Photos!

So here are a select few photos from the past few weeks!

Emily, my roommate during Staging in Miami, and I at the airport headed to Panama! 

First sighting of a ship going through the canal. As I type, I'm watching a cruise ship go through. Jealousy.

 Playing in a river during a visit to a PCV's site.

Our villa during Orientation. Can you spot my bags?

Our first real view of the canal as well! We're actually in Panama!

My walk home every day. 

The school where we have tech classes. This is what all of the Panamanian schools that I've encountered look like - white and blue cement with open-air windows.

 Jose, our tech trainer (most days) and our classroom! Note the Panamanian flag :)

 Views from my house! this is looking out from the front porch.

My favorite place in the house. My hammock. Actually this isn't my favorite one, but it's the photo I took on the first day. 

My yard! And chickens. awesome. This is a typical house for some of the indignous peoples as well.

My house!! The main room/corner closest to me in this photo is the den/living room with a couch, couple of chairs and a tv. The windows on the left are the kitchen, and my room is on the back right in this shot. 

The 4-month-old puppy at my house! His name is Toby :)

Photos from the fair in La Chorrera - these are some kids from a local community doing traditional dances. It was really fun to watch. 

Some of their outfits were really elaborate as well, like these two girls' hair. They had make-up on as well. I seriously wanted one of these skirts too. 

Day in Panama City. This is the coolest building I think I've ever seen. Don't ask me what is in the building though. I have no clue.

Ships waiting to go through the canal. They're super far away.

Vising a volunteer, Jessica, in the province of Coclé! This is the river where we went swimming Sunday afternoon. It was gorgeous.

The gorgeous swimming hole where we spent the afternoon. Hi Jessica!

Can you spot the jumping child??

Views walking to the river. Gorgeous. THIS is Panama.

We also went to another fair (this is the season for them apparently - aka the dry season) and I loved this stand! So Panamanian with the typical hats and stacks of plantains. I'm drinking coconut milk straight from a coconut!

Pollitos at my house! We have around 15 of them from 2 different... litters? batches? sets? whatever the correct word is...

Skyline of Panama City!

So some of these weren't in order... but I hope you enjoyed them none-the-less!

Unplanned trip to La Chorrera

Well, I’ve had my first “issue”, I guess you could call it, since being in Panama. I woke up Thursday morning with my head itching pretty badly and with bumps on my arms and my stomach. I just treated it with Cortizone cream, but it didn’t really get better, so on Friday I called the PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer) and he told me that I should go to the Clinico Saturno in La Chorrera. The PC teachers’ driver, who is also the coordinator for host families and a lot of the logistics for our training communities took me to the clinic. I was worried about going with my language abilities, but it turned out that I didn’t even really need his help (which was encouraging about my language abilities). It was definitely a comfort to have someone there who knew what was going on. The doctor thought it was an allergic reaction to something, but wasn’t quite sure what. She ended up giving me 10 days worth of Zyrtec, a cream to use before I shower for 5 days, and then another one to use when I need it and am itching or something. She was nice, but I think was just treating the symptoms since she really didn’t know what caused it (and neither do I). But overall, not a bad first-sickness experience. Today it's much better, I'm not sure whether that's from the medicine or just from time, but I'm glad for it, either way!

Other than that, some of us had a movie night last night and *tried* to watch Lara Croft on a laptop. With about 10 of us and lacking speakers, it was a bit of a struggle. But it was fun nonetheless. Today we’re heading into the city again for more meetings at the office.

Since I have a little bit of time, I’ll also give you guys a basic run down of a few other things about my life here. Every morning I wake up usually around 6:30 or 7:00. I’ve learned to sleep through the dog and chicken noises in the night, but the roosters still wake me up when they start crowing around 5. I take a quick shower – either a normal (though cold) shower, or a bucket bath if there isn’t running water. Bucket baths really aren’t bad! At least I don’t have to stand under the cold water if I’m just washing my hair. Then I eat breakfast with Reyna. Usually this is bread with some butter and/or cheese, and sometimes I make a couple of eggs to eat with it. This week I’ve actually had some Frosted Flakes for breakfast! Then I go to my Spanish class where we usually focus on vocab and conversation, but we have covered some grammer points and verb tenses.

