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

Home Sweet Site

Immediately before coming to Panama I was living in a studio apartment in a high rise in Washington, DC and I spent my childhood in rural suburbia on Long Island.  Before moving to Panama I always had access to electricity and safe (even hot) water.  It was never even a question because we see those as basic human needs when we talk about housing.  As one of my supervisors said during training "don't underestimate your ability to adapt".

I grew up in a small "one stoplight" kind of town, but it's nothing compared to the size of my community where the streets are paved, but don't have names, there are no traffic signals (but most people seem to have access to a car) and everything is located in relation to something else.  For example, I live "next door to Prima".  That's my address.

Before I came to Panama I had no idea what my house would look like or how people lived here.  From my research I thought I would be living in a wooden house with a dirt or concrete floor, a tin roof, and a latrine.  I would have a rain catchment system for water and I probably wouldn't have electricity in my house.

The reality is much different.

Training

During our first three months in-country Peace Corps volunteers in Panama live with host families in the training community.  In my host family's house they had electricity and running water, but the electricity was transferred from room to room via extension cords, depending on where people were during the day.  My 5 year old host sister spent much of the day watching comicas (literally "comedies", but in reality can be applied to almost any television show or movie) on their TV.  She loves cartoons.  

My room was a annex at the back with concrete walls and punch out windows in each wall, a tin roof, and a poured concrete floor.  I had two large plywood shelves for my things.  I used my mosquito net during training because the bugs were eating me alive (even though the windows were covered with screens).  Using the mosquito net made sleeping so much hotter, but not being covered in bug bites was worth it.

My host family also had running water from around 5:30am until about 3pm.  After 3 the water would go out until the next morning.  Some days the water wouldn't come or would come for less time.  We would save water in the dual basin sink for washing dishes (half for washing dirty dishes, half for rinsing them), and in bottles in the refrigerator for drinking.  I used hand sanitizer to clean my hands and rinsed my teeth with mouthwash when I couldn't brush my teeth at night.  

They had a nice tiled bathroom and a separate shower area around the back of their house.  The bathroom didn't have a light, so I always had my headlamp with me at night.  I took bucket showers  because the showerhead wasn't working well while I was there.  This involved taking a smaller tupperware (an old ice cream container usually) and dumping water from a larger basin over my head.  I repeated this process until I was satisfied with how clean I was.  

We washed our clothes by hand or in a small washing machine.  You fill half the machine with clothes and soap and then pour water in.  After the wash and rinse cycles you shift the clothes to the other side of the machine, which is like a centrifuge and wrings out the clothes.  You line-dry everything here.  Your soap-starchy, cleanish laundry is literally hung out for everyone to see.

Pouring freezing water over my head and showering outside by headlamp were difficult to get used to, but I survived training.

My host family's house in the training community

Host Family in Site

After we move to site we live with another host family for three months while we integrate into our communities and learn about the rhythm of life in our respective sites.  

My host family in site had TVs in every bedroom (including mine), WiFi, air conditioning in some rooms, and water and electricity at all hours of the day.  I never found a scorpion in their house and I stopped using my mosquito net.  They watched a lot of TLC shows about cars and building aquariums.

My House

After those three months we can move into our own house if it meets all the security specifications laid out by Peace Corps.  I was lucky enough to find a lovely, yeye (fancy) house and doubly lucky because it's next to the best neighbors in the world.  

My House

I live in a bloque (cement block) house that has glass slat windows that are covered with screens.  The roof is made of sheets of corrugated metal.  I have electricity and running water that is safe to drink at all hours of the day.  The floor is polished concrete.  We nicknamed it "The Ritz", mostly because I have a chandelier in my bedroom.

I have a yard full of fruit and other food bearing trees and plants.  My neighbors are farmers and I'm still learning what's in my yard.  I know that I (or "we", because my neighbors tell me to just take food from their trees and garden) have guanabana (a green spikey fruit filled with gooey white deliciousness), guandú (a kind of bean), plantains, oranges, peppers, and cilantro, but there are probably more things that I just don't know about.  There are chickens that roam the area (and poop on my porch, especially when it rains), stray dogs and cats, and a very talkative horse that lives across the street.

