Site Placement and Carnaval
I’ll divide this in sections to make it easier to read because it’s so long!
Site Placement:
So last Friday we had our site reveal! I wasn’t able to post another blog before we left the office, but I was excited to find out that I’m going to the province of Herrera! I’ll be near the city of Chitre. What I know about the region so far is that it’s pretty hot and flat near Chitre, but the mountains are close and in this area there are some of the best beaches in Panama! It is also the center of culture of the country – which also means that the biggest Carnaval Celebration is in the neighboring province of Los Santos, specifically in the city of Las Tablas. It’s like our New Orleans – everyone goes there for the long weekend of Carnaval. The traffic the last few days on the InterAmerican highway, being the one main thoroughfare through the country, has been ridiculous in that direction!
Additionally, the area has a pretty thick accent, so we’ll see how that goes and how much of it I end up picking up haha. They drop most of the –s and –d sounds in words and they combine vowel sounds. So ‘pescado’ (fish) becomes ‘pescao’ and ‘como estas’ becomes ‘como eta’. Lastly, the province also has the largest seco factory in the country, which is also owned by the vice president of Panama, so I’m sure that influences the culture a fair bit as well.
I’m excited to go see it and meet my host family and community counterpart! My site is pretty big – I’ll be working with two schools. One is a primary school (grades 1-6) with 4 English teachers and the other, right next door, is a secondary school (grades 7-12) with 6 English teachers! So I have 10 teachers to work with! Yikes! That’s a lot. Especially since I was hoping for a smaller site. But my APCD seems to think I can handle it. We’ll see how it goes. This whole process is one adjustment after another, but hey, that’s what I signed up for, right?
Another thing I’m really excited about for my placement is that there are about 15 of us volunteers in the Azuero Peninsula! The Azuero is made up of Herrera, Los Santos, and a little bit of Veraguas. So while the site is bigger than I was expecting, I’m really happy that I’ll be so close to so many other volunteers. There are probably 4 or 5 within an hour or an hour and a half of me! Which is great for PCVs haha.
Here's a photos of the people who are going to be in the Azuero Peninsula (Herrera and Los Santos).
Saturday to Panama:
As for the rest of the weekend, we’ve had “Time for Reflection” aka free time! 4 days…. More than what we’ve had cumulatively so far. It’s been great. On Saturday a group of us tried to go to Ila Taboga just outside of Panama City, but the boat was full when we got there, so we ended up just spending a little bit of time in Albrook mall and exploring the Amador Causeway (where the boats for the island depart). It was a nice, relaxing day. We didn’t get to go to a beach, but a few of us did clamber down the rocks next to the causeway and stick our feet in the ocean.
Amador Causeway!
Nate, Catherine and I in the ocean
Sunday and Carnaval:
Then Sunday brought a trip to the CEC community to see their celebration of Carnaval. There was culeco and music – basically people dancing and being sprayed with water by huge trucks. This is the main activity of Carnaval celebrations during the day, no matter how big the town or celebration.There was also a stage where the reynas/princessas of the town stood and were introduced. It wasn’t quite as elaborate as you see in other locations, but they were dressed up, had make-up on and their hair was done. They ranged in age from probably 5 or 6 to 12 or 13. It was fun to see everyone excited for them. Those of us that went in the afternoon just kind of walked around town, went and saw the rivier (subsequently getting sprayed by a guy with a water gun full of beer :/ ). Not only is culeco the most popular activity, a lot of other people carry around water to throw on people. If you’re walking around in a town that’s celebrating Carnaval, be prepared to get wet! Thankfully I was mostly dry by the time we decided to head home around 5:00.
Can you spot the gringos in the culeco? haha
Apparently the people that went at night for the baile got to see a little parade as well, where the reynas/princessas were on floats and paraded around. Then the baile went from 7 till who knows when with mostly Panamanian music. They all had a good time though. I didn’t go because I thought that I would be getting back too late for my family (they got back around 11).
