Site Placement!

Hanging out at the Ranchero

Yesterday most of us (in CED) bused to Santiago, the capitol of the province of Veraguas (4 hours from Panama city), where we´ll be staying in a hotel for the next week during technical training. I´m pretty stoked, since Veraguas is going to be my province for the next two years, so it´s a great opportunity to get to know the capitol. My site, which was announced last Wednesday, is a town of 5,000 people close to Santiago and my job will be to work with two local youth co-ops, helping them to organize their members and, hopefully, become profitable. I´ll have electricity and running water, though I don´t know if that means indoor plumbing or latrines and outdoor showers. Either is fine with me, latrines aren´t nearly as bad as I thought they would be and outdoor showers are really refreshing. There is something about staring up at the stars when you take a shower that is very peaceful.

I´m glad to be out of our training town for a little while, but I think I´m going to miss the kids in my house. Speaking of the kids, Gabriel is on the left. He´s 10 and has the greatest smile. I need to get a better picture of him.. I just love him! Iran is 12 and is great but also nearing the teen years so he can be a little sullen sometimes. And Irania (7), on Iran´s shoulders, is really sweet. I couldn´t have asked for better host siblings. I wish you could all meet them.

The bird pictured in the last post is pretty little, maybe the size of a cockatiel, but this one is a fullsized parot. He´s only 10 months old and he´s got a lot of attitude, but he´s cool. He lives in the backyard of my grandma´s house next door.

The other day, at our regular training schedule at the ranchero (which is oustide under a thatched roof) these monkeys came to eat some rice. They´re pretty small, maybe the size of a small cat, and really ugly. The picture isn´t very good, but you get the idea. They were about 10 feet from us, chattering and eating. Their faces are kind of a cross between a bulldog and a bat.

I got emails about the need for more photos so I´m trying to oblige. Unfortunately I don´t whip out my camera nearly enough. Here´s a picture of some of my group last night, though. That´s Joanna (her, Logan, and I are sharing a room), Lydia, Me, Michael, and Coco. We kind of feel like we´re on vacation. We´re staying in a hotel with air-conditioning, cable television (in English!), great food, and a swimming pool! So last night was a bit of a party. It felt so good. We´re kept pretty busy in training and we really really needed a break.

After this week we´re headed to Cera Punta in the Chiriqui province in the mountains. It will be awesome because it´s colder up there. This heat and humidity is a killer, though we are definitely adapting. We´ll be in Cera Punta for a couple of days for a sector conference and then we go to our respective provinces for culture training for a week. So I´ll be returning to Veraguas and then heading to a small village in the south that, I believe, is pretty close to the beach. Surprisingly, given how much beach Panama has, I have not yet been to the coast. I am really looking forward to it. I´ll be sure to take some more pictures!