I still dry my clothes on clotheslines that we hung between the house and a neighboring chainlink fence, but now I wash them at Prima's house next door (or by hand in buckets if she's not around).

My landlady left a large bookshelf and dining room table set when she moved, so I didn't have to buy any furniture for the living room area and she also left a bunch of dishes and pots in the kitchen.  I've bought a few things, but mostly I use what she left in the house.

The house has three bedrooms.  I have a guest bedroom with an extra double bed for visitors, my room, and my landlady's bedroom.  My landlady doesn't live with me, but she keeps some things in the house for when she visits family in my town.

I spend most of my time at the table doing work or in front of my house sewing or reading in my hammock to beat the heat.

My Kitchen

I have a refrigerator with a freezer and a stove in my kitchen.  Unfortunately my oven doesn't work, but I just go next door to Prima's if I want to bake.  I fill up a propane tank at the store around the corner from my house so I have gas to cook with and I use a barbecue lighter to light the stove (I'm a little too chicken to use matches).  I don't have any shelves, so I just keep my dishes in a Jenga-like construction on the counter.  Most days I win, but sometimes I lose the Jenga game.  We have a formal trash pickup that comes once per week.  It's common in more rural parts of the country to burn trash, so I'm lucky that I don't have to worry about that.  

I have a blue-tiled bathroom with a shower, toilet, and sink, which is the norm in my community.  I don't have hot water, but if I shower at night the cold water is a welcome relief from the day's heat, as opposed to a rude morning wakeup.

I love where I live.  My house is perfect (though it's a little big for just me) and my neighbors are the most generous and loving people ever.

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

Año Nuevo!

Happy New Year Internet!

I spent a lovely quiet New Year's in site.  During the day I got some lesson planning done and cooked a big New Year's Eve meal. I made garlic mashed potatoes, lentils with onion and garlic, chicken with taco seasoning and onions that would have been part of the cheddar cheese quesadillas I was going to make, salad dressing for a salad of carrots (the cucumbers were spoiled), and some chicha de naranjilla (juice from a fruit that is like a lemon and an orange put together).  

I didn't end up eating any of that though because Prima invited me to dinner where we had rice with guandu (a kind of bean), pork, and a salad of potatoes and carrots with mayonnaise.  It was really good.  There were a ton of fireworks that night and some people burned the "old year" in the form of a muñeco (doll) stuffed with straw to represent giving themselves a fresh start for the new year.  I chose to celebrate in a calmer way, so at midnight I was sitting in bed sewing and watching Tangled.  
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For the next few weeks I'm going to be participating in a blogging challenge called Blogging Abroad for people living, working and volunteering abroad, so bear with me as I introduce myself.  

For our first "prompt" we've been asked to write about why we're living abroad.  As I'm relatively close to the 12 month mark of my Peace Corps experience (and it's a new year) it's also a great opportunity to reevaluate my goals and look back on my experience to date.

Here we go:

A beach on Long Island

Who Am I?
My name is Kara and I grew up on Long Island in New York.  I went to college at American University in Washington, DC where I graduated with a dual BA in Spanish and International Studies with a focus on Peace and conflict resolution.  After college I started working in the DC professional theater scene as a stage manager, electrician, and sometimes carpenter.  I loved being surrounded by art and artists all the time and the feeling of actively creating something. 

Assistant Stage Managing in DC

Peace Corps
After a few years I wanted some more stability than the freelance life offered, I was interested in doing more public service, and I missed living abroad.  I'd been interested in Peace Corps since I first heard about it in college, but it was never the right time to actually finish my application, until it was.  Juggling 4 or more jobs just got exhausting, but I was still nervous about changing my entire life.

