This is my second of three Peace Corps birthdays.
Birthdays, Panama Style
Before my birthday my only Panamanian birthday experience
here so far has been Prima’s birthday last week. We sang Happy Birthday, had sheetcake that
her daughter bought from a supermarket in Santiago, red jello with ice cream on
top (a party favorite here), and I got to take a swing at the piñata (full of
hard candies and noisemakers) with the rest of the kids. It was a lot of fun.
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Part 1
This year my new friend Gabby from
G78 was visiting me for the week. We
spent Friday morning at school observing and hanging out with Cora (my CP who
teaches English for grades 7-9). We even
did some family member vocabulary review with the students in preparation for a
project that they’re going to do next week.
In the afternoon we went to El Palo
de Granadillo, which is a tree in a nearby community that only blooms around
Easter. A lot of people from all over
Panama come to see the tree bloom because it’s considered a holy place and the
flowers have medicinal uses for pain relief.
After we got back from the tree
Gabby and I hung out for a bit and started making dinner before heading back to
Prima’s house for an holajdre making
lesson. Hojaldres are pieces of fried dough that are a common breakfast
food in Panama. After our cooking lesson we finished making dinner
(quesadillas and mashed potatoes) and watched Big Hero 6 (which was not what I
was expecting at all).
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| El Palo de Granadillo |
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| One of the famous flowers |
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| I finally visited the Rio (river) that my town is named after |
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| And found the mysterious hidden IPT (technical high school) near my town |
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Part 2
The next morning on my actual
birthday we spent the first half of the day at a youth leadership project
development workshop at the FUSODEP office in Santiago because they’re
interested in collaborating with Peace Corps to create some sustainable (led by
Panamanian youth) opportunities for youth in Santiago to participate in
extracurricular activities that would fill needs that the youth leaders
identify in Santiago. It’s a pretty fantastic
idea and we’re really excited about it, though we’re still developing what
we’re actually going to do in the community.
The workshop was great and it was
awesome to show the visiting G78ers a
larger scale project that we’re working on in Veraguas (especially because it
has such high potential for being sustainable and making a huge positive
impact).
After the workshop we bopped around
Santiago for a bit, went to the mercado
(market area with a lot of shopping), got raspao
(shaved ice with fruit flavoring and condensed milk), and finally explored the
new mall that they’re building on the outskirts of the city. It’s crazy big and they’re putting in a movie
theater (Santiago’s second one), but the really awesome part is that there’s a
bus that goes there for free from the mercado
(saving 40 cents in bus fare).
After the mall adventure we got
dinner at this really cool restaurant and hung out after to bake carrot cake
and watch most of NO, which is a
really cool movie about the “No campaign” that helped end the dictatorship in
Chile. Gael Garcia Bernal is a fantastic actor and I'm sort of obsessed with democratic political transitions.
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| Birthday Dinner with Team Veraguas and the G78ers who were visiting for the week! |
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| Dinamicas (Ice Breakers) during the Youth Leadership workshop! |
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Part 3
The next day I did laundry, chatted
with my parents for a bit, and celebrated with my neighbors. We had cake and sang “Happy Birthday”. I almost have all the words to the Panamanian
version; it’s different than the one I learned in Chile. After celebrating I fell asleep in my hammock
with a good book (Little Bee, go read it) while waiting for my laundry to dry before eating some delicious
leftover pasta for dinner.
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| Birthday cake with best friends |
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| Singing Happy Birthday |
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| Delicious Cake that Prima got for my Birthday |
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| Singing Happy Birthday to Manuel too! |
Really solid birthday.
And now for a little retrospective:
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Ten years Ago
I was 17 and in the 11th
grade. I spent all my time studying
Chemistry and American History, and writing and reading for English class (and for
fun). I was in Marching Band, chorus,
the school musical (Bye Bye Birdie),
and jazz choir.
When I wasn’t studying or at school
I was dancing (Ballet, Jazz and Irish), sitting in Greg’s living room watching
B-movies, or not-quite-loitering in front of East Sevs (one of two 7-11s in my
town). I worked for my dad on
weekends. I had my driver’s permit, but
not my license and I hadn’t started seriously thinking about leaving Long
Island.
I had just met the girl who would
become my best friend/sister and future co-star of the “Kara and Jess show”
where we do things like make incredible messes while making box brownies, get
lost in East Patchogue, and go “piano-man-ing” (driving aimlessly) with the
windows rolled down and the music blasting.
·
Five Years Ago
I was 22 and a senior in
university. I was working toward
finishing a dual degree in Spanish/Latin American Studies and International
Studies/Peace and Conflict Resolution. I
was studying Arabic for fun and I had just gotten back from a semester abroad
in Santiago, Chile.
I had moved to a new apartment with
old roommates where I built a free-standing wall to partition part of the
living room into my bedroom. I went back
to my job working at the university mainstage as a technician (carpentry and
electrics) and Box Office Assistant/House manager. We were about to go into rehearsals for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead ,
my last of 11 shows with the Rude Mechanicals student Shakespeare troupe. I was
back to dancing (Modern and Jazz/Contemporary) after stopping for a few years
and I was almost over a severe knee sprain and I hadn’t injured my shoulder
yet.
I had just gotten back from my
Grandma’s funeral and been rejected by Teach For America. I had no idea what I wanted to do after
graduation, but I knew I wanted to stay in DC, so I was about to attend my
first tech cattle call to solicit theater work and start my freelance life.
I can’t believe how much has changed and how remote, yet
recent it still all feels.
Year Bucket List
- Learn ASL
- Facilitate a seminar solo
- Work out at least twice a week
- Write in my journal for 10 minutes every day
- Read for half an hour every day
- Sew a dress for Fiestas Patrias in November
- Hike Volcan Baru
- Bake cookies with Prima’s daughters
- Practice Spanish for at least 1 hour every day
- Take the Foreign Service Officer Exam
- Retake the GRE
- Do cool stuff in site (in all the many forms that can take)
- Visit the provinces in Panama I haven't been to yet
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