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The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government or the Peace Corps.

19 February 2011

Macaras!!

Not a dance.

Not an instrument.

My home!

This is not your typical “Peace Corps” town.  Macaracas is the cabecera (district capital) of its region, meaning there are main roads that go to it, ample resources, and a decent amount of people (about 9,000, to be exact).  By Peace Corps Panama standards, this is big. There is water.  And electricity.  Possibly internet. According to the information I received, there is ample opportunity for collaboration with teachers and projects that could be set up. 

One of the most exciting parts about it, though, is that I my region is AWESOME.  Los Santos is located in the Azuero peninsula, which if you’re looking at the map of Panama is the peninsula that juts down towards Colombia on the south-west side of the country.  Los Santos, in particular, is THE region for carnaval celebrations, which are coming up very soon.  Aside from their reputation as major rumberos (partiers), the region is also known for its deep respect for traditions, and is also home to some of the biggest folk festivals in Panamá.  There are four other volunteers in my province, and I’m about an hour away from a beach on either side of the peninsula.  The Azuero is also the driest region in Panamá, so my desert upbringing will not go to waste out in my site.  The good news?  Apparently, my town is a bit higher up, close to the mountains in the Herrera province.  Just like home!

On the menu for this week?  On Wednesday, all of the trainees in my group will be heading to Metetí in the Darien province for Tech Week.  We’ll be living in the town and putting to work everything we’ve learned so far in the form of teaching, meeting, and working with teachers that are getting ready for the start of the school year on February 28th.  I’m excited--the Darien has its reputation for awesome scenery, and I hope I get a chance to hike around in some of it between all the training.

17 February 2011

Happenings.

And weeks pass by without me even dando cuenta (realizing it).

Yesterday marked the end of a seven day English camp that the volunteers in my community and I put together. The people in Rio Congo were great to get to know and I love feeling like I see familiar faces when I walk around town now.  Another fun change is that salutations have changed from just "buenas" to a fun mix of Spanish and "hello," "what's up," and "see ya later."  The "camp" was organized into three hour and a half sessions per day, and with each session came a group of kids (5-11), teens (12-18), and adults.  I was in the group working with teens, which gave me the chance to put my camp counselor/ultimate frisbee games knowledge to serious work.   I´m exhausted, but happy we did it! 

Life in town continues to be normal, but with one major event coming up....TOMORROW WE FIND OUT OUR SITES!!  No one is concentrating today. Including me.

That announcement made, I´ll be updating very, very soon with the exciting news...stay tuned!


P.S.  Apologies again for the lack of photos.  I´m working on it!

05 February 2011

Visita!

Last week, our second week in country, all 42 of us got to go on a vacation!  That is, we all went to visit different volunteers in their sites to get a feel for real life and a sense of what kinds of challenges and environments we´ll be encountering once we´re on our own.  I went to a small community called Bonyik, up in the Bocas del Toro province, which is mostly known as one of the THE Panamanian vacation destinations thanks to an archipelago of gorgeous islands.  We weren´t on those islands, but inland, closer to Costa Rica.  The community is actually part of the indigenous tribe Nasso, and has about 250 people in it.

Nikki, our host, lives in a house on stilts that she built with the help of her community during her first few months in site:

She has no running water or electricity, so instead we bathed and washed clothes in the river nearby, which I was going to include a photo of here...until the computer in the internet cafe stopped letting me upload!  The next post will hopefully include more photos.  Other highlights of daily activities included: serious hammock sitting, cutting down a Cacao plant from the tree out side her house and snacking on the fruit inside, making chocolate tip from locally refined bittersweet chocolate, learning how to make my own hammock (oh yes, yes I did), and going to bed shortly after the sun went down.

Nikki has been in her community for about a year and a half, and her primary project is working with community members from her community and surrounding ones to organize a transportation cooperative in order to bring transportation for the people, by the people up and down the road leading to all the communities there.  We attended several organizational meetings with them, and ended our trip at a fiesta the group threw to raise money.  I got to feast on some delicious arroz con pollo and sopa, dance, and play some volleyball before hopping on the bus back home.

It´s hard to say how close this community was to the communities my group will be working with, since the whole face of the English teaching project in Panama has changed.  The previous groups have been both teaching English and doing tourism advising, which runs the gamut in terms of project options.  Our job is much more specific to teaching.  I will most likely not be in a community so remote or small, but in a larger community with a MEDUCA (Ministry of Education) school in it.  In any case, the scenery in Bonyik was beautiful, and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing a community in action--a nice break from the grind of training!