The one about poetic inspiration

Invictus by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me, 

      Black as the pit from pole to pole, 

I thank whatever gods may be 

      For my unconquerable soul. 

In the fell clutch of circumstance 

      I have not winced nor cried aloud. 

Under the bludgeonings of chance 

      My head is bloody, but unbowed. 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears 

      Looms but the Horror of the shade, 

And yet the menace of the years 

      Finds and shall find me unafraid. 

It matters not how strait the gate, 

      How charged with punishments the scroll, 

I am the master of my fate, 

      I am the captain of my soul.

The one about the injustice of culture boxes

Heyooooo mi gente! 

Sending out a roundup of my fame and glory this week! I was just published on the official Peace Corps website for a post I wrote a while back about the emergency medical system I worked to implement with Trek Medics during my original service in the Dominican Republic. Check it out, official and live! And now...drumroll please....a post about culture! 

For a while I didn’t feel qualified to write this blog post. I still may not be, but I’m gonna take a stab at it, trying to respond to questions and conversations I’ve had recently. What, I venture to answer, is the culture here like? (Uhhh, is this practice for a masters thesis?) I have extensively spoken to Katie #1, Katie #2 and my PCV friends about this topic and we're working on mastering the response. One things for certain, since I started this Peace Corps journey almost three years ago (!), the way I have come to think about culture has changed significantly.

A story to express this confusion of mine happened a year into my DR service when I went to DC for the Blog it Home adventure. We (myself and the 8 other winners serving in China, Albania, Cameroon, Thailand, Uganda and Senegal) were tasked with bringing items that represented our host countries to show on exhibition tables during various events hosted throughout the week. We were all concerned that our tables looked bare (annoying considering that the Uganda table was flowing with fabrics and the China table laid out a sampler of every flavor Lays potato chip you’ve never wanted to try). Fear not - it was Peace Corps HQ to the rescue! Our leader came into the conference room and laid out a stack of “culture boxes” for us to use. (This is Peace Corps' HQ effort noble to preserve culture and have trinkets and objects from each country where Peace Corps Volunteers have served/are serving). Meleia was doling out these culture boxes and when she got to me she said, “Looks like we don’t have a box for the Dominican Republic. Sorry!”

It didn’t strike me as peculiar until later, when I was retelling this story and my subsequent embarrassment at the optics of my scant table. I had struggled to get participants to come to my table that was set up minimally with with a greca (coffee maker), a few mentas (candies given as change at stores), a guira (instrument used in celebrations that looks like a big cheese grater) and of course, Dominican dominoes. I also had a flag, but compared to vibrant fabrics and traditional dresses of the Uganda and Albania table, my table looked bare. I reflected on this later and decided that people are usually more likely to exoticize cultures that they assume to be most different than their own. The indigenous/tribal looking culture tables of Senegal and Cameroon ranked highest among what US Americans considered “interesting."

If I wanted to wear the traditional dress of the DR, I would have put skin tight animal print leggings on and a sparkling tube top with huge hoop earrings, big ol’ high heels and red lipstick. But you can’t wear that to a Girl Scouts event and even if you could, we don’t validate that as “culture” because it doesn't look different enough from our own. Dominican culture is vibrant, exciting, caring, warm, loud, and giving. But one thing it’s not is tangible/physical/touchable. There are no colorful fabrics or traditional dresses, there no exciting food to try or feathered headdresses to wear. But what are flowing fabrics and sparkling dresses anyway? Do touchable materials and objects mean richer culture? Does the ability to perform a dance from ones ancestors make a country’s way of life? What is culture?

Fast forward to my time here in Panama. Examples of these elements we label as "culture" are more readily found in my sliver of experience working with Ngäbes in Panama. Things you could physically put on a table here are:

- Chakras: These are woven bags called made of fibrous leaves and knit into bags they use to carry babies, loads of harvest from their farms and laundry to the river. 

- Dientes: This translates to “teeth” and some Ngäbes literally file their teeth into sharp points to represent the mountains where they live. Yes, some live by the ocean, but many live in the mountains. Also, dientes can refer to a type of design that Ngäbes put on clothing to represent the mountains as well. This can be sewn onto hats, shirts, dresses, school uniforms and different color combinations represent different towns. 

