Random Stuff

So, brief update on the house. The roof is being devoured by termites, which is lovely. And the termites have attracted scorpions. So far I've only seen itty bitty baby scorpions, about an inch long, which are actually kind of cute. But I just know that the mama scorpion has got to be out there somewhere...

On a lighter note, the elderly woman who lives across the street (Señora Bella) stopped by the other day to give me a stool and a broom. So now I have two stools and a chair- definitely moving up in the furniture department. My host mom also visited and brought me 2 plates, 3 bowls, a wooden spoon, and a wooden fork (for my "chinese noodles," she tells me - I have a thing for the ease and inexpensiveness of Top Ramen). Señora Bella also took me on a tour of my yard and showed me all my fruit trees that I knew nothing about. It turns out I have an orange tree (so delicious!), a grapefruit tree, and an avocado tree! Unfortunately, I'm not enamored with avocados but I give them to my neighbors which seems to ingratiate me to them- always a good thing. Apparently I have a variety of other trees with random Panamanian fruits that my host mom has been slowly introducing me to in an attempt to find one that I like. No surprise that I am still a picky eater and prefer to stick with the classics. Besides, when you have an orange tree in your backyard do you really need anything else?

I've got some random pictures to put up, in no particular order.

This first picture is pretty self-explanatory. My friend Cassie and I went to a Serpenteria and held some of Panama's biggest native snakes. It was pretty cool. There were also tarantulas but you'll notice there are no pictures of me holding one of those...A few weeks ago I went to Girl Scouts Camp where troupes from all over the country got together. I stayed in a tent with my host sister and three girls from our troupe of 12 year olds. It was a lot of fun though I was glad to leave after 2 days.








These are the girls I went to Girl Scouts camp with. On the far left is my host sister and on the far right is my host mom. We had a lot of fun and the girls are so sweet.









Every year the Girl Scouts in the 5-8 age group have a pageant to determine who will be the queen for that year. At first I didn't understand all of it and was concerned about it being a popularity contest but, after the girls did their ball gown walk and their dance routines they each chose a rose from a bouquet. One of the roses had a slip of paper inside announcing the new queen who turned out to be Stephanie (pronounced "estephanie"). She's the one in the pink dress on the right. Last year's queen, Anna Gabriella, is sitting behind them, in teal.


This is me and Helvia painting signs for the Ecoclub.








We then walked the couple of miles from the main highway to my town, putting up signs along the way. The signs promote responsible living, saying things like, "Without water, there is no life- conserve" or "Please don't litter". The kids came up with the sayings themselves and we put up 12 signs in total...






...including my favorite sign, which says "Bienvenidos a Atalaya, EcoClub, Amigos de la Tierra, Vive EcoClub" which means (as I'm sure you figured out), "Welcome to Atalaya. Ecoclub, Friends of the Earth. Long live EcoClub." I love that I see that sign every time I head home.

So, this is a bug that I saw the other day. How cool is he? It's like he has little brown and orange boots on his hind legs. The kids in my Ecoclub thought I was crazy to get such a kick out of him. I had to explain that we just don't have things like that in the states. I think they take for granted all of the amazing, beautiful butterflies they have in Panama, too.

This is my host mom's cat, Chirri. She calls him the Jefe (chief) of the house. He's a little brat because he scratches you if he's in a bad mood. But when he's feeling cuddly he is really cute. Generally people in Panama hate cats so it's kind of impressive that she has one and that she allows it indoors.




My host mom also has lots of ducks (patos). This little patito became the best friend of my host nephew Yosuet and his big sister Yumelis for a day.



This last two picture is to tempt you all to come visit me in beautiful Panama. This is the beach that the Decameron Resort sits on, right next to where I'm headed on Monday for a week of In Service Training. Rough life, right? Just remember, my door is always open!

My Own House!!

The long awaited day has finally arrived- I now have my own house! I think I've mentioned before that we are required by the Peace Corps to spend our first 6 months with host families and, yes, I have just reached the 6 month mark! For the past few weeks my friends and I have been leaving our host families en masse, moving into our own places. Living with a host family is a really great experience (so much so that some volunteers choose to stay with one their entire 2 years) but it can be, well, obnoxious, always having to explain where you're going, when you'll be back, why you didn't eat your entire 3 cup serving of white rice (no, I'm not sick and I love your cooking, it's just that I'm not used to eating so much rice!). I was really fortunate to have such an amazing host family whom I sincerely adore but I'm thrilled to be living on my own. And, I'm only 4 blocks from my host mom if a craving for white rice strikes.

So this is my house. Isn't it cute? Can you see my hammock up on my porch? The most wonderful thing about it is that it is up on a little hill and gets a great breeze. It's a little too big for me and way too expensive, but it was all there was available in my town. I pay $80 per month, which is double what most Peace Corps volunteers pay. Before you laugh at my rent, keep in mind that I only make $10 per day (a dollar an hour after taxes) so $80 is a small fortune to me. I do, however, have some luxuries that many volunteers don't, like electricity and running water. I also have, like most people in Panama, many many cockroaches. They are gigantic. And they fly. It's almost enough to make me quit this whole Peace Corps thing...


When you walk through the front door you are standing in the living room, looking at the dining room, with the little table, chair, and stool that my host mom gave me. As you can see, I don't have a whole lot of furniture. The door against the back wall leads to the kitchen and there are two doors on the right wall that lead to the bedrooms. The picture on the right is of the front door and living room. Someday I would like to have a couch or a chair or something but it won't be in the budget for awhile. Hopefully people in the community will take pity on their poor volunteer and donate some old furniture.