Then I walk back to my house and have lunch with Reyna, and sometimes César if he isn’t working or sleeping (he works until 1 or 2 am sometimes). This week I had a Panamanian specialty – arroz con pollo. Basically it’s a spiced rice with some veggies and shredded chicken. It was pretty good! Then in the afternoons we go to the school for technical class. This week we had some PCVs with us – they always give us great insights and tips, which is the most informative for me.

Lastly, some news from Panama. Some of the indigenous people have been blocking the Pan-American highway (known as the Interamericana aqui en Panamá) in the Chiriqui province next to Costa Rica. They are protesting the government trying to start a hydroelectrical plant. The basis of their protesting is that the plant will ruin their environment without giving them any benefits, but from the government's point of view is that it would generate a lot of revenue. But blocking the highway is a pretty effective means of protesting because it blocks all of the traffic on the main route through the country, preventing tourists, food, and anyone else trying to get through. It will definitely be interesting to see how it turns out.

I’ll leave you guys with another only-in-Panama saying:

You didn’t have hot water today? I haven’t had running water for 3 days!

But life is still good here in Panama!

Besos!

In-Site Visit!

1/31/12

Well, time is flying here. It seems crazy that I’ve only been down here for 3 weeks, but it’s been wonderful so far! Days are getting into a rhythm in our little training community. Language classes every morning and technical classes in the afternoons, then usually homework and talking with the family or pasear-ing around the community at night. But this past weekend was a little different – we got to go visit PCVs in their sites! I went to the province of Coclé. My host’s, Jessica’s, site was about 45 minutes outside of the capital city of Penonomé. A group of us traveled to Penonomé together and met up with our volunteers. We walked around at the market, got some lunch, then Jessica and I ran some errands. We picked up a package at the post office, which was a good process for me to see, as well as bought some paint for a new room in her house.

We ended up back at her house around 5 that afternoon. We walked down the street to the store, bought some chicken, eggs and a refill for her stove’s gas tank, and also were able to see the school because people were practicing their dance for the fair. So that was nice to be able to see where she works. We cooked dinner – salad, chicken and rice – then just chatted before going to bed. On Saturday we painted her new room in the morning. Her house is basically attached to this other house and she just rents it from the family. Originally it was just one room and a bathroom, but the dad has since finished the kitchen and another room, which she’s going to turn into her bedroom. So with the help of the mom and daughter of the family, we painted the room! They told us first we had to put down a layer of “Concreto Blanco” which I think just functioned as primer. But even with that, the paint seemed kind of splotchy. But we evened it out as best as we could, and it looked better than we expected the next morning. We ended up putting a second coat over some of it the next morning, until we ran out of paint haha.

But also on Saturday we went into a neighboring town to their fair. It was much different than the fair in La Chorrera. It was smaller, but had more small food vendors with fresh veggies and things like carrot muffins. Jessica and I both got a carrot muffin, we bought some corn for dinner (funny story…), we shared a coconut – well, actually it was called leche de pipa, which is basically when you drink the coconut milk from a still-green coconut. It was pretty good, but a little bland. She also bought some plantain chips which were delicious and I got an orange. All of the fruit here is delicious, of course. Then we thought about going back to the fair for the baile (dance) later that night, but we were too tired after dinner. We had a good dinner of chicken nuggets (that we made ourselves!) rice and the corn.

But the funny thing about the corn… So normally you boil corn for 8-10 minutes, right? Right. Well we kind of forgot and probably cooked it longer than that. But it should be alright, right? Right.

Wrong.

It was still really hard and the kernels all came out whole, not breaking apart like they usually do. It was really strange. Tasted alright, but was just kind of tough to chew. We ate some of it. But from this little experience came my list:

Things you would never do/say in the US.

Item #1: I think this corn might be just for chickens.

It was really funny. But that’s life.