- Naguas: These are traditional dresses women wear. There are casual naguas for housework and daily ware and your fancier ones for traveling/formal event days. Many women have taken to cutting a slit in the middle for an easy way to pop out their breasts for breastfeeding (side note: I truly love that breasts here are for feeding children exactly as they were intended to be, women slip their nips out whenever and wherever baby chi wants a meal!). This dress has become less common in many communities and women now wear knee length jean skirts to be fancy!

But just last week, I was teaching our Community Health Worker course with my fellow response volunteer, Evan, and he himself said “Ngäbes don’t really have a distinct culture. They don't have music, dances, organization, or artisanal things that represent their culture.” Taking food from my chakra bag and wearing my diente-designed visor, we began a long discussion in which (unsurprisingly) I begged to differ. While Ngäbes do not have a special food or vibrant dance celebrations you can put on a presentation table, there is a distinct energy (nay...culture) in Ngäbe communities.

Ngäbes are kind and quiet, reserved and fiercely familial. Ngäbes are easy to spot because of their distinctive high cheekbones, broad faces, full mouths, thick straight black hair, tanned skin, short stature and stocky body size (or as I’ve heard thrown around a time or two in a less pc way, “dense”). Their communities are spread out, decentralized so there is no hierarchical order or obvious community leaders. Most communities are small, ranging from 15 houses to 100 and there’s usually another one just a few minutes walk away. Ngäbe families are very large; most have between five and eight children plus grandkids and great grandkids. Women perform the household duties and men are usually removed from the child-rearing process. Most women have their first kid by age sixteen and women usually give birth in their homes standing up/squatting (mad respect), supervised by an older midwife or just their own mother. They don’t name their children when they are born and instead refer to them as Chi because so many children die before their first birthdays (and they certainly don't have reveal parties when they discover the sex of their child!). They eat lots of rice and green bananas and drink vats of warm grated cacao and coffee. They are genuine, caring, understanding, shy, reserved, beautiful, curious, and unique.

If I had to put Panama on a table, I would show up with a few naguas and chakras. I’d bring fabrics from the Kuna indigenous groups in the east and maybe a Panama Hat for good measure. But more than that, I would express and convey the sentiments and goodness of the people who live in Bocas del Toro. I’d talk about Carmen and her expert sewing skills. I’d mention Roda and her dedication to running the community store so she can make money and gain financial independence. I’d tell you about Aron and his ambitions to study and become a nurse. I’d talk about all the women who’ve shown me how to weave chakras or the mothers who struggle to put enough food on the table for their seven kids. I’d talk about the grandmas raising grandkids and the lack of higher education options for youth. I’d explain how Ngäbes spend their days on their banana/cacao/pineapple farms in the hills and how the hard-working men chop weeds and plant in the beating sun. I’d tell you about the women leaders in their communities. I’d tell you those stories. No, you may not be able to touch the culture here, but you sure can feel it. 

The one about books

BOOKS! Gobble gobble! My humble opinions about the books I've read since embarking on my Peace Corps Response Panama adventure in October 2015. You'll find title, my rating and a short synopsis!

1) Serena by Ron Rash (3.5/5) - a wonderful novel (terrible terrible missed opportunity to create a spectacular movie with a cast like J.Law and Bradley Cooper) about a timber baroness in the south and her desire to control her husband and their timber operations

2) Room by Emma Donahue (4.5/5) - brilliantly told story of abduction from the perspective of Jack and his mother during captivity

3) Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart (3.5/5 - set in the near future, it's a meh story about two insanely boring people trying to make a failed romance work

4) The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah (4/5) - poignant WWII story about two sisters doing their part to support the Resistance

5) Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Marukami (4.7/5) - beautifully exploration of sub-consciousness

6) The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling) (3.5/5) - murder mystery that gets too caught up in small details to create a compelling story

7) Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff (4.8/5) - Apparently it's Obama's favorite book of 2015 and already ranks in my top 3 of 2016! Unique story-telling narrative similar to others like Gone Girl and Serena (other favorites of mine). Lots of big vocabulary, too, perfect for studying for the GRE!

8) Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick (4.5/5) - A easy-to-understand history of North Korea told through the stories of six brave defectors. Easy entry book to understand what is North Korea! Highly recommend.

9) Euphoria by Lily King (5/5) - By far my favorite book of the past year, it was on plenty of official "Best of 2014" lists and I'm just getting around to it a few years later. About an anthropologist couple spending time in a tribal community in New Guinea. Speaks to the complexity of living in another culture and the beauty of learning from other people - helpful for PCVs and non-PCVs alike.

10) Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari (4/5) - A hilarious book about dating in the modern era of technology. Makes me want to throw my iPhone in the ocean and never download the Tinder app, however, dating apps now account for more than 30% of marriages, so get swiping!

11) Redeployment by Phil Kaye (4/5) - A fictional compilation of short stories form Iraq/Afghan veterans and their experiences on deployment.

12) This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral-Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking!-in America's Gilded Capital by Mark Leibovich (4.5/5)

13) Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (5/5) - Should be required reading. It tells the tale of being black in America through a letter Coates writes to his son.

14) Father of the Rain by Lily King (4.5/5) - A wonderfully told tale about a girl-then-teenager-then-woman's relationship with her alcoholic father. I wanted to simultaneously strangle and hug the narrator the entire time and she took me through the gambit of emotions and strange family relationships.

15) The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende (4.5/5) - Wonderful! Read it now.

16) A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra (4/5) - It took a while for me to get into this book because off the complexity of all the characters involved in the story but as I got used to the storyline and used to Marra's prose, I feel deeply in love. Set in Chechnya during wartime, it's a beautiful story of the complexities of life and love.

17) Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (4.8/5) - I love the way she writes and brings you into the harsh reality that is the Nigeria-Biafra War in 1960s Nigeria. Told from the vantage point of three characters, it elegantly expresses the beauty and tragedy of themes like close relationships, war, peace, and education.

18) No One Every Has Sex on a Tuesday by Tracy Bloom (1/5) - This book is so mind-numbingly dull that I have nothing to say about it other than "meh." It's about a woman who is eight months pregnant and doesn't have a supportive partner or know which of two men the father is, so basically it's 221 pages of my worst nightmare.

19) The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (4/5) - 2016 Pullizter Prize winner and the third on my war novel streak, this book is a complicated, intense, dynamic and poetic account of a "sympathizer" from Vietnam's confession of supporting his native country. Anyone want to have a book club and discuss? This one deserves a lot of unpacking!

20) Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein  (4/5) - I was over the tragic war novel stories and took my stab at this non-fiction book. I'd heard Sunstein explaining many concepts brought up in Nudge on a favorite podcast, Freakonomics, and thought I'd give it a go. An approachable way to understand the way humans make decisions and the ways in which we can nudge humans to make better decisions in all areas. Plus, it feels like I'm getting some really good economic tips too.

The one about travel and leisure

Monday morning I got an article in my inbox sent lovingly by my mother, sent to her by someone who knew I live in Panama. I like that, finding common connections, thanks Mom and thanks person who sent this to her while thinking of me. In the article, published in “Travel + Leisure: Best Places to Travel in 2016,” Here’s what it says:

“The Isthmus of Panama is home to some of the purest natural beauty in Latin America: dense tropical rain forests, wide savannas, coral reefs bursting with aquatic life, and delightfully deserted beaches. The latest idyllic spot to emerge on travelers’ lists is Bocas del Toro, an archipelago made up of nine islands and hundreds of cays and islets. In the country’s northeastern corner—a one-hour flight from either Panama City or San José, Costa Rica—it’s a sanctuary where the main mode of transportation is a wooden motorboat, dolphins swim through crystalline waters, and dockside restaurants serve the local fishermen’s catch of the day. Its remoteness and simplicity have made it a favorite among backpackers, surfers, and adventurers. Bocas Town, the archipelago’s main village, is equal parts rickety and charming, with tin-roofed wooden houses converted into colorful boutiques, guesthouses, and restaurants—head to Ultimo Refugio for the best food in town, an open-air sport famous for its lobster risotto and sesame-crusted tuna. And while Bocas isn’t losing its ruggedness anytime soon, a new hotel is likely to redefine tourism there. Sarani Resort, scheduled to open this summer, will bring unprecedented style to the area. The 35 hardwood bungalows, on 75 acres, were designed with the quiet mood of a Balinese resort in mind. There will be an infinity pool, an outdoor bar crafted from old wooden boats, and a restaurant serving organic Caribbean food. “Bocas evokes this sense of calm, Peter Debs, who is overseeing the development, says. “You’re surrounded by untouched mangrove islets, you hear the slapping of the waves, and see people catching lobsters from hand-carved canoes. I’m glad it hasn’t become a Cancún. Here it’s all about the salt water and the forest.” —Paola Singer

Yes, this is where I live and yes, it is as amazing as it sounds. But it’s not the travel writing, romanticized view of paradise that you’re imagining from reading Paola’s words. Just from reading this, I myself want to hop on a plane and go in search of this whimsically magical set of glorious islets that invokes a nostalgically beautiful emotion in me. I’d book a ticket to that place. That’s some damn good travel writing. But that’s not what this Bocas del Toro is.

