We killed a goat, so I got a table.

I'm pretty sure that I mentioned before in this blog that we East Side PCVs get together and kill things.

This time it was a goat. . .again. (It was DELICIOUS!)

Two of the East Siders had family from the States coming out to their sites around the same time, so because I am in the travel hub, somehow it came to be that my house hosted a goat roast. As in we killed and roasted a goat outside of my house. (And by 'we' what I really mean is Mateo, Laura, Danielle and Rachel because I did nothing, I just live in said house.)

Really I just wanted to mention this event in order to provide context for an anecdote of how things work in Panama. We roasted a goat at my house. As goat is being chopped and prepared, the construction workers that are building a hotel behind my house (yea, that's a thing) decide that on this day, I really need a table outside my house to wash my dishes (which I do). The conversation went like this (directly translated):

Owner of hotel/store across the street: "You need a table outside your window."

Aja: "Yea, I would like that, but where am I going to get the wood from?"

O: "We have wood over here."

A: Ok, cool.

Translated into more direct language, the conversation looks like this:

O: "You want me to build you a table?"

A: "I don't have any wood. Are you gonna give me wood, too?"

O: "Yea."

A: "It's a deal, then."

So then a couple of the construction workers hop across the fence and hammer the thing just under my window. Another indirect conversation takes place.

Worker: "I hammered a nail into your wall. It needs to be hammered from the inside."

Aja: "Oh, ok, go ahead then."

W: "But my feet are dirty."

A: "It's okay, I'll clean it up later."

--Really it was like--

W: "I'm gonna walk all up on your lineoleum floor with my muddy feet cuz I gotta hammer those nails in, just to let you know."

A: "Alright, thanks for letting me know. Hammer away."

And thus the table is given unto me, and henceforth it has been written that I will give them goat at some point. That's fine. All the leftovers are clearly staying at my house, and we had a lot of goat, so if all I have to do is give some leftovers and I get a free table, that is what's up. Ahh, Panama and your social traps. Old clueless Aja would not have realized what was going on. Looka me and my social skills!!!!

I got rid of all extra goat this morning when I heated it up and sent it across the fence in a pot along with some plastic plates, napkins and barbecue sauce. In a matter of minutes, goat was gobbled up and pot and sauce were returned unto me.

Pana-people, y'all are a trip sometimes!!! Gotta love it. AND gotta love this table that just happened to my house.

AIDS on your radio/HIV+

I told you all I would keep you posted whenever some project idea came to fruition, so here it is.

I was on the radio again. This time I wasn't singing Katy Perry.

International AIDS awareness day was on December 1st, and in order to celebrate, one of my fellow volunteers (shout out to Danielle!) decided that we should do something in Meteti to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS.

DONE. We decided to have a radio show to educate about HIV and AIDS. We all know I love radio. (I live across the street from the station, remember?) A third volunteer decided to help us (thanks Kerri!), and then I realized. . .we're discussing a sexual health topic with all female voices on the air. We need some testosterone up in this!

Luck was on my side, as there happened to be a lot of Peace Corps Volunteers floating around my site during this time. (I live in the travel hub for Darien and the Comarcas Emberá-Woounán, remember?) I asked a couple of the guys if they would help out, and we ended up drafting two volunteers (Nate and David, whaddup) and a staff member who was in the area who works in the Peace Corps office (Ben is awesome!). Vóila! Just like that, we have two genders evenly represented (in the binary sense, at least ;) ).

So the show happened. We scheduled and hour long show beginning at 7pm, when a lot of those campesinos who don't have TVs are listening to their radios. During this time of night, the radio normally encourages people to text the radio station and send shout-outs to their friends and family. We decided to use that for the AIDS show, and we asked the radio station if we could borrow the phone for our program and instead of shout-outs, have people text in their questions about HIV/AIDS. Two of us in the program were on phone duty, taking listeners' questions and reading them on the air so that the others could take turns answering. People in Darien began not only to text, but to CALL the radio station's phone with their questions (that means they SPENT MONEY on a phone call to ask a sensitive question)!

THE SHOW WAS SUCH A SUCCESS! We covered what the HIV/AIDS virus IS, how it is and isn't transmitted, and how you can protect yourself from the virus. In the beginning, Danielle and I were a little worried about how a sensitive topic would be recieved coming from what is technically a Catholic radio station--this was Peace Corp Panama's first venture onto the radio--but the response has been overwhelmingly positive, so far! People have been commenting to Peace Corps Volunteers about how much they learned. One older man even called into the radio to thank us for providing answers to some questions he had been having for years. The benefit of our arrangement on the radio is that people were able to anonymously ask questions that they may be too embarrassed to ask otherwise, and recieve answers.

The icing on the cake is that I HAVE A RECORDING OF THE RADIO SHOW. Ben, the Peace Corps staff member who accompanied us on the radio, suggested that I ask for a recording of the show. (I wouldn't even have thought to ask if the radio did that!) Thanks to him, I now have had the opportunity to listen back to the program and share the file that is our radio program. Listening back, the show sounded a lot more put together than it felt in the moment. On the air, you can't hear all of the silly faces and panicked gestures we were making to one another during the show!

AAAANYYYWAYYY. Welp, that was a success. I won't tell you about the charla the next day that nobody showed up to, but just know that even that wasn't a complete waste of time. . .I came into possession of quite a few Snickers bars among other things, AND got to make an AWESOME contact at the Ministry of Health. (Did you know my province has an HIV COORDINATOR who works with HIV positive patients? He's been HIV positive for almost two decades, so for the first time in my life, I know someone who is HIV positive.)

Welp, PC success stories. Those don't come at ya everyday, so it's always nice to feel like to actually got something done at the end of the day.

The holiday season is upon us, and I walking around in a skirt and a short sleeved polo! #teamnojacket
Christmas in Panama will be great. All my fam in the States, take pictures and send them to me! I want to see all of your lovely faces. I love you all, and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year's to you, if I don't blog again before then!

Mwaaaaahhh!

P.S. Cartucho says hi.

Vacation (All I Ever Waaaaanteeeeed)

I have seen the other side of the canal, and it was good. Before I get into that, boring stuff:

I turned in my Personal Narratives for Foreign Service (yaaay!). Given my less than impressive score for my first crack at the written exam, I highly doubt I'll be invited to orals, but one can only dream! I find out mid- to late January.

Until then: WORK! I've been trying to stay in contact with the US Embassy, because they have a lot of things that I want (books. . .drool. . .) so hopefully the contacts I've made there could be a help for the projects I'm trying to line up for my Peace Corps service. I'll blog about what I'm up to as these ideas come to fruition (or fail miserably). I'm also struggling to make sure I get my ducks in a row with the Ministry of Education so I can be set up to do plenty of seminars for this coming school year. AAAAND I'm doing a little somethin-somethin next week in my site for World AIDS Day. I'll let y'all know how that turns out.

Okay, fun stuff.

I just finished having an AWESOME VACATION out of my site. On the one hand, I am in Peace Corps, so I do things like sweat on a daily basis and poop in a hole in the ground, but on the other hand. . .I'm Peace Corps PANAMA. I can do things like spend Thanksgiving in the mountains on the other side of the country and then chill for a few days on the beach. . .all on a Peace Corps budget (which ain't much, y'all).

