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!