My Mommy Made Pork Chops

This is just a blog post just to let everyone know that I’m alive. PST keeps going and I’m still getting through it all. The highlights of this past week include the banging food that my mom makes me. She made pork chops a couple of days ago. For those of you who don’t know, I love pork in all its forms and pork chops are pretty much my favorite food. So not only did she make pork chops, but they were delicious pork chops. It was the most delicious thing I’ve had in Panama thus far, and that’s saying something, because my host mom is pretty much the best cook in Panama Oeste.

Also, all of us Volunteers (TE, at least) are starting to get a little antsy to find out about our site placements. We’ve had our site placement interviews already, and word on the street is that the program coordinators know our placements already. . .they just won’t tell us anything until April 5^th. There’s also some bochinche about how many sites are in certain provinces, but until April 5^th, all we can do is spread bochinche and speculate.

Other than that, nothing too much to report. Life is super good in Santa Rita, and at the same time I realized that I have never been so spoiled in my life. For the last four weeks straight somebody has actually been making sure I eat and that I do my laundry (whaaaat??). The next couple of weeks should be interesting (Tech Week, where we get to present in front of an actual Panamanian classroom and finding out site placements, aka where we’ll be living for the next two years), so look out for that. Until then, I’ll be in touch!

--Aja

Volunteer Site Visit

Soooooo I recently returned to my training community after my 4-day site visit with a current volunteer. During Pre-Service Training, each trainee takes a trip to visit with another Peace Corps Volunteer in Panama so that we have a little bit more of a concrete idea of what volunteer life might be like, and so that each of us has a better idea of what we’re looking for as far as site placement.

For my visit, I didn’t have to travel very far at all. On the way out, one of my tios picked me up in his taxi and gave me a ride out to where I could catch the bus more easily (small town pay-offs, man). I met the volunteer (Lauren) at a Dairy Queen, we shopped in the supermarket for groceries, and then headed to her site, just outside of Chorrera.

Her living situation was pretty sweet as far as rural Panama life goes. She has consistent running water and electricity AND indoor plumbing (woop, woop!). Her toilet actually flushes. Fancy stuff. Only you can’t throw toilet paper in the toilet bowl. (Flashbacks to Beijing, anyone?) She can also see the city lights of Chorrera from her house, and at the same time she doesn’t live in the city. Best of both worlds. Less craziness, but easy access to a larger supermarket with a wider variety of food/things for the house.

As far as the actual visit, I had a great time! I visited Lauren’s school several times and sat in on classes (that was super fun, kids are a mess). I met some of her co-teachers (one was out sick so I couldn’t meet all of them) and they all seemed like great people to work with. I hope I luck out that way. Also, one of her co-teachers randomly announced to the class that I graduated from the same university where Michael Jordan played (#goheelsgoamerica). I did not tell him that, he brought up that info on his own. P.S. Everybody here knows where North Carolina is, because they all have family there. One lady told me her daughter is in grad school at d00k studying Social Work. Small world.

. . .back to the visit. Yea, the school was cool. The kids asked me a million questions. After figuring out that I was American just like ‘ticher’ (Lauren), one of the students confessed to me in a whisper that he ‘creía que todos eran blanquitas como ella.’ (He thought all Americans where white like Lauren.) Guess he learned something new that day! The kids were really sweet to me, and super curious. I lucked out on visiting some cool classrooms.

Outside of work related stuff, our adventures including hiking for a few hours, attending an awesome community BINGO fundraiser, and watching Rogers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella (yes, the one with Brandy and Whitney Houston and yes, we sang along zealously). That trip was SO RELAXING after the daily grind that is PST.

One the way back, the small town life continues to pay dividends. When I got back to the bus stop near my community, I waited there for about 20 minutes to try and catch a chiva back into town when some of my neighbors come rolling by. They stopped the car and yelled my name out the window to get my attention, and I’m just like sweet, free ride. Aja loves the people and the people love her. People can be universally awesome sometimes.

Upon returning to my training community, my lack of patience with PST classes continues to amaze me, and at the same time, I couldn’t be happier to be here. My classes do tend to burn my fuse pretty short, but outside of class, my life is awesome. I have yet to run into any difficulties with my host family (even when I accidentally locked myself out of my room; we got a neighborhood kid to crawl over the cement wall into my room). I’m telling you, I’m living the life over here, yo.

