First Week Done

I’m going to warn you right now, this is not the most interesting blog post.

Quick Update. Finished the first week of school. I’m coming in at the end of a trimester and on the cusp of some events coming up (Black Culture Festival, Spelling Bee, English Week), so the schedule is pretty hectic. Other than that, everything seems to be going fine so far, I just have to realize that it’s going to be awhile before my primary project actually starts HAPPENING. Other than that, I do have secondary project that may be budding, so knock on wood for that.

In regular life, for the past week I have admittedly been spending WAY too much time inside my room, reason being that for some strange reason, I have been all kinds of EXHAUSTED for the past week. It may be a combination of adjusting to a new place (which always makes me tired) and the HOT (when it’s this hot outside, the word hot becomes a noun). Now that I’ve been here for a week, I have vowed to myself to get outside more during the next week. I did walk around some this past week, but not nearly enough. Pasear is the name of the game, I need to meet some people!

I did meet some of the Peace Corps Volunteers in the Darien during the past week, which was cool. A group of them came through my city and hung out at a restaurant down the way, so that was a great opportunity to meet some of my Peace Corps colleagues in the area. I need to meet some Panamanians, though, fa real.

If anybody’s wondering how my pest situation is progressing—it’s getting worse. I couldn’t tell you how many giant flying cockroaches I have killed in the past two days. (Are they cicadas? I’m unsure. I just know they need to die.) My garbage is filled with them. ALSO the giant rat I saw? I’m pretty sure there are AT LEAST two of them. I saw another slightly smaller one with a long tail crawling above my wall last night. And then I heard noises coming from the corner again. Falling asleep last night was a little more difficult, because I kept replaying horror stories I’ve heard of Volunteers waking up with mice in their bed. Not tryna let that be me. It’s a 1984 type situation. I haven’t decided if I think this is a big enough problem to warrant me getting some mice traps from the tienda and actually DEALING with the situation, or if I’d rather just let it ride and live symbiotically with my new roommates. Maybe I’ll give them names?

Side note, though: mosquito nets are a gift from the gods. Continuing on. . .

Welp, I got plenty of sleep this weekend, so if I get a little bit of laundry done today, I should be all ready to go for school tomorrow! Wish me luck!