These past few weeks have been filled with English, which is a blessing and a curse. At the end of February my group (which, as you'll recall, started out in Washington, DC, as 42 volunteers and is now down to 34) got together for our first In-Service Training.
We spent a week in the province of Coclé, taking classes in Spanish and business techniques that we needed to brush up on.
It was a really helpful week and they even gave us a free afternoon where we all headed down to the beach for some volleyball and swimming.
I can't get over how wonderful the ocean is here. I sincerely believe that Oregon has the most beautiful coasts anywhere but I love that the water here is warm enough to swim in. It's like bath water. I love it!
There were also tons of full seashells on the ocean floor in beautiful pinks and reds. We collected a bunch of them and one of the guys that lives in an indigenous site made them into necklaces.
Me and Coco, catching some sun on the beach. Coco is one of the volunteers that I talk to the most. She lives about 2 hours from me, which also makes her one of my closest.
The following week I headed out to visit my friends, Jake and Deb, who live in indigenous sites about 2 hours outside of Panama City. Jake's birthday was that Saturday and Coco and I wanted to be there to celebrate with him. His site, Tusipono, is a 15 minute walk from Deb's site, Parara Perú. Both communities are Embera and specialize in tourism.
In order to get to their site you have to take a ten minute boat ride, which is pretty cool. The river they live on is very serene.
Jake is in the process of building his house but Deb inherited hers from the volunteers that lived in her site before her. The house is about 10 feet off the ground, made completely of wood, with a thatched roof and open sides. The back side is closed in for a little bit of privacy.
While living in the open in the jungle is very romantic and beautiful it isn't with
out downsides- namely, bugs. There is no way to keep the cockroaches out, as we learned after leaving a loaf of bread out for a couple of hours after sundown. This guy was a beast, and a total fatty. He ate so much of that bread! It was pretty gross, but I love the picture. Now you all know how much I'm not exaggerating about the size of cockroaches here.
Coco and Jake, on the boat ride back to the port.
After Deb hosted me at her site, I returned the favor and gave Deb a tour of my neck of Panama. And then we headed out to the All Volunteer Conference (AVC). AVC is usually held once a year but last year Washington didn't approve the funding in time. I'm thrilled that it got approved this year because we had a really great time. All 142 Panama Volunteers got together in a really nice hotel in the province of Herrera and spent four days getting to know each other and hanging out. We also had the "Campo Olympics", where the groups competed against each other in "sports" like salamaring (a Panamanian salute that is kind of a yell), coconut cracking (who could make the cleanest cut and drink the inside the fastest), and a relay race. Our team was our group (#60) and we came in last. But our group color was orange and we were beautiful (that's Patrick, Micah, and Whitney in the photo).
Shoot, I have to run- but I will write more when I get a chance. Ciao!
We spent a week in the province of Coclé, taking classes in Spanish and business techniques that we needed to brush up on.
It was a really helpful week and they even gave us a free afternoon where we all headed down to the beach for some volleyball and swimming.
I can't get over how wonderful the ocean is here. I sincerely believe that Oregon has the most beautiful coasts anywhere but I love that the water here is warm enough to swim in. It's like bath water. I love it!
There were also tons of full seashells on the ocean floor in beautiful pinks and reds. We collected a bunch of them and one of the guys that lives in an indigenous site made them into necklaces.
Me and Coco, catching some sun on the beach. Coco is one of the volunteers that I talk to the most. She lives about 2 hours from me, which also makes her one of my closest.
The following week I headed out to visit my friends, Jake and Deb, who live in indigenous sites about 2 hours outside of Panama City. Jake's birthday was that Saturday and Coco and I wanted to be there to celebrate with him. His site, Tusipono, is a 15 minute walk from Deb's site, Parara Perú. Both communities are Embera and specialize in tourism.
In order to get to their site you have to take a ten minute boat ride, which is pretty cool. The river they live on is very serene.
Jake is in the process of building his house but Deb inherited hers from the volunteers that lived in her site before her. The house is about 10 feet off the ground, made completely of wood, with a thatched roof and open sides. The back side is closed in for a little bit of privacy.
While living in the open in the jungle is very romantic and beautiful it isn't with
out downsides- namely, bugs. There is no way to keep the cockroaches out, as we learned after leaving a loaf of bread out for a couple of hours after sundown. This guy was a beast, and a total fatty. He ate so much of that bread! It was pretty gross, but I love the picture. Now you all know how much I'm not exaggerating about the size of cockroaches here.Coco and Jake, on the boat ride back to the port.
After Deb hosted me at her site, I returned the favor and gave Deb a tour of my neck of Panama. And then we headed out to the All Volunteer Conference (AVC). AVC is usually held once a year but last year Washington didn't approve the funding in time. I'm thrilled that it got approved this year because we had a really great time. All 142 Panama Volunteers got together in a really nice hotel in the province of Herrera and spent four days getting to know each other and hanging out. We also had the "Campo Olympics", where the groups competed against each other in "sports" like salamaring (a Panamanian salute that is kind of a yell), coconut cracking (who could make the cleanest cut and drink the inside the fastest), and a relay race. Our team was our group (#60) and we came in last. But our group color was orange and we were beautiful (that's Patrick, Micah, and Whitney in the photo).
Shoot, I have to run- but I will write more when I get a chance. Ciao!
