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