The Glory of Acting My Age, and other stories (aka, Lump post!)

Pictures added!

A while ago, I promised the Story of the Puppy, so here it goes.

One rainy day in November, which was pretty much all of them actually, I was taking some scraps to my compost pile in my backyard, when I see a little black lump by my wall.

Spot the puppybutt!

It’s about the size of my 2 fists together, and fuzzy, but with some matted/wet spots- but definitely looks too young to be by itself.  Some weeks previously, the neighbors had warned me that Mamadog was pregnant and had taken up residence in my backyard, and that she tended to be particularly temperamental, but this was the first clue that I’d had that she’d had a pup.  I figured that perhaps her backyard den, under a cement block thing, had been flooded, hence the appearance by my wall, but Mamadog was nowhere to be seen.  After a bit, Mamadog came back, and sniffed around at the Fuzzball, and soon laid down by it, and it got to eat- a relief that she wasn’t abandoning it to my care, adorable as it is!  Because everything was sodden, and because projects are fun, I cut up a couple boxes from care packages- you see, they are appreciated ;-)!, and cut up some grocery bags to waterproof the boxes, and made a bedbox for them.


And it was very cute.

I'm finally adding these pictures after visiting facebook and being slammed with news and opinions of the shooter in Connecticut, and in light of this, I hope you take a minute to collect some warm fuzzies in the cute purity of a well-loved puppy, and then distribute them to whomever you encounter for the rest of the day.  It's amazing what even a few minutes of compassionate attention can do for someone, particularly when it's unexpected and unsought. (12/16)

     Ooh, and reviewing the last post, I owe you all Thanksgiving- in the confusion of packing and getting ready to travel across the country, I neglected to get a charged battery in my camera, which is unfortunate for you, but I rather enjoyed, since I could just enjoy and experience, instead of trying to record it.  The traditional Peace Corps Panama Thanksgiving is a fundraiser by VAC, which is something like Volunteer Advisory Council.  Or something.  It’s held out in a town called Cerro Punta, near Vulcan Baru, Panama’s active volcano, and has frigid temperatures reaching down into the 50s. (yes, fahrenheit.)  It drizzled the entire time we were there, and I wore my fleece nearly constantly; loved it!  I left my house at about 4:30 in the morning on Wednesday, and after a neither rushed nor particularly slow 12 hours of traveling, arrived at the resort.  I heard that there were over 100 volunteers in attendance, which means that probably more than half of PCPanama was there.  Wednesday was hanging out, catching up, and meeting some other people from different projects and provinces.  On Thursday, more hanging around, and I went on a hike in Vulcan Baru National Park (I think that’s the name), which involved a 15 minute ride in a trailer behind a tractor into the park on a dirt road that was mostly there to a cabin where we all changed into rubber boots, and then a hike out to see a gorgeous waterfall.  Despite the boots, my pants still got muddy, but I was grateful for the boots, since quite a bit of the “path” was creekbed and/or flooded, and more than once the mud was at least ankle-deep.  Other than hikes, there were decent spa services, massages, etc, which some volunteers took advantage of, and a nice gathering area with fireplaces- again, freezing 60 deg. temperatures made the fires so delightful.  Thursday morning were also meetings by VAC and another volunteer committee that non-officers were allowed to view/attend, which was interesting to see.  Possibilities for the future...
And Thanksgiving Dinner.  There were teams of volunteers working through Wednesday and Thursday morning to cook a giant traditional Thanksgiving meal, with turkey, ham, stuffing, biscuits, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, and more.  And it was delicious (and I got to take a pack of leftovers with me for lunch on the return trip, and Thanksgiving leftovers are delicious!).  We had dance parties and there were foosball tables, and pingpong tables, and good times were had by all.  And I got to have a brief ballroom dance sampler with the brother of one of the other volunteers, who happened to be visiting her over Thanksgiving, which was positively delightful!
If you’re thinking of coming to visit me, it’s far away, but northern Chiriqui (Cerro Punta, Boquete, Vulcan) are by hearsay and this experience, well worth consideration.

