Carnaval (Part 1)
I spent the beginning of the month (and the first part of Carnaval) madly studying to take the GRE in Panama City for my future return to study something for my MA. I really don't know what I want to study or where I want to go to school or if I want to go back to school immediately following Peace Corps. This may have been just another part of this quarter life crisis exercise. The test was harder than I thought it would be (partially because I haven't taken a standardized test like that in almost a decade), but I'm hoping I did well so I can really focus on working in site this year and worry a little less about the future.
Carnaval (Part 2)
To celebrate surviving the test, I got some tacos from my favorite "hole-in the-wall" place around the corner from my home sweet hostel in Panama City. The next morning I tried to get out of the city early (despite everyone's apocalyptic traffic predictions) to go to my friend's place for Carnaval.
In the end it only took me about 4 hours to make what should have been a roughly 3 hour trip (less apocalyptic than initially predicted). My friends Erin, Adrian, and I decided to go out to the culecos almost immediately after I arrived at her place. I don't know if the word is used outside of Panama, but culecos are water trucks that spray the dancing and drinking crowd with water during Carnaval (and because of all the water I have no photos).
There are also competitions for Reina (Queen) for Calle Arriba versus Calle Abajo in most places. The division is based on which part of the community you live in. The women are dressed up in extravagant costumes and dance tipico on floats pulled by tractors. The tractors drive right through the crowds by the culecos, which is terrifying to think about, but everyone knows to just get out of the way when the tractor comes inching through the crowd pulling a giant float on a flatbed. Kids have water guns filled with ice water and will spray unsuspecting passersby.
Because we're in the middle of dry season (and rainy season wasn't that rainy this year) they had to dredge some of the rivers in Panama to get the water for the culecos. We're not in a drought, but I do have friends whose water only comes for a short period of time every few days and the water that was used for the culecos could certainly have had some more practical uses (washing dishes, bathing, drinking water) than being sprayed on a crowd (though that was quite refreshing).
The next day I headed home to site (where we also had culecos, but I didn't participate) to get myself organized to start prep week for the new school year on Monday.
Campamento Muchachas Empoderadas
Right before prep week started a bunch of us spent a week in my friend Jody's site in Chiriqui near the Comarca Ngäbe Buglé (CNB) helping her with her Muchachas Empoderadas (Empowered Young Women) Camp. The CNB is one of two indigenous areas in Panama and has two distinct indigenous groups (the Ngäbe and the Buglé). The other Comarca is in the Darien (bordering Colombia) where the indigenous groups are the Embera and the Wounaan.
All week we spent the mornings doing leadership and teambuilding games, talking about role models, goal setting, self esteem, and making recycled jewelry and friendship bracelets, and learning the really awesome dance that Jody choreographed.
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Fany sharing a valentine to herself
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Laila sharing about inner and outer beauty
(with a little help from her friends)
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The last day of the camp the girls presented their work to their family, our CD, her husband, and APCD who came to visit for the final presentation. Each girl shared something that she had learned that week in our sessions about goal making, role models (the majority of who cited their moms as their role models), and self esteem exercises (inner/outer beauty and valentines to themselves). It was a really lovely camp.
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| Dancing! |
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| Muchachas and facilitators |
I spent the week at Jody's lovely little house with fellow PCVs Roxana, Kelly, Natalie, and Meredith. It was also the first time in my life I lived somewhere that didn't have a refrigerator or regular running water. Because it's dry season Jody's water has only been coming for about an hour every few days, but she also has access to a local spring.
Jody has electricity, but she doesn't have a fridge. Despite how scary that might sound, you don't actually need a fridge to feed yourself delicious food. You go shopping every day for food that might spoil quickly, eat vegetarian, and don't make more food than you're going to consume in a single meal/day.
We made oatmeal with honey, peanut butter, and raisins every morning for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch (PBJ or tuna), and a variety of things for dinner. Because there were so many of us we each took turns cooking dinner for the group. Dinners included: pasta with ginger, garlic, and soy sauce; roast vegetables and chicken; black beans and vegetables (with a mashed potato appetizer); black bean burgers with vegetables and fried plantains; wachu (which I can't spell; stewed beans and rice). We even made no-bake cookies for the last day because Jody correctly anticipated the potential of entertaining our CD, her husband, and APCD at her house. All of this was accomplished without a refrigerator (or an oven).