This is the kitchen, with a back door out to a small cement slab/patio. I don't have a refrigerator, a stove, an oven, or a microwave. I'm saving up for a propane camping stove (a propane tank is $50!) and (in the distant future) a refrigerator. It's too hot here to not have cold water to drink. I do have a little electric burner (on the pink table) which is obnoxiously useless. It doesn't boil water. What's the point of a stove that can't boil water? Drives me crazy...

There are two bedrooms. This one is the "guest" room. My host mom is lending me the bed, a short twin size bunk bed. I'm sleeping in the guest room until I can get a mattress for my bed in the other room. It's a pretty cute little room anyway.

This is the master bedroom. A volunteer who completes her service this week gave me the bed and a mattress is at the top of my priorities. I'm hoping to be able to afford one in about a month and a half. I cannot wait!! I'm just so thrilled to have my own space. I really love my host family but I love not feeling like a guest and being able to let my hair down, so to speak. Also, this is excellent news for anyone who wants to come visit because now you've got a place to stay (and I might even have another chair by the time you get here!) :)


I forgot to take a picture of the bathroom.. It's the least wonderful part of my house because it's pretty small and cramped. Also, I have a pet bat named Murci (short for murcielago, the Spanish word for bat) that lives in the roof and uses the shower for his bathroom. I guess it's nice that he goes somewhere that's easy to clean. I've never actually seen Murci because there's a thin ceiling between us, with a little hole that he poops in. Apparently he is potty-trained. He is also very irritable. Whenever I use the bathroom I turn the light on, which wakes him up during the day and he chews me out for it. He sounds like a very angry squirrel. I try to calm him down, I've even tried explaining that of the two of us I'm the only one that pays rent. But he insists the bathroom is his territory so I've conceded the point. Honestly, it's kind of nice to have someone to talk to.

So now you know where I live. I really love it. I especially love the hammock. Sitting in the hammock on the front porch with a good book is one of the simplest and most wonderful things. You'll have to come visit me and see what I mean.

What do you DO all day?

People back home are always asking me what exactly I DO in the Peace Corps. Honestly, there is no real answer- it isn't like a 9 to 5 job. Half the time I don't know what I'll be doing from one day to the next. The first three months in my community were mostly focused on getting to know the people in my town, and them getting to know me. Building trust, I guess. It was also a lot about learning Spanish. I'm still learning but it gets easier every day and I've really started to feel like I fit in here (as much as I can fit in, with my blue eyes and 1st grade vocabulary).

Anyway, the job that Peace Corps lined up for me was working with a youth cooperative. As a business major, my primary assignment is to help the kids of an all boys private Catholic school with their chicken and pig projects. Basically, they buy baby chics and pigs and raise them, fattening them up, and then sell them for a small profit. Because the private school is focused on farming, this is a great project for the boys, relevant to what they will be doing after they graduate. My job is to help them learn to manage their books and offer advice/suggestions to improve efficiency, etc. I think it will be a pretty awesome job once I get into it but right now the kids are on summer break so I haven't met with them since early December.

In the meantime I work with two other youth groups. The first is an EcoClub that focuses on encouraging environmentally healthy practices at a very basic level, such as not throwing your trash out the window of the bus. Depressingly, Panama can be very ugly along most roads. We are, one step at a time, trying to increase awareness and encourage responsible living. They are a pretty great group of kids. They are between 13 and 17 and always friendly and welcoming. The community that I live in is pretty wealthy (relatively) and the kids have had access to a comparatively good education. Most of them understand a fair amount of English and some of them, though shy, are nearly fluent. There are definitely a few I wish I could take home with me, they are such amazing kids!

My third group is the Muchachas Guias (Girl Scouts). Working with them is more of a relaxed, playful job, though I want to step it up a little bit and start teaching the older ones about sex education and STI's, which are relatively untouched subjects in the public schools. As a result young pregnancies are heartbreakingly common and it isn't unusual for many generations of a family to live under one roof, with a (young) grandma helping to raise the little one. And, often, the mom drops out of school. Because my site is, like I said, more affluent (and, as a result, better educated), this isn't as common, but my site is also very Catholic and talking about sex can be taboo. Hopefully I'll be able to increase awareness without stepping on any toes. And with the little girl scouts I want to start focusing on self-esteem and leadership.

Because I work with kids my schedule works around their school schedule. Since the younger kids don't get out of school until noon and the older kids don't start until then, I usually have my mornings free. But since we're on summer break I generally meet up with the kids three or four times a week, depending on what projects we have going on. Like I said, I don't have a set schedule, which can be frustrating but also very refreshing.

They say that the job/life of a Peace Corps Volunteer is 24/7 and it is true. We are always "on". When you live in a community where everything you do sticks out because you stick out it can be exhausting. My door is always open and I always smile even if I'm having one of those days where all I want to do is scream. It's important to me that they know I want to be here and I want to be a member of the community. Because, at the same time, I need to know that they want me here. I need their support. I need to know that when I leave in two years they won't think back and wonder why I was even there.

This whole experience is so emotionally and mentally exhausting sometimes I wonder if it's worth it. I miss home. But, at the end of the day, I know that I will never regret the decision to come here or the (sometimes daily) decision to stay. This is where I live now. This is my community. And every day it feels a little more like home.