There are struggles here. People don’t necessarily like that they have to lobster catch in a hand-dug canoe in the middle of the (often turbulent) ocean to appease the dietary wants of seafood-seeking tourists. And the article disregards the boat drivers who operate these seemingly effortless gliding “wooden motorboats” and pay an arm and a leg for the upkeep when their motors break down with a frequency you can only expect from an overused, under cared-for motor sitting in salt water lugging tourists around from island to island. But they’re not complaining, we aren’t complaining, I promise. Locals know they make money from tourists but they don’t seem to understand why people come in search of this place specifically because to them, it’s always ever been home.

Since when did we, as tourists from the developed world, decide to eat up this idea of “untouched mangrove islets” as the idea of a perfect vacation? Since when do we feel okay ignoring the fact that in our search for an escape from our overly busy and productive lives, we get to ignore the real struggles of locals who’ve called the place home for hundreds of years. Because the article seems to espouse or underscore the idea that in our search for this “untouched paradise”, it’s okay to completely negate the fact that actual people have lived here, and that they have been touching the land for thousands of years. (I recognize that this question could lead us down a rabbit hold of manifest destiny, but we all know how that goes, so in this post I’ll refrain from exploring that idea further). This is how I envision the negotiation of building a resort on Isla Pastor went:

White Man With Money and Big Ideas: Peter, you’re back! How’d the surveying trip down to Panama go?  

Peter: Well, sir, it was great! We found this island, it’s tucked enough away from the mainland so you don’t have to see the dirty port town neighbors where locals shit over the water and put trash in the ocean. But it’s close enough to the airport in Bocas Town so that locals will feel like their getting the authentic remote experience when we pick them up with a coconut drink in hand and then they still have to they take a boat 15 minutes get to our resort. It’s deceptively remote, sir, just like what you asked for (rubs chin pensively with hand while looking longingly out the window).  

WMWMABI: Great job Peter! Just make sure it evokes the idea of serenity and tranquility that white people are going ape shit for these days.

Peter: I hear you sir, my only question is: there are a few local communities right where we want to build. Does it matter if we have to knock down hundreds of local dwellings to do what we want out there? Or that we’ll be bringing in electricity to the island that hasn’t ever had it, thereby catapulting them into the 21^st century without providing education or other incentives for our existence there?

WMWMABI: No, they’ll be fine. Oh and make sure the restaurant/bar is made out of something local.

Peter: But sir, what if the only wood I can find is these canoes that they paddle around on?

WMWMABI: Well, Peter, then buy that off them - white people eat that “local” shit UP! Oh, let’s make sure we call the restaurant “organic” too.

Peter: Yes sir. Then I’ll call up Travel + Leisure so they can do a piece about it. Paola owes me one still for that time she wrote a shitty review of our Balinese Bungalows in rural Cambodia. She doesn’t even know how much money that cost us.

WMWMABI: Great idea, now back to work.

It’s happened before. It’ll happen again. Does this resort deserve a place in Bocas del Toro? Sure. But I know this island and I’m not so sure the developers thought about the locals they will be displacing, if not physically, at least in that they will bring money to the island that locals have never seen or experienced before. The community dynamics will change. Those locals who are not lucky enough to find a position on their staff on construction, in the kitchen or as cleaners will be relegated to bottom of the totem pole. I can assure you that the communities in Isla Pastor had a system before this place was build and now they will have to completely re-write that system. The local community on Isla Pastor will stratify. I’ve seen the exact same story with the Red Frog Island Resort on Bastimentos Island and a new $400/night ecolodge in the community of Loma Partida.