After I applied I waited 2 months to have an interview where I was nominated for a volunteer position with the Education sector and then I waited 6 months to be invited to serve in Panama and then I waited 9 months to leave for service.  It was a long (and sometimes) frustrating process, but I'm so glad I stuck it out.  The application process has since completely changed.

After joining the Peace Corps in February 2015 I went through three months of pre-service training with 23 other Peace Corps Teaching English Trainees.  At the end of the sixth week of training we received our site announcements where we would be living and working for the next two years.  I've now been in the Peace Corps for just over 10 months and been a volunteer for just under 8 months.

Swearing In Ceremony, May 2015

During the application process complete flexibility was emphasized as an important trait. To that end we talk about "managing" or "adjusting" expectations a lot as volunteers.  Things rarely go completely as planned.  I tried to move through training letting it inform me as to what I should expect and what goals I should set, without bringing a ton of my own expectations to the experience.

I knew I loved teaching and that I wanted to make a positive impact in the world and improve my Spanish, but that was where my initial expectations and hopes ended.  

After training that changed a bit.  

So, How'd Ya Do?

I present a report card on a summary of my goals to date:

• Integrate into my Community:
• School: A-
• Community: C

             I worked really hard to create relationships with my counterpart teachers at school and with the students and was really successful.  I was less successful in integrating into my community.  I have a pretty big site and the heat and my own introverted nature made getting to know people hard.  I have some really good friends in site and I'm planning on making more in the coming year.

• Teach a Community English Class: E (for Effort)

Didn't happen.  I tried to organize it, but it never came together.  I'm planning on starting a class in February or March once school starts again.

• Start an English Club for students: E

Also didn't happen.  The timing was poor with the November holidays and the end of the school year.  Another goal for March.

• Organizing a book drive and create a reading club for students: E

I'm just starting to work on this seriously now, but I'm hopeful to have some books at the start of the school year to start working with students and grow the project from there.

• Read books, learn how to sew, write letters, generally have fun: A

This year has been full of challenges and triumphs, but I love my life here.  I read 20 books since I arrived in Panama, learned how to embroider and taught myself to cross stitch, became pen pals with friends and family back in the US, took some cool trips, and formed some strong friendships with other PCVs and people in site.

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I'm really excited to continue to share my passions for learning (about everything from the correct way to cook lentils to teaching methodologies and equal access to education) and art with Panamanians, PCVs, and the Internet.  I guess my overarching dream would be to infect people with curiosity about the world and all of the beautiful plurality and diversity that exists.

Also, I have a cat named Canela and I love her very much.

Lady Canela in a hammock

Some New Year's Resolutions:

• Get better at Spanish
• Learn how to cook (specifically things with vegetables)
• Become more confident at public speaking

"If you judge people you have no time to love them"

-Mother Theresa

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

Breezy Christmas Dreams

10 Month-iversary.

Internet, it's so hot here that I actually used the intracity buses today instead of just walking.  This Panamanian summer might make me melt.  Or just avoid any activity more rigorous than sitting in my hammock (unless absolutely necessary and "necessary" can become very negotiable).

Graduation
Snorkeling
Christmas

Graduation
The graduation ceremony for the 9th graders at my school was last Monday.  It's the first graduation ceremony that the school has ever had for pre-media students and the teachers and administration have been planning for weeks.

I had no idea what to expect. When I walked into my kitchen on Monday morning to make breakfast I looked out the window to find my neighbors getting their makeup and hair done by the same guy who did Manuela's hair and makeup for Mi Ranchito in November, and it suddenly became clear that this was going to be a much fancier affair than I had anticipated.

I spent the morning traumatizing my cat by cleaning my house (the spiders were starting to take over...), then Jenny came over and we had PBJ for lunch and spent the afternoon chatting and playing with Canela while I finished sewing Prima's Christmas present.

