One Year in Peace Corps

Year One

In May G76 went to the Decameron Resort to celebrate one year.  Unfortunately I had an ear infection and a sprained ankle, so I couldn't go swimming, but I hung out on the beach with a novel and took a little vacation from fishbowl Peace Corps life.

Sunset on the beach from the restaurant our last night

 Project Management Leadership Training

After I finished physical therapy I had the opportunity to take my counterpart, Maria, to a really cool leadership training in Cocle.

For three days we received trainings on project management and organization, and critically examined issues that the teachers and students face in their work and lives.  I learned a lot about how my counterpart likes to work and how she views issues and thinks about solutions.  It was really informative and fun.

It was extra interesting because I missed the training with the rest of G76 when it was given last November, so the training that I went to was with G77 SAS (Sustainable Agriculture Systems) volunteers.  Their communities, work, and lives are really different from TELLS volunteers because they tend to work in much more rural areas and are focused on agriculture education instead of English education.  Many of them also work in indigenous communities.

For the training we were divided up into color "teams".  I was on team blue, which included volunteers from Bocas del Toro, Darien, and the two odd-ball Veraguenses.  It was really interesting to see some of the artesania from Bocas and the Darien and to hear people speaking Ngabere and Embera.  One of the volunteers brought a really sweet counterpart from her site in Bocas and we were in the same dorm together.  She kept speaking to me in a combination of ngabere and Spanish, so I couldn't understand everything she said, but I really want to try to go visit that volunteer and her counterpart at some point before I leave Panama.  I'd also really love to learn more ngabere.

Soy Joven Soy Líder
For a few months we've been working with an organization called FUSODEP to develop a youth-led social impact program in Santiago.  Led by Roxana who developed the curriculum for the program, we finally held a TOT (Training of Trainers) for the youth facilitators who would work with us during the program.

It was a really great seminar and wonderful to see how much the youth facilitators have grown during the development process.  They're going to do big, amazing things in their communities in the future.

We also decided during the TOT to make really nifty tie dye t-shirts with the Soy Joven Soy Líder logo on them for all the facilitators after one of the people in the training drew their "ideal facilitator" with a really cool t-shirt.