While I’m catching up, I’ll mention the Special Olympics.  Peace Corps works with the Special Olympics people here in Panama, and provides volunteers to help facilitate the Events as necessary.  There were big ones in Panama City with lots of different events and stuff months ago, but I worked at the Cocle and Veraguas games, and had a lot of fun.  Most of our participation was escorting the competitors to and from their events, making sure that they never wandered off by themselves.  Most of the competitors were middle school age, with outliers on either side.  (In case you aren’t familiar, Special Olympics are for those individuals who are diagnosed with mental challenges, while Paralympics are for those with physical impediments.) We also set up chairs and tents, assisted in giving prizes, and generally did whatever the people in charge asked of us.  Because I worked at the Cocle Games on the previous weekend, when I went to the Veraguas games on the way home from Thanksgiving, the Volunteer Coordinator asked me to explain to the PCVs who hadn’t volunteered before, what exactly we were supposed to be doing.  At both sets of Games the working volunteers were a combination of PCVs and Panamanians, with a few other foreigners who were in Panama on different programs, namely Fulbright people and a group of Germans who live and work in the same community as one of my groupmates.  Both games had wonderful atmospheres of love and support from all sides!

Athletes in grey shirts and volunteers in yellow bringing the Torch around the track in the Opening Ceremony.

And to wrap up, Acting My Age.
Since coming to Panama, my role as been Peace Corps Volunteer with other Volunteers, Peace Corps Volunteer in my community, Teacher in the classrooms...and what non-PCV social experiences I’ve had have been with people, well, not twice my age anymore, but significantly older.  Actually, a lot of them probably are more than twice my age...anyway.  Most people between 17 and 40 or so seem spend at least half of their lives working in the City, or in the case of the 17-24ish’s, in school, since we don’t have a high school, let alone a university, in my town.  Not that I’m complaining about my company, mind you- a good proportion of my social acquaintance throughout my life has been significantly older than I am.  But sometimes it is nice to get let go of the responsible, Representative of the United States thing, the Peace Corps Volunteer thing, the University Graduate thing, and just be a person.  And frankly, most Peace Corps social events aren’t my cup of tea either, for a few reasons.  HOWEVER, this past weekend was the 6th Agricultural Fair in my town, with dances on the 3 weekend nights- discoteca style on Friday and Sunday, tipica on Saturday.  I didn’t attend on Friday night, not having quite the nerve to go unaccompanied to the drunkfest that I thought it was likely to be, but I could hear the music until past midnight; according to my host family, it went on til 6 AM.  I went to the Fair itself on Saturday, bought a pair of cute sandals that I hope last, and watched the Great Mother’s Day Giveaway.  December 8th is Mother’s Day here, by the way, and was celebrated in both of my schools, as well as at this Feria, mostly by every mother in attendance getting a number, and then getting the present associated with that number.  (Side note, I happened upon the Mother’s Day celebration at my main Primary School, and got roped into singing for the 50-odd mothers- I did Amazing Grace, since it was the only vaguely appropriate song I could think of at the spur of the moment, and that I could remember most of the lyrics to...not my best performance, but it was kinda fun).  Julie, my PCV friend who lives relatively close to me, came by to the Feria also, and we went to the Baile (dance) that night.  The featured performer was an accordionist, and I was enjoying the music, but there were unsurprisingly, a lot of drunks thinking that they could dance.  I did dance one number with Some Random Guy, who actually did stay on rhythm, and danced well, considering that tipica dancing is basically a two-step, and they don’t do turns or anything to break the monotony...well and good if you’re drunk and/or really into your partner, but as a social dancer, it isn’t my favorite style.  I’m getting to the point, I promise!
Sunday, Julie and I had scrambled eggs with salsa, homemade rosemary bread with cream cheese and jelly and banana-orange-pineapple fruit salad, because Peace Corps life is rough, for breakfast.
      Later that afternoon, after Julie’d gone back to her town, I went back to see how the Feria was winding up, and got there just in time to see the end of the Electric Slide, with a good number of people actually doing the dance!!!  That pretty much made my day, but when watching the forthcoming dances, the girl sitting next to me and I started exchanging random comments (breezy, mosquitoes, music, etc), which turned into something of a conversation- and she’s a 24 year old who works in tourism in the City 3 or 4 days/week, but spends time in town too, and has a fair number of friends who were also at the ‘discoteca’ dance on this Sunday night.  She arranged for me to dance with a friend of hers while she danced with her brother, and introduced me to others of her friends (none of whose names I remember, and barely the faces, but I blame loud music and scarcely existent lighting), and so I got a couple dances in with their group, including a bachata, in which I kept messing up the timing on the turns, but was dancing with a guy who could actually lead!!, both in changing the frame shape, and moving around the floor.  Al final, I walked back to my house with this group, and my new friend said she’d take me around the city some free weekend.  So, I got to hang out with people who were roughly my age, not drunk, friendly, and who could dance.  What more can a girl ask for?

