Site Announcement!

Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé, Panama. This is my home for the next 2 years! For now, we are still in training, so we will not be moving to our sites until the beginning of July. Nonetheless, site announcement for a Peace Corps "aspirante" is a very exciting day!

Here is what I know so far:

My site is an indigenous site. The native cultures of Panama differ greatly from the latino culture. I do not want to speculate on those differences right now, as I have not had enough exposure to comment accurately. My current training site is latino, so I am in for a big change!

This is an agri-business assignment in a beautiful mountain town of about 500 people. I will be working in a pueblo that has a fairly progressive coffee cooperative. They even have their own processing plant to dry and peel the beans! I will be working with these farmers primarily to increase their production of coffee (and other crops) using sustainable growing techniques. My secondary projects will be working with the artisan group that produces and sells handicrafts and bee honey!! The cooperative has apparently had a great impact in the community over the past few years. It has been involved in developing activeties such as: coffee roasting and trading, chicken projects (that means I hopefully get to eat protein and not just boiled bananas) and developing microcredit loan programs! This community also has a contract with 34 local farmers that produce hot peppers for Tabasco, so I will be involved in maintaining those relationships and improving pepper yeilds.

Anyone who knows me well can probably conclude that I could not be happier with this placement!!

I will be traveling around the country during the next two weeks to learn more about the culture of the indigenous region I will be working in and to get more technical training on sustainable coffee growing techniques. Hopefully I will have lots of new stories to share then. Ciao, it´s time to celebrate!