Bienvenidas and Despedidas (Hellos and Goodbyes)

I would say that I’m continuing to settle in to Meteti life here. At the same time, around a week ago, I started getting a little cabin fever. Enter gringo* weekend.

I haven’t left site much at all during my first couple of months in site. I would attribute that less to my level of commitment as a volunteer and more to the fact that I refuse to sit in a freezing bus for 6 or 7 hours one-way just to get a taste of the city. (That’s not to say I’m not super-committed to my Peace Corps work.)

Because I haven’t really been out much during the past month, I felt that I was starting to get a little loopy. Good thing July 4^th happens to be Independence Day in my native country (USA! USA!). I told my co-workers and host family that I’d be out of school that day to celebrate with the gringos and got all my ducks in a row to be able to take the day off.

Worth it! It was especially great to see some of my G72ers (volunteers from my training group). I’ve missed those guys! Between July 4^th and my trip to La Palma, I felt refreshed and ready to work when I came back to Meteti.

Side note: I have also figured out how to get my hands on a map of Darien. I have been promised a giant map by the cartographer himself who has an office in Meteti. Those can be hard to come by. It took me awhile to figure out how to get one, and now I’m so excited! I like maps. I’m going to go so many cool places (when I’m on break from school, of course).

Furthermore, I met the previous volunteer that had lived in my site for two years. She’s on vacation from her teaching job in the States and came back to Meteti to visit this past week, since she missed the province so much. Hers is the house I’ll be renting when I move out of my host family’s house at the end of the month. I had heard a lot about Liz from people around town, who really loved her. I was excited to meet her because she’s kind of a Peace Corps cheat sheet, if you will.

Liz is really cool! I hate that I only met her four days ago and I already had to say goodbye. She was super helpful in helping me figure out my housing situation and just giving me tips on how to do this Peace Corps-Meteti thing in general. I mean, she WAS in my shoes a couple of years ago. We could have been bffs in an alternate universe in which both of us were in Peace Corps at the same time.

In addition to saying hello and goodbye to Liz in such a short time, I also had to say goodbye to my Regional Leader (RL), Molly, who finished up her service and headed back to the States this past weekend. Regional Leaders in Peace Corps Panama are volunteers who extend for a third year of service in order to be Coordinators for Peace Corps, kind of being Peace Corps’ arms and legs outside of the city, serving as a coordinator for a particular province of Panama. I happen to live in the same town as my Regional Leader, so I got to know her a little bit while she was here. She’s another person that I think I could be good friends with, so I hate that I had to say goodbye! She’s an awesome RL.

As far as the ‘hellos,’ I got to meet a few of the new Peace Corps Panama trainees that arrived in the country less than a month ago. They will be moving to their sites next month. This group will include about 10-11 new volunteers in my province  (since they are Sustainable Agriculture and Environmental Health volunteers, who tend to serve in more rural areas like Darien). Since not very many people from my training group live near me (I’m the farthest East), I’m really interested to see who in this new training group gets placed near me. These are the people I’ll be spending the next two years with, essentially.

In other news:

My mom in the States mailed me a huge package, so now I’ll be introducing Darien to American delicacies like Skittles and Cheez-Its.

I went on the radio again. This time, listeners were treated to a few bars of Katy Perry’s “Part of Me,” courtesy of yours truly. I wish I was kidding. I wish I could tell you it won’t happen again. I knew my knowledge of pop music lyrics would come in handy one day. I mean, I don’t know if I possess any skills more marketable than this, my knowledge of Katy Perry lyrics. I’m not proud of it.

*The word gringo is a little bit difficult to accurately translate into English, but for purposes of this blog post, gringos are Americans (fellow Peace Corps Volunteers).