English! Bastante English!

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 without 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!

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.