That said, there are many businesses here in the tourism industry that do hire and treat locals fairly, providing a living wage and creating a solid way of life for so many people here. Locals ride their bikes on “rugged” dirt roads to make it to work, spend the day at these pristine resorts waiting on tourists who wash their hands in the filtered rainwater taps and leave their shift in a hotel with hot water and wifi to go home to a wooden shack without electricity or potable water. And yet the words “rugged, pristine, hand-dug, organic” are somehow appealing and palpable to travelers. Those words come on the backs of locals who have had their lives uprooted for our “serenity.” Their struggle is our way to relax. But those locals who aren’t on the inside of the tourism industry really struggle. They watch their families separate because one child gets a job on the main island and another has to bake bread in their community to sell for twenty-five cents a bun. They have no electricity because no one has decided that their community is “good enough” to develop. They see communities across the bay reaping the benefits of benevolent enough tourists, but they can’t break in.

I’m not saying it isn’t wonderful place to visit or that we should give up our days of rest and relaxation. What I am saying, however, is that in our exploration of “rest and relaxation” we’ve come to prioritize places where we don’t have to think about the lives of locals we interact (or don’t) with. We can enjoy our “outdoor bar crafted from old wooden boats and a restaurant serving organic Caribbean food” without truly appreciating why we needed to leave where we came from. I hope we can come to see those “tin-roofed wooden houses converted into colorful boutiques, guesthouses, and restaurants” as a place where real people’s blood, sweat and tears have gone in to make your vacation world keep spinning. The charm of this place comes from the unique people you find in those lobster boats, the drivers of the wooden hand-carved boats, the owners of these restaurants. The charm of this place doesn’t come from a resort that has a “Bali style infinity pool” (though, that sure does sound amazing!), yet rather from the people that makes this place unique. The people we should honor as a resource and never a burden.

Nowhere is just as perfect as it seems in Travel + Leisure, but Bocas sure comes close.

The one about falling in love with Panama

I was talking to my regional leader/bestie Zoe the other day and she was reflecting on her service (she's in her third year too) and how she realized she is really good at Peace Corps in the same way that other people are really good at economic consulting or being a nurse. I agree - she is amazing at it. But I asked her why it is that every Peace Corps Volunteer here seems to be "good at Peace Corps" and love Panama and want to stay forever and ever? It's not the case with everyone, but this is definitely not something pervasively felt by PCVs in the Dominican Republic even though most of us loved the country and our service there. 

Five months in, I’m starting to get what it is about Panama. It’s beautiful, it’s relatively small and it’s easy to live here (not physically easy – PCVs have some insane circumstances that they live in). What I mean is that people are nice, not offensive, supportive (especially other PCVs) and the culture is peaceful. I don’t feel that I get nearly half as many catcalls as I did in the DR. Things are slightly more regulated but only enough so that it feels understandably unorganized versus chaotically confusing. People have to wear helmets on motorcycles, seat belts in cars, and life jackets on boats. You cannot drink in the streets much less drink with one hand on the steering wheel and another gripping a 40oz beer like you can in the DR. Panama is regulated, but adventurous enough to feel challenging and exciting. I understand the appeal in a way that I couldn’t have before. I no longer feel like I’m trying to hold on to my service in the DR, I’m finally accepting that this is different and let the current take me. I get it now: the culture of Panama, the culture of Peace Corps Panama and the spirit of the volunteers that leads a good many of them to extend for a third year, or victory lap, as I’ve come to call it. People who, like me, never really gave much thought to Panama before Peace Corps and have come to love the place we now call home. If only everyone could be so lucky!

That said, at first, I wondered to myself, why doesn’t this feel exactly how I want it to feel? Why am I thinking about the DR so much and making comparisons between my experiences? Why do I ache for the USA even though I can find almost everything I need on my tiny island? Why don’t I love it? Just like falling in love, the thought of getting to that point of integration in my community again was exhausting. Do you even know how much time I had to spend and coffee I had to drink on the porches of community members over two years to be accepted? And you want me to try and replicate that again, what are you crazy!?

Eeeeeeeerch back it up, Bronwen. Just like my first few months in site in Manzanillo, when I didn’t know who to ask for help and how to connect the dots between key community members I felt uncomfortable. I wasn’t yet adjusted to life without reliable electricity, internet, water, etc. It took time. And when I decided to do this whole living abroad thing again, I didn’t give my human-ness the credit it deserved. Of course I wasn’t going to just fall into step with my job and the culture and create a social life after one week or one month. But I'm happy to report that I’ve fallen in love with a new place all over again!

