Quick Update

Quick update for anybody wanting to know.

After two days of PST, all of the other Group 72 trainees and I were about ready to go insane from sitting in the same room for ours and listening to common sense info presentations about safety and security. Today was our first day escaping the bubble a little bit. We visited a current TE volunteer's site about 2 hours outside of the city. Her site was AMAZING. I would feel lucky to get a placement that's anything like that site, and I'm sure a lot of my fellow trainees felt the same way, so we're all kind of pumped about getting site placements in the future.

We also went to the bus terminal yesterday, which was attached to a ridiculously large mall. The bus terminal itself looked like a mall, and then there was the actual mall. We ate dinner there, so what did I have? Sbarro. Yes, Ebony, I came to Panama to eat Sbarro. Guess what else they have in the mall? A MUSIC STORE! Think Music & Arts. In a mall. I'm not even kidding. There was a guy that worked behind the counter there that left me very confused, because I'm not sure why his English was so good. There's also an internet place in the mall where you can pay $1 for an hour of internet. I paid like $.40 to get on for 15 minutes, because I just wanted to check my email and get on Facebook a little.

So for now, it's time to move into our host families, where we'll be living for the next nine weeks during pre-service training. I'm excited to get to move in so that I can actually meet and talk to some Panamanians. Up until now, since I've been in the bubble among my fellow trainees, I haven't had as much of an opportunity to meet locals, so I'm pumped about meeting my host family. Hopefully it'll go well.

In further news, Panama dusted Jamaica today on their way toward potentially earning a spot in the tournament for the World Cup. According the guy I was talking to that serves our meals in the villa, they'll play again on Wednesday against the winner of the Mexico-El Salvador match. It'd be cool to get into a little more soccer while I'm here. For one thing, sporting events are good conversation starters, and I'm looking to befriend some locals.

Anyway, right now I should be packing up my things to make the move to the host family tomorrow, so I'll get to that and try and keep you all updated from time to time in the meantime. Thanks for reading the blog! Comment if you have any questions about my life so far in Panama. :)

--Aja