The End of "Summer" (or the Month of February)

Ok, so it's not really the end of Summer (that's around May), but it is the end of February and school is about to start again.

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.

Fany sharing a valentine to herself

Laila sharing about inner and outer beauty 

(with a little help from her friends)

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.

Dancing!

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.

Some Empowered Muchachas with our APCD, CD, and (some of) the facilitators 

(missing Roxana and Kelly)

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!

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).

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.

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

New Normal

My US “normal” was sort of out there already for people who don’t do technical theater/live event work. 

Until a week before I left I was working as a stage manager, house manager, theatrical electrician, with the occasional temp admin job thrown in for good measure (or a semblance of stability).  I lived a very public professional life.  I would get recognized or bump into a colleague pretty frequently.  I didn’t have much of a social life because I was always working and the little social life that I had was directly related to the work I was doing at a given moment (coffee before a show call, post show drinks, going to see a show at a theater I was hoping to start working for).  Sometimes I’d treat myself by going to the movies (usually alone), but that was pretty rare.  I didn’t have a smart phone, or a single stable employment.  I used WiFi to watch TV.

Peace Corps is the most stability that I’ve had in years and it’s exactly what I was looking for when I decided that I wanted a change. 

I still live alone, but I have a cat now (my first pet, ever) and I’m reteaching myself how to cook (after forming some very bad cooking and eating habits living the freelance life), I’m friends with my neighbors. 

Sometimes the water or electricity go out, and it’s annoying, but totally manageable.   The potential of not having water or electricity was a huge source of stress before I came to Panama, but it doesn’t really stress me out anymore, if it happens I deal with it.

I’m much less of a picky eater in Panama.  I’ll eat pretty much whatever I’m given.  The only exception so far was sau (pig feet).  I just couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t get past the consistency.  [I’ll do a post on food soon.]

I light my stove with a lighter (or matches), which used to scare me but now I get confused if I don’t have to light a stove that way. 

I throw my toilet paper in a trash can, which used to be really gross, but now it’s just life. 

I know what I can find in the local store (and how much things cost off the top of my head) versus what I need to get from a bigger grocery store in Santiago (and what I can find in each of those stores.

I’m getting better at budgeting money and I know exactly how much I currently have in my bank account.

I eat a fondas  (small restaurants) now that I never would have gone to in my pre-Panama life because their general aesthetic would have screamed “food poisoning”. 

If I’m out, one of my favorite things to eat for breakfast is fried chicken.  Which I’ve eaten with my hands sitting in the bus terminal waiting to go to my friend’s site.

I still use public transportation to get everywhere, but now I actively avoid traveling at night (what used to be one of my favorite things to do).

I could keep going, and maybe someday I will.

I just know that this is exactly where I’m supposed to be.  When I saw one of my college roommates in the US, she told me I was glowing.  I’m at my best when I’m traveling.  I like the challenge and the adventure of it.

Who knows how many “new normals” I’ll find.

Blogging Abroad's Boot Camp Blog Challenge: Starting January 2015

Backpack, Backpack...

January was a wild month.  A few days after the New Year I set out on a new adventure: going back to the States to visit my family and friends for the first time in almost a year.

A summary of events (but mostly food):

Part 1: Panama to New York 

The moment I arrived at my mother's school

Getting to New York was an adventure.

I left site around noon on the 5th (with a delicious send off lunch from Prima).  It was actually pretty emotional to be leaving, knowing that I was going back to the US.

Delicious lunch from Prima

I got to Panama City around 5pm, ate wings at the Gorilla food court for dinner.  Every time I go to Albrook I get a little bit of culture shock.  There are video screens that show advertisements on the hands-free sink faucets in the bathrooms.

My flight left Panama at midnight on the morning of the 6th.  I was operating with my American sense of what international travel (or travel in general) looks like and I arrived at the airport around 7pm (being early is one of my five favorite things and I was too impatient to walk around Albrook anymore) and was told that they wouldn't start checking people into the flight until 9pm (which turned out to be more like 9:30).  Luckily I had my sewing with me and made friends with a really nice Canadian woman.

I didn't have to check any bags and getting through security was quick (though my sewing scissors didn't survive).

After finally getting to the gate I bought myself a hot chocolate for a treat.  I came back to the gate to find that we had to go through security again.  Our bags got re-xrayed and everyone (down to toddlers and elderly people in wheelchairs) had to get a pat down.

