Site Visit Continued. . .
Today was my first day visiting the school where I’m
going to be working on my primary project for the next two years. It was a
pretty regular day. I hung around the school for the morning, walking around
with my counterpart and meeting some of the teachers and administrators. They
all seemed nice and welcoming. I sat in on some classes. Since they’ve had a
Peace Corps Volunteer before, they had an idea of the work that I was there to
do. I also happened to sit in on a meeting that my counterpart was helping to
lead. Evidently there will be a Black Heritage Festival act school next month,
so. . .that’s pretty cool. Also, one of the Spanish teachers at the school gave
me a book that his 10th graders are reading. I thought that was
pretty cool. The theme of the book interests me (income disparities between the
rich and poor, I mean duh, I’m in the Peace Corps), and it’s a light read for a
native speaker, so it’s on a level that I wouldn’t find too taxing to read as a
second language learner.
After school, I walked home with my host mom and
host sister (my host mom is a 1st grade teacher and my host sister
is in 2nd grade at the school). On the way home, I stuck my head in
the USAID office that is RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET FROM MY HOST MOM’S HOUSE
WHAT?!? (Translation for confused readers: USAID=US Agency for International
Development, Google it.) Office is a term that I used loosely. It’s essentially
a room on the side of a restaurant that has the USAID sign out front. I went in
and there was one guy typing on a computer. Since I was already dressed up in
teacher clothes, I wanted to go introduce myself while wearing my snazzy Peace
Corps Panama shirt, so I did that. The USAID guy seemed very receptive to
meeting me, so we exchanged contact information after talking about some of the
projects that USAID has going on in Darien. I hope we’ll be able to work
together in the future, and that seems like a definite possibility. (Definite
possibility. . .that’s an oxymoron. Anyway. . .)
After that, I ate some arroz con pollo for my lunch
really fast (I put ketchup on it in true Panamanian fashion), and then I went
to go meet my regional leader to essentially pasear and get to know the
community a little better. It is super helpful having her here. We walked over to
the house that I’m going to try and rent after my 3 months living with the host
family, and it seems like that housing situation should work out pretty well.
The house is pretty spacious, has running water pretty frequently, has
electricity, and is pretty cheap to rent. I saw the house and everything (a
previous Peace Corps Volunteer lived there) and my regional leader talked to
the landlord and I have his number, so it seems like things are falling into
place as far as that’s concerned. (Knock on wood!) I also met my ‘alternative’
host mom, aka the mom of the backup host family that I would move into should
things not work out with my current host family for some reason.
After that, we went over to my regional leader’s
house. She has a pretty SWEET setup in a gorgeous house. She got super lucky
renting that place out. She lives with a Peace Corps Response Volunteer who is
a former Peace Corps Panama Volunteer. (No, I don’t wanna explain the
difference. Google it!) We chilled in the Regional Leader’s house for awhile,
and then she showed me where the Post Office is. FYI, if you wanna mail me a
letter or something, it’s SUPER easy. Ask me for the address and I’ll give it
to you. It’s so easy it’s kind of dumb. You just put my name on it with the
city, province and country and I can literally go get it from the post office
in a couple of weeks. The post office is never busy, which is nice, but they
are also super slow. With no patrons in the post office, it still took about 15
minutes for the postal worker to put a stamp on my Regional Leader’s letter so
that it could go to the US. Efficiency at its finest is pretty humbling to
behold.
Other than that, I talked to my dad today. Shout out
to Anthony Kennedy for 1) Picking up the phone. I only had to call twice for
him to pick up the phone. 2) Paying attention to me long enough to hold a
conversation. Daddy, your attention span KILLS me, sometimes. 3) Actually
having read my blog. I was pleasantly surprised when he referenced it in
conversation and asked me how my site was. Good job, Dad, you win brownie
points today!
Alright, kiddos, that’s all I got for you all today.
I go back to my training community in a couple of days to wrap up training. In
a couple of weeks, I’ll return and be out here in the Darien for good, and
that’s when the work starts!
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