Being a Peace Corps Volunteer is a 24/7 job. Although that doesn't mean I'm LITERALLY working EVERY WAKING MOMENT, it does mean that I'm on the job every second I am in site. There is always some work that I could be doing, whether it be going to school, visiting organizations, or just being involved in the community at large. For that reason, you can never REALLY let loose when you're at home. . .I always have that nagging voice in the back of my mind that tells me I should be out saving the world, beginning with the streets of Meteti.

Taking vacation was completely different. I went shopping in the city and even met up and had drinks with an Embassy contact (on my way to Thanksgiving), and then crashed a couple of nights with one of my G72ers that I had not seen in months (we live on opposite sides of the country and he has a beach site). After that, Thanksgiving happened. I was so excited to see my group members that I never get to see (there aren't a lot of them out where I'm at), so needless to say, hugs happened. After Thanksgiving, I rounded out my West Side tour with a couple of days at a nice, affordable beach resort to celebrate the birthday of one of my East Siders. By the time I headed back to Darien I was SO RELAXED. If you know me, you know relaxation isn't a thing that I normally prioritize, but CLEARLY it needs to move up my list of things to do. Let me tell ya, taking a few days to unwind and take in the beauty of your new home can do wonders for your sanity. I was almost reluctant to come home to Darien, but once I hit the bus terminal, I was glad to be coming back.

Side note: East Siders are awesome, because our region intimidated everyone during the Thanksgiving volleyball tournament. We lost the championship game. :( But we made a tough showing and had a BLAST, and all the other regions were super impressed!

Now I'm back in the land of emails, trying to get back on track for work!!! I'm ready to get some things done in the Dirty D, and hopefully be able to collaborate with others on some projects. I'm ready to pull some people out here to the East Side!

Anyway, in other news I ate myself into a food coma yesterday. I got my hands on some culantro and lemon, so I made a bowl of pico de gallo and ate it with patacones (fried plantains). It was so good. I napped for a solid hour after that.

My kitty is getting fatter! Did I tell you guys I recently found out that she is, in fact, a female? Whatever, I'm a cat lady now, so she's happy hanging out at my house.

Ok guys, that's about it for now. If exciting things happen, I'll try to remember to write it down and report on it. Much love to everybody out there in the Carolinas!!!

State Department/Best Weekend Ever

So this is what happened to me.

I was going to go to Sambu. It was going to be awesome. Then Peace Corps decided that none of the volunteers could go. That was sad, because I was super excited.

For people in my family who aren't into foreign relations. . .The State Department is the department in the government that handles foreign affairs. The US Embassy houses State Department workers (among others) who are US government employees working abroad. The Ambassador is the highest ranking representative of the US government in the country to which s/he is assigned. (In this case, Panama.)

The Ambassador was going to be visiting my province and staying in my town during a few of the days that I WOULD HAVE been in Sambu. Since I had turned down an invite from the office to meet up with the Ambassador when he came to my town because of my travel plans, I decided to call back and see if I could still slip in on the plans.

Great decision.

Originally a few of the PCVs had been scheduled to spend a little time with the Ambassador when he came through, before his lunch with SENAFRONT (the police). . .but that's not what I did this weekend.

Last Friday, I got a call at 7:20a from a Foreign Service Officer (FSO) in the State Department, asking if I wanted to tag along with the Ambassador and the team from the State Department for the morning. They would be leaving the restaurant RIGHT UP THE STREET from my house at 8a for the event, and they had an extra space in the car. My response was "umm. . .yes." I took a quick cold bucket shower, hurried to Facebook message a friend and let her know that I was flaking on our scheduled chat time, and powerwalked/ran up the street to be at the restaurant on time.

When I arrived, the FSO asked if I had eaten. I said 'No. I ran here.' and the whole table laughed. I sat down for. . .what else? Free food. God Bless America.

Next, we hopped in the car and drove over to an event. The Embassy had funded a wood processing facility for the indigenous population here in Darien, and was presenting it formally to the public.

The Ambassador arrived in a helicopter. Naturally.

After we held down everything at the facility so that all the decor didn't fly away from the wind created by the helicopter propellers, all the important representatives of various organizations approached the vehicle to greet the Ambassador. As I approached to shake his hand, I opened my mouth to introduce myself, but instead I was greeted with "Oh! I remember you! You're a great speaker." My life was complete. The Ambassador remembered my face from a full SIX MONTHS ago when I gave the swear-in speech for my group when we all celebrated becoming official Peace Corps Volunteers at the Ambassador's house. Basically, I have now achieved everything I've ever wanted out of life and I was so excited that small-talk after that was a struggle. Side note, though, the Ambassador is super personable and chill and didn't have any of those negative personality traits that you might be imagining a high-ranking government official might have.

Moving on.

There were a million cameras at said event. Naturally, I was trying to dodge them all. We all know how I feel about taking pictures.

Afterward, the FSO and I switched cars and jumped into the AMBASSADOR'S CAR. Driven by an embassy employee, this car was a huge SUV, all black with tinted windows. (All black everything--I don't know, it just made me think about Jay-Z.) Serious-looking. They bought my lunch and let me tag along to Yaviza and learn about other projects that the US Embassy has going on there. (Can somebody say. . .potential secondary projects? I was in networking frenzy-mode! Emails! Phone numbers! So many possibilities!)

Side note. . .riding in the Ambassador's car, I was sandwiched in the back seat between a Public Affairs FSO and the Ambassador himself. EXCELLENT opportunity to 1) Be a fly on the wall and listen to chatter about work at the Embassy and watch the FSO and Ambassador work together and 2) Pepper the FSO with questions about her career and the application process. As an aspiring diplomat, how often do you get the opportunity to shadow someone in your (hopefully) future profession? Godsend! I also talked about coordinating everything with her from getting books for a reading club at my school to getting college counselors for a girl in my neighboring town who wants to go to the University of Michigan.

The next day, I showed up at the private university to see the English class that the Embassy had funded, and say hi to the State Dept people before they left my province. . .whaddya know, they invited my Peace Corps colleague and I (shout out to my homegirl Rachel!) to tag along to Yaviza AGAIN. Yaaay! Again. So much networking. Those car rides are a great opportunity to have extended conversations about work that you can't necessarily have when too many people are around vying for recognition.

Basically, when I was done with those two days of AWESOMENESS, I kept having word-vomit conversations with Rachel about how AWESOME it was.

WOO-WHOOO! After having about a week of hitting my head on a wall in terms of my Peace Corps work and service, the State Department's visit gave me a renewed excitement about my Peace Corps service and further entrenched my resolve to keep applying to be a Foreign Service Officer. Woop, woop!

Much love to everyone in the States! Happy holiday season!

New Roomate and Foreign Service

I kind of accidentally have a new roommate.

He was out on the road in front of my house one evening looking kind of lost, so I let him crash for a night. It's not the kind of thing I would normally do in the States, but hey, I guess Peace Corps changes you.

That night he keeps making a lot of noise while I try to sleep, and even tries to climb into my bed with me SEVERAL TIMES, but I don't let him. (Peace Corps hasn't changed me THAT much.)