After round two of security they roped us into the now "secure" gate area.  It was a full flight so people were practically tripping over eachother with all their luggage.  I was looking forward to getting on the plane, so I'd have some more space.

The flight was smooth and we got into Newark around 5am.  I took public transport into New York and was able to get in touch with my friend Kat so we could have coffee and catch up before she left for tour.  After coffee I went to my mom's school in Queens where her 4th graders barraged me with questions.  I spent about a half hour talking to them before escaping to find some lunch at a diner and some platanos verdes (green plantains) at a local market so we could make patacones (alternately known as tostones; fried plantains).  Mom and I drove out to Eastern Long Island after school.

My adrenaline wore off pretty quickly after we got home and I ended up crashing for a few hours before someone convinced me that I should pause sleeping to eat dinner.

The Long Island part of the trip (really the whole trip) was a whirlwind of people and food.

• Sushi with my best friend, Jess, for her birthday.
• Family Christmas with my Dad's side of the family where I made them patacones and people seemed to like them (or they humored me).
• Deaf West's Spring Awakening on Broadway with my parents, my brother (Andrew), and Jess.
• Ate a delicious Italian food dinner with Jess and Theresa (before Theresa left on her Italian vacation adventure).
• Drove places in my lovely little Yoda (thanks to my brother for giving me his car for a few days).
• Ate bagels with my friend Patrick.
• Had delicious pizza and garlic knots from the pizza place next to my high school.
• Ate delicious french toast with my new friend Helen while we discussed our Peace Corps services (she was a volunteer in Guatemala) and planned cyber events for Peace Corps Week with Stony Brook University students
• Borrowed my brother's Netflix account to binge watch TV.

I also had the opportunity to talk to some students at my high school about Panama, my Peace Corps service and service in general.  It was really wonderful to go back to a place that informed so many of the choices that I've made in my life and to show them a potential path that they could take after they graduate from college.

A late Christmas with my Grandparents

Part 2: Brooklyn

After spending a few days on Long Island I went to visit my friend Greg in Brooklyn.  We've been friends since 7th grade and he's one of the people I always try to see when I'm in NY.  We hung out and drank tea and talked for hours.  It was really wonderful to see him.

Part 3: DC

After spending about 24 hours in Brooklyn I put my backpack back on and hopped on a bus to DC for the last few days of the trip.  

The first night I went straight from Union Station to dinner with my friends Alex and Gordon.  Delicious food, good company, and some DC theater scene gossip was the perfect way to come back to DC.  They very kindly drove me to Lauren and Eddie's house (friends that I crashed with in DC)

The next day I ate some Chipotle and sat in a coffee shop listening to music, drinking tea and looking at email before getting some pie with my friend Ryan, and heading up to Source to see Constellation Theatre Company's production of Equus.  

I arrived early and went to my favorite coffee shop in that part of town to find my fabulous friend Katie having some coffee.  We got to catch up a bit before she had to run to work.  Equus was beautiful and it was lovely to be back in the theater among friends.  After the show I hung out with Katie and my friend Cheryl for a bit before running to catch the metro before it closed (and tragically missing an opportunity to eat delicious falafel). 

The next morning Eddie made fantastic blueberry pancakes and scrambled eggs for breakfast.  After a relaxing breakfast I went and hung out in DC for the day.  I tried to go to the new exhibition at the Renwick, but there was a line around the block.  I decided to sit in a coffee shop with some tea and write for a bit before heading up to Theater J to see their production of The Sisters Rosenswieg.  It was really great to see a show at the J (and to bump into my friend Delia before she moved away).  The show was wonderful and hilarious.  It was great to see so many familiar faces.  After the show I got to catch up with my friend Jay, which was really nice.

The next morning I convinced Lauren and Eddie to go out to breakfast at Busboys and Poets.  I'd been dreaming about their french toast for months.  After breakfast we hung out for a bit before I started getting ready for the big event: Casey and Joe's wedding.

The wedding was lovely.  Casey looked stunning and Joe looked handsome as they said their vows with the full expanse of DC as their backdrop.  I spent the night dancing with Sara, Elizabeth, and Casey, reminiscing about college, and talking about how much our lives have changed since we graduated.  It was the perfect way to end the trip.

Roommates!
Credit: Casey and Joe's Wedding Photographer

The next morning I started my journey back to Panama, site, and (most importantly) Canela.

It was a crazy whirlwind of a trip, full of odd culture shock moments, but I loved it.