P.S. also también además I went to go holla at my tía (aunt) again today. I had randomly met her when I happened to randomly interview her for a classroom assignment (that’s how I found out that she’s my aunt). She is the AWESOMEST PERSON EVER! You know how once in awhile, you meet those people that are so refreshing, because they’re not disillusioned by anything and actually have their own ideas and opinions and know how to express them logically and objectively? Yea, that’s my tía. She living the small town life, but she’s got big world thoughts in her head. People like that amaze me, I wanna be like her when I grow up, fa sho. Also, she totally sticks up for me. She was backing me up when I was explaining my slight frustration that sometimes foreigners (less so in Panama; moreso in my experiences in Asia) don’t seem to understand that I’m just as much American as the blue-eyed blonde girls they see. Also, she totally provided all the smart-alec responses to block for me when the guy who cuts the coconuts (pipas) from her tree was tryna spit game at me. And by spit game I just mean just straight up tell me I’m pretty, ask for my number (I don’t have a cell BOW!), and ask me when we’re gonna get married, ya know, classic Panamanian style. Tía’s there with all right answers: PEACE CORPS DOESN’T ALLOW THEM TO HAVE CELL PHONES (which is a lie), YOU CAN’T CALL HER (which is true), SHE’S NOT INTERESTED IN YOU, YOU’RE JUST A FRIEND, NADA MáS (also true).

Segue: I watched this guy scale a tree trunk better than a monkey (like, a palm tree, meaning no branches, just trunk), with a machete tied to his waist. When he got to the top, he cut all the coconuts off the tree, so it was raining coconuts for a minute. Then he hacked one open so I could drink the juice out. Then my tío/G72 homie decides he wants to be cool, too, so he hacked open a coconut without cutting his hand off (good job, Paul) and also climbed the tree about a foot just to see if he could do it.

Yea, pretty good morning. After that, I went to class, so ya know, same old, same old. Same stuff, different day, ya know how that goes. We’ve got about three weeks until we find out where our site placements are, so we’re just beginning to feel a little anxious about that. Until then, we’ll keep plugging through these classes! I’ll keep you all updated!

--Aja

Birthday Post!

Hello friends!

I had to make sure I wrote another blog post pretty quickly, because my birthday just passed two days ago! (I turned 23.) It was an AMAZING birthday, thanks to my friends and family in Panama.

First, for the morning, the trainees had an assignment that involved taking public transport to Panama City and finding various landmarks and answering questions, just to get us a little bit of familiarity with traveling around the city. We formed groups of six and, although my group did get a little bit lost a couple of times, I would call the trip a success.  We finished the assignment, headed back to the mall to eat lunch and walk around/chill out a little bit, and then we bussed it back to the training community. (note: Those buses are 

NOT made to accommodate legs.)

After I got back home, I knew something was up because my mom kept grinning at me with this weird look on her face. (Clearly she’s not adept at secretive activities, haha.) I took a mid-afternoon shower since I had spent the morning sweating, more or less, and then headed across the street to hang out with one of my fellow trainees and some Panamanian neighbors. Eventually, I headed back to the house eat dinner/hang out with some neighborhood kids and then the suspicious activity hopped into overdrive when my mom was like “Aja, come on!” and I’m like “Where?” and she’s like “Up there!” So I followed everybody to my abuelos’s porch. THEY GOT ME A CAKE! IT HAD MY NAME ON IT! I never get my own birthdays, so I was really psyched. There were also balloons. I felt so special.

Until now, I haven’t mentioned that my uncle/fellow trainee Paul is TERRIBLE at lying. (He had told me earlier that day that he didn’t know it was my birthday. Clearly that was a lie.) I thought this might be a chill eat-some-cake event until he was like “Yup, just a family gathering.” Then I’m like OH MY GOSH THE GRINGOS ARE COMING. Almost all of my Group 72ers came to hang out on my abuelos’s porch and wish me a happy birthday! It was awesome. There was food and beverages and children trying to show off and be cute for the guests and it was a PERFECT way to wrap up week 1 of training and it was an AWESOME birthday.

Everybody kept saying how awesome my Panamanian family is, and I’m just like yup. That’s my grandpa that just whipped out that accordion and played happy birthday. (Also we have an actual toilet that flushes, so people think that’s pretty awesome.)

After the party was over, I found out about the orchestration of the whole party, how a bunch of people in my training group had known about the party and had thrown in a couple dollars to buy things for it. Shout out to Group 72 for being awesome, to my Panamanian family for being the baddest Kennedy-family stand-in this country has to offer, and to Paul for being the coolest tio ever! You guys are cool.