Lago Gatun:
Then Monday (yesterday) more or less the same group of us that went to Panama on Saturday went to Lago Gatún, which is about an hour from our training communities. We took a Diablo Rojo there, arriving just after 10. We found a nice grassy spot next to a restaurant to put our stuff and then we took turns getting in the water. There was an awesome rope swing which I went off of a few times, and a dock that is half sinking because it looks like one of the floats is broken. Ally and I swam around for about 30 minutes, out to a little point not too far away, then just played around the dock. It was really relaxing and probably entertaining for all of the Panamanians to watch the gringos haha.
Around 12:30 we headed to a restaurant where our choices were sargento (I don’t know if this is the English word or not) with patacones, sea bass with patacones, or tilapia with patacones haha. Such a diverse restaurant. Patacones are friend, squashed, and fried again plantains. They’re delicious, though I have to say the ones that we make at home were better than the ones at the restaurant. Plus they took almost an hour and a half to serve us, then never brought Brennan his food. So it was a bit strange. But pretty tasty. I can now say that I have eaten an entire fried fish – head and tail on. Add that to my list of things I’ve done only because I’m a PCT haha.
Another highlight of the day was that I called my parents just before eating lunch and got to talk with some of my mom’s family in Memphis! It was nice to hear everyone’s voices together. But was strange that I wasn’t there. While we were on the phone, they looked up the lake and town where I was, which was neat for them to be able to see exactly where I was! Technology is great.
We ended up swimming a little bit more after lunch because buses/chivas weren’t leaving until 3:30 or 5:00. Because of this we also got to see some of their Carnaval celebrations starting. There was a little bit of culeco, some women dancing up on a stage, and a few people dressed up in crazy outfits – one was this huge black and red costume/suit that I think was supposed to be a devil or something. Definitely fun to see. We finally got on our chiva after the driver stopped napping at the bar and proceeded to drive as slowly as possible back to our community… haha. Typical.
Sorry, parents, I have to say I did get my first sunburn in the last two days. It had to happen eventually I suppose. Just a little on my back. Whoops.
Gringo party and Tuesday:
Then last night some of us gringos got together and just had a nice relaxing night together. Harrison’s host brother, Abraham, who is 17, also came and brought a friend, Carlos, and they taught us how to dance meringue and bachata! We also did some salsa, so it was definitely a fun night. And I got back late – around 11:45. Whoops! But I think my host family was asleep, so that was good.
Today, Tuesday, I’ve just been relaxing and getting some things done around the house. I slept in till the late hour of 8:45 (oh how my life has changed… haha), helped Reyna do some laundry, but we ran out of hangers and clips, so I’m going to finish laundry later this afternoon. We actally have a washing machine, but we can only use it when there’s a lot of water pressure. There is an old one as well, which we can use to wash things, then you have to transfer the clothes to spin them. Lastly, we wash underwear, and other clothes when there isn’t much water, in the sinks. Then hang them up to dry in the sun! Which doesn’t take too long right now since it’s hot and dry.
We’re getting ready to eat lunch – grilled chicken and I don’t know what else. Probably rice and either guandu beans or platanos (plantains). But a few minutes ago my host brother, Marcos – the one who lives close by – came in with two weird kind of round, but squishy things and asked if I wanted one. They were iguana eggs! Reyna said it was ok to eat – so I made a little hole with my teeth and proceeded to squeeze it out and eat it! It was cooked, but still soft, and tasted a lot like normal eggs, but a little richer with a slightly different taste. Add that one to the never-have-I-done-before list!
Upcoming week:
The end of this week and the beginning of next we’ll be going into La Chorrera for tech week, which consists of us being in a school and seeing how things function there. Then next week we’ll go to the beach for our Community Entry Conference where we will meet our counterparts then head to our communities for a visit!
We’ll be there for almost a week to meet our host family, see if any changes need to be made to our housing, meet the teachers and see the school and get a general lay of the land! Should be really exciting. Finally things are starting to feel more real now that I know where I’ll be for the next two years!
I'll try to post more photos later... right now I'm having issues with the internet.
Funny things that happen in Panama for today:
“Oh, you’re locked out? Sucks to have a front door!” – Jaclyn
“I didn’t have rice for lunch today… and I kind of missed it.” - Lindsey
Miss and love you all!
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