Patronales- Independence Day(s)

Ok, so it was a bit more than a couple days to get this next post up- I was too busy collecting material for new blog posts to write old news.  But, you'll have to wait for that :-P.
Coming soon: Furball! (no, I'm not keeping it), and Thanksgiving in Cerro Punta

In the meantime, Los Patronales and the Anniversary of the Separation of Santa Rita from Cabuya.

For a few weeks, I'd been hearing about the coming 23rd of October.  They were selecting the Reina, and as the time grew nearer, getting decorations up and even put a grandstand by the Casa de la Cultura (community center/space).  All of my schools' bands were practicing daily, and it seemed something was up, although it wasn't clear what for, or why the 23rd of October was particularly important.  I've found it rather difficult to get answers to cultural things, perhaps because they forget that I'm not local, and haven't been observing their holidays for my entire life.  So many things we as people take understanding for granted, which is far from intuitive or clear to an outsider.
At any rate, eventually the Expected Date rolls around, and what do you know, but all of the significant mucky-mucks of Santa Rita are there, and my schools' bands, as well as a couple other groups!  And they are celebrating, as mentioned above, the separation of my town from the next town up the road.  Because they do like their independence days, as you will soon read!
It was pretty exciting to see the hard work of the marching bands, and the practicing at all hours of my school-age neighbors, pay off in the form of a parade around la vuelta (the loop).  The bands were impressive, considering I believe only my secondary school had more than “lyra” (some vaguely lyre-shaped xylophone cousin) and drums; they have a brass section as well!  The parade was ended by the Reina in Carnaval-esque costume (think sort of heavily sequined mermaid with a matching headdress) and one of her Damas, in a traditional pollera.
And then there were brindis, and socializing, and soon I ran away to do some grocery shopping in Anton.  Woohoo!
 (Side note on this, at the post-parade segment, a woman who lives in a little town up the road invited me to a mass/celebration in a town called Loma Larga, which means Long Hill.  It was noisy, and hearing English is hard enough in a crowd, let alone interpreting Spanish, so there certainly was some room for misunderstanding...at any rate, as far as I got it, we arranged that on the 28th, I would meet her at a certain bus stop, and we would go to this celebration together, because it the town is a bit of a hike off of the road.  So, I get to the appointed stop, and wait.  And wait...for about an hour...yeah, I know, hardly any time in Panama-time, but that's an aspect of the culture that I'm reluctant to embrace.  Eventually, I start to wander, end up talking to a lady who owns a store, who hooks me up with another lady who was about to head to what I believe was the event I was invited to, so she showed me the way.  I never did find the lady who invited me, but 2 other ladies ended up sort of taking charge of showing me around, and I ended up with their contact information, an invitation to another event in December, and vague plans of taking them on the walk to El Valle!  The event on Loma Larga was their Patron Saint Day, Saint Judas.  There was a mass, a procession (walked perhaps a quarter-mile and turned around to return), and the brindis, because there are always brindis.  Yay free food!)

And now we come to the Patronales, which I eventually figured out weren't about Patron Saints, but rather the weekend of Independence Day- related things.  National Anthem Day, Flag Day, and The Anniversary of Separation from Colombia are all together, but I don't recall the exact dates of each.  Whatever the dates, my schools participated in parades for the entire long weekend!  On Saturday the 3rd, we had the parade in Santa Rita, which was very similar to the 23rd, but with more bands, and -amazingly- uniforms!  Everyone was suddenly decked out in snazzy uniforms, with funny hats and matching boots and everything!  In all of the other performances I'd seen, other than folclorica stuff, all of the kids just wore their school uniforms, but now suddenly they seemed bands worth considering!

(Another side note: I'd promised Julie, my friend and one of my closest PCVs that I'd go to her town that night to go with her to a baile that her town was having, for the Patronales, so after watching the parade, I skipped town to head over to hers.  There, we hung a shelf in her house, chatted, wandered over to their Casa de la Cultura a couple times, returning to Julie's house because the baile still hadn't started, but eventually went back, and ended up watching a cock-fight before the dance actually started.  Have I mentioned that a “baile” is a dance?  Well, if not, “baile” = dance.  It was...interesting.  More interesting watching the audience than the birds, but not sufficiently so to make me need to see another.  My hitherto undefined inclination to see a cock-fight was satisfied, and even now it makes my stomach turn a little to think about how one of the rooster's spur would occasionally get stuck in the flesh of the opponent.  However, certainly another cultural experience to check off of the list!)

