I stay on your radio station cuz I’m based in heavy rotations

My last blog post was only on Monday, but when you’ve just moved to site in Peace Corps, a week seems like forever. New things happen all the time.

What happened this week? A lot of things. Things that I want to share on this blog:

DISCLAIMER: I'm warning you right now, this blog post is REALLY SCATTERBRAINED. I'm not going to apologize for who I am, but I do apologize if you actually try to sit down and read this post and find that it's a frustrating experience.

First, pasearing success is beginning to happen. On Tuesday I randomly met a woman (Maribel) that works at the radio station here in town, Voz sin Frontera, which is by FAR the most popular station in Darien. It’s a Catholic radio station, and the community uses it in a different way that we use radio in Charlotte, where I’m from. Members of the community can pay to put announcements over the radio for different events that are happening in various places in the Darien. Peace Corps uses the radio if they need to track down volunteers in remote places because EVERYBODY listens to Voz sin Frontera. They also do things like have prayers over the radio in addition to doing things that every radio station does, like play music (mostly típico).

            Anybody that knows me knows that I think radio is mad cool. I grew up listening to Power 98 in Charlotte ever since I was in elementary school. Every morning from elementary school all the way through high school, I was listening to Power 98 while I was getting dressed in the morning, and once I started driving, I was listening to it in the car on the way to school. I always thought it would be REALLY COOL to be a Radio DJ for a day (I tell people that all the time). Naturally, when I found out that the woman I had just met was a radio announcer at the radio station, I told her how much I loved my radio station growing up. She invited me to come visit her at work, so I did that.

            A few days later I showed up to visit her at work, and I met some of the other people that work at the station. They all seem to be really nice people, and I had some good laughs chilling with them for a little while. One of them (Corina) speaks English—she studied environmental studies in Oregon for two years. I hear through the grapevine that she’s worked with an agriculture Peace Corps Vounteer before. She invited me to come to her house to practice speaking English. I will be taking her up on that. Yay for making friends!

            Anyway, before I left, Maribel invited me to come over on Sunday morning to be interviewed on the radio. Needless to say, I was pumped. When I came back on Sunday morning (this morning), there was a lady cleaning up and she talked to me about Ghandi and Jainism and how she tries not to kill the bugs when she cleans up because Ghandi says you shouldn’t kill bugs. Then she asked me a little bit about myself and asked how she could continue to improve her English level beyond the basic proficiency she has now. Random! It’s always nice to randomly meet people. Being a Peace Corps Volunteer does that; I have to remember not to be on autopilot or to put the blinders on when I’m trying to get something done, otherwise I miss out on cool conversations like that one.

            Anywaaaaaay, I went into the booth with Maribel to wait for a good moment for the interview. I watched her read off a bunch of announcements for the community and play some Samy y Sandra, and then it was time for the interview!

            She put me in the next room with a microphone, and then we kind of just started to converse on-air about what Peace Corps is, what my job is, and how I’m adjusting to life in Darien. Maribel is awesome, so it made the interview super easy. For anybody out there that loves the sound of their own voice, I highly recommend being interviewed on the radio. It’s the best. Afterward, was SUPER excited to have done the interview. You know how when you’re excited or angry or frustrated, your second language won’t really come out anymore? I literally had to stop and mentally translate how to tell Maribel that I had a BLAST at the radio station. She told me to come back any time. J Voz sin Frontera gets so many cool points for opening their doors to me. I’m thinking I want to make friends with everybody at the station; it’s a pretty cool place to be.

            When I left the station after the interview, the guy that works selling things at the stand on the corner was like “North Carolina? You’re a foreigner?” He had heard me on the radio talking about my hometown. He had seen me several times and I always wave and say hi, but he never knew that I wasn’t from here. I just thought that was a hilarious interaction. He then welcomed me to Darien, so that was nice. I have plenty of funny stories accumulating about how people don’t realize that I’m not from Panama until I tell them. If you want to hear some, hit me up.

            Other than that, things I’ve done include teaching English to tiny people (kids between the ages of 3-5). We sang “If You’re Happy and you Know It,” with a sing-along video and I’ve been creating some visual aids to bring along next week, as well as planning for other activities.

            I spent some time hanging out with my regional leader the other day. She’s really cool, so it’s sad that she’s getting replaced in a month, when she finishes up her service and heads back home. We talked a lot about future volunteer sites, about Peace Corps life, and about Peace Corps Panama in general. She also taught me a little bit of Darien geography, so that’s helpful to get my bearings on everything.

            I went to church this morning and my host mom introduced me to everyone at the end of service during announcements. That was nice of her. I don’t really know how to do the ‘church talk’ thing in Spanish (my church people, you know what I mean), so I probably sounded a little too formal when I addressed everyone, but hey, they meant well and they clapped for me.  There were unformed officers in church, by the way. . .I was not expecting that. I guess the po-po need Jesus, too.

            The US Army is in Darien! They’re here doing a medical mission. They do this from time to time, providing pediatric care and gynecology and internal medical attention and various things like that. I’m planning on helping out with their project, basically just serving as an interpreter. Over the next couple of weeks they’ll be in various communities, so I think it’ll be fun to tag along and be bilingual in ways that help people.

             Other important events? I bought an auxiliary cord so now I can pump music through the radio my host sister won at BINGO. It's improving my quality of life.

            Other than that, I’ll be continuing to pasear. It’s Sunday afternoon right now, so I’m about to get out there. I’ve got two houses on my list to go visit, so from there I’m sure I’ll find some more. Woo-hoo meeting people!!!