Prima's Christmas Present (the final version has two more snowflakes on it)

Canela and I spending some quality hammock time

The graduation was during the evening in the pavilion next to the artificial grass cancha (field) that they must have just finished because the floor was still dirt in November.  The stage was beautiful and all the teachers got really dressed up.  I really need to get a pair of heels, I always feel underdressed around these fabulous women.  The ceremony was lovely.  Lots of speeches.  My favorite part was that a band from a local IPT played each student onstage when the Principal called their name to receive their diplomas.  The song selection included "Bad Romance" and "Timber".  The fireworks made it hard to hear sometimes, but it was a wonderful joyous evening.  After the graduation Jenny and I went to the post graduation brindis dinner, which was delicious and then watched Hocus Pocus and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (for the want of Polar Express; I'd already watched Die Hard two days prior) while I continued my sewing.

Sun(burn), Sand, Snorkel   

The next morning we left for Santa Catalina, which is a really beautiful and popular surfing beach in southern Veraguas.  We had the most delicious lunch of shrimp and garlic butter (we think) with rice and lentils (of course) and spent the afternoon hiking and reading on the beach.  It was so relaxing.

Santa Catalina from my reading rock

The next morning we madrugar-ed (when you wake up before dawn) to get ready for our snorkeling adventure at Isla Coiba national park/nature preserve.  I'd never snorkeled before and it'd been almost 20 years since I'd been on a boat smaller than the ferry from Long Island to Connecticut (which is large enough to fit dozens of cars), so the prospect of getting on a lancha (speedboat) for a few hours was a little nerve wracking.  Armed with gatorade, a full water bottle, a peanut butter sandwich, and a bottle of sunscreen we set out.

I was hoping for some instruction.  I had the basic idea of "put on a mask and swim around looking at fish", but I wasn't exactly clear on the finer points of how.  The "instruction" consisted of being handed a mask and flippers when we got to the first snorkeling spot and being told that "most of the fish (including sharks) hang out by the rocks over there".

After about 20 minutes of some serious struggle (including losing one of my flippers and flooding my mask like 3 times) I took a water break to get some non-salt water into my body and switched masks with a friend.  The second attempt went much better than the first and I actually started to relax and have fun.

Our second stop was the ANAM station (Panama's Ministry of Environment) to pay our park entrance fee and eat lunch.  Peace Corps Perk: we only had to pay $5 for the entrance fee as opposed to the $20 that we thought it might be.

A shipwrecked cruise ship in the bay of Coiba.

They ran aground on some rocks and punctured 6 holes in the hull 

the morning before we got there.

Our third stop was for more snorkeling.  Less coral this time, more rocks, and much deeper water.  It was fun, but exhausting.  I saw some really cool fish and I am really glad that we got to practice a bit in shallower water earlier in the day.

The last stop was hanging out on the beach on another small perfect little tropical island.  It was so beautiful and the water was crystal clear, but I was so exhausted that after 20 minutes I was ready to start the journey back to Santa Catalina and spend some time in a hammock.

It was a long trip in the lancha to and from Coiba.  On our way there we sang/shouted Christmas carols, but on the way back everyone was much quieter.  That evening we ate at the fonda (small restaurant) across from our hostel and spent the rest of the night reading.

It was a wonderful, beautiful trip and I want to go back with the Veraguas wonder women, but I was so tired at the end of it.

Sunset at Santa Catalina

Breezy Christmas
Climate change is real.  It was 60 degrees on Long Island on Christmas Day.  It was much hotter than that in Panama (probably around 100, but I haven't looked at a weather report in almost a year), but it was beautifully breezy, which made it easier to deal with the heat.

I spent Christmas Eve making some Christmas phone calls, baking, and finishing Prima's present.  Prima lent me use of her oven and I made oatmeal raisin cookies and chocolate chip cookies without burning them too badly.

An improvised baking sheet out of a pot top

 

"No Bake" peanut butter oatmeal cookies 

(that were more like pudding because they didn't solidify, but still delicious)

Cookie dough

On Christmas Day I had a relaxing breakfast, skyped with my family, and pasear-ed to some families in my community with Christmas cookies.  Cultural exchange win.  Prima invited me to a delicious Christmas lunch of ham and rice with guandu (a kind of bean) and I spent the rest of the day watching Harry Potter movies and sewing.

