ll just being walking down the street and someone would stop me and ask are you the Peace Corps volunteer, could you edit my paper? Sure when?…Uhm its due in 2 hours.

I figured sooner or later I would have to teach an English class, so I did research on how to conduct a class and use different activities to keep the class from being bored. I asked other volunteers for materials and ideas on how to do it effectively. I also wanted to know how the Panamanians taught English to other Panamanians. So I got on the internet and found a language institute that taught Spanish to Americans and English to Panamanians. It is located in Boquete about an hour away from me. I called them and asked if I could help with their classes and sit in. The lady on the phone said sure, can you meet me here in the office. When I arrived in Boquete, it was like I was back in the United States. Everyone speaks English and it is full of retired Americans. It looked like there were more Americans than Panamanians. It’s kinda like a Cuban going to Miami. When I found the office I told them who I was and they asked me, when I can start teaching? I was like WWWHHHHOOOOAAAA. I was interested in learning how yall teach. Then the guy told me that they no longer had a teacher because it is volunteer based and the last teacher left. I figured it would be good practice for when school started, so I agreed. He told me that they didn’t have a curriculum in place so I would have to make up my own materials and he didn’t really know their levels, he thought they may be intermediate. So I went home and started making a curriculum for basic and intermediate students, since I was not sure on their levels. And I had to make sure I knew what I was going to talk about. I didn’t want to be in front of the students stuttering and looking I have no idea what I was doing. This process took me around 3 hours. I traveled back to Boquete at the assigned time of class and all of the students arrived on time. I started off with the basic activities to see what they knew. They knocked out each activity without any effort. So I decided to do harder activities and asked them what else they wanted to learn. They had no idea, so I just suggested some things to them and started lecturing. At the end of the class I actually thought it was fun and I was excited to start the next one. I then told then IN SPANISH that I will be back Wednesday to teach the next class. So I went home and prepared the next lesson, but 3 times harder. And I wanted that the students have multiple classes a week, but I couldn’t afford to make the trip up there every day. So I coordinated with volunteers that live near me, and they agreed that they would take a day of the week and help teach. It was all set up, the students would have multiple teaching styles and they would get English classes 3 to 4 times a week for free. I felt proud of myself. When Wednesday came I hopped on the bus and went to Boquete. I was ready, with my man bag full of dictionaries and candy for one of the activities. I got there about 30 minutes early to make sure I had everything in order. 530 came..no students..545..no students….6 oclock..no students. I walked up to the director and asked him, where are the students? He then called them and they told him that they thought the class was only Mondays. Then he told me maybe they didn’t understand that I was going to be here today. I was like; my Spanish isn’t THAT BAD that they couldn’t understand me. I said OK, whatever, I’ll be back Monday. For some reason it didn’t bother me that much. Fast forward to Monday. Before I traveled to Boquete I went back over my lesson plans and thought of some harder activities to do. This time I arrived at exactly at 530 but there were no students again. A female director this time walked up to me and said are you Alec. Yes I am. Are you the person that came last week and the students didn’t show up? Yea that’s me. Well the students aren’t going to be here today because they don’t want to learn things that they already know. I said, well I had no idea what they already knew so I had to start with the basics, once I realized that they were a bit more advanced I started making things harder for them, and besides I am a native speaker of English I will always have something more to teach them. I have been speaker English since BIRTH. She said well they wanted to learn more advanced things, Ill give you a call if there is any change. I got up and walked out the office calmly and found the bus stop. It wasn’t until I realized that I would have to wait 30 minutes to an hour for the next bus the frustration kicked in. HOLD UP, YOU COULDN’T HAVE CALLED ME BEFORE I WASTED MY TIME AND MONEY COMING DOWN HERE, LITTLE UNGRATEUL FARTS. Needless to say, I was not a happy camper. When I got home I told the other volunteers that were going to help with the class the story, and they told me I don’t want anything to do with that.

I woke up the next morning to a phone call from the same director of the language institute, asking me can I come back or send another person to teach the English class. All I could think was ARE YOU SERIOUS, YOU ASK ME TO COME BACK WITHOUT AN APOLOGY OR ANYTHING. But it’s funny how after all of that I still wanted to teach the class. But if I figured that if I went back like she asked, no one would learn the lesson that wasting people’s time like that is NOT COOL. I didn’t really blame the students too much because of their age. Sometimes we don’t learn how to appreciate something until we are older. I admit that I didn’t always appreciate the opportunities that were given to me when I was younger. However the director still did annoy me, because she didn’t call me and explain the situation before I traveled up there the day before. I then calmly told her because of the things that happened earlier I was a bit frustrated and didn’t want it to happen again. So if after a month from today you do not have a teacher, you can call me back and I’ll let you know if I am available.