The next day, a couple of my friends come over to hang, and my houseguest doesn't even come out to say hi. He just stays inside my house and makes insane amounts of noise.

Needless to say, I kick him out that day. If he's lost, he'll find his way eventually.

Two days later, though, I awaken to hear him yelling on my porch at 2 IN THE MORNING. He has the nerve to come BACK to my house after I KICKED HIM OUT. I can see him through the wooden slats in my wall. I ignore him and go back to bed. When I wake up around 7, he's STILL THERE. I leave my doors closed and go about my morning as usual. Eventually, though, I have to open my door, so he makes it into my house again. I decide to just let it happen.

He stays for another day, so I give him some food, and he's been hanging around ever since. I guess I have a new roomate, now.

At first, he wouldn't let me pet him because he was afraid, but now all he ever wants is to sit on my lap and/or crawl into my bed when I'm trying to sleep. (It's better if he doesn't; Cartucho is a tiny kitty and I move in my sleep. I might crush him.)

I've never been a cat person, but now I have a cat! I can't say I'm upset about it.

In other news:

-I feel like I've been doing less work, recently.

-A lot of gringos have paseared by my house, recently.

-I've been seriously considering entering the US Foreign Service and becoming a diplomat, so I took the written exam (Foreign Service Officer Test) and PASSED on the first try without studying. That's right, I'm a genius.

-One time I had a super bad day (I NEVER have one of those, I'm generally pretty upbeat), so I closed myself in my house and ate grits. I felt better immediately. #ImFromTheSouth

-I successfully baked banana bread on top of a stove a couple of days ago. . .I told you, I'm a genius. I'm going to go Betty Crocker today and pasear around my town with baked goods to make my gente remember how awesome I am!!!!

Saludos a mi gente en los EEUU. No estaré este año para los días feriados, pero todos Uds. estarán en mis pensamientos. ¡Hasta la próxima, pues!

Estoy perdida

In Panama, when you haven't seen someone in awhile, you tell him/her that s/he has been "perdida," or lost. Ever since In-Service Training, I'm sure my community thinks I'm perdida. It's been awhile since I've even dropped by my neighbor's house!

So what have I been up to? Here's a recap:

WORK

1. SEMINARS! As an East Side (especially Darien) TE Volunteer, I want my primary goal during my service to be to support the multi-grade teachers in any way I can. These are teachers that work in small schools with very few students (we're talking K-6 schools with 11 students, even) that teach all subjects, including English. That's difficult to do when you don't speak English! Therefore, I want to provide as much support as I can for these schools that are often forgotten about by the government.

My first plan of action in this respect has been implementation of seminars for multi-grade teachers to learn basic English pronunciation and grammar, and to learn easy techniques for teaching vocabulary in class. (I didn't create these seminars, I'm just bringing them to the EAST SIDE! where they're most needed.)

I hope to continue this professional development in the future, and hopefully even visit more of these schools!

2. TE STRUGGLES :( PCVs are only in country for two years. Peace Corps gets a new group of Teaching English (TE) Volunteers once a year. The other TE PCV in Darien (ya know, the one that's not me. Her name is Kim) leaves in a few months, meaning that if the next group of TE Volunteers does not include one that's placed in the Darien, I'll be along, which makes my previously proposed project about 15 times harder. Darien getting cut out of TE site placements is a very real possibility, so this might be a struggle. (But have you met me? Come on now, I'm gonna fight, and strings are already being pulled!)

3. ADULT EFL CLASSES On the bright side, my adult EFL class keeps me sane. I have 5 students who are motivated to learn. They are fabulous!


PERSONAL (NON-WORK):

1. FOOD: I have hit a hot streak recently when it comes to free food. Lately, Darien has been raining food upon me, free of charge. My observations during the past eight months suggest a strong positive correlation between the length of time you converse with a Panamanian and the likelihood of recieving free food. If you ever visit Panama, feel free to exploit this information.

2. FSOT For those who don't know, I've been considering entering the US Foreign Service, and the first step in becoming a diplomat for the State Department is a written exam known as the Foreign Service Officer Test. It's free to take the test and you can take it once a year, so I decided to register for it, go to the Embassy and take it cole (without studying) to see how I do and to get an idea of what the test is like. (Luckily I was still able to sit the test, even during the government shutdown in the States).

The verdict? It wasn't that bad! I won't know whether I passed for about another month, but either way, even if I fail, I know that it won't be to hard for me to study up, get good and ready and give it another shot next year. Knock on wood!

Here's to hoping the government's up and running before the week is out. What up United States?

ALSO I'm going to the Panama v. USA soccer match on Tuesday! USA! USA!

Love you all! Shout out to the States, especially 803, 704 and 919 (in that order) mwah!*

*(I'm going to be perdida for the holidays. I'm not coming back this year, sorry y'all, but I love you all!)

Back in Site!

After two weeks of socializing-overload, it feels good to be back in site where life is tranquilo.

In-Service Training (IST) proved to be more useful AND more stressful than I anticipated. I will say, a couple positive things about IST were:

1)      I got to see some faces from G72 that I hadn’t seen in awhile. I love you guys!

2)      The town where we had training was in the mountains and therefore 20-30 degrees cooler that the town where I live, therefore I wasn’t sweaty every second of every day and could therefore take one shower a day instead of two or three. I also had hot showers, a giant bed, and freedom from the worry that everything I own will grow mold.

That being said, I was super happy to get back to good old Darien. My first few days back, I went to go help out one of my fellow volunteers in the comarca with some youth intiatives she’s doing in her site in the indigenous comarca (reservation). I had a great time in her community (the stillness was a nice contrast to the relative bustle of IST and it was good to hang out with a couple of my East Side volunteers).

Immediately following that, I came back to my site, where our Regional Meeting was being held. Regional Meeting is a mandatory meeting that all PCVs have every 4 months. My region is the most spread out one, including everybody East of the Canal, which is about 30-something people, including the 9 newbies that we just got a few weeks ago. More bustle! So many gringos. I was happy to meet the new volunteers, aka G73. They seem like chill people, so it will be fun to get to know them.

We also killed another animal. . .cuz that’s what we do. This time it was a goat. It was delicious, especially the liver.

Now that everyone has left my site after Regional Meeting, it seems like my site again, so it’s good to be home! I was surprised that a lot of people in my town actually remembered where I was when I was missing for two whole weeks, so kudos to my gente.

Now that I’m fresh from coming out of IST, where I got to use some children (and teachers) as guinea pigs for teaching techniques, I’m anxious to see how much work I can get done before the holidays hit in November. That’ll be a challenge given the pace of life here, and I might come out of October stapling pancakes to the wall, but I’ll give it a shot! Wish me luck, and I’ll keep you all updated!

Time Flies

Every time I turn around, it’s been a couple of weeks since I updated my blog. Time is starting to move along kind of quickly here.

Since we last talked, I had a great time visiting the sites of one of my good friends in the group, brought my sister to visit my Peace Corps site, found out I have a new cousin that entered the world, and got excited about another potential secondary project.