Reverse Culture Shock Moments include:

• Being able to flush toilet paper
• Not carrying a flashlight 
• Eating salad (without anyone thinking to put mayonnaise on it)
• Not washing my dishes by hand
• Not lighting the stove with matches or a lighter
• Being cold (or rather, not sweating all the time)
• Speaking in Spanglish (or just Spanish) to people who don't speak Spanish
• Forgetting words (in both languages)
• Not having to check my bag at the paquetera (bag/parcel check) whenever I walked into a store
• Having people get annoyed when I wanted to pay in cash
• Dancing more than once dance in a row with a guy (dancing with a guy for more than once dance in a row signals serious interest in Panama)

Meanwhile back in Panama...

Part 4: Camp!
There's no rest for the wicked(-ly ambitious) and in typical me fashion I had plans to go to work (in this case an English camp for students) as soon as I got back to Panama.

My friend Roxana organized the camp as an English refresher before school starts again at the end of February.  I only ended up being there for two days (silly sinus infection destroying my dreams), but we had a lot of fun and it was nice to be back in the classroom (and on the field) after being on school break since mid-December.

The students were split into two groups and each group learned a pop song in English and prepared a Reader's Theater script in addition to doing a bunch of leadership and teambuilding games.  The last day of camp we had students presentations (and speeches/closing remarks in typical Panama fashion, something I'm slowly getting better at) and brindis with cupcakes that we baked the night before.  The students did really well and I'm so excited to get back to working with students in my site.

Happy students and facilitators on the last day of camp

Upcoming Events:

• Veraguas Regional Meeting
• Taking the GRE during Carnival (#awesomeplanning)
• Girls' Empowerment camp in Jody's site
• School prep week and the start of the new school year
• Pre-Service Training (PST) for G78 (the next group of TELLS and CEC volunteers)

A Day in the Life

Peace Corps life is constantly changing and every day is different (but can still feel monotonous sometimes).  I'm slowly learning that there is nearly always more than one answer to even the simplest of questions.

So, here's a checklist of events that may happen on a sort of typical day.

Morning

• Wake up to the lurking shadow of Canelita at my bedroom door
• Open bedroom door, catch Canela as she dashes inside my room, take her into the kitchen to feed her breakfast.
• Take Canela's food out of the freezer (the only successful way to protect it from the evil biting ants) and fill her bowl.

When school is out of session

• Change out of pajamas and into house clothes (skirt and t-shirt) and cook breakfast (toast with jam and a cup of tea)
• Open front door to potential visitors
• Start checking email and whatsapp
• Migrate outside to my hammock once the sun shifts off the porch with my sewing or a book and a glass of water
• Get surprised by a parade or other celebration
• Fireworks
• Get mad at the chickens for pooping all over the porch and then immediately miss my Grandpa and his chicken sounds
• Prima knocking on my bedroom window to offer me breakfast

When school is in session

• Get dressed in school clothes (dress pants, collared button up shirt, and ballet flats), try to arrive at school by 7am
• Say good morning (Buenas) to everyone I see on my short walk to school.  
• Try to get the elongation of those vowels just right (Buuuueeeenaaaasss).
• Avoid horse poop in the street
• Arrive at school to bright excited student faces shouting "Teacher!" or "Kary"
• Participate in the acto civico on Monday mornings (a weekly school assembly that takes the place of first period) where we sing the Panamanian national anthem and get the school news for the week
• Say good morning to all the teachers, the principal, assistant principals, and secretaries
• Buy an empananda or two (fried ground corn tortilla  stuffed with seasoned pulled chicken) from the kiosko (small store that sells snacks, candy, and coffee) at school
• Head to the teacher's lounge or check my excel sheet of my English teacher counterparts' schedules to see what class they're teaching
• Spend the morning in the classroom with my teachers or in the teachers' lounge helping them with other projects

Afternoon

• Have lunch at school (potential meals include: fried hot dogs and rice, rice and pollo guisado-stewed chicken)
• Cook lunch (canned soup or a PBJ sandwich)
• Play with Canela
• Read or sew in my hammock until the heat of the day passes
• Visit with Prima or Loli
• Fireworks
• Pasear around my community (go for a walk and visit with my neighbors)
• Buy a duro (like a popsicle, but homemade in clear plastic bags)  popular flavors include Koolaid (usually purple), piña con arroz (pineapple with rice), and coco (coconut)
• Prima calling into my house to offer lunch or coming over to give me food like Platano Asado (roast plantain), pesado de nance (like applesauce, but thicker and made from nance), or fruit from their garden, like naranjilla (a cross between an orange and a lemon), naranjas (oranges), platanos (plantains)