--Aja

In which I realize I've moved to York, SC

Hello friends and fam!

It’s only been a week, but I feel like so much has happened, and I haven’t blogged about any of it. I’ll try to pick up where I left off.

I’m in Pre-Service Training now, and I’ve moved in with a host family in the training community. First of all, I want to say that my host family is AWESOME! I was a little tired and frustrated about being in a bubble with a group of Americans (aka not in a good mood) when I left to go move in with my host family, but they totally made my day from Day 1. I have a young host mom (she’s 25) and a dad (he’s 30), and I have one little brother (he’s about 17 months old). My grandparents live right in front of the house, so I kind of have 2 houses to hang out in. One of my fellow PC trainees live in the grandparents’ house, so he’s my uncle now. J It’s kind of cool that I have another PCT in the fam.

On the first day, my hermanito (little brother) had no idea who I was and was kind of weirded out by me, but by Day 2 he warmed up to me. Now he looks for me and follows me around a little when he wakes up in the morning. He’s adorable (and spoiled!) and I talk to him a lot in English and feed him some of my food whenever I’m eating.

As soon as I first moved in and met my family, my mom was like “Do you like the river? We’re going to the river. Go change!” I changed as fast as I could, and when I was done, she’s like “Aja, come here. Tell Christopher (the other volunteer) to hurry up! Tell him in English!” Hahaha. She’s always like that. She runs stuff. So basically on the first day, I spent hours swimming in the river, and eating beside the river and chilling with the family. They also had a cooler of beer, and instead of leaving the river to go get a beer, they just yell to whoever’s by the cooler to throw a few cold ones in the river so they can enjoy a brew from the comfort of the water. I told my host mom that my sister would be SO JEALOUS. Ebi’s over there studying pharmacy and I’m just chillin’ in the rio.

The kids in my neighborhood are awesome, too. They remind me of my childhood. They misbehave so much. I like hanging out with them. Some of them are my cousins (you know how it is, in a small town you’re related to everyone). One of them (6 year old) likes to run around in his underwear and play in dirt all day. He always grills me about where I’ve been and where I’m going. That kid is feisty, don’t let the cute face fool you! (He is a cutie pie!) My other little neighbor that lives across the street is 15 years old, and she’s my favorite. She seems like a smart little girl. We painted toenails together the other day, and then another little boy let me paint two of his toenails after I asked.

So yea, the home life is awesome, I really lucked out, the host family is amazing. (My grandpa plays the accordion.) Actual classes (pre-service training) are really tedious so far, but we’re plugging through it. Homework is starting to pile up (I thought we decided I WASN’T going to grad school?), but I’m trying to stay on top of it. My fellow G72 PCTs are amazing, still, so I’m really happy to be going through PST with a cool group of people.

I also don’t want to leave this blog post without mentioning that I LIVE IN YORK, SC, PANAMA. If you are from York and you speak a little bit of Spanish, come to my training community and you will not realize that you’ve gone anywhere. There’s a serious universality about small-town culture that I totally get, since my fam is from York, so I feel like adjusting to life here is not anywhere the adjustment it is for my fellow volunteers. They think it’s strange that people sit on their porches all day and watch people go by, or that everybody in the town knows that you went to the basketball court yesterday afternoon, or that you greet everybody you pass on the street, even if you don’t them. I’m like, dude, this information is automatic, I was born into this life. Shout to everybody in the 803 for unknowingly preparing me for PC Panama life. The parallel was further drawn when I was sitting at dinner and realized that my mom’s “chicha” is pretty much Kool-Aid. Yea, it’s like that.

I’ll try to do a better job about making notes of things as they happen so that I can give you guys a little bit more exciting account of what I’m up to. I’ll be in Panama City tomorrow (for my birthday), also I’m pretty sure my mom and my fellow-trainee/uncle are planning something for my birthday tomorrow, because they’re not good at being secretive at all. Should be a pretty good intro into the 23^rd year of life.

Alright, chicos, stay in contact! Comment on the blog, email me, Facebook message me, whatever. If you have any questions about my life, hit me up on the blog! Eventually I’ll try and call or Skype home or something. My internet here is kind of slow, but maybe once I settle into life here a little more (with the pace of training classes and all), I’ll prioritize trying to call home.

Love you all!

Aja