Bea, Vea, Bella: Posts from a Peace Corps Volunteer

Friday, January 15, 2016

The one about Colombia

Howdy-doo!

I’m finally sitting down to write after a whirlwind few weeks! I hope you all had wonderful New Years and are sticking to your resolutions!Yes, I have been reading every night before bed (mostly) but no yoga yet, gulp! Maybe I'll amend that resolution to be “run a half marathon" - who’s up for training!?

I’m feeling kick-ass and on top of the world after an amazing vacation to Colombia to see friends new and old. Turns out, when one group member claims that they don’t want to summit the Nevado del Tolima, it doesn’t mean that you aren’t hiking, only that you aren’t summiting the almost 6,000 meter snow-capped mountain in the middle of Colombia. I learned the hard way when I called bff Kris the day before take-off and asked, “So what are we doing in Colombia, anyway?” and she replied, “Are you serious? We’re hiking!” Queue me scrambling to prepare! Thank goodness 1) I have an amazing mother who super prepares me for everything and sent me to Panama with a passable assortment of camping equipment and 2) I grew up in Idaho where outdoor things can be sprung on me in a few minutes notice and I’ll roll with it and 3) Kris and Katie had enough extra clothing to help me survive the cold. Thanks to all!

Beautiful vegetation along the way

Us at the base of the Nevado del Tolima

I made it to Bogotá on 1/1/2016 where everything was closed except a 7-Eleven style store where I ate breakfast and lunch and the cable car up a big mountain called Monserrate with a stunning view of Bogotá and a bustling church where I attended my first Catholic mass of 2k16. I had a wonderful day wandering and exploring alone despite the deserted streets and lack of tangible Colombian energy I'd heard so much about. Kris and Bob made it to Bogotá in the evening and we caught up over a cold brewski and hit the hay pretty early. On 1/2/2016 we woke up and fumbled our way through the streets of Bogota, on a taxi and through various confusing bus lines, to Jake’s town. Reunited with the entire crew at last, we recounted plenty of stories, made up for lost time between best friends, and got ready for our trek. And then the fun started!

Cool hilly streets of Bogotá

Obligatory selfie at top of Monserrate

The church in the background is where I went to my first mass of 2016

Top of Monserrate

Bogotá was sprawling!

Day 1 – Trek Nevado del Tolima:

Wake up time: 2:45am

Hike start time: 5:00am

Duration: 10 hours

Terrain: Uphill, grade 85% (probably)

Slept: At a school (apparently with seven enrolled students, though I never saw one, nor even another house from which a child could come) turned hikers hostel in the middle of the greenest field I’ve ever seen in beds nearly shared with cows, chickens, mules, horses, ducks, pigs and piglets.

Momentous occasions:

1. My headlight batteries were dead when we started the hike at 5am so I got my (tennis) shoes muddy minute one of the hike. Solution: Bob had extra batteries and was quickly voted MVP of the morning.

2. Our meal of the night was meat. Yes, just meat. We quickly ran out of gas because of the long frying time meat takes. I would have voted Guide Wilo off the island at that moment if I could have.

3. Sleeping in a caved-in bed after four hours of sleep the night before and starting the vertical hike up with a breakfast of four vanilla wafer cookies. As Kris astutely remarked, “Why are we doing all this crazy uphill on wafers, are you serious?!”

Day 2 – Trek Nevado del Tolima:

Wake up time: 6:00am

Hike start time: 10:00am (due to a stolen camera mystery and lack of cooking gas for stove)

Duration: 6 hours (little did we know it’d be our shortest day and we should savor it because Guide Wilo and Guide Alex kept pushing us to go faster because of the impending rain to which I wanted to yell, Yes, we see those ominous rain clouds and hear the nearing thunder and if we could go faster, don’t you think we would?

Terrain: Paramo desert (only found in these here parts in Colombia) with plenty of fryholes (Dr. Suess trees similar to lambs ear and grow 1cm each year) and lots of uphill

Slept: On a dirt floor under a smoky enclosed cooking space at the edge of lukewarm thermal baths

Momentous occasions:

1. The wonderful lady who greeted us with agua de panela upon arrival to camp when we most needed it due to probable hypothermia (you know, for someone used to living in a tropical climate, 50 degrees feels cold) and rain

2. When the clouds finally cleared up, we could see the entirety of the Nevado del Tolima and its glory – a beautiful site to see and much needed morale booster.