Evening

• Cook dinner (pasta with ginger and garlic cooked in soy sauce and a salad with homemade vinaigrette is a popular choice these days)
• Prima calling into my house to offer dinner
• Eating dinner with Prima and family
• Shower (cold water feels so good after a day in the heat)
• Give Canela dinner
• Fireworks
• Check that my hammock is tied up (to prevent random people from sleeping in it, a phenomenon my neighbors assure me is a possibility) 
• Lock up the house for the night
• Finish dishes for the day and double check that all the stove burners are off
• Get my headlamp and pick Canela up, shut the lights off in the house and kiss Canela goodnight
• Shake my sheets out and check my pillow for spiders and scorpions
• Check my datebook and calendar for the next day
• Shut the lights off in my room and read until I fall asleep

Other things

• Wash laundry about once every two weeks
• Mop out the entire house with bleach about once a month
• Take the garbage out on Monday mornings
• Go to Santiago to facilitate LDGE (University level English classes about leadership) at the university with other volunteers
• Play with the neighborhood kids.  Chess is a current favorite.  Ultimate frisbee has some solid potential.
• Facilitate youth camps with other volunteers
• Teach community English classes
• Try to develop a literacy program/children's library
• Head to Santiago to run errands, have meetings, grocery shop, or meet up with Roxana and Kelly to hang out and talk about our lives
• Write letters
• Adventure to the Post office in Santiago (usually about once every two weeks)
• Write lessons and seminars, plan projects
• Listen to the pigeons running relay races across my roof and roosters crowing at all hours of the day
• Listen to the sound of rain hitting my tin roof (it drowns out all other noise and conversation)
• Stage personal dance parties (or musicals), sometimes with Canelita as my dance partner and co-star

Blogging Abroad's Boot Camp Blog Challenge: Starting January 2015

Time Flies (Except When It Crawls)

Somehow I've already been in-country for over 7 months.

SECNA
Home Again!
Feliz Cumpleaños!
All Aboard the Train-ing
Hostel Home Sweet Hostel
Queens of the Mountain!

SENCA
August was a whirlwind.  I got back to Veraguas in time to say goodbye to the outgoing regional leader before she left for her new adventure as a Response volunteer in China.  I had my SECNA on the 12th.  My presentation went well and apparently my Spanish was mostly intelligible.  All of my counterparts, the principal, two police officers, and two parents attended and we came up with a rough action plan for the projects that we're going to work on in the coming months.  After the presentation we had a brindis with some oatmeal cookies that I made the night before, chips and salsa, and beet salad that the wonderful women who run the comedor made (before I could help them).  I had planned to make chicha, but forgot while trying to tame my nerves about the presentation.  Someone saved the day and got soda from the tienda near the church.  I was pretty proud of my brindis, despite how hectic it was.

My SECNA was paired with my Three Month Visit from the awesome TE PTS.  We talked about my experience in site for the first three months, my host family, school and working with my counterparts, did a housing inspection, and took a short tour of my community.

When we went to do the housing inspection we were a little early, so we chatted with another community member until my (new) neighbor and her sister-in-law arrived.  When Prima and Josefina arrived there was a whirlwind of introductions that ended with us hanging out at my neighbor's house and learning more about the history of my community and my neighbors.


Home Again!
We walked through the house to check for any security or safety improvements that may be necessary.  Peace Corps has a really detailed list of specifications (number and kind of locks, type of door, exterior lights, etc.) that a house must meet before a volunteer can live there.  My proposed house was only missing one lock, which my neighbors helped me install.

My house is so yeye (fancy) that fellow Veraguas volunteers and I have named it "The Ritz".  It's a bloque (cement block) house and I have water and electricity at all hours of the day.  I have my own room and a separate bedroom with a bed for guests.  The woman who owns the house left a couch, two arm chairs, a large book shelf, and a dining room table and chairs when she moved out.  The house has a cement floor and a zinc roof that extends over the front and back porches. Most importantly, there's a perfect spot to hang my hammock on the terraza (back porch).

