It's Tech Week

Sooooo I’m in Cocle. It’s Tech Week for Panama Teaching English Trainees (Group 72, woop woop!). We’re having Tech Week in Cocle, which means for four days, we’re with some of the English teachers in the region to observe them, help them lesson plan and co-teach. This morning I feel like I reached Nirvana. Due to unforeseen circumstances, I found myself observing with one of my fellow trainees in a kindergarten classroom—this teacher I observed is the supreme being of kindergarten teachers. She is amazing. The best thing that I would’ve probably been able to do to done to help her was to help her improve her level of English, so I gave her like two tips on things she could change about the way she was saying a couple of phrases in class and she picked it up IMMEDIATELY. This woman is amazing. I want to BE her. She said she really wants to go to the United States and learn more English, and I think she’d be a great candidate for that. She’s already a fantastic teacher, so more English would not only help her, but it would help all the cute little tiny people that she teaches every day.

In other news, I’m not sure I realized how attached I was to my family in Santa Rita until I came out here to Cocle. My host fam here in Cocle is nice, but there’s nothin’ like my Santa Rita host mom yellin’ at me that I didn’t eat enough or my little host brother constantly trying to jack my clipboard when I’m trying to do homework. When I was leaving to catch my bus to Cocle, my cousin’s like “Ajaaaaaaa no te vayaaaaas.” I was like, let’s keep it real, I don’t ACTUALLY feel like going, I just want to stay here in this hammock with you guys. Alas, duty calls. I came to Panama to actually do work, so ya know how that goes. Sometimes you have to get out of the hammock. It’s a sad, sad reality.

Today I got to have the first extended conversation with someone from home that I’ve had in a while. Here with the host family in Cocle, the next door neighbors have unsecured Wifi (yea, it’s pretty fancy over there), so therefore I’m able to steal a pretty strong internet connection that allows me to Skype. I discovered this today. I got to talk with my sister (shout out 2/3!) about the awesome MGK concert she went to (jealous). I also gave her a crash course on some light Panamanian geography (the little that I’ve picked up since I’ve been there, ya know, naming the regions and such) and then I told her to focus some energy on getting me a placement in Veraguas, Herrera or Los Santos. Group 72 finds out our site placements this Friday. For those of you who don’t know what site placement means, it means that this Friday I find out where I’m going to be living for the next TWO YEARS. If you’re reading this, feel free to bust out a map of Panama (via Google) and just pray or do whatever you gotta do to get me where I want as far as placement goes. At this point, all I know is that’s it’s not Cocle. . .because the directors of the Teaching English Project are torturing us with hints about our placement, and that’s the only hint I’ve got so far.

As far as training goes, I’ve got a lot of work to get done, but I think this may be the last batch of the assignments that I’ll really need to get through for training. I’ve got a paper to write and two presentations for next week, I’ve got to finish my little packet that I’ve got to turn in on Friday for Tech Week, and then I need to write a speech for the swear-in ceremony. (My G72 homies are awesome, when we found out someone’s gotta do a speech for swear-in, they’re like “Aja, you wanna do it?” and I’m like “Heck yes!” Only now that means I gotta write a speech.)

Ahhhh, well, all I can do is put some positive energy out there and hope for the best! I’m excited for what’s to come. ¡Dale, pues!