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 23rd 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
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