My landlady also left her stove in the house, though only two of the four burners work and the oven doesn't work (tragically discovered when Roxana and I tried to bake shepherd's pie one day).  I also bought a refrigerator.  With a freezer (because I'm that yeye and impulsive).  Also, my epic craigslist and physical store search for a smaller countertop refrigerator turned up empty.

Basically, it's perfect, though it's a much larger living space than I anticipated having.

Biggest accomplishment of moving in: sewing and hanging my bedroom curtain.  Cheap and opaque!

Feliz Cumpleaños!

Feliz Cumpleanos!

So, the TE program staff had to do some date shuffling of our SECNAs a few months back and when the PTS came to visit I learned that I was incredibly lucky that my SECNA was on the 12th because that evening was the beginning of a week of school anniversary celebrations.  It started with the student body marching through my community that Wednesday evening carrying handmade torchas (torches) with candles in them.  I was a little worried about so many kids having open flames (stage manager problems), but no one got burned.  The next day we had the Reinado where the queen of the school for 2015 was chosen.

The Candidatas (Candidates)

The girl in the pink skirt is the queen for this school year

Joseph in his Tipico clothes

 

 The Stage

A boy and his masks

After the queen was crowned by suerte (luck) there was a parade through town and the candidatas threw hard candies into the crowd following the float.

Float!

Parade!

It was really fun to celebrate with everyone.  I'm excited for the National Holidays in November!

After I moved into my house I had to head back to Panama City for a few days for continued knee and ankle medical adventures.  Then I popped back to site to repack my backpack before heading to IST for two weeks...

All Aboard the Train-ing
In Service Training (IST) is two weeks of sector-specific training that all volunteers receive after their first three months in site.  This training serves as a chance to reconnect with everyone in your training group and launch you into the work that you'll be doing for the next two years.

For the first two days we were in Farallon, Cocle with all 49 volunteers from G76 for non-sector-specific training related to medical, security, resiliency, and grants.  It was awesome (and a little overwhelming) to see everyone again.

We played a really awesome game of Cards Against Humanity the first night and talked about all of the foods we miss from home (for the want of chocolate chip challah bread). I spent a fair amount of time reading because I'm a bookworm (and I couldn't walk down to the beach with everyone else due to my continued knee/ankle problems).

The funniest moment from those first two days was when the water went out while I was in the shower.  It wouldn't have been a huge issue, but I'd just put a "real shower" (as opposed to bucket shower) amount of shampoo in my hair and there were no cubos (buckets of water) to be found and no river close by.  Losing electricity and/or water is not uncommon in Panama.  It just happens sometimes.  Luckily my friend Jen came into the bathroom and had her phone with her, so she called our fearless PTS who used her magic powers to turn the water back on (or the gods decided that they'd had enough entertainment for the evening), so I didn't have to brush the soap out of my hair.

After those first two days we said goodbye to CEC and went to our yeye hotel for TE training.  TE volunteers here have the reputation for being yeye because we tend to have more access to water, electricity, cell signal, and our sites tend to be pretty easily accessible (as opposed to having to hike or take a boat in).  When we arrived at the hotel we were greeted by a veritable sea of hammocks outside the dorms.  Perfect for evening reading and conversation (except for the voracious chitra).

In the tradition of PST We spent most of our time in a rancho in seminars learning about all of the resources that we have available to us, potential projects and teaching methodologies.  It was great to see everyone and to hear about their sites.  I really want to find time to visit everyone during my service.  Most of the second week was devoted to "practicum" activities.  We created new seminars in our provincial groups to give to English teachers in Cocle and spent 6 hours over two days teaching an English Camp/Club/Class to primary and secondary students at another volunteer's site.

Team Veraguas (and Erin) developed an hour-long seminar about how to effectively use group work in the classroom.  The time crunch of developing the seminar in two days was a little stressful, but it turned out really well.  The execution of it was particularly cool because we got to give it to three separate groups of teachers in a row and we gotten written observations back from other TE 76, so each time we gave the seminar we were able to improve it a little bit.

Dillon, Jody, Erin, and I got to work with 6th graders for our English Camp/Club/Class.  We decided to teach them body parts, numbers 1-10, and the verb "to have" using a bunch of different games and activities (flyswatter, bingo, elbow game).  I was a little daunted about coming up with 6 hours of planned activities, but it worked out and ended up being really fun.  It was also awesome to teach with people I don't usually get to work with because we don't live near each other.  After IST I'm even more confident that we're each other's best resources.