On Sunday, my schools went to the town of Rio Hato for another Patronales parade, but I hopped back into Santa Rita to see a bike race at the invitation of a lady in the community, actually, the woman who teaches the folclorica dances at the schools- and it was the real deal!  It was one of the most official looking things I'd seen, for all that it still did start in hora panameña (ie, late).  There were 4 or 5 teams of bikers from around Panama, mostly in real bicyclist-looking apparel, and it was another pleasant surprise (after the uniforms in the parade).  Perhaps it's unfortunate that my expectations of what to expect have rather been lowered in my months here, but it is delightful to be thusly surprised!  There were, of course, brindis, after the race, and there was a group selling soda and grilled chorizo to raise money for a Christmas party for the community kids.

Monday brought a big parade, again with my main Primaria and Secondaria, in Antón, a name which should be at least slightly familiar by now.  Due to a connection that my neighbor PCV Richard had made with the Mayor of Antón, we were Invitado to watch the parade from the grandstand- a big honor!  As invitados (~invited ones), we got to sit in on the opening meeting.  Also, a portion of the brass section of my Secondary's band was chosen to play the national anthem!  I walked through the parade route with my Primaria, because there wasn't a specific place in the line-up for Peace Corps Volunteers, until we got to the grandstand where I broke off to go up and watch the rest of the parade.  It was really cool to see band after band from all over the country come through, ranging from elementary to colegio, which is 10-12th grades, but are divided into areas of study.  I watched 10s of bands and performance groups go by, when what do I see but another friend-PCV marching with her school!  The parade started a mere half-hour late, practically on time around 8:30.  By about 3, I was ready to go, particularly upon finding out that it would probably last until 6 or 7 PM.  Apparently there are 80-some school bands that come...and then there are the “private bands.”  It was all very impressive, but I was done parade watching by that point... and I had to get to Penonomé for a very important “V for Vendetta” watching party with some other PCVs, because it was Nov 5th :-)  Heading eastward on the Interamericana (the Pan-American Highway) was the most traffic I'd ever seen on it, but fortunately I was heading west, which was clear as usual.  I got to Penonomé without issue, though thoroughly exhausted, and we chilled in the hotel, interneted, and went to see “Skyfall” in our months-old movie theatre-  yep, “Skyfall” opened in Panama before it did in the US :-D.  We picked up a couple pizzas from a gas station that serves surprisingly good pizza, and eventually watched the main feature.
The following day, Tuesday Nov 6, did feature a huge parade there in Penonomé, for which I didn't stay, though I did get to see the beginnings of the Election Day coverage before I left to come back home.  And thus went the Patronales.

I'm writing this on Monday, November 26th, which I had off of school due to Wednesday, the 28th, being the Anniversary of Independence from Spain.  I'll let you know if I get to see something interesting related to that ;-).

Next time (barring further distractions, which will almost definitely come as the school year comes to a close), PUPPY and THANKSGIVING!

(Note, due to my week-charge of internet running out, I'm actually posting this on Saturday Dec 1- IT'S DECEMBER!!  I was going to add pictures, and even had them selected, but apparently the fates don't want you to see them.  They're not even pretending to upload.  However, when I go Home for the Holidays, I should be able to orchestrate a massive photodump onto the interwebs- woohoo!)

It's the Holiday Season! (Part 1)

Here in the campo, however, it looks rather different from how it is in the States.
October didn’t have so much by way of actual holidays, but each of the Primarias around had its own “Día del Campesino”- “Day of the Peasant” (according to my dictionary...I’m living with the Panamanian peasantry!  (and there are pheasants as well)).  We also had the "23rd of October", which commemorates the Separation of Santa Rita (my town) from Cabuya (neighboring town), Halloween stuck in for the various Americans here, and then the 4 days of Separation from Colombia parades/celebrations from Nov 3-6.  Oh, and Día de los Disfuntos, Day of the Dead, on Nov 2.  And then later this month we have Thanksgiving, which you'll hear about in time, and the 28th of November, which is Independence from Spain.  And then la Navidad, which is a combination of Christmas and Christmas Eve, and New Years (which I will be spending in the good old US of A!!)...oh, and Mother's Day is coming on Dec 8, graduations (since the school year ends in Dec here).  And then some other little things in there for fun, which I believe includes a patron saint day in a town near Cabuya in December as well.  So, now, a peek at some of these festivities!
       
