Arrival to Site! Part 1

Where to start… I think I’m going to break this week up into bits & pieces because there is so much to say! Let’s start with the Community Entry Conference, my counterpart and the town where I’ll be working.

The entire TE group went to Rio Hato in Coclé to the Centre de Desarollo Sustenible del Ambiente // Center for Sustainable Environmental Development aka CEDESAM (Panamanians like their acronyms). We arrived on Wednesday afternoon after a morning of packing/doing the last few things in our training community. A group of us walked quickly down to the beach where we ran into the water which felt GREAT. That is until we realized there were a bunch of tiny little jellyfish in the water that at first just kind of itched, but then when one really got you it would hurt a bit. But it was beautiful either way.

Then we went back, got dressed, then had dinner and met our counterparts! Our counterparts at the representatives from our communities that came to meet us and go with us back to our sites. My counterpart is César and he is the coordinator for the English department at the colegio – 7^th-12^th grades (see previous post for explanation of school system). He is nice and speaks pretty good English, so that was a comfort. We also had meetings the next day – as is typical of PC, then just as the CEC folks were arriving at CEDESAM we took off! César drove us back to our town, along with Miranda, another volunteer who is only 20 minutes away from me, and her counterpart, José. It took about 2 and a half hours to go from Rio Hato to Pesé.

We passed so many sugar cane fields on the way. My town is famous for 2 major things: seco (alcohol) and a Good Friday re-enactment. The largest seco factory in the country is in Pesé and it is owned by the vice-president of Panama. I haven’t yet gone inside the factory, but I did get to see the place where they process the sugar cane for the liquor. It was really interesting and I got a half-tour even though I wasn’t supposed to because I’m new and special haha.

César also took me, and my host family, to his friend’s home where they have a mill for sugar cane that produces juice. Normally the hook up a horse to turn the mill, but César and the two young boys just pushed it. They feed the raw sugar cane in, and juice comes out! It was absolutely delicious. César also brought some ginger to add to it, which gave it an amazing flavor.

As for the Good Friday re-enactment, it’s a whole event that goes on the entire week preceding Easter – called Semana Santa (Holy Week). I’m looking forward to it because everyone tells me that it’s beautiful. The main event is the re-enactment of the Last Supper through the crucifixion of Christ.

But the town and district of Pesé is beautiful – there are rolling hills, beaches not too far away, trees lining the streets, and my town is pretty clean! It seems to be a pretty well-off town in general. It seems that everyone has running water and electricity and my host family even has a big tv and a Wii. Certainly brings up the question in my mind – why would they place a PCV here? But it is becoming more and more clear that the English teachers could use the help, and English is such an important language for Panamanians. They have made it their second official language, and with all of the international tourism and business, it’s becoming more and more important. People who can speak English have many more opportunities than those who do not. 

More to come and I'll put up photos once I get them onto my computer. 

Sav