For a culminating activity we had all of the students draw monsters.  On their monster each student had to label 5 body parts and then they had to write two sentences about their monster using the verb "to have", a number, and a body part (ex. My monster has five legs).  At the end the students presented their monsters to their classmates and grade level teacher.  It was really cool to see their creativity combined with comprehension.  Students here tend to spend a lot of time copying from the board and it was really nice to get away from that.

Monsters!

Hostel Home Sweet Hostel
After IST I went to Panama City to get my knee and ankle issues sorted out.  I spent three weeks in the city going through physical therapy and trying to not walk too much.  PT involved learning that I'd been walking and running incorrectly for who knows how long, so I had to relearn how to do those things correctly.  It made me feel a little silly and a lot frustrated at times, but I'm finally done with the braces and back to being able to walk without being in pain.  My ice pack will still be my best friend for awhile and I'll have to continue the strength training exercises in site, but I'm feeling much better.  Being out of site for so long started to drive me crazy though and it definitely threw a huge wrench into all my plans for the end of the school year.  Pero vamos adelante como el elefante.  I'm going to get as much done as I can before the school year is up and hopefully I can organize some camps and clubs over the school year break.

While on medical hold (what they call receiving treatment with no fixed end date) I was fortunate to have lots of distractions in the form of books (go read Reading Lolita in Tehran), fellow PCVs, and the Panama TESOL conference (a two-day international TESOL conference).  Fellow PCVs presented on a variety of teaching strategies and it was really wonderful to watch them teach.

Also, thanks to some delicious Mexican food adventures, I willingly eat onions now (something I'm sure my mother never thought would happen).

Queens of the Mountain!
Team G76 Veraguas climbed a giant hill called El Cerro (The Hill) in San Francisco, Veraguas.  It was so big that I'm rather inclined to call it a mountain, but I've also never lived much above sea level, so my understanding of what's considered a "mountain" might be off.

We were silly and started the hike at midday, so it was crazy hot and the three of us were melting.  Our Panamanian guide friend Yosie fearlessly led the way (waterbottle-less and wearing a super cute outfit).  The last third of the hike was the hardest because it turned more into semi-vertical bouldering than hiking, but it was absolutely worth the awesome view.

On top of the World

Team G76 Veraguas 

(yes, this is the only order we stand in to take photos together)

Future Picnic Spot View #1

Future Picnic Spot View #2

After getting down the mountain we went to this fantastic bakery where we had the best tutti frutti chicha (juice) ever.  It was like iced tea, but better.  Like ambrosia or nectar.  I can't properly describe what it tasted like, but it was amazing.

After the bakery we went swimming in the river, which was wonderful because we were all drenched through with sweat.  Rio swimming is one of my favorite activities here, especially because you don't need your bathing suit to go swimming.  You just jump right in fully clothed.

Swimming in the Rio

After the Rio we made some delicious food.  Pasta with peppers and salchicha (hot dogs) and Roxana's famous zucchini bread .  It was a really wonderful day.  Love the Veraguas women.

Also, thank goodness the rainy season has finally arrived.

Up Next:
Community English Class
Co-Teaching
Library Project
National Holidays
Volunteer Holiday Party
Graduation

5 Month Pana-versary!

As of last Saturday I have been in Panama for 5 months of my 27 month service.  I really can't believe how quickly--and slowly--the time has gone; it's much more wibbly-wobbly than I thought it would be.

I handed in my SECNA paper, a whopping 9.5 pages, and now I'm preparing for the presentation of my report to my counterparts, community members, and Peace Corps staff.  It's a few weeks away, but I know it'll be here in a blink.

Soon I'll be moving into my own place and I'm so excited to be able to cook for myself and generally have more space.

Tragically, the screen on my Kindle broke the other day, so I'm back to feeding my addiction with paperback books.  This is potentially a necessary break as I was reading a paperback soon after my Kindle's demise and tapped a completed page to go to the next one and was momentarily confused as to why the page didn't change.

Site life is going well.  My new counterpart and I (and her 6 year old daughter) are quickly becoming friends.  Her daughter and I spent a few hours the other week flapping around the house pretending to be birds, then explorers (with the aid of some hair dye instructions as a map), then artists who drew lots of pictures of highways and houses.