        Since I attended the Días of my Primaria, my other Primaria arriba, the Primaria de Cabuya Arriba, and “Rayitos del Sol”, which is a preschool-type-thing in town, I’ve gained a fairly strong understanding of what goes into one of these presentations.  The biggest was my main Primaria, which makes sense as it seems to be about the size of the other 3 put together, but the formula was essentially the same.

        The sites were all decked out in bits of folclorica, woven pencas, bundles of rice, oranges, grapefruits, bananas, and that sort of thing.  Very cultural :-)  Bits of folclorica involves the giant rice-pounder thing that I forget the name of, examples of traditional clothing (in addition to that worn by the participants).  Pencas, as you may recall from a previous post, are woven palm fronds, and the rice, oranges, etc, are displays of the local produce- it’s a celebration of farm life, so they celebrate the trappings of campesino-hood.
At my main Primaria’s day, 5 or 6 of the “neighborhoods” built ranchos in which members of these communities sold traditional foods and more produce.  Every festival is an opportunity for the local families, and the schools, to get some fundraising in, so there are refreshments always available- generally for under 2$, for a decent amount of food and beverage.


This being Panama, the vast majority of events require a Reina, the Queen, and her court, which consists of a princess or two, and the Damas- Primera Dama, Segunda, and sometimes Tercera Dama, all with their caballeros (gentleman, or knight).

Bewildered little flower girls

        The actual showcase is distinctly Panamanian- firstly, each presentation started at least 30 minutes late, and then began with the entrance of the previous year’s Reina,  and the current year's court.  These lovely ladies are chosen by votes and/or fundraisers at their schools, and are sporting the full pollera with heads full of trembling beaded tembleques (tembleque loosely translating to “tremblers”).  To the sounds of traditional music, either live or canned, the Royal Court enters, and after an array of ladies and flower girls who are generally 5 or 6 years old and completely clueless about their directive, the new Reina enters.  Each of court lady entrances involves the girl coming in with a caballero or 2, making a couple loops around the performance area, some dance steps and forms, and going to a seat behind the performance area.  

hint: La Reina's the one on the right

The new Queen enters, naturally with the fanciest pollera and glitzy-est tembleques, and the previous Queen coronates her and makes her exit.
Once the Court is in position, the Conjuntos de Baile Folclorico from the host school as well as 5 or 6 guest groups each perform some traditional dances.  The performances at each of the Días was nearly identical, with most of the events featuring the same groups performing the same dances.  Downside: I admit, even for me, the novelty wore off after seeing the same dances over and over, particularly as some of the groups repeated dances of another group in the same Día, but Upside: seeing the same dances repeatedly, and by different groups, gave me the opportunity to gradually make sense of the announcer’s words, and put names to the dances, and get an idea of the general choreography of the dances.

One of the common dances was the “Fogon Caliente,” or “Hot Wood-burning-Stove”, which involved in parts, the boys holding the backs of the girls’ skirts and waving their hats, and at other parts, the boys putting their heads to the girls’ stomachs to be covered by skirts (or on the girls’ shoulders, as the little kids danced it, to the high amusement of the audience).

Another repeated on was a rice harvesting dance which used props- the girls carried wooden trays with some rice, and the boys used fake machetes...and one of the elements of the dance involved the boys leading(?) their partners around in the circle with their machetes at their ladies’ necks.
These performances generally lasted several hours, though the audiences weren’t shy about moving around during the pieces.




Here are some of my favorite pictures:

This one is perhaps my favorite, particularly photographically; also this pollera had the best movement ;-)

Palo de Mayo (Maypole)

fun fact: Maypole (palo de Mayo) has a tune strongly reminiscent of “Limbo”, and is regarded as traditional panamanian culture; technically this was at a Tourism Fair at my Secondary school, but had a lot of things in common with the Días Campesinos.  Main difference was that many of the classes were assigned a province and decorated their classrooms in accord with the characteristics of their province.  But they still had the queen, court, and interminable set of perfomances, including a couple little dramas, and the produce and food vendors.

These guys are apparently tree spirits, despite looking like some sort of deer-god thing. 

Las 4 Negritas, the 4 little black girls.  2nd graders in blackface singing about how their father would beat them for not knowing how to do certain household tasks...