It was nice to take a little vacation and travel outside of Darien for a bit, and I was really excited to see one of my G72ers that I hadn’t seen in a while, so my mini-vacation was thoroughly enjoyed. When I came back to site, it was with my sister, so that was exciting. She went around visiting other people’s houses with me, came to school one day with me, met some of my fellow Darien PCVs when they came through my site, visited one of my friends in the indigenous comarca, and even learned a lot about Panamanian community pharmacy when she visited the medical center in my town and met the pharmacist that works there.

I put Ebony on a bus this morning to get to the Panama City airport to get back to the old US of A, so she’s probably getting ready to arrive to the airport as I write this now. It was really cool finally getting to travel with one of my family members and having her see where I live. Hopefully she’ll come back at least once before I finish my service (hint, hint). I’d also be excited to have other visitors and have them meet people in my community (hint, hint).

Now I’m gearing up for life post-Ebony which includes things like:

-Giant all-day quinceañera celebration at my neighbors’ house. In a lot of latin cultures, a girl turning fifteen is a BIG deal. One of my neighbors is getting ready to celebrate her 15^th, and my neighbors literally had a BULLDOZER in the yard yesterday in order to create the space where the cow will be killed (yes, you read that correctly). Today the menfolk are over there raising the shelter that will be used to house the guests. I’m ready to party it up before I’m dragged off to. . .

-In-Service Training, aka IST. The day after the quince, I have to haul out to Cocle to spend two full weeks of Peace Corps doing everything in their power to bore me to death with training seminars. Really, I just want to learn to write a grant and go back home, but at least this gives me a chance to spend two weeks bugging my project coordinators to put another Teaching English Vounteer in my province. That I will be doing.

-Youth development activities in the comarca at a friend’s site. As soon as IST ends, I’m coming straight back to Darien to participate in some youth charlas and Frisbee-ing at a site that belongs to one of the Environmental Health Volunteers.

-Beginning to drum up interest in creating an Ultimate (Frisbee) team in my site! Ultimate Without Borders (check out their site) was created very recently by some Peace Corps Volunteers that have now finished their service, and a couple of the coordinators hosted a Training in my site for PCVs who are interested in creating a team in their community. The point of the Ultimate Without Borders program is that the sport of Ultimate is used as a medium through which to teach things like emotional intelligence, leadership and conflict resolution. There is an entire curriculum that goes along with the team practices, so it’s kind of a bait and switch. Give kids a fun sport to play and then teach them to be better people. J Win-win. I’m excited to get started.

That’s about it for the updates. Wish me luck for a banging quinceañera and a quick IST so that I can get back to Meteti and start doing things! Suerte. J

I live by myself. :-/

I moved into my new house. This means that, for the first time in my life, I live by myself! I don’t have a roommate or anything. I live in a house. By myself. Forget moving to a new country along with new language/food/culture/whatever, nothing’s really thrown me for a loop so far, but this whole only-I-live-in-this-house-and-nobody-else thing. . .this could be interesting. I’m a people person. I like to talk, and I’m not used to having very much privacy or personal space anyway, so living in host families for me has been easier for me than it has been for some other volunteers, and I’ve actually really enjoyed that kind of life. Moving out on my own, however, may prove to be a different story. Hopefully this will not be my Achilles’s Heel.

Don’t worry, though, people! I have awesome neighbors that will make sure I don’t go crazy and that will come visit me in my house to make sure I’m still here.

You know what else happened that is super sad? I adopted a kitty from my host family’s house. She’s super cute and I named her Luz and she was content in my house for about 3 days. Then I stupidly left her out at night while I went to go hang out with some PC Volunteers, and when I got back she was nowhere to be found, and I haven’t seen her in the past three or four days. There’s a chance she may have gone back over to my host family’s house. I hope so, because that means they’ll let me know so I can come get her. Otherwise, I just have to take some time to get over that kitty before I get another one. I know a volunteer who has a pregnant cat, so I could get another one. . .bottom line, I need some other living being in my living space. The chickens that run across my floor and the neighbor’s cat who looks for food in my kitchen do not count.

Ebony-watch: Haha, see what I did, there? We spent a weekend in Casco Viejo, before I came back to Darien for work. She’s been to Cocle and Los Santos, and she’ll be in Chiriqui and Bocas Tel Toro before she comes to Darien, where I live. (These are all names of Panamanian provinces, by the way. Google a map of Panama if you want to actually understand that sentence.)

So, work. . .did a few charlas, that was cool. They were a little bit of a logistical nightmare, but now I’m learning the difference in the way I need to go about organizing things in Panama. Other than that, Adult ESL classes are still a lot of fun, and they make me feel like I’m actually doing something in my community, which is nice. My primary project is kind of at a stand-still as we come to the end of the trimester (exam time), but I’m hoping to get the most I can out of  my school work during late September and October before November starts. . .November in Panama is essentially one long feria (festival) aka almost no classes.

At the beginning of September I’ll be going to Cocle for Peace Corps In-Service Training. I feel like we just finished Pre-Service Training, so I am extremely annoyed that I have to leave my community for two solid weeks in order to spend long days sitting and listening to seminars. It’s not my idea of fun, but hey, ya can’t always get what you want. Before that, though, my sister will be visiting my community where I live, so I have that to look forward to! That’s going to be a lot of fun.

Welp, life is pretty much igual (the same), here. I bought a cheap guitar to start learning, so I can be even 

more of a stereotypical hippie (Peace Corps? Dreads? Teaching myself to play guitar? Sometimes you have to laugh at yourself.) Life’s good. Hit me up, people! What’s going on in the States? Got any questions about my life in Panama? Comment, Facebook, call me!

I Moved/Ebony/Luzita

1) I moved to my new house. Man, that was work. I still have a few things to buy to put in my house, but the hard part is done. I have free public Wifi on my porch, so I decided to write a quick update.

2) Ebony's coming in two days. I hope she enjoys my new home! :)

3) Since I'll be in the city this weekend with Ebony, I decided to leave my roommate (Luz, my new cat/rat killing machine) at my host family's house until after I get back. I kinda want her to live in my house now so I don't have to be by myself, but I don't want to have her move in and then ditch her for the first few days.

That's all! Quick update!

Def Poetry Slam and Embera People

1) Did you know that Def Poetry Slam was a thing in Panamanian high schools and middle schools? Panama has several national competitions during the year for school kids (English Spelling Bee, Spanish Spelling Bee, Storywriting Competition), and one of them is a poetry competition. When they say poetry in Panama, they really mean group spoken word. I did not know this until I showed up at the regional competition being hosted by my school this past week. Kids were THROWING DOWN. I mean like, I was not ready. It was awesome. I want to see more. There were groups of kids doing choreography to the poetry they recited. The poetry all had the theme of the discovery of the "Mar del Sur," which is a source of pride for Darienitas, in which this place (Darien) plays a huge role in the history of not only Panama, but all of the Americas. Maybe I'll tell you about it when I get a better grasp of history?

2) I went to the Embera comarca. The Embera are an indigenous group in Panama that have two comarcas (reservations) located within the Darien province. Peace Corps has several volunteers placed in communities in the comarcas, and I visited one this past weekend in order to give an English teaching seminar to some teachers who requested it. First of all, the teachers I met were amazing people who were really excited about the seminar and really dedicated to helping their kids (I mean, hey, they REQUESTED for Peace Corps to come give them a seminar during their Sunday, when they could have slept in or traveled or relaxed at home). The seminar went amazingly, and I plan on trying to set up some more in my region in the future.

Secondly, though, the community I visited was AWESOME. The people were super welcoming, I got to ride in a piragua (a tiny boat; the community is located on a river, so I had to take a boat to get there), and it was the most rural place I've ever been. The only places in the community with electricity were the cantinas (bars) that run off of a generator. We bathed in the river, where people also wash their clothes. (I won't go into all the uses for the river water; there's a reason there's an Environmental Health volunteer there), but I loved my visit and I hope to make more trips to the comarca. I bought a few of the woven pieces that the women make, and I bought some earring hooks for them from my town, because I think their artwork would make super cute earrings, and I told them that if they make earrings, I would buy them (and so would other people). I'm fully expecting to come into possession of some cute earrings soon.

I now have a paruma (a skirt that the Embera women wear) and it's purple and cute and it's probably made in Japan, but I plan on collecting more during my two years as a Darienita. I also plan on picking up some of the Embera language. Peace Corps and I are going to have beef soon, because they gave me no Embera book from which to begin learning, but I did get to pick up two or three words/phrases this weekend, and hopefully within a year or so I'll be able to at least have really simple conversations.

Welp, that's it for now. Ebony's coming this weekend! Also I'll be giving more charlas (talks) this week at a youth center AND moving into my house AND doing my 3-month write-up for my boss. Busy week!

Life is Happening/I Feel too Busy to Be Writing This Blog Post Right Now

I actually feel like I’m getting kind of busy now, like now is the time where I actually feel that I’m doing work. (Woo-hoo!) Several things are going on in these few weeks. I’ll touch on a few of them:

1)      School Entry Needs Assessment (SENA)- After the first 3 months in site, Teaching English Volunteers in my group receive a visit from our APCD (the head of the TE project, aka our boss). Each volunteer must organize a meeting with all the English teachers with whom s/he works. The APCD comes to the meeting, talks with the school principal, and then goes around seeing the school and meets anybody else in the community with whom the volunteer is currently working. Essentially, the point of the visit is to check the progress of the volunteer in his/her adjustment to the community/school and how work is progressing during the early stages of service.

Not that I was TOO concerned about this meeting, but I was a little anxious about it because 1) It can be notoriously difficult to get Panamanians to come to a meeting at a set time (I’m not picking on Panamanians, they’ll tell you this stuff themselves), and 2) In a way, I was kind of breaking new ground by having this meeting.

The TE project in Panama is a new one, and this is the first group of volunteers that have had to do the SENA presentation. For this reason, my group was a little unclear about what exactly was expected of us in this presentation. On top of that, in terms of getting around to all the sites geographically, the APCD had planned his tour from East to West. Why is that relevant? Well, pull up that map of Panama you had saved and find Darien. I’m the only one out here . . .it’s all the way to the East by the Colombian border. . . .meaning I get to be the guinea pig and blaze the trail as far as SENA presentations go.

No big, though, everything went well! My teachers showed up on time. (I LOVE them for that, a million times over.) The meeting went well (my APCD DOES love to talk, though, although that was to be expected), and my co-teachers said nice things about me. (Yay!) It kind of gave me new energy for my primary assignment (my school work). We visited some classrooms, visited two other schools in the area, went out to the port (my APCD knows very little of my province! He wanted to see Puerto Quimba), and we had lunch at the fanciest restaurant in Meteti, which may be the fanciest one in the Darien. (When the ambassador comes to Darien, he eats there.)

2)      Adult ESL classes-I started adult ESL classes for the community this week. I’m super excited about it, because it’s the only time I get to have my OWN class and do what I want to do with it, as opposed to facilitating with others (not that I don’t love my co-teachers, I just actually want to teach myself, sometimes). I put an announcement out on the radio about the classes, and a few people showed up and seemed really interested in the class, and I’ve already planned my first few lessons on basic grammar and sentence construction. I’m pumped! I even met one Embera (indigenous) lady from the comarca (reservation) who travels internationally for her job with the government at the culture center, who wants to learn English to communicate when she travels. There are some cool people in Meteti/Darien. The students seemed interested and engaged, they asked plenty of questions, which is great, because it means they’re not afraid of me or uncomfortable with the gringa who wants to teach them to speak Gringo. Check.

3)      Upcoming seminars/charlas-I’m giving a charla this weekend that could potentially become a huge secondary project for me, and as a project, it would go a long way toward helping my primary project’s cause. The other TE Darienita and I (TE PCV in Darien) are bringing a seminar to Darien that teaches basic English grammar to teachers in really rural areas that teach in multi-grade schools. Those schools are too small to have an English teacher, but the government says the students have to be taught English, so this seminar gives the teachers some tools to be able to do that—teach English. I’ll explain more about this after the seminar.

The other type of ‘charla’ (talk/seminar if you will) I will be giving soon is a set of charlas called Elige tu Vida (choose your life). This is a program that lasts a few hours, and is directed toward high school-aged students. The charlas address sexual health and goal-setting for the future. The purpose of the charla is to get young’ns to open their eyes and realize that they have options in life. That’s a tough thing to get kids to realize! We make the charlas fun, though, with games to keep them interested and to make it less formal. I’ll be traveling to a couple of youth centers in Darien to give these seminars. More on that, later!

4)      Ebony is coming next week!

5)      I’m moving into my house next week! I’m looking forward to getting settled in, and at the same time I’ll miss hearing my host brother singing along to bad pop music in the next room or having my host sister coming to my room to give me a book I left in the living room, just to have an excuse to knock on my door.

6)      My mango allergy has been confirmed. I ate two more mangos last week because my host mom gave me a mango after I told her ‘no, thanks,’ I didn’t want one. (You know how Panamanians/Southerners are, they gotta feed you.) I wasn’t sure if it was the mango that caused the reaction last time. It was. I know this now, after my second trial run with mango. MAN I suffered from eating that thing, but my face is back to normal, now.

7)      General goodness. Aside from the mango suffering and the fever I had a little while back, Darien has been giving me good vibes. I haven’t left the province in a couple months, so I’m thinking it’s going to be interesting traveling to the city to meet my sister. (They have movie theatres and hot water there, WHOA.) Life has been going well, though, this week especially has been a really good week!

Observations:

-When you sweat all day every day, you forget how many things your sweat gets into on a regular basis. Today I noticed that my BOOKBAG STRAPS are starting to smell funky. I gotta wash that.

-I’ve been spoiled in my PC life so far. I used a latrine for the first time in my life the other day, bathed outside for the first time ever, and I have yet to wash my clothes by hand.

-Tattling is a favorite pastime of Panamanian schoolchildren. I don’t think the phrase ‘snitches get stitches’ can be translated into Panamanian Spanish.

I'm not going to edit :(

As I was reading back over some of my old blog posts, I noticed something. They make me cringe. My writing can get pretty bad sometimes. Ambiguous pronouns, non-parallel sentence structure, and paragraphs that are just straight up difficult to understand.

I'm not going to edit.

I decided I have better things to do.

Much love to my blog readers!

Bienvenidas and Despedidas (Hellos and Goodbyes)

I would say that I’m continuing to settle in to Meteti life here. At the same time, around a week ago, I started getting a little cabin fever. Enter gringo* weekend.

I haven’t left site much at all during my first couple of months in site. I would attribute that less to my level of commitment as a volunteer and more to the fact that I refuse to sit in a freezing bus for 6 or 7 hours one-way just to get a taste of the city. (That’s not to say I’m not super-committed to my Peace Corps work.)

Because I haven’t really been out much during the past month, I felt that I was starting to get a little loopy. Good thing July 4^th happens to be Independence Day in my native country (USA! USA!). I told my co-workers and host family that I’d be out of school that day to celebrate with the gringos and got all my ducks in a row to be able to take the day off.

Worth it! It was especially great to see some of my G72ers (volunteers from my training group). I’ve missed those guys! Between July 4^th and my trip to La Palma, I felt refreshed and ready to work when I came back to Meteti.

Side note: I have also figured out how to get my hands on a map of Darien. I have been promised a giant map by the cartographer himself who has an office in Meteti. Those can be hard to come by. It took me awhile to figure out how to get one, and now I’m so excited! I like maps. I’m going to go so many cool places (when I’m on break from school, of course).

Furthermore, I met the previous volunteer that had lived in my site for two years. She’s on vacation from her teaching job in the States and came back to Meteti to visit this past week, since she missed the province so much. Hers is the house I’ll be renting when I move out of my host family’s house at the end of the month. I had heard a lot about Liz from people around town, who really loved her. I was excited to meet her because she’s kind of a Peace Corps cheat sheet, if you will.

Liz is really cool! I hate that I only met her four days ago and I already had to say goodbye. She was super helpful in helping me figure out my housing situation and just giving me tips on how to do this Peace Corps-Meteti thing in general. I mean, she WAS in my shoes a couple of years ago. We could have been bffs in an alternate universe in which both of us were in Peace Corps at the same time.

In addition to saying hello and goodbye to Liz in such a short time, I also had to say goodbye to my Regional Leader (RL), Molly, who finished up her service and headed back to the States this past weekend. Regional Leaders in Peace Corps Panama are volunteers who extend for a third year of service in order to be Coordinators for Peace Corps, kind of being Peace Corps’ arms and legs outside of the city, serving as a coordinator for a particular province of Panama. I happen to live in the same town as my Regional Leader, so I got to know her a little bit while she was here. She’s another person that I think I could be good friends with, so I hate that I had to say goodbye! She’s an awesome RL.

As far as the ‘hellos,’ I got to meet a few of the new Peace Corps Panama trainees that arrived in the country less than a month ago. They will be moving to their sites next month. This group will include about 10-11 new volunteers in my province  (since they are Sustainable Agriculture and Environmental Health volunteers, who tend to serve in more rural areas like Darien). Since not very many people from my training group live near me (I’m the farthest East), I’m really interested to see who in this new training group gets placed near me. These are the people I’ll be spending the next two years with, essentially.

In other news:

My mom in the States mailed me a huge package, so now I’ll be introducing Darien to American delicacies like Skittles and Cheez-Its.

I went on the radio again. This time, listeners were treated to a few bars of Katy Perry’s “Part of Me,” courtesy of yours truly. I wish I was kidding. I wish I could tell you it won’t happen again. I knew my knowledge of pop music lyrics would come in handy one day. I mean, I don’t know if I possess any skills more marketable than this, my knowledge of Katy Perry lyrics. I’m not proud of it.

*The word gringo is a little bit difficult to accurately translate into English, but for purposes of this blog post, gringos are Americans (fellow Peace Corps Volunteers).

Work

So this post is about work.

Have I talked about what my primary assignment is? Here’s a review: I’m an English language education facilitator for the K-9 grades at a public school in the Darien province of Panama. Outside of primary projects, Peace Corps Volunteers also are expected to take on secondary projects in their community based on the needs/wants of the community.

With respect to work these past two weeks, I feel like I have been being pulled in different directions. Every day I have needed to be in at least two different places at once. Ahhh. Needless to say I slept well this weekend once I got a little time off.

That being said, let’s all remember that I’m in development work. What does that mean, class? That’s right. It’s going to be a minute before I see any actual results from the time I put in. I’m only finishing month two of being in site, which means a lot of what I do is still getting to know the community and building relationships. The good news is, I do feel like I’ve been setting myself up for some productivity down the road. This past week I visited some local agencies and have begun forming projects with them (I’ll be more specific and explain projects in my blog as things come to fruition).

With respect to my primary assignment, I feel so behind! I’m still observing teachers and doing feedback forms. I have eight co-teachers, so it’s going to be at least another month before I finish up observations. I’m anxious to begin co-teaching and co-planning with them, but I need to get through observations with all of my teachers first! I feel good about working in my school, though. My teachers are all good people, and I get along with all of them really well (even the one that I never see, because all us English teachers know that finding him is like finding Sasquatch, seriously). Any other Teaching English Volunteer knows that having co-teachers like mine is a huge help. As busy as I may get, it’s good to know that getting along with my co-workers is one less thing to worry about.

Other things in life right now:

In the future, if I ever need to introduce myself to a middle school class, I should just start out with “Hi, my name is Aja. My hair is real.” There’s an eighth grade class at my school that has known me for two months now, and I think that until today some of them thought I wore a wig or something. I’m not sure I’ll ever stop having people ask if my hair is real or stop having random children touch it and giggle when I’m riding a chiva.

I’m LOVING J. Cole’s new album right now. It’s clearly Grammy material, I’m not kidding. Go listen to “Let Nas Down.” But actually, tho, listen to the whole album.

Also listening to a lot of Allen Stone. If you don’t know who he is, please go listen to his live recording of “Figure It Out.” When you fall in love with that, you can listen to his entire second album.

Today the bananas came in at the produce stand. I been waitin on those bad boys. The lady at the produce stand knew I was coming for my guineos (bananas) and had my plastic bag ready when I came in the door. Her produce stand is right next to the house that I’m renting when I move out of my host family’s house, so I forsee a beautiful friendship forming in our future.

Random things:

I find myself speaking to the pets in Spanish.

I count things in Spanish.

When I talk to myself (i.e. when I’m looking for something I lost or when I’m planning my schedule) it’s in Spanish.

My English and my Spanish are both getting worse. I’m beginning to speak English like a Panamanian. I’m also beginning to speak Spanish like a Panamanian. Neither one of those is good for professional situations. 

I’ll be destined to work in the campo after this.

I will be getting some quality gringo time in on July 4^th. Some of the volunteers in my province are meeting in another volunteer’s site to roast a pig. . .because that’s the kind of the that you do when you’re a Peace Corps Panama Volunteer who lives East of the Canal. . .or, you know, if you're in North Carolina. It’s a thing.

Too Much Food (Jazon Mraz, anyone? No? Ok, then.)

About the amount of food I ate yesterday. . .