Upcoming Events

• SECNA Presentation
• Moving into my house
• IST (In Service Training), and the wonderful reunion of G76 for the first time since May
• Going to the Post Office (it's been closed for about a week)

Finally: A photo of my school's partially constructed float for the Virgen del Carmen Festival.  Yes, those are real flowers.  There were more than 30 floats in the festival and it was a huge 9 day event that involved a lot of fireworks and the very important lesson to never look up when the fireworks explode, but more on that later.

Two Months in Site! (and The Ominous Approach of the SECNA)

So, it's July.  I'm really not sure how that happened because I swear I've only been in site for like two weeks, which means it should be the end of May and I should have many many more than 9 days to complete my SECNA (School Entry and Community Needs Assessment) paper, but alas earwax.

Two Month Milestones (with jump links to sections because I'm verbose!)
-End of June: The longest amount of time I've ever been out of the US (to date)
-I sent 5 letters to people in the US
-I have gotten less terrible at pasearing in the past week
-I started the last of my observations this week
-I actually conducted SECNA interviews

Click your Heels Three Times...
I spent most of training waiting for my decision to serve with Peace Corps to "get real", to have the moment where it all solidifies and becomes reality that this is my life for the next two years.  For some people it was when they got on the plane that would take us to Panama from staging in Miami, for others when we were going through Customs in Panama, or when we moved to our training communities at the end of that first week in-country, or one of a hundred other small "firsts".

For me, it wasn't any of those.  During the past three years I became so used to transient theater life, to living in blocks of 8-10 weeks, to counting time in shows, to being completely comfortable with my entire worklife (which really was just my life) changing every 3 months, that I didn't have the moment until my third day in site.

On that day I realized that I would live in one place and have one main employment (the school) with a steady income for the next two years, a kind of stability that hasn't existed in my life since before I left for college.  I also realized that I really had no idea what I was doing or where I was supposed to start with the enormous amount of work that I had in front of me.  So, I decided to take a mental health break and go to Santiago to start working through the "To Do" list that I'd made to make myself feel like I had some grade of control over what was happening in my life.

I went to the pharmacy to get more medicine for my ailing tooth, got directions to the bank from there, saw an ice cream place from the bank, satisfied my craving for something cold, and ended up walking around the Panamanian version of a Home Depot (a "Do It Center") for a bit before going back to site (which I've since started calling "home" interchangeably).  I just desperately needed some anonymity (as much as could be afforded by Santiago), independence, and some normal monotony (the aisles of tools were also amazingly soothing; I really miss building things).

During training I kept thinking that I would have my moment when I hit the milestone of being out of the US for more than 4 months, but I haven't been homesick (or more likely I just haven't recognized some of my new coping behaviors).

Maaaiiillll (a-la Blues Clues)
When I was 18 I was crazy sick and bedridden for a week.  I watched a significant amount of Blues Clues, Dora the Explorer, and America's Next Top Model during that time.

Getting mail makes me disproportionately happy and writing letters is super fun.   Be my pen pal!

Lessons from the post office:
1. Mailing letters is crazy cheap (no word on timeline or reliability yet)
2. You have to glue the envelopes closed (they won't let you mail anything with scotch tape)

This second lesson threatened to bring out the overzealous kindergartener in me (I was the kid whose notebooks were always accidentally glued shut), but I managed to restrain myself.

Welcome to the Neighborhood
During training the staff spent alot of time talking about "pasearing" which is a beautiful Spanglish word for the practice of walking around the community and inviting yourself onto your neighbor's' porch when you see them hanging out in front of their house (or even when their front door is open-indicating that someone is home).

It starts with a hearty "Buenas!" as you're opening their front gate and it's totally socially acceptable to get as almost far as that open front door before you pause to wait for a response.  Once you've awkwardly inserted yourself into their physical space you introduce yourself and try to find things to talk about and they may or may not give you food/drink.

I was not too keen on this idea.

Rather, the idea of knowing my neighbors and other people in the community sounds really great, but the practice of having to go to other people's homes to talk to strangers about what I'm doing here (when I'm still figuring that out myself) was just daunting.  And I conveniently used the heat and some creeper-no-creeping incidents as excuses to largely avoid walking around my site for about a month and a half.

We were told it would get easier with time, and it has.  As more of the teachers and kids (and by extension their parents) have gotten to know me it's become much easier to approach people and I've had some really nice conversations with some of my gente (literal translation: "people", Peace Corps Translation: "community members"), especially as I've learned what days the bars are closed and the best routes to take to avoid them when they're open.

