Adventures to a Sustainable Future: April 2015

January 31, 2015

I’m currently sitting on a bucket in my house watching the sun shine and the rain fall at the same time. The weather has been bipolar all day, which kind of puts a damper on activities requiring leaving the house. As I sit here frequently zipping and un-zipping my sweater, let me tell you about the month of January. Over half of the month was taken up by IST (In Service Training) which consisted of trainings, meetings, field trips, beach visits, catching up with friends, and (at least for me) an unexpected hospital visit.

The first week of IST was at a conference center located a short walk from one of the many beautiful beaches on the Pacific Ocean side of the country. This week the entire Group75 was together for trainings. It was the first time I had seen the majority of my group since we swore in (in August). The week of trainings was interrupted for me at least with a trip to the hospital. Nothing that dramatic or interesting I’m afraid. I had been having stomach pain after every time I ate since the middle of December. I went to the doctor and received ten days of multiple drugs to fix the problem; my stomach was producing too much acid which was causing inflammation and pain. I was told to make sure I ate at the same time every day to help my stomach regulate itself. One little problem. The pain came back after I stopped all the medication they gave me. Now I’m not the type of person to let a little stomach cramp interfere with daily activities, but this was not that type of pain. This was debilitating. Every time I ate something I spent the next two hours or so lying in bed in pain unable to do anything. So what did I do? I stopped eating. And called my doctor. On day two of training I went to see specialist in the city. He told me he wanted to put a camera down my throat to determine the diagnosis. So the following day I checked myself in at the hospital (in Spanish, which was a lot harder than I thought. Turns out I have very little to no Spanish hospital vocab) for an endoscopy. I woke hours later, still very drowsy from the sedative with a diagnosis of gastritis, 30 days’ worth of medication, and copies of pictures from the procedure. In color. Back to training (and eating) I went.

One of the discussions during a training we had was about privilege. In particular, white privilege, but also other common types noticeable in the US and in Panama; age, sex, gender, income, etc. One reason for this discussion was because a lot of the time, people are unaware of their privileges. Especially when everyone around you growing up has a lot of the same privileges. Now that we are living in a developing country, our privileges are a lot more noticeable to us. One question brought up was whether we (who are privileged) should feel guilty or not. I sat back surprised as voice after voice of my peers rang in a choir of the affirmative; they do feel guilty for their privilege. I could not help but ask myself why (I do ask myself that a lot in Panama, but that’s beside the point). Why do they feel guilty? Why should you feel guilty over something you have no control over? I most certainly do not feel guilty for the privileges I had growing up and the ones I currently hold today. I could not voice this among the overwhelming number of my peers who were so adamantly swayed the other way, but here I can more easily explain myself. The majority, not all, but the majority of the privileges I hold, I did not choose. I have white skin. I did not choose this, I was born this way. I also did not choose the time, place, or into what family I would be born into. All of the privileges I had growing up (food on the table, good health care, a wonderful education) I also had no decision in, these privileges were dependent on my parents and the decisions they made. Do not mistake my words here to sound if I am placing blame or guilt on someone else. I am just stating how I have had no say the majority of my privileges. No, I do not feel even an ounce of guilt for the privileges I hold. I feel grateful. I feel blessed. I feel like I have been given amazing opportunities. And I have chosen to take those opportunities to support the majority of others whom are less privileged.

The following week I went to a small town with the 12 other coffee SAS G75 volunteers for a week all about coffee. Coffee was talked about, seen, touched, and of course drank.