Goodbye to Santa Rita, Swear-In, Playa Esmerelda, then to work

Where to begin... it's been so long since I last posted and a lot has happened.

We went back to Santa Rita for one more weekend and had a Goodbye party on Saturday evening for all of the host families. One of the host moms cooked arroz con pollo for us, we bought some punch and 2 cakes - I think it went pretty well! At the end Reyna and César gave me a towel because I didn't have a normal one :) it was super sweet. I also gave them a photo in a frame of us (the one that is in the previous post) as well as a CD with some of my Christian music on it since Reyna listens to Christian radio all the time. Sunday I made my rounds to some of the other families to say goodbye. Then early Monday morning a Diablo Rojo came and picked us all up and took us to the office.

We stayed near the office in Clayton for a few nights while we had a few last info sessions, language interviews, interviews with the Country Director (awesome guy), and then got ready to swear in on Wednesday! We had a few hours around lunchtime to shower and get dressed - all of the girls actually put on make-up and looked like different people haha. Then we hopped on buses and went to the Canal Museum in Casco Viejo for the ceremony. It was super official feeling with the CD Brian Riley, a representative from MEDUCA (Ministry of Education), and someone from the embassy who swore us in. It kind of took me by surprise when we actually swore in, but felt really significant. swearing to defend our country and serve the people here in our work was pretty cool. Definitely felt like a significant moment in time when all 54 of us were swearing in.

Afterwards we had a reception with some delicious food, then were dropped off at the Amador Causeway where we had a drink or two, ate some delicious italian food, then went into the city to have a night on the town! It was fun to finally have a free night to relax. But of course we had to be ready to leave the villas near the office at 9 am the next morning. We went to the Albrook terminal (national bus terminal), spent some time in the mall (I went to Gap and bought 2 shirts - I felt like I was in heaven), then managed to get 2 buses to take us all to the beach! We arrived at Playa Esmerelda after about 2 hours and found 2 AMAZING villas waiting for us. We had a wonderful 3 days of sun, friends, beach, and pool fun. It was a n awesome way to blow off some steam after 10 busy weeks of training.

Then again, it also brought us all that much closer together, so saying goodbye over the course of Saturday and Sunday was very sad and many tears were shed becuase I probably won't see the majority of them until In-Service Training 3 months from now. So while we were all ecited to go to our sites and start our work, it was sad to leave each other. Even though we've only known each other for 2 months, being in this strange and new situation together every single day makes you bond super quickly.

So then we all found our separate ways to our sites. I traveled with another PCV - Harrison - to the bus terminal in Chitre where we had a quick lunch, then took separate buses to our sites from there. That last 40 minute chiva ride also felt very momentous. The beginning of 2 years in this place. It still hasn't quite sunk in that this is my life for 2 years. Up until now we've been going going going and always had something to look forward to and anticipate. It's hard to believe that this is my life now. It's just us and our communities.

I'm slowly adjusting to things here and my family is being very accommodating, which is nice. I'll update some more in a few days... I've spent enough time on the internet today! I'm also having trouble uploading photos while in my site to my blog... so we'll see how that goes.

Hasta luego!
Sav

Another Photo Post

 My host family in our training community - César, Silka (my niece), Marcos (my brother, Silka's father - neither of them live in the house with us), and Reyna, my host mom. Oh - and Toby, the 6 month old puppy!

More photos of my house, as requested - my closet

Reyna cutting up a coconut! (what you see in the backround)

Finally at a beach! Near Rio Hato

My bed (not my packages)

 

 Another view of my room (above), the living room with the new tv

Arrival to my site - views of the Queen of the Sugar Cane Festival of 2011 on my first night

 Where they process the sugar cane before distilling it - the grounds are gorgeous

A carreta that is used to move sugar cane

More Princesas and their amazing outfits Saturday night

Reyna 2012

My counterpart and host brother pushing the sugar cane grinder around to make juice! It was delicious.

Carreta representing the different districts

Me with one of the Reynas!!

More photos to come soon...