3. Someone stole my coffee and I got REAL mad – two more days and I had no coffee...I was in quite a mood.

Day 3 - Trek Nevado del Tolima:

Wake up time: I never actually went to sleep, so uhhh...1am, 2am, 3am, 4am, 5am and finally out the sack for real by 6am.

Hike start time: 9:00am (but only after tuna pasta breakfast)

Duration: 8 hours

Terrain: Winding up and downhill with beautiful pastures of green passing the base of the Nevado del Tolima and a green lagoon

Slept: On the floor of a structure in the middle of a cow field with endless fresh cheese (mmmmm que rico)!

Momentous occasions:

1. Kris and Bob busting out the Fireball Whiskey!

2. Hot chocolate with cheese chunks thrown in (actually quite delicious and a Colombian specialty)

Day 4 - Trek Nevado del Tolima:

Wake up time: 6:00am

Hike start time: 8:00am

Duration: 8 long long hours

Terrain: Beautiful green trees, jungle forest trails next to rockbed rivers and creeks, and a grand finale into the Valle de Cocora with insanely tall palm trees (another Dr. Suess like endless expanse of funny-looking trees).

Slept: In coffee country in a tiny artesian village called Salento at a hostel that was essentially someone’s room in the back of a bakery because there was a town festival going on and all the hostels were booked up (Said hostel had limited running water and we smelled horrible).

Momentous occasions:

1. Arriving

2. Coffee

3. Dancing (after a long 4 days of hiking, nothing gets them quads burning like a good round of salsa and bachata dancing)

4. Food (including, but not limited to, a peanut butter brownie with ice cream, a peanut butter brownie milkshake, a peanut butter browniesans ice cream, huevos rancheros, rice and beans, and fresh mango juices).

5. WE DID IT!!!!

I’m proud of my crew of hiking bandits – we had an amazing team and worked together to survive the infamous Nevado del Tolima trail – Ibagué to Salento. It will forever go down in history as one of the top three hardest hikes of my life (topped only by some hard hike trips I did with the XC ski team in high school and Pico Duarte in the Dominican Republic).

WE DID IT!

The next few days passed swimmingly, apart from the four hour “night of sleep” I got lying on the floor behind a flower-selling kiosk in the Bogotá airport before my 6am flight and the stench I managed to carry with me off the mountain. Apart from that, I made it to Panama and met another bff Jessie who came to visit me! We had a blast exploring beaches, hiking, running, biking, volleyballing, eating and gabbing about podcasts, trivia, film and everything in between.

This week, it’s back to the grind! Bummer city womp womp!

Until next time, stay weird!

Bea

Monday, December 28, 2015

The one about new years resolutions

Happy Holidays!

Christmas time (especially Christmas week) is basically the only time I’ve ever feel homesick in the past three years of living abroad. I knew what I was getting into when I signed up for this crazy Panama gig, but I knew it’d be hard. And it has been. I think of being home with my family, cutting down the tree, working with my ladies at the Elephant’s Perch, being in the refreshing and energetic presence of my amazing brother, and skiing of course! That said, I’m doing okay this year. We had a Christmas miracle arrive in the form of Shannon, Katie’s girlfriend and she brought with her Christmas joy and American chocolate and coffee! And tomorrow, I head to fly to Colombia on vacation! I will be exploring/hiking to coffee country with college buddies and my partner in crime, Krissy!

Since it’s the end of the year and I’ve been binging on “Best of” podcasts and news articles, I’ve been reflecting back on my Peace Corps journey and how it’s now the third time I get to ring in the New Year abroad and as a volunteer. The years have brought much change – personally, professionally and spiritually and it’s been a pretty powerful thing to look back on. I dedicated 2014 to working on myself. In this very blog I wrote, “In 2014, I turned alone time into a coping mechanism for that discomfort. And at first it was awkward and the hardest thing I ever had to do was spend four, five or six hours alone. But, I’ve really taken control of it. I’m better at setting goals, holding myself accountable, being patient (still working on it). I have become the ruler of my own mind, which sounds maybe like a lame thing to work on for an entire year, but it wasn’t. It took 17 months of Peace Corps service to get here and yes, I’m still working on it, but my alone time is no longer uncomfortable and awkward, it’s a shiny new tool for my life toolbox.”