Prima loved her present and her daughters want to learn how to bake cookies.  I also spent a lot of time hanging out with her family and eating fruit.  It seems to be a Panamanian Christmas tradition to set out a bunch of fruit (apples, pears, grapes, etc.) and sweet bread (reminds me of challah) on the dining room table for people to snack on during Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

On to New Year's!

I leave you with this:

Canelita in a frisbee, she thinks it's her bed

Viva Panama!

9 months in country (or "goodness so much time has passed and I haven't accomplished anything, but then I redo the math and I realize that almost no time has passed at all").  So timey wimey.

Mes de la Patria
Canela
Neighbors
Reader´s Theater
Thanksgiving
To Present Day...

Mes de la Patria

The best 4th of July I ever spent was my last one in DC.  We watched fireworks from the roof of my friend's house (my first lessons in "don't look up" and "keep your shoes on").  It was a beautiful and terrifying chemistry refresher (anyone know what colors magnesium and potassium burn?).

In Panama we celebrate independence for a whole month.  The big celebrations are:
November 3rd: Separation Day, when Panama gained its independence from Colombia,
November 4th: Flag Day
November 5th: Colon Day
November 10th: Primer Grito in Los Santos
November 28th: Independence day, when Panama gained its independence from Spain

There is a parade somewhere in Panama almost every day of the month.  During November I attended or marched in 9 parades.  Two of those were on the same day in different locations and one was a cancer awareness parade.

For parades everyone dresses up in varying levels of Panamanian traditional (tipico) dress whether or not you're in the parade.  Many of the teachers at my school have these gorgeous fitted dresses embroidered with traditional pollera designs and I want to try to sew one for myself for next year.

                                           A Sea of Polleras Montunas with blusas Santeñas

                                                                                                                         

                                                                                                                         Roxana Empollerada

The only tipico clothes I have are my cutarras (really comfortable leather sandals), which will get ruined if I wear them to parades because it invariably rains buckets.


My parade wear is usually jeans, a white blouse, some tambleques (beaded flowers that you pin into your hair) and these really awesome rubber sandals that I found in the market in Santiago (take that aguaceros).

Parades are typically preceded by an acto (a patriotic cultural performance) that starts with an invocation by the local priest and may include a tamborito (traditional Panamanian music with drums and call-response style singing), tipico dancing, speeches, choral poems, and other musical performances by students or members of the community.

Parades may include: school bands, students dancing tipico, floats, tunas (marching tamborito), flag/fan/dance/machete student corps, gymnastics teams.

                                                                                                                       

Manuela wearing a more 

                                                                                                                      modern-style tipico dress

         A Gymnastics Team                                                                    
                                          

                                     Students marching with machetes (sort of like drill team)

All of the parades, cultural events, and "day" celebrations (Students' Day, Teacher´ss Day, etc.)  ate the entire month of November (as promised by every PCV I spoke to), so I didn´t have much time in the classroom, which was frustrating, but it was really fun to participate in all the festivities and I feel like I strengthened some of my relationships with my counterparts at school and community members.

The staff and other PCVs told us that our first year of service really is just about integrating into your community and as I approach my year anniversary of Peace Corps service I´m realizing this is absolutely true.  In my typically industrious, goal-focused nature I struggled with wanting to work, but having a hudred barriers come up. It´s about redefining what "work" is.  I`ve received equally excited reactions and compliments to my adventures in cooking and eating Panamanian food and playing hide and seek with the kids as I have to my time in the classroom.


Canela

Canela is probably my biggest accomplishment since coming back from med hold in Panama.  She's a 12 week old grey kitten that I adopted from another PCV here in Veraguas.  I've never had a pet before, so it's a steep learning curve, but I loved her pretty immediately, so I think we'll be ok.  We spent some quality hammock time with a good book the other day.  Pre-Canela I didn't think sitting in my hammock could get more relaxing, but I was wrong.  Living with a kitten is an interesting experience.  I alternately call her "Canela" or "terrorism", but I know all of the flying ninja attacks from behind walls and furniture are really expressions of love.