In general, Jody's site more closely fits what I imagined Peace Corps would be like. She lives in a small town with dirt roads and lives in a concrete house (with Tara the tarantula who lives near the shower). She has a latrine for a bathroom and her "shower" is a tarp cubicle next to her house with a dirt floor and a bucket. She saves water in buckets for when it goes out and purifies water with a water filter and drops of chlorine.
Despite voluntarily joining the Peace Corps with this being my imagining of volunteer life, a year ago I couldn't imagine living like that. But before I went to Jody's site I wasn't stressed about the water situation (the surprise tarantula housemate was even ok once we understood what eachother's boundaries were). I missed pulling cold water out of my refrigerator and having toast with butter and jelly every morning for that week, but not so much that it was a real hardship. Don't get me wrong, not having water (or safe water) is super frustrating, but I now know that I would be capable of doing the things necessary to live like that, which I didn't know before.
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Some Empowered Muchachas with our APCD, CD, and (some of) the facilitators
(missing Roxana and Kelly)
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Prep Week
Prep week involved some discussion of diversifying teaching methods to help students succeed, which was really cool to see. They also discussed education laws, selected school event committees (every teacher is assigned to one of about 7 committees to organize events throughout the year), organized and cleaned the classrooms (they painted over the summer!) and generally got things ready for the new school year. None of the English Teachers were around during prep week because two of them were still studying in the US with the Panama Bilingue program and one had not yet been assigned to the school.
Birthday Celebrations!
The Friday of Prep Week was my friend Kelly's birthday, so a bunch of us headed out to dinner at this awesome Greek place in Santiago (that I didn't know existed) and then back to Kelly's for a slumber party full of popcorn, singing Taylor Swift, playing "Never Have I Ever", and the traditional PCV external hard drive media swap. The next day Kelly made pancakes and scrambled eggs and then we all went to lunch at a fonda in Santiago before going our separate ways.
That weekend a previous English Teacher Counterpart (Maria) who left to study with Panama Bilingue in August texted me to say that she's coming back to my school this year. I'm so excited to start working with her again!
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| Birthday Fun! |
More Training (but from the opposite side of the table)
In theater we talk about being "in front of the table" or "behind the table", meaning are you the person running the audition or are you the person auditioning?
G78 (the next group of Teaching and Conservation volunteers) arrived at the end of February and right after Kelly's Birthday I headed back to the training community in Panama Oeste to support our PST (Programming and Training Specialist) for the first week of G78's training as incoming TELLS volunteers (Teaching English, Leadership, and Life Skills). It was very strange to be "on the opposite side of the table".
I feel like I'm supposed to be "old and wise" or "a veteran PCV", but what 78 doesn't know is that I'm still figuring it out too. It's really interesting to consider what I know now and compare it to my perceptions of G74 (the previous group) when they came to train us (G76). I know more than I did when I got here, but there's still so much that I'm figuring out.
The week of training went really well. G78 is an awesome group and I'm really excited to start working with them after they finish training.
At the end of the week we all hiked the Loma together for a bit of exercise and to celebrate the end of the first week. It's so beautiful and peaceful up there.
The really tough part of working on that first week of training for G78 was that it meant missing the first week of school in site (and missing the first VAC meeting of the year).
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| On top of the Loma, one year later |
(My) First Week of School
Two of my three counterparts are back in school this week and we're going to have a department meeting to discuss goals and projects for the year. I'm also preparing to start an English Community Class and an English Club (or two, depending on interest) for students. I tried to start my community class at school this week, but no one showed up, so I'm in the process of re-advertising and shifting location to hopefully garner more interest.
There are so many projects on the horizon that I'm a little overwhelmed with how (and when) to get everything started, but I'm confident that this will be a fantastic year. I got to formally introduce myself to alot of the parents when they came to the school for beginning of the year parent/teacher meetings, which I think will be really helpful in starting to build some of those relationships.
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| Class Time! |
Upcoming
- English Community Class
- English Club(s)
- Gabby from G78 comes to visit!
- Celebrating my birthday!
- Planning for a trimester break camp in June
- Starting the planning process for the Regional Reader's Theater Competition
- And many more adventures
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