My goal for 2015 as I wrote was “This year is the year of expansion, pushing myself to the limits, growing from others, and truly giving host-country nationals the energy they deserve.” I believe that I did a good job on this one. I finished my service strong and I really invested in the people I lived with. I learned to rely on others, to trust my project partners, to speak up for my community. The year 2015 has been an amazing one – one that I am very proud of. The growth and accomplishments we achieved in my community were pretty remarkable. And now I’m in a totally new community and developing a new project.

For 2016, I’d like to focus on professional development. I have a wonderful set of personal strengths that I’ve honed over the past 30 months of Peace Corps. I’m more creative, resourceful, and comfortable with myself, self-aware. I’m a better leader, friend and listener. I’ve spent so much time becoming who I am and I know that I can create a strong program here in Panama. I want to develop a curriculum that I am proud of, but that also serves Ngobe communities in the best ways. I hope to make this year much less about me and more about dedicating my skill set to pursuing a noble goal – of bringing health education to indigenous communities!

And now the moment you've all been waiting for....my own personal “Best of 2015” lists!

Best Songs:

1) Hello by Adele

2) American Oxygen by Rihanna

3) Travesuras by Nicky Jam

4) Tokyo Sunrise by LP

5) Dearly Departed by Shakey Graves

6) Me Voy Enamorando by Chino y Nacho

7) Ginza by J Balvin

8) Yo Te Amo Tu Me Ama by El Alfa

9) Rechazame by Prince Royce

10) Lean On by Major Lazer

Best Books:

1) All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doer

2) Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

3) Room by Emma Donahue

4) The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

5) Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham

Best TV:

1) Transparent (Amazon)

2) The Mindy Project (Hulu)

3) Scandal (ABC)

4) How to Get Away with Murder (ABC/I love Shonda Rhimes)

5) (And the obligatory) House of Cards (Netflix)

Best Podcasts:

1) Serial

2) Slate Political Gabfest

3) Global News Podcast by the BBC

4) Radio Ambulante (Spanish language)

5) Huff Post Live Audio by Huffington Post

6) Ted Radio Hour

Top life events of 2015:

1) Climbing the 76^th tallest mountain in the world (February)

2) Graduating our first group of paramedics in Manzanillo (March)

3) Convincing all seven of my Commune ladies to come visit me, it was very special that I got to see them all during my service!!! (March)

4) Luis and Enriquito’s wedding (September)

5) Closing my service in the Dominican Republic with surprise guest appearance by the one and only Grayson Caldwell (October)

6) Watching Henry win Idaho State Mountain Bike Championships (October)

Goals for 2016:

1) Finish developing our Community Health Worker curriculum and implement it in 20 Ngobe sites

2) Read every night before bed

3) Journal/yoga/write more

4) Listen to more podcasts (double points for Spanish ones), read more of The Economist

5) Work on a political campaign (or get a really cool big girl job)

That’s all for now folks! I’ll write you next year!

Paz,

Bea

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

The one about my arranged marriage

HEYO!

I finally finally feel settled in and things are going well (for the most part). We wrapped up our last follow-up clinics (to bring medications to chronic patients with diabetes, epilepsy, asthma, high-blood pressure, etc) and then all the Floating Doctors staff was gone, just gone. They all go home for two months over the holidays and regular clinics stop, holidays are celebrated, the weather doesn’t get any cooler (womp womp) and Katie and I keep chugging along.

Our work is computer based and we might turn into zombies soon, so instead of becoming the crazy anti-social losers that many of you American office workers/software developers/aspiring writer types end up becoming, we take breaks. We’ve found ourselves in a pretty great routine these days. I would describe it to you in painful detail, but then I remembered one time reading a friends’ friend’s blog about being married and each month for the first seven months of marriage, she did a recap of that month of marriage – explaining in vivid detail what it was like to be married. I could not relate, but I passively enjoyed and digested her observations of living on top of another human and the routine they ended up finding together. Well, week 6 into my “arranged marriage” with Katie and I now totally understand what the purpose of those blog posts were – do you even realize how crazy it is to be sharing a life with someone who literally knows everythingabout you and is there for every second of every day and not even two months ago was a total stranger to me? It's insane.

