Panamania

March 29th I’ve been in Piedras Gordas for about two weeks now, and I’ve been really enjoying my time here.  The whole goal of the Peace Corps is to build capacity and facilitate grass roots sustainable community development.  This means that for my first three months I need to integrate as much as I can into the community by getting to know the people, the environment, the culture, and the organization of Piedras Gordas.  Right now my job is to observe in the school and community, walk from house to house to meet everyone, attend meetings that are held, and work with anyone who could use an extra set of hands for the day.  So far I’ve been observing in the school two days a week, paseando (literally means walking, but it refers visiting your neighbors) to each house in the community, helping to build a vivero (tree nursery) with the environmental co-op, attending the meetings of community groups, cooking tamales with the parents of the kindergarten student...

March 21st This post is for my sister.  I figured she would enjoy seeing the three week old puppies I live with.

March 19 th Today I woke up to men yelling and cows moaning. So naturally I ran outside with my camera. I found a group of cattle ranchers were trying to force two cows up a hill and into the back of their truck.    According to my neighbor the ranchers were just trying to take the cows to be branded, but the cows seemed less than thrilled about the idea.    I’ll let the picture tell the rest of the story. 

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers.  You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.                                                                                                                       –Naguib Mahfouz

March 18 th On Friday all of the CEC volunteers in my training group rented a house/hostel called Casa de Jay on the beach in El Palomar.  It was the perfect place to spend our last few days together!  We swam in the ocean, hung out at the beach, ate seafood, and partied with Jay, a Canadian girl, a couple guys from Seattle and all the surfers in town. Unfortunately the waves weren’t great, so we couldn’t surf.   There were a lot of jellyfish in the water (one girl in our group got a really bad sting in her crotch) but it didn’t stop us from having a great time!  Friday was one of the volunteers’ birthday, we celebrated by drinking seco and Bloody Mary’s on the beach, skinny dipping, and cooking a huge chicken Thai curry dinner. Today has been kind of a strange day. This morning we all said our goodbyes, and individually left Casa de Jay for our sites.  I’m usually not overly sentimental about goodbye...

March 16 th Yesterday I became an official Peace Corps Volunteer.  The US Ambassador to Panama swore in all 54 Community Environmental Conservation, and Teaching English Volunteers in my training group. The Swear-In Ceremony was held at the Nautical Museum in Casco Viejo (Panama’s historic district).  Afterwards we had dinner overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and then headed to Calle Uruguay to hit the clubs and dance the night away.  Things get pretty wild when you let loose 54 people that couldn’t drink and had to follow other people’s rules for two and half months!