My role is to navigate between what I consider four distinct communities: 1) Panamanians/locals on the main island 2) Ngobe indigenous culture on the peninsula where we work, 3) the Floating Doctors volunteer/staff, and 4) Peace Corps Volunteers. It’s a complex dance to learn but I finally feel settled amongst them all. This week, I spent four days on the Kusapin Peninsula teaching our Community Health Worker course in Ensenada and was given a Ngobe name, a right of passage for any Panama PCV. A wonderful woman, Carmen, and I spent time together and she said, "We’re going to call you “Buledi” from now on because that was my mother’s name and she was happy just like you." You’re right Carmen, I am happy. I am happy to be a part of this work and I feel like I’ve really found my place in this country. It’s humbling to remember that we have our struggles and that we can overcome them. Humans are good at losing, recreating, reinventing and adapting.

Con mucho amor, 

Buledi

The one about finding your "specials"

This post was written by Katie and I for the Peace Corps Panama tri-annual magazine “La Vaina” inspired by the theme “This I Believe....”

“You are the books you read, the films you watch, the music you listen to, the people you meet, the dreams you have, the conversations you engage in. You are what you take from these. You are the sound of the ocean, the breath of fresh air, the brightest light and the darkest corner. You are a collective of every experience you have had in your life. So drown yourself in a sea of knowledge and existence. Let the words run through your veins and let the colours fill your mind until there’s nothing left to do but explode.” – Jac Vanek.

We’d take this quote one step further to include people, real life humanoids who affect the way you see and experience the world. As our pal, good ol’ Jac Vanek mentions, it’s what you learn from and take from your surroundings that truly influence your being. There are people who you engage with that influence your way of thinking and experiencing. But then there are those people who completely rewrite the way you live. Those are called the “specials.”  If you’re lucky enough to find a special in your life, hold on tight because they’ll teach you a million things. 

Bea, here is what you’ve taught me:

1. How not to freak out so much when lighting a gas stove.
2. That making a habit of sweeping the floor actually makes the house feel cleaner.
3. When you don’t like what someone is doing, sometimes the best thing to do is to be honest and actually tell them that (sass optional).
4. If your goal is to be the President of America, then you should tell people your goal is to be the President of America.
5. You can tell someone that you “hate” a piece of their clothing that you have never even seen, and it doesn’t mean that you love them any less.
6. If you like something about somebody, tell them to their face (it makes them feel really good and they will remember it when they are feeling down).
7. Even though a flag that you don’t want is half price, don’t buy it...because it’s a flag you don’t want.
8. If you can win the race, do it, because it’s called a “race,” not “a share circle.”
9. Being flexible, open-minded, and curious can co-exist with having strong opinions and expressing them without worrying about what others think.
10. Sometimes it’s better to stop talking and just say, “See you later freakazoid!”

Katie, this what I have learned from you:

1. The best way to play board games is in teams, especially when one half of the team takes Trivial Pursuit cards from the 1990s to bed and studies them.
2. Intellectually superior human beings listen to podcasts morning, afternoon and night. Music is for squares...except if it’s a parodied song played on the ukulele.
3. Ten minutes of volleyball a day does human good.
4. A good sense of humor, coupled with living by the phrase “Yes, and...” is the best way to become a improv specialist and better person.
5. If someone else does the cooking, you should always do the cleaning.
6. When someone says something really funny and you feel a huge belly laugh brewing, ride that wave, baby, ride it all the way!
7. Even though you may fully believe that paper books are morally superior and the only way to truly preserve the beauty of literature, it doesn’t make you a hypocrite when you buy a Kindle. 
8. If someone comments on a ten-year-old picture of you and says, “Wow, you’re wearing the same outfit!” it’s probably time to go shopping.
9. You can know everything about someone and still have stuff to talk about everyday.
10. Having a curious and analytical mind coupled with an uncanny ability to speak without ever taking a breath can lead to some of the most powerful and impactful conversations you’ll ever have with a friend who will eventually become your life mate. 

Specials are what make life great. They are the people who you can never get enough of, who you will always want close, whose glance you exchange whether or not they are physically present. You can meet them at camp, at track practice, on study abroad, while working at the deli, and in Peace Corps. Specials transcend age, class, and fashion sense. Wherever you happen to meet them, you’ll know quickly that they are a special. You start figuring out which one of you is Ernie and which one is Bert, you stop having to say "my sister" and can just say "Jenny" when telling a story. You will start wondering what they will look like at 40, 60, or 80 because you know you will still be looking at them in one way or another. We believe in the power of finding your specials.