Host family and community in Pesé

Right now I am living with a woman named Bruni (52), her daughter Susanna (24), and Susi's son, Roderick (8). I may stay with them for 3 months, or I may move in with another family. The other family lives a little ways out of town though, so that really depends on my ability to get transportation to school (especially during the rainy season), but I met them and saw their house, and I think I would be happy there. The man of the house (son of the woman who lives there) seems very nice and César says he’s very respectful, which I would appreciate. So we’ll see.

But as for my current host family, they are definitely a very different family than my host family in my training community. The one difference I noticed immediately – they are not used to having Americans around. I thought I had some adjustments when I first got here, but the families that we’ve been staying with so far have mostly had volunteers in the past. I am the 5^th trainee that has stayed in Reyna and César’s house, so they have gotten used to some of the peculiarities of Americans. But this is a whole new experience for my new family.

It’s also a little bit difficult for me to figure out what is cultural/regional, and what is just particular to each family. Of course I know there are habitual differences between families in the US, so of course there are here as well. But the issue is that I don’t know the culture well enough to know what is what! In my new host family, they speak really loudly and try to talk over each other if they want to say something. My host mom also kind of tuts/hisses at me if she wants my attention or just uses hand signals to try to tell me things. But guess what – the hand signals are different than what we do in the US! So half of the time I don’t know what she’s trying to say. But I’m trying to be patient and ask her to speak slowly.

The accent here is a lot harder to understand than with my other host family as well. They drop SO MANY of their ‘s’ and ‘d’ sounds. But I’m learning quickly. I want to try to keep my Spanish proper though, so people can still understand me from other countries. I think their accent down here equates to a really strong southern/country accent from the states. Basically people from the country/small towns in any country around the world are hard to understand. But I’m getting better every day. I can basically follow conversations in real-time now! Woohoo! Big accomplishment

There are also a couple of people in the community that I’ve met and I really like. When I first arrived, one of Susi’s friends – Marta – was here at the house. Since then, I’ve seen her several more times and have gotten to know her. She is super sweet and I like her a lot. I hope we can become friends and hang out some – she’s about 27, so it will be nice to have some friends closer to my age! I also met a woman named Wendy who lived in the US for about 5 years and was married to an American and has 2 children (in their 20’s) who still live in the US, so she speaks great English and seems very willing to help me in any way she can. The last volunteer that was here in my site stayed with her, so she knows what PC is all about! There are also a ton of family members in Pesé – I can’t keep up with them all! Lots of cousins and extended family. I’m sure I’ll figure it all out eventually.

Coming down here has been a lot of ups and downs. I’ve had a couple of somewhat down days since being in Panama, but I’ve overall been really happy and been able to work through any issues I’ve had. But being around people who aren’t used to Americans, who are more difficult to understand, who have many different customs than I do (like personal space/voice level), and not being around all of the other people in PC Group 70 has been a big adjustment. I’ve had multiple mood swings per day – one moment I’ll be really happy, then a couple of hours later I’ll be a little upset and frustrated. But each day is a little better by adjusting to things.

I’m coming to appreciate our training community and families more and more and and starting to learn that this is the reality of a PCV’s life. But I’m still happy to be here overall. Pesé is absolutely gorgeous – it is my favorite city in Panama so far, and I am soooo lucky in that. The people are also really nice – I just need to get to know them! And they me. So it will take time. And I’ve got 2 years of it!

Some awesome things that Pesé has:

Bank branch – even though it’s not my bank, at least I know I can get cash if I seriously need it immediately

Bus stations – (don’t get a big fancy idea of this in your head. It just means that there are places where buses leave) direct buses to Panama City which take about 4 hours, and buses to surrounding communities

Parks – there are 3 parks that I have seen so far – one is in the middle of town and just has some benches and green area, one is a playground and a basketball court and some benches, and the third just has a few benches and a little playground. It’s nice for the community to have these places though. And they are all in good repair!

Center for children with disabilities – Anita, the wife of the regional deputy (Popi), is the president of an association that helps children who have learning disabilities such as ADD. This is such a wonderful community asset, and I hope that they are taking advantage of it. I hope to be able to promote this during my time here.

