Hello friends –
I’m sorry that it’s been a while since I updated. I guess
between getting settled here and how busy things have been, I haven’t gotten
around to it. But here’s what’s been happening the last few weeks:
I finished out the first trimester at the primary school,
working with the 4 teachers there. Then we had a week-long break between
trimesters. The first weekend I just chilled here in Pesé, but then on Monday I
ventured to the province of Coclé to go to the beach – Santa Clara. It was
really great – I ended up seeing 13 other volunteers from my group as well as a
handful of older volunteers. We camped on the beach under these little ranchitos,
which was a fun experience – chilling on the beach all day and night was great.
Though, I have to say, sand is not nearly as comfortable to sleep on as I
imagined it to be. But we had a great, relaxed time. We also found 2 AMAZING
restaurants right off of the InterAmericana near the beach. One was a nice
Spanish restaurant that I hope to take my parents to and the other was
basically an American sports bar owned by this couple who is stuck in the 70’s
(the probably 60-year-old husband had a mullet that was down to his waist…) –
but they served the most delicious burgers… It felt like we were back in the
States for a bit. Overall I relaxed, got some sun, some Frisbee time, and a lot
of time with good PCV friends! Most people left on Thursday, but I was talked
into staying until Friday when I finally made the trek back to Pesé.
On Saturday I woke up kind of in a funk – I think it was
because I felt like I had just left all of my friends who are here in Panama
and I don’t feel quite that close to people in my site. But later that day I
ended up meeting up with Steve and Heather in Chitre and shopping for kitchen
appliances, then I spent the nigh at Miranda’s house in Parita with 5 other
volunteers (and an Australian friend of a PCV – the first person from Australia
I have ever met!) as a housewarming party. It was a lot of fun to see them too
– one of which I hadn’t seen since training and I missed her a ton!
Sunday was a blur because I was pretty tired, but then when
I got to school on Monday I realized how silly I was being on Saturday – I was
actually really happy to be back at school. I’m feeling really connected to one
of the English teachers in particular, and a few of the other teachers and
staff are really nice and always make me laugh. One of these is the science
teacher, Celson. He is always cracking jokes and making me laugh. Put him with
the woman who cooks and takes care of the cafeteria, Kathia, and you can’t stop
laughing, or singing typical Panamanian music. Then there’s Señora Maribel who sits
in the library, makes copies for the students, and opens the school in the
morning – she’s as sweet as can be and is good company when I’m working in the
library or waiting for the English teachers. Lastly, there’s Maria, one of the
cleaning staff, who I have gotten to know through working with her to learn a
song for the English Week Talent Show. So long story short, I’ve been feeling
more and more connected at school, which has been great.
So that brings us back from the trimester break. Since then,
I haven’t really gone to any classes. The first week back I was helping the
teachers make their trimester plans. This was a bit of a process, but ended up
being decently good work, especially with one of the teachers. Since then, I’ve
also been working on a plan for each of the teachers to implement teaching
phonics with each of their units. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to work
with them to implement it yet because of English Week work, but hopefully that
will happen soon.
As referred to above, this week is English Week, which means
that last week was SUPER hectic and stressful trying to get everything prepared
and a lot of it fell to me. I’ll give a detailed post about the preparations
and events this coming weekend once it is all over and I can give a recap.
In addition to working and traveling, I’ve also been
involved with/attended several community events such as a Bingo afternoon – I
helped cook (aka fry) fish, ojaldra (the panamanian version of a salty funnel
cake), and plantains – a basketball-court-soccer tournament, some normal soccer
games, and a church choir competition at the school one night (4 choirs were
competing to go to the regional competition – they ended up leaving it to
chance, though I think the winners actually were the ones who deserved to go).
Lastly, I moved into my new house!!! I was super excited. I
will also have a post devoted to this very soon, because that comes with some
stories as well, and I think this post is long enough for now!
More to come soon. I promise not to leave you hanging so
long this time!
Besos de Panamá,
Savannah
P.S. If I didn’t already know that this world is tiny, it
was proved a million times over for me today. I was sitting in the park using
the internet for a few minutes (sorry I didn’t get to post my blog) and this
family starts unloading some things out of a truck in front of their house
right in front of me. At first I just glance up, but I immediately do a
double-take. The 9th grade son who is helping move things out of the
truck is wearing a yellow t-shirt that has a V on it… wait… it says Hank
Ingram… oh my gosh he’s wearing a Hank Ingram Vanderbilt Commons shirt. It was
absolutely crazy. That I happened to see him today, this afternoon, and that
the shirt made its way from a printer in Nashville, to a freshman student,
donated somewhere, then to Panama, then to my small town in Herrera. What are
the odds of all of that happening so that I would see it? Absolutely crazy.
(I'll add a photo soon!) Needless to say, it definitely made me nostalgic for Vandy!
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