It was ridiculous. Somewhere my grandmother is looking down upon me, giddy with joy because I ate five meals in the same day. Yea, I said that. Five meals in the same day.  Let that sink in, let the wave of shock and/or disgust/approval wash over you, and then also consider the ice cream, Jell-O and three pieces of cake I had after that fifth meal.

It wasn’t my fault, allow me to explain:

Panama happened.

First, I woke up like any other lazy Sunday. I had been my definition of productive (kind of) during the other six days that week, so I thought Sunday might be the day to sleep in, catch up on some laundry, maybe pasear a little bit. I contemplated going to mass with my host mom, but laziness won over. Instead, I stayed home and washed the mountain of dishes in the sink and cleaned my room while blasting some clean-up music. I had a peanut butter sandwich for breakfast, which is normal, but then after I cleaned up the kitchen, I thought to myself “Hey, I’m already here, it’s about noon, maybe I’ll fry a couple of eggs and a hot dog, because why not.” My host mom came home and decided that this would go well with fried plantains (because plantains go with everything and are a superior alternative to eating eggs and hot dogs alone or with bread), so I finally fried my OWN plantains for once. (They were delicious.) After eating all of that, I was fuller that I wanted to be, but that’s cool, because I just wouldn’t have to eat again until dinner, right?

Anyway.

A girl that lives down the street from me called to invite me to her house for Father’s Day, so of course I went. I didn’t have anything else important to do that day. I didn’t take into account that that her family would feed me my second lunch in the middle of the afternoon. And it was Father’s Day. This was not just any lunch. There was beef, pork, regular rice, rice with coco, and potato salad. If you’ve never been to Panama, let me just tell you there’s not really a way to opt out or say ‘no thank you’ when someone invites you over their house and offers you food. I ate it.

THEN I came home, and within a couple of hours, it was dinner time. I had a birthday party to go to that night, so I ate a little dinner just so I wouldn’t be hungry at the birthday party. On Panamanian time, you never really know when those things are gonna start/end, and I don’t wanna sit around hungry or be rude and leave because I need to go eat.

Eating dinner at home was another HUGE miscalculation on my part. If she had drawn upon her useful Panamanian stereotypes, our protagonist would have realized that at EVERY family celebration in Panama, arroz con pollo (rice with chicken) and potato salad WILL be served, no joke. When you’re the guest, they always serve you first. A HUGE portion. So what did I do? I shoveled it down. All of the potato salad, and then about half of the rice was all I could manage. I took my leftovers ‘para llevar (to go).’ And then they served me cake. There were THREE CAKES. I was anticipating being served a single slice of ONE of the cakes. Instead I was served a good sized slice of each of the three cakes, PLUS chocolate ice cream and raspberry Jell-O. Even as I write this the next day, mid-morning, I feel really full. My host sister and I came home with our stomachs about to burst and went to bed immediately.

For anybody in the States who may have been worried that I’m not eating enough: Just don’t.

Meteti Life

Nothing groundbreaking to update on, I just felt like I should write a blog post.

Lately I’ve just been hanging out in Meteti, still meeting people, showing my face around and whatnot. Since I last updated, I’ve been to another medical gira in order to translate for the Army, and had a chance to catch up with the other two G72ers that I hadn’t had a chance to see since we’ve moved into site. It was nice to see some familiar faces!

Other than that, I’ve been meeting some new Darien (and Panama Este) PCVs (mostly Darien), since they come through Meteti fairly often, traveling back and forth. We also had our regional meeting this past week for everyone East of the Canal, so I met a few volunteers there, too. I’ve decided that when I return from Peace Corps, I will no longer understand what ‘professionalism’ means. The Peace Corps office is so laid back that, DURING our Regional Meeting, a couple of the guys in our region decided it would be appropriate to recite ALL of the lyrics to Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake’s first hit. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry about it.) They literally did the entire song. The Country Director was not phased: all of us on the East Side tend to be just a lil bit crazy, or ‘rough around the edges’ as he puts it.

After regional meeting, we all hung around the hostel where we were staying in Panama City (Casco Viejo), and then went to hang out at a spot just down the street from the hostel. There were $1 beers, but who cares? There was a jukebox. Game. Over.

When I came in I was a lil bit of a crowd favorite because I grabbed one of my colleagues because of COURSE Prince Royce was playing (he’s everywhere). There’s an available dance floor, DUH, so I had to bachata. (My sister taught me well.) The Panamanians were quite entertained by/supportive of my dancing. (Eso es! Eso!)

Back to the theme of the jukebox. I never contributed a penny to that jukebox, but because other people are less decisive than I am when it comes to pop music, I got a few of my choice tracks on there. I thoroughly enjoyed Michael Jackson’s “Remember the Time.” Some of my PC peeps got educated that day. (‘Oh my gosh! This video is like a mini-movie. Whoa! Look at MJ’s dancers!’ And I’m like ‘Yo, this is like every Michael Jackson video. They are always this amazing.’) Also, nobody else knew that track existed. I was humbled. I am lucky to have had the quality Michael Jackson/Motown education that I grew up with at the hands of my father, so shout out to Anthony Kennedy. He may be tone-deaf, but there’s no denying his taste in music. (Luther? Smokey? Really, tho!)

Since Regional Meeting aftermath was the first opportunity I’ve really had to dance since I’ve gotten to Panama, I made the most of it. I was only out for a couple of hours, but that was all I needed.

When I got back to the hostel, I literally didn’t sleep. You know when you start the week knowing that you won’t get any sleep? Yea. When I had traveled TO Panama City, I woke up at 2:30 am to catch the early bus, and that night when I got back from going out, I just took a shower and caught a cab with some other PCVs to the terminal so that I could get a bus back to Darien. The trip back? I’ve never slept so hard on a bus.

Why did I need to get back? Regional Spelling Bee (in English) hosted in my town. Being a native speaker, I was drafted into being the announcer for the words. That was exciting/fun. A girl from my school got second place. (She should’ve won, though! She did SO WELL. I was super proud.)

Then that Friday there was the Black Culture Festival at my school. Each grade level had a princess to represent their grade, and each grade had a corresponding color. We invited other schools. There was dancing. I learned about the Black Culture/History in Panama. I went to a black history lecture. I watched the Afro-Antillean dances that are a part of Black Panamanian culture. That was pretty cool. I wore some kind of African print scarf that I stole from my momma’s closet in the states since everyone else dressed up for the event and I didn’t have anything to wear. Some other PCVs came to support. There was food. It was a fun time.

Other than that. . .next week is English week. I still have yet to get anything constructive done on my primary project, so how about I let you guys know when I DO get something constructive done, and until then let’s just assume that nothing productive is getting done when I go to school. Next week is English Week, so hopefully during the following week things will begin to approach some level of what I perceive to be ‘normalcy’? (Maybe normalcy IS children running around the school with multi-colored balloons in anticipation of an upcoming festival? Panama DOES have a lot of ferias/festivals/random holidays.)

Welp, I know that update was less than eventful, but ya know. . .maybe at some point during the next month I’ll actually sit down to write a GOOD blog post. I’ve been getting pretty lazy out this. Love me, anyway!

Much love to everybody at home in the Carolinas! 

