Change

As a Peace Corps volunteer in Panama, I trained over 30 families in how to use and maintain their new composting toilets. One of the trainings was by far the most enjoyable for me. There was a young couple with 2 kids, who had just built a really nice new modern house – with the shower, sink and composting toilet unit just out the back door. They were living in a classic Kuna semi-open house on stilts and thatched roof with her father. The family has moved into the new house , but the old man refused to join them. He is afraid to sleep in a bed and doesn’t like being “enclosed”. He’d rather stay in his old house and live as he is accustomed. He also refuses to use the new bano unit, preferring his sendero (path used for toilet at 2M intervals) into the jungle. They live right next to jungle, with no other houses nearby, so this works just fine. Nature can easily absorb a certain amount of animal waste. In fact, I prefer the sendero method to a pit latrine – any day.

Young Mom and Dad feel frustrated and slighted. They build a nice new house, get a spiffy new Bano unit and the grandfather won’t have any part of it. So, they ask the Gringo – Can’t you talk some sense into him?

Truth be told, I’m already on the old man’s side – no harm in using his sendero or sleeping like he wants. But, I go up in his house and sit with him and have a chat. Wonderful old guy, but his Spanish is worse than mine. He pulls out a pipe and we smoke some tobacco that he grows from seed he claims his grandfather got from a Spaniard. (My head was swimming for an hour after.) We talk about the weather and the heat and the river – anything but the house and Bano. After about 5 minutes of pleasantries, he stood up and said something I didn’t understand and then laughed loudly. So I laughed too and got up and left.

I told the kids to just let the old man be. Change is difficult for us older people, I said. He wants you to be happy in your nice new house, so let him be happy in his old house. Besides, he does come in to eat meals with you.

I think they bought it.

Most folks do resist change, fearing that change might not be as good as the familiar status quo. For me, change is a welcome old friend. I’ve changed residences 33 times in 65 years. Indeed, I’m beginning to wonder if I’m not some sort of “change junkie”, needing a fix at irregular intervals. For me, change brings new sights and sounds and smells and people and feelings. All that came before is still a part of me. Nothing is lost. Only the imagination of what “might have been” had things stayed the same.