Then on Sunday we walked a little over an hour to a gorgeous swimming hole at a river and spent the afternoon there. There were kids that were jumping off of the probably 15- or 20-foot waterfall into the swimming hole. They also jumped off of a tree that was even higher… it was crazy! I dived in, but definitely not from that high up. It was deep though, so I guess it was alright. It was a beautiful area, just on the edge of the mountains. And also only about 45 minutes from the beach! It seems like a place that I would really like to be because it was a smaller community – only about 2,000 people Jessica said, and close to the mountains, but it still had good roads and transportation.

It was a really great weekend and I was able to learn a lot from her about PCV life. It made me really excited to get to my own site! And I REALLY enjoyed cooking. Reyna is a great cook and is always making sure that I’m happy and healthy and not sick or anything, but it was so great to be able to eat things that I decided and wanted. We had chips and salsa, a PB&J, biscuits that we made, a salad, and Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast. It tasted like home and it was so good. 

One cultural thing that I found really interesting this weekend was the chiva drivers. So chivas are basically tiny little buses that function as public transportation and usually there is a driver and a "pavo", or door man. For those of you that know Spanish, yes, that means turkey. Don't ask me why. Anyway, so along the route from the fair back to her site, the driver kept stopping and either dropping off packages (like groceries or food) or picking up things to drop off farther along the route. It was so interesting - he knew every single house along the 20 minute drive and would blow his little horn (which actually sounds like a somewhat quiet car alarm) to let people know he was coming. I thought that was really cool - it really felt like a close-knit community. He even knew that we weren't from that town where he originally had picked us up (we had the same driver going to and then back home from the fair) and he took us all the way to our site! It was really nice - and only 10 cents more!

But things are still happy here! Still loving life and am enjoying everything!

Hope everyone there is doing well. Hopefully I’ll be able to get internet sometime today so I can actually post this!

Finally time for some internet!

So we finally have a little bit of free time today! We are all in Panama City on a scavenger hunt, basically. We had three places to find this morning, which took about 2 hours round trip, now we´ve just been playing around in the city. We got to go to Casco Viejo - if you google it you will probably find out more about it that I know, but it was a really beautiful old part of the city right along the water. Very European feeling. Now we´re at the mall, have been shopping some and walked into a Digicel store to buy some more phone minutes and found free computers with internet! Woohoo. Best part of the day haha.

Yesterday was awesome too. There was a fair in La Chorrera, the town pretty close to ours, and a bunch of us went. It was a typical fair with a bunch of food, vendors, rides, and some animals. It was pretty cool. Ate some really good chicken on a stick and some delicious fries. Also I had cotton candy, typically. We had a great time, then I went home and got to meet my host family´s daughter, who is probably in her 30´s and her daughter, who is 9 - Qerima. She was soooooo sweet. I hope she comes around a lot because she was so cute and great to speak Spanish with! She would correct me and would help me find the words that I needed. So that was fun.

Also, I´ve had several people asking me about the bugs. Of course at night, when you turn the lights on, moths and little bugs come out. But there haven´t been many mosquitos, which has been great. I saw one cockroach in the latrine the other day. But I told me host mom and she went and sprayed. Apparently they come out a lot more during the rainy season, so I´m not looking forward to that. But otherwise, it´s been relatively bug-free! No bug bites (for me) to speak of yet!

Now I should probably get off of the computer.... haha

Chao!

Week #1 in Panamá

1/20/12

One week into Panama.

I can’t believe I’ve been here a week. In one way, the days have flown by. But they have also been giving us so much information and I’ve been trying to absorb everything that it feels like we’ve been down here for months.  But here are some highlights from the past week.

Sunday we all got on the buses in order of our houses, and got to our communities for training. The CEC volunteers (Community Environmental Conservation) are in another town about 20 minutes from us TE (Teaching English) volunteers. My host parents are Reyna and César. They are about 60 and are super sweet. César is a taxi driver, so he frequently works from 3-11 and so Reyna and I usually eat breakfast (he sleeps later than us because he comes home so late) and dinner by ourselves. She is always checking to make sure I feel ok and am liking the food, which is really nice. I am the 5^th PCT they’ve hosted, so they know the drill.