The one about my community's emergency medical system

This story is a throwback to my service in the Dominican Republic, but on the anniversary of our very first week of providing emergency medical care with the Paramedic team in Manzanillo, I thought it fitting to document our process in the annals of history. Enjoy!

One sunny afternoon, I was sitting with my neighbors drinking coffee in our plastic chairs trying to catch a breeze. I had been in site for nearly six months and felt that I had a pretty good grasp on the dynamics of the place. The hospital administrator rolled up to our growing street gathering and took his place in the low-back plastic chair on the corner. “Bea,” he said to me, “I need a favor. We need an ambulance for the hospital, can you get us one?”

Fast forward to nearly two years later, and I never did get that hospital administrator his ambulance, but what we did do together as a community was create an emergency medical system staffed by local first responders who use a basic mobile phone software to provide pre-hospital care to emergencies in my site of Manzanillo in the northwest corner of the Dominican Republic. But let’s back up!

After that fateful conversation I had that afternoon with the hospital administrator, fondly known as Papito, I started investigating the idea of an ambulance donation. I did a Google search and sent a mass email to friends and family back home. I also sent many emails to organizations I read about online and one finally took the bait! Little did I know, this connection would turn into a full-blown emergency response system project (and subsequently sour me at the idea of ambulance donations as legitimate forms of aid). I heard back from Trek Medics International, an organization dedicated to “improving emergency medical care anywhere.” And so I began a series of intense conversations with the Executive Director, Jason, who pushed me for more specific answers to my “can you donate an ambulance” question. As it turned out, when I dug a little deeper within my community, I teased out from the hospital administrator that what we really needed was a collaborative solution to the actual problem of inadequate pre-hospital care and a lack of reliable inter-facility transfer capacity.

So, I’d found the jackpot organization that could help me tackle this – now what? After a series of conversations between community members, we unanimously agreed to invite Trek Medics to send a team down to investigate the possibility of starting a pilot program. One thing led to another and the big boss, Jason, decided that Manzanillo was the perfect place to launch their newly developed Beacon technology (essentially a way to crowd-source transportation and medical attention, like emergency Uber). Working under the supervision of the local fire department, we gathered recruits who had to interview, study, train, and perform simulations for several weeks before we allowed them to “graduate” as community first responders. Simultaneously, I was training local dispatchers and working with the fire chief, Ramoncito, to give the fire station a central role in the new service as dispatchers of local emergencies.

The team of responders (fondly referring to themselves as “paramedicos”) also had to prove themselves as reliable partners with real skin in the game. For example, they initially offered to help the local civil defense during Holy Week and stationed themselves for service at the beach when the holiday crowds flocked to Manzanillo’s beaches. There they encountered a number of patients with problems ranging from wounds to dehydration and intoxication. While no serious patients were treated (thankfully), their simple presence on scene proved to be a small, but critical first step in their growth: it showed the community that the response team was more than just a good idea, it built their confianza (trust) in our new service exponentially.

Then, we had to start giving our responders bigger tests so that we knew we could safely grow. This included: handling simultaneous emergencies; ensuring that a sufficient number of available first responders were distributed equally as the coverage area expanded; training our team members as instructors in order to train neighboring communities, introducing a new version of the Beacon software funded by Google, and learning to use newly minted motorcycle ambulances the organization donated to our local fire station. And on and on it went...one good idea snowballing into a thousand more - all community-driven to make a well-oiled emergency medical system.

There is still so much to do, but for something that started as a simple conversation over much-too-sugary coffee, it is now the primary method for emergency transport in my rural community. Today, six months from the date I finished my service in the Dominican Republic and have moved on to a similar Peace Corps Response position in Panama, we still have a fully functioning emergency medical service in Manzanillo and have expanded (with help from USAID and other generous organizations) to the entire province. Locals are the crux of the organization and run the entire operation. This was a project that never would have functioned without a vested community interest (especially as I knew nothing about first aid myself before it started!). Key community members were part of every decision and the driving force excited about this organizations entry into Manzanillo. After initial contact with Trek Medics, I became a critical community organizer, but I was never the driving force.  As Jason reminded me various times throughout the process, “We can’t want it more than they do. They have to be a part of every step.” A very valuable life lesson, indeed, especially in the realm of international development.