On Taking a Shower

I don’t know what it is with me and taking showers. I’ve never really enjoyed taking a bath. I like being clean, but taking a bath is just one of those annoying chores that you do every day. I think it’s because I’m a big picture person, and all those daily things that you have to do to function (like taking a shower and eating) are just constant nuisances that cloud my thinking space. Do you know what I could be doing with all those hours I’ve spent showering? (Probably just sleeping or listening to pop music, but, ya know. . .the principle. . .)

Once you take a shower for the day, you can’t just check it off of your things to do like you can finishing a paper for work or going by the bank. Nope. If you take a shower, you’re still gonna be dirty again in the next 24 hours. (Or, if you live in Panama, less than 24.) So there’s that. You gotta do it every day, it takes up time, and it’s not even fun to do. In order to take a bath, you have to take off all your clothes, bathe with soap and all of that, and then dry off and put on MORE clothes that are just going to get dirty again. There are other toiletries involved. Deoderant, lotion, shampoo, whatever. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I bathe regularly because I enjoy being clean, but I don’t like bathing!

So where did this observation come from? After a sweaty morning pasearing around Santa Fe with my host mom, I came home, took a nap, and then realized I was too dirty to continue living my life until I had bathed. I never liked bathing, but my reluctance is compounded by the fact that bathing now involves dumping a bowl of cold water over my head/shoulders. Every day. If it’s a school day, that means at 5:30 or 6 in the morning, the first thing I do is experience this, my Panamanian bucket shower. I actually hop around a little bit every time the cold water hits me for the first time. I don’t know why, it’s a knee jerk reaction. It’s not gonna make the water any warmer.

The good news is that, if this is the hardest part of my life right now, I’m in pretty good shape, right? Hey, I have Wi-Fi, remember? That’s all that matters. What more could you want?

I'm a grown-up. I take showers, I swear.

I'm allergic to Panama!

I wrote this post a few days ago. I’m just getting around to posting it. J

Before I start talking about how my face rebelled against me this week, let me talk about more successful things in my life, like translating for the US Army.

Monday through Wednesday of this week, I decided to participate in a medical event that the US Army was having in Platanilla, a town that’s a 2-hour trip from my site. I found out from my regional leader that a group of army medical officers (reserves) would be staying in my town and traveling to Platanilla every day to provide medical care for the community and dispense medicine. A lot of them don’t speak Spanish, so they are always happy to have some extra interpreters there to help things run a little bit more smoothly. Since this week is exam week at my school (aka not ideal for observations/doing my job), I decided to go help out the army.

It was really fun. I love translating because it makes me feel super useful. I was impressed by how some of the army officers got along really well with their Panamanian counterparts without spoken language. There were some Kodak moments. While there, I interpreted for optometry for a day and then for pharmacy for the next two days.

While interpreting for pharmacy, I met this amazing Pharm Tech who works in the Medical Center in Platanilla. He has been working there for 18 years and he knows EVERYONE in town. Watching him work with the people in the community was pretty inspirational. He would joke around with people when they came to pick up prescriptions, but he would also dish out some tough love sometimes. (He straight up called this one old man a liar for not being honest about his medical history.) I could write a whole paper about how awesome this guy is (he wrote a song to thank the Army for coming out and then sang it for everybody), but to sum it up, I told my pharmacist-to-be sister about him, and we’re going to go visit him when she comes to Darien.

It was pretty interested hanging out with the Army people for a couple of days. I was very impressed by the positive attitudes that some of them had about being in a new place, and on the other hand, there were times where some the officers would say some things that would make me think, “you just don’t get it.” I’ve only been in Panama for 3 months, but even though I’m not Panamanian, I think I’ve started to think of Panama as that friend or family member that you rag on all the time, but if anybody else says anything about your family or your friend, you’re ready to fight them. Ok, I wasn’t gonna fight anybody, but I’m just saying. I talk smack about Panama all the time to other Peace Corps Volunteers, but even when I complain about how Panama’s out to get me again, it’s all good-natured. I’m going to be living here for the next two years, and I love Panama. When the Army officers talk about Panama, though, something inside me goes NO, YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO DO THAT! Yea, you’re not going to have an easy time finding hot water anywhere, but so? Yea, there are stray dogs that wander into school classrooms, so? Yea, that bridge we have to drive over is pretty sketchy, so?* I know that I’m still American and I’m not Panamanian, so I can’t really give myself a license to say whatever I want about Panama either, but I couldn’t help but cringe on the inside at some of the conversations I had with the officers when they ask about my life here. I’m not sure if some of them understand development work, but then again I know nothing about the military, so that goes both ways.

In other news, I am allergic to Panama. I’ve never had a food allergy in my life, which makes me happy, because that means I can eat all the food I want to. I am fearful that my care-free gorging days are over, because I’m pretty sure I ate something that I’m allergic to. A few days ago my lips blew up, and then hives broke out over the bottom half of my face. It itched and burned and I had never had anything like this happen to me before, so I called the Peace Corps medical office. They said I probably ate something that I reacted to, and to take some Benadryl and drink a lot of water. I followed the doctor’s orders, and the burning/itching has mostly stopped and my face is slowly returning to normal. The meds have been making me drowsy, but I think I’m done taking them, so I can return back to my regular life.

This turn of events is pretty sad, because I’m suspicious that the papaya I ate caused the reaction. L That papaya was DELICIOUS, what do you mean I can’t eat anymore? I’m going to play it safe and stay away from mangoes because I’m afraid of breaking out again. Let me tell you why that is tragic: it’s mango season. There are mangoes EVERYWHERE. ALL OF THE TREES IN MY TOWN ARE MANGO TREES AND THE MANGOES LOOK DELICIOUS. It’s like giving a shopaholic a credit card with no limit. It’s like I’m an alcoholic living a bar. What kind of world IS this? Either way, I’m not COMPLETELY sure it was the mango that made me break out, I’m just suspicious. I’m just going to carry Benadryl in my bag from now on in case I accidentally consume the allergen again. . .since I’m not really sure what I’m allergic to. I don’t really want to have an allergy, because that means I’m not invincible anymore. L I haven’t had allergies since I was little.

Thus wraps a week of exhaustion. Between traveling to Platanilla to interpret and taking meds that make me drowsy, I am BEAT! I’m teaching the little kids tomorrow and then I’ll probably spend the day running errands and pasearing. I’ll be going over the university for the first time on Saturday (yay!). Other than that, next week is the break between trimesters, so there is no school. I have zero plans for that week, so we’ll see what I come up with to make my week interesting before we begin the new trimester.

I want to give another shout out to my Dad for keeping up with my life. I talked to my sister on the phone today (I needed to update her on my facial situation) and she mentioned that my dad has been consistently reading my blog. Kudos to you! I’ll try and keep updated pretty consistently.

Much love to everyone at home in the Carolinas! I miss you guys!

*Side note/anecdote: When I crossed that bridge on the bus the other day, the bus got stuck. We all had to get out of the bus, push it across, and get back on. I’m glad that happened on a bus with Panamanians and not with the army people. The Panamanians were griping about how the politicians need to do more for Darien and how this situation was a perfect illustration of that point, but they’re allowed to do that. This is their country and they can talk junk about their politicians all they want.