On that note – the food has been really good so far. Lots of carbs, but that doesn’t bother me all that much. Some of my favorite meals have been 1) arroz con guandu (rice with the little green beans that I have never seen before), carné (beef), and tomato and 2) sopa de vegetales (vegetable soup – with several vegetables that I haven’t ever had before, but are good) and rice. I also had fish yesterday and have been eating a lot of arroz, though not as many beans as I was expecting. We also had tortilla one morning for breakfast and also one night with dinner – it’s not like tortillas that we are used to, but it’s ground corn and plantains made into a thicker patty and then just cooked on the stove. It’s pretty good, though I like to put some kind of sauce with it to give it a little more flavor.

My favorite drink so far has been chicha – it’s basically a fruit smoothie. Mi madre made chicha piña a few days ago by just putting pineapple in a blender, adding some water and sugar and boom – chichi! I have also had chicha de maiz which was the extra corn stuff from when she ground the corn for the tortillas mixed with water and sugar and I think some milk. The other good one I’ve had was arroz con piña which was basically the same kind of chicha piña as described above, without as much pulp, but plus water that has been boiled with rice, and plus some sugar. It’s actually pretty delicious!

As for my house – it’s a 3 (small) bedroom house with a living room and kitchen. It’s a nice rosy color and the windows are just little decorative openings in the wall. During the day all of the doors to the house are left open as well so the breeze comes through and cools things off. The shower is outside, but attached to the house. The water works in our town most of the time, but sometimes it doesn’t when the reservoir needs to be refilled to increase the water pressure. So most of the time it’s a normal (but cold) shower, but other times it’s just a bucket bath. It’s been good though – really not too difficult to adjust to. As for the bathroom, we have a “latrine” though it really just feels like an out-house where you don’t have to flush. There is also a little sink in the latrine where you can wash your hands, brush your teeth and César shaves there. We also have electricity, which is nice at night so I don’t have to rely only on flashlights.

The weather is still really nice. From about 12 or 1 – 3 it’s probably in the lower 90’s, so it’s really hot when you’re walking around in the sun, but in the shade it’s not bad. Also now, since it’s the dry season, there is a nice breeze that is pretty consistent which feels good. But it did rain a little for a few minutes a couple of days ago, which cooled things down nicely. At night it also cools down – probably to 65 or so, which, for me, is perfect. I usually don’t even need the fan that Reyna gave me at night. Though sleeping has definitely been a bit difficult between all of the dogs – both wild and owned, all of the chickens and roosters, and the little iguanitas that croak at night and crawl along the top of the walls.

My room is small, but pretty nice. I have a standard sized bed, pillow (yes, I’m saying this because not everyone has a pillow), bar and hangers to hang my clothes, a little desk and chair, and an overhead light. But really, my favorite thing about my house is our hammocks on the front porch. This is a big thing here in Panama, and I love sitting on our porch, looking out at the community and reading.

But I’m definitely happy here – the people are great and I’m quickly learning all I can about Panama and the Panamanian people! Our schedule is usually language classes from 8:30-11:45 am, then home for lunch, then from 1:00 – 5:00 we have technical sessions where we learn about our jobs with PC and with the schools. Basically we’re here to support the teachers and help bring new teaching ideas to the classroom

A couple of funny little tidbits:

- I found a Panthers shirt in a tiny little shop in La Chorrera – the larger city closest to our training communities.

- One of the women in my group knows by best friend at home’s old theater teacher. SMALL world!

- I also found out that Panama ranks 129^th of 139 countries tested for educational systems, so working with the schools and the English teachers down here will certain have it’s challenges.

- Recently a big plant that needed many English-speaking engineers was going to put an operation in Panama, but because of the lack of English speaking engineers, they couldn’t and they moved it to Argentina (I think… someone told me this story and I don’t remember all of the exact details). So if you were wondering why I am in Panama working in the schools, these are some of the reasons! Just having a native English speaker in the classroom is a HUGE asset to the teacher and gives the kids access to someone with a different accent as well as a different culture.

So that’s a not so short overview of my life here so far! I don’t have internet in my training community, that I know of as of now, so I’ll only be able to update when I come into the PC Office.

Besos de Panamá!

P.S. Struggle with 54 volunteers trying to access the internet at the same time, so I'll add photos later!