Practice Makes Perfect

Notes from Our Listening Trip to Panama
Azuero Foundation Intern Initiative

I have been reviewing my notes from many hours of listening in Panama. I am trying to synthesize common themes and compile insights and key pieces of information. I am also using this as an journal for developing project ideas and principles in response to the listening. Click here….

Sustainable Project Philosophy
Here is an excerpt from my notes concerning attributes of a sustainable project. Click here…

Panama, Azuero Foundation Internship

I have started to document what I heard. Click here for the 3/22, 8:30 CST version.  I have left off a bunch of ideas of what to do in response to what I experienced or heard until gaps, contradictions and ambiguities in information are resolved.

Azuero Foundation Internship, Spring Break Reconnaisance

Got to Panama City last Friday morning. Headed to Azuero Peninsula tomorrow morning.
Here are Wiki entries so far. Much work to complete.

Friday, March 14, 2008
Arrive in Panama City. Feels good to be in a foreign country. Continuous breeze eases the heat. Honking
horns, traffic, melodic soft-edged language……

Museum of Biodiversity site visit, Darien Montanez (Exhibit Designer), George Angher (Content Curator), Lynda Gearheart (0fficer of Development)
Panama Canal, Miraflores Locks, dinner

Saturday, March 15, 2008
A long day. Much information. Saturated. Completely saturated.
Avifauna Rainorest Discovery Center and Canopy Tower, Patrick Dillon
Canal Architecture and Sustainable Building in the Humid Tropics, Andrew Coates, Cresolus
Azuero development conditions, KC Hardin
Casco Viejo, Architectural Preservation ’success’ story, neighborhood declared World Heritage site, KC Hardin

Sunday, March 16, 2008
A good night’s sleep. At the absence of street noise, I recalled it was Sunday morning — Palm Sunday. Easter week. Renewal.
Starting with KC Hardin’s remarks yesterday about development conditions in Azeuro, I began to think in earnest about interviews regarding the biological corridor, my team’s focus:
2. The Biological Corridor: exploration of the corridor as a tool for change, how to make it an accessible concept?
Become familiar with Corridor Project Concepts, Issues, Goals and Challenges:
Scientific (biological, ecological)
Stakeholder (Social)
Development (financial)
Donor (functional)
Explore opportunities for creating (data base?) that will enable all participants to supply and access information and enable the project to proceed successfully in its goals
Explore programmatic elements that are inspired by and could help promote the corridor (ie the farmers market, etc)

Monday, March 17, 2008
Stayed up very late researching the work of the people we’d be interviewing today. Put the alarm on for early to continue with “rested” mind, so it hardly felt like I went to bed. Especially excited about today’s topics, so I couldn’t help myself.
Panama is amazing. As Darien and Leslie say, “it’s Central America and Panama or South America and Panama.” What a melting pot. What a heartbreaking story; the one about a map covered with concessions to natural resource exploration companies, etc. Someone is getting very rich on the back of natural riches.

Spent the day at Smithsonian Tropical Research Center:
Our work / challenge is about
-making connections more than delivering points of information;
-social transformation and meaning more than education and understanding.
-being clear about how accurate our picture of Panama is / can be (in response to how can we plan to make this product available to Panamanians to run.)

When I think about preparing for interviews with scientists and people involved in land development about conservation on the Azuero Penninsula, a few questions come to mind. I also wonder how information developed for US audiences and other online materials might inform our interviews and our ideas about projects we might propose after our spring visit. I’ve started a list of questions and have compiled some online material. Click here.