Free internet! My community has free internet throughout the town! I can’t get it in my bedroom (the ciderblock walls probably have something to do with that), but if I go out on the porch, it works great! Such a wonderful resource!!

Schools and my job

I will be working with both the primary school (kindergarden through 6^th grade) and the secondary school (7^th grade through 12^th grade). They divide their secondary school into 2 parts much like we do with middle school/high school. 7^th – 9^th is ‘intermedio’ and then 10^th-12^th is when they have to pick a specialty. The school in Pesé has specialties in business and enterprise. There are 4 English teachers in the primary school and 7 in the secondary school. I’m planning on trying to work with 2 per week so that I can be accessible and in the classroom, but also rotating through all of them in a somewhat timely manner.

The primary school starts at 7:20 and ends at 12:45 with a 15 minute break about 9:30. Classes are 45 minutes long, but don’t have time in-between like we do in the US, so classes never start exactly when they are supposed to. But this is just taken for granted and worked around. The secondary school functions in much the same way, but there are 2 different sessions or ‘turnos’ – one from 7:00 – 12:15 and the other from 12:45 – 6:00. This system is in place because there are too many kids to all go to school at one time, the infrastructure is not big enough. But I think this is a good solution to keep the class sizes manageable. The schools are pretty nice as well; the high school is well kept-up and has computers (though one of the computer rooms is never used because there is not enough electricity to sustain it), a library, science labs, and even a Home-Ec and a Shop-like class room (woodworking etc). The lower school is also well-kept and the classrooms are decorated and have cute curtains. The classrooms don’t have air-conditioning, but with the frequent wind here, it makes it bearable.

I asked for the teachers’ schedules so that I could figure out when I could work with who. I drafted a tentative plan for working with the primary school teachers, and I’ll be working 6 out of 7 periods every day, which is a lot, but I want to give each of the teachers equal time and I want to be able to see each of their classes an equal number of times per week (or at least as close as I can get). When I showed my schedule to César, he asked “You’re going to work this much? Do you plan to die young?” haha. But we’ll see. It’s really just a temporary schedule for the first few weeks so that I can get a feel for the schools and how I can best contribute.

National Sugar Cane Festival

The National Sugar Cane Festival is held every year in Pesé. As mentioned in my previous post, this region is covered with fields of sugar cane, and seco is the liquor that is made from distilling sugar cane and largest seco factory in Panama (owned by the Vice President of the country) is in Pesé. So every year in the beginning of March a long weekend is devoted to the National Sugar Cane Festival. I arrived just in time for the beginning of it on Thursday.

Each year there is a Queen of the Sugar Cane Festival and on Thursday, the queen from last year is paraded through the streets to the stage, 4 other princesses are introduced that represent different aspects of culture (dance, food, dress, customs – I think), then 2 little girls come up with a new crown and then the new queen for the current year is presented. The outfits and floats are like what you see in Carnaval celebrations – really elaborate, colorful and beautiful.

Friday brought more parades I think, though I didn’t end up going. Then Saturday evening was the biggest parade with 3 different floats. The first had the queen for next year, the second had the 4 princesses and the last one had this year’s queen.

Sunday was the parade of the carretas – little carts that are extensively decorated (though not like the floats) by each of the corrigimientos of the district of Pesé. They compete for a cash prize. Many of them are sponsored by politicians. Then at the end of the night the queen and the princesses are presented one more time.

Another sugar-cane related thing that I did this week was I got to taste sugar cane juice! My counterpart, César, took me and my family (we were on our way to swim in a river) to his friend’s house who has a mill/grinder/juicer – I don’t quite know what to call it. You normally hook up a horse to it, then feed the sugar cane through as the horse walks in a circle. Someone has to hold a funnel and bucket/bottle to catch the juice as well. They feed the sugar cane through twice to get all of the juice out. César also brought some ginger to add to it, which was delicious. They also make a honey out of it which we also got to try – it was SUPER rich. It had a slightly different taste than honey from bees, but was very good. This was such a cool experience to have – watching them make the juice, then drinking it! Felt very Panamanian!

I've been trying to add photos.... but they're not uploading. I'll add some when I can!