This week has been particularly successful.  On Tuesday I was supposed to help some first grade students learn a poem for English Week, but it rained, so none of them showed up.  Instead, I went for a walk to a part of the community that I wanted to check out on earlier walks around the neighborhood, but hadn't worked up the guts to walk that far by myself.  On my way back a woman left a house that I'd just passed.  After about 10 minutes of walking in the same direction she started a conversation with me (opening with: "Que Hace?", "What are you doing?"; I was loudly saying "Buenas!" and waving every time I saw someone in front of their house, but not stopping or giving any indication that I actually knew people).  I explained that I was the new Peace Corps Volunteer and that I was going to be working in the school for the next two years.

I was then treated to the familiar refrain of two previous PCVs who both married people from my community (everyone I meet tells me about the previous volunteers, inquires about my marital status, and expresses interest in helping me find a boyfriend, in that order).  I also met a few other community members and two of her friends as we walked down the street (It's so much easier to pasear when you're not alone!).  She invited me to her house at a future date, as did both of her friends.

The next three afternoons were spent teaching those first graders the poem and then playing games with them in the park next to the church.  I learned that "el escondito" is Spanish for "hide and seek" and I even got some of them to count in English while we were playing. Also, playing with kids in public space also makes you much more approachable, as does walking them home when you're done playing learning.

*Open staring* followed by *Nervous giggling and averted eyes*
I started observing with the teacher (Coralia) who teaches grades 7-9 this week.  I already have a relationship with Coralia because we've had a bunch of conversations and I've eaten a few meals at her house, but I hadn't "worked" with her yet, so I was starting from square five (or so).  When I'm observing I try to sit in the back of the room as unobtrusively as possible so that I can get a sense of how my CP teaches without distracting the students.

At the beginning of an observation period, the kids are usually distracted by the new person in the room (eventhough I've been at the school for two months).  By Friday the open staring and nervous giggling had given way to barrages of questions and a general acceptance of me lurking in the back of the classroom.

Today we did tongue twisters with the 8th and 9th graders.  Coralia was teaching the 8th graders "A proper copper coffee pot" and she asked me to read it so the students could hear the pronunciation.  I told her that there's another half to it and she said we could teach the 9th graders the rest of it.  When I wrote out the full one for her she told me that she thought it would've been longer, so I wrote out "Betty Botter" for her too, but that one was too long.  We'll get there, the students got "Proper Coffee" pretty quickly and I love tongue twisters (#TheaterKid, #RudeMechanicals).

Moving forward I'm really excited to work with the older kids at my school and to hopefully have the opportunity to explore the nearby secondary school next week.

Aprovechar (and Quitar la Pena)
Two weeks ago my CPs told me that they'd all be out of school the following week for a training in Santiago.  This threw a serious wrench (the most recent of many) into my observation plans.  With the looming reality of my SECNA paper being due on July 20th I decided to aprovechar ("to take advantage of an opportunity") and get some community interviews done while I didn't have a specific daily commitment at school for the week.

I was pretty successful in my venture to Quitar la pena ("get rid of shyness") and go find people to talk to in the community and at school.  I interviewed the principal and assistant principal, met the mayor, explored the community library, and have a potential appointment to interview the priest and learn more about the faith communities in my site.

I have some more interviews to do this weekend and next week (and a fantabulous SECNA draft writing date with another PCV this weekend), but I'm feeling pretty good about where I am in the process.  Checking things off my To Do lists is the best feeling (it's so good that I sometimes write things down just so I can check them off, #stagemanager).

SECNA is the paper and presentation about our community and potential projects that we might do in our sites during our two years of service.  It's based on our observations at school and interviews with school staff and community members.  At the "Three Month" mark the APCD (Associate Peace Corps Director; Program Manager in non-jargon), and PTS (Programming and Training Specialist, Assistant Program Manager in non-jargon) go on a country-wide tour to visit the new volunteers and hear about their sites and potential projects.

Final Thoughts
Congrats on making it this far! I know this was a long one.

1. It's rained two days in a row which has been a wonderful break from the heatwave we've been having.  I love the sound of rain (added bonus of it washing away the horse poop in the street!).
2. Go read "Como Agua para Chocolate" ("Like Water for Chocolate") by Laura Esquivel.  It's a fantastic book and so much better than the heavily fast-forward-edited movie that you watched in high school Spanish class.
3. Shoutout to my RL (Regional Leader, a 3rd year PCV) for making a rough week infinitely easier.
4. Apples and peanut butter is basically ambrosia