The Raffalongs (Bronwen Raff + Katie Long = The Raffalongs) Month 1 Update:

It’s us – the Raffalongs, sending an update after Month 1 in our arranged marriage! Phew! I know many of you have been holding your breath for our first update and we report with good news is that our arranged marriage has thus far worked out perfectly. We haven’t even fought yet, we haven't even gotten in little tiffs about who does more dishes (me), who fixes more things (Katie) and who hogs more covers (Katie) but shhh, don’t jinx it.

Our daily schedule

7:15*: Alarm goes off, snooze til 7:33, wake Katie up by turning over, go for a run on the beach

8:45: Breakfast – Katie makes the toast, I poach the eggs and make the coffee, we listen to the BBC Global News podcast

9:30 – 12:30: Work on the computer and just when we start to lose our minds, we alternate making lunch (typical options include: leftovers, vegetable/bean wraps, something with peanut butter)

12:30 – 3: More work or errands around town

3:30 – 5: Movement/afternoon activity – typically beach volleyball, sometimes substituted by swimming or paddling on the surfboard we borrowed from a friend

5:30 – 6: Decide what we want for dinner and bike to get ingredients

6 – 7: Make dinner - Katie specials include: omelets, sushi (!!), stir-fry; Bea specials include coconut Thai curry, papaya sticky rice and tuna mac n’cheese.

7 – 10:30: Play the ukelele, play brain-expanding trivia and/or invent mind-stretching games, spend hours picking out a movie and watch half of it before falling asleep

10:30: Lights out!

*If it’s a Tuesday or a Thursday, we exclusively speak to each other in Spanish.

Favorite meals:

5) Tuna mac n’cheese

4) Papaya sticky rice

3) Stir-fry

2) Anything with peanut butter

1) Coconut Thai curry

Favorite snacks: Papaya, popcorn, ginger cookies with peanut butter, shortbread cookies with peanut butter, oatmeal cookies with peanut butter, chocolate

Favorite games this month:

5) Trivial Pursuit

4) Sporcle

3) Use an iPhone to record ourselves making music with the ukulele and sending them to friends

2) Beach volleyball

1) Improv games

Popcorn flick picks:

4) Frozen (Katie’s first time!)

3) We Need to Talk About Kevin (highly recommended by Katie, in her words “The most visceral viewing experience I’ve had in a while”)

2) The Place Beyond the Pines (highly recommended by Bea, in my words, “Ryan Gosling, what else do you need?”)

1) Serena (not recommended by either of us, from the mouth of very own film critic Katie, it was “Pretty people, pretty country, pretty bad”).

Books on the proverbial coffee table this month:

5) Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shtenygart (pretty decent read about a love story set in the near future, not on my top ten list though)

4) La Ceguera by José Saramago (Katie enjoys, didn’t seem too enthusiastic when I just asked her...she seems lost in her work)

3) Serena by Ron Rash (Good book, fatal movie)

2) Donde No Hay Doctor by David Werner (I can’t tell if looking up weird medical conditions at the one flat surface we have that serves as our kitchen table/work desk/coffee table counts as business or pleasure)

1) Room by Emma Donahue (comes highly recommended by both Bea and Katie, beautifully written from the perspective of a five year old boy trapped with his mother in an 11’ x 11’ room – that said, we do not suggested reading this book if you literally live in an 11’ x 11’ house with one other person)

Favorite questions:

5) ¿Que es eso?

4) What’s that sound?

3) Should we go to the beach?

2) What game should we play?

1) Do you want to build a snowman?

Favorite Words: Astronaut, Clinic, Game, Popcorn, Coffee, Trivia, Improv, Leishmaniasis, Sloth, Ukulele, Run, Room, Tiny House, Clos

What we’re learning this month: Patience and acceptance

Other interesting facts:

- Longest time spent apart: 4 hours

- Spines Katie picked out of Bea’s foot: 3

- Back and forths on the volleyball: 29 hits in a row

Characteristics we realize we share: Disinterest in small children, love of running, taste in food, critical lens for analyzing international development, always thought the Disney “D” was actually a backwards “G,” musical talent (I'm getting there)!

Characteristics we don’t share: Love of dogs, sense of direction, pop culture/movie references, improv expertise

Gallivants: This month we’ve been to eight Ngobe-Bugle communities as super star interpreters for Floating Doctors clinics/follow up, we’ve also explored two nearby beaches and hope to add a few more to that list this week!

In summary - month one of arranged marriage is working out great and it’s all been happening so fast! I guess we really know now what people are talking about when they say time flies when you’re in love! Wish us luck in Month 2 :)