In the "Cult of Escapism": On Tour

These days, I’ve been travelling a lot as the “Business Plan Coordinator” and giving a seminar about basic business skills. I’ve done most of these trips with my friend and co-coordinator, David. We’re currently in the middle of what has amounted to a coast to coast (i.e. border to border) trip across Panama, beginning near the Costan Rican border and ending in the jungle that borders Colombia.

Dave teaches the 5 Ps of Marketing

It’s fun seeing other volunteers’ sites around the country and teaching a subject in which I have a lot of experience. I feel like in the Peace Corps, I often end up waxing poetic about a subject I know almost nothing about, or fielding questions about, say, architectural plans for a school. Or explaining how money is made (“In a factory…?”). By now, I’ve done the same exact seminar three times and taught the subject matter for about two years, so I can anticipate the questions and challenges that participants will have. Plus, at least for now, I’m splitting the presentation time with Dave, so we’re funky fresh the entire time we’re presenting.

Blowing a conch to call the participants

One downside is being on busses every three days for multiple hours, which requires some creative time-killing. Fortunately, I’m creatively time-killing with Dave. Unfortunately, I think we are already drying up on conversation topics, considering at the end of our latest trip, we had a serious argument about, if jet packs became commercially available, how many people would crash into buildings. (I say fewer, he says more)

We’ll have to come up with more topics though, since our trip tomorrow, to the jungle, will take about 10 hours, one way. Including a three hour boat ride, which I’m absolutely dreading. I get super sea-sick, so I think our conversations will go something like:

Dave: “So do you still think we’ll face a double-dip recession?”

Jack: “BLAAARGGHHHH”

Dave: “I agree. And by the way, you just threw up all over the captain.”

I’ll update again after this trip, should be some interesting stories.