Won´t you be my Neighbor?
I have the best neighbors in the world.  They´ve basically adopted me as daughter number 6 and I´m beyond grateful for them.  Prima teaches second grade at school and her husband Mariano has a finca (farm).  They´re always giving me food and fixing things (including getting Canela out of a tree and helping me hang clotheslines).  Their daughter Carmen is one of my English teacher counterparts at school and her children, Manuela and Manuel, are my chief playmates.  Maria lives across the street and we chat a lot.  She loves to ask about Canela.  Prima is going to teach me more embroidery (she sewed the fan that Maneula is holding) and I´m going to ask her to teach me how to cook Panamanian food.  Becoming friends with them is probably one of my biggest accomplishments of this first year.


Reader's Theater Competition in Veraguas

Students reading their script during the competition

Johnna´s students won!

 Reader's Theater is a really cool activity we can use to help students increase their reading comprehension, confidence, and to improve their pronunciation.  Similar to a staged reading of a play, students rehearse and prepare a short script which they then perform.

In Veraguas we worked with MEDUCA  (Panamanian Ministry of Education) and local schools to organize a competition for primary and middle schools students to perform for their peers.  In the weeks leading up to the competition we visited schools around the province to help students practice.  It was really great to see other schools and meet more students.

The day of the competition we organized the space and set up the brindis (snacks and juice) and trophies.  There was some trouble with connecting the sound system , so I sat down and sorted through all the cables until we got the mic to work and then I "ran the board" during the event because we didn´t have a mic stand and there wasn´t a way to mute it without going to the amp.  You can take the techie out of the theater and stick her in an auditorium in Panama...

After the event we all went out for ice cream and Pizza Hut.  I really miss NY pizza.

Team Reader´s Theater

Thanksgiving (x2)
My first Thanksgiving in Panama was really quiet.  I made a bunch of food for myself (including splurging on real cheese and a failed attempt at making porotos) and watched movies at home.  A week later 175 PCVs went to Chiriqui for the weekend for a holiday celebration.  We ate, danced, and enjoyed the beautiful fresco mountain weather.  I wore a sweater, took my hair down, got to take a hot shower, and ate fresh strawberries.  It didn´t feel like I was in Panama anymore and It was an amazing weekend.  So amazing, that I have no photos.

To Present Day...
After the celebration I popped home for the night to take care of Canela and for my first co-teaching adventure.  The transition from mountain paradise to dry season heatwave was rough.

I taught some 5th and 6th graders about Thanksgiving.  We did vocabulary and an attempt at a group cloze activity.  It was my first time formally teaching here, so it was a little daunting and full of deltas, but I think it went well.  Next year is going to be fun.

Then I headed back to my home sweet hostel in Panama City for TOT (Training of Trainers) to prepare for G78´s PST.  It feels so strange to be on the precipice of training the incoming group when it still sort of feels like I just got here, but I´m excited to meet the new volunteers.

The following Monday the school had a celebration for the students who are in the band and participated in all the desfiles.  There was a lot of delicious food and the students really enjoyed it.  The following day was the Christmas party where the entire school went to mass in the morning and then had a big brindis afterwards.  The students also received gifts.  Most boys got baseball bats or mitts and most girls got dolls or craft kits.  Sometimes the gender role definitions really smack me in the face here.  Goals for next year include starting conversations about gender roles with students and to hopefully encourage them to think about the logic behind some assumptions.

School is over.  I´ve been spending a lot of time in my hammock sewing.  Graduation is on Monday.  I´m excited to see the 9th graders graduate (and hopeful that they´ll keep studying).

Up Next:

• Graduation
• Summer English camp
• Celebrating Christmas and New Year´s with Prima and family
• Snorkeling at Isla Coiba
• Eating Pizza in NY
• Seeing Casey get married in DC
• Listening to some good music in Brooklyn    
• Planning and plotting for next year

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