The Queen and I

            Coming soon, hopefully in the next couple days, while they’re still fresh in my mind: Separation of Santa Rita from Cabuya (independence from the next town over), and the 4 days of parades for Día de Independencia de Colombia!

            In the meantime, may as well finish October.  Except the Separation from Cabuya is the 23 of October...but it’s a parade, and sort of an independence day,  so it can stay postponed.  So, Halloween! Now, if you know me at all, you are probably aware that I’m rather fond of this holiday, and take great delight in getting costumed up.  The prevailing Panamanian belief is that Halloween is all about Satanism, and they’re actually seriously scared of the idea.  I’ve heard several sincere accounts of witch encounters, and multiple instances of duendes (mischievous imp/brownie/elf/dwarf critter)  I’ve had the pleasure of explaining to a few of my neighbors the true importance of Halloween, that being dressing up as something you’re not, and having fun, and eating candy.  And, although the Panamanians aren’t keen on Satanism, their beliefs haven’t rubbed off too much on the ex-pat community, and so the American owners of a restaurant in Veraguas had a Halloween party with free pizza for anyone who came in costume; this drew about 20 PCVs to congregate in the town of Santa Fe, which is gorgeous, by the way, up towards the mountains.  So, if you haven’t seen it on facebook, here’s my scrounged pirate costume:

Ok, one more, to finish this post- Día de los Disfuntos, or Day of the Deceased.  Completely unrelated to Halloween, this is observed on Nov 2 by going to the cemetery and putting new silk, and some families real, flowers on the graves of the relatives interred there.  I went to the cemetery in Cabuya with my familia panamaña when they went to do their duty by the maternal ancestors.  The graveyard is on a beautiful hilltop with a 360 view of mountains and the ocean.  And there were brindis of hot chocolate, coffee, and arroz con pollo (chicken and rice).  Brindi means free food :-)

View Southish (and slightly eastish) towards the Pacific

View north/northeastish towards the mountains

And view South, but now to the right (westish) at a storm in between the cemetery and the ocean !

P.S. There were also brindis at all of the Días del Campesino, in case you were wondering; generally for Invitados, but by dint of being the only Norteamericana, or Peace Corps Volunteer, or somesuch excuse, I generally count, 'cuz I'm a VIP ;-)

Projects!

I don't like to be bored.  Because of this, I try to fill my time with activities, crafts, projects...all that great stuff.

Now, I have my official Peace Corps assignment of working with the English Teachers in my schools, my long-awaited and sparsely-attended community classes, a weekly English Practice/swing dance class, and 1 day/week teaching at a second, English-teacher-less Primary school in town.  Then there's the drawing, the macrame, the cooking, the crafting (wire things, weavings...)- something for every mood!  Perhaps by the end of 2 years, I'll have learned something, like how to draw something that I can stand to look at once it reaches completion.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share my shelf projects.  Here is a picture of the first set of shelves I attempted:

String and cereal boxes.  Structural integrity was lacking, but I still might add some support, or just redo the entire thing.

 And here's the second attempt at shelves!

Wood from my friend Julie, and used real hardware to put it together, and it lasted through  the first night!

You see, despite the double challenge of living in the 21st century of electronic everything, and living in Panama where nobody reads, I still accumulate books.  These books have outgrown my livingroom-to-kitchen window that I'd been using as a bookshelf, and so in order to be able to use and part of my table as more than a pile'o'stuff, more storage was essential.  Woohoo!  Successful project, but I shan't let you see details.  Suffice it to say that it broke the screwdriver in my multi-tool thingy :-(, so I had to get a little creative.

Doesn't that look nice?  If you look carefully, you can see my hammock modifications too! 

Also, yesterday I received this darling invitation from my neighbors, to their Dia de Campesino celebration!  One of the few signs of local handicraftness I've seen.

My main Primary school had their Dia del Campesino festivities last Friday (pictures coming soon...when they load!).  I got to impress a lot of Panamanians and teach my host family how to make traditional Panamanian decorations- woven 'pencas'- coconut palm fronds!  The pencas lined almost all of the doorways, archways, and pillars at school, adorned with oranges, rice stalks, leaves, and other local products.

The picture that results from trying to coach a 7 year old girl who was watching me through taking a picture- and she said she couldn't do it!

Most of the woven side of this was my handiwork.  Another woman started it, but then went to help with cooking or something...at any rate, it seemed like it was safe to pick up where she left off :-)

I started my little garden in the backyard, too!  So far, I have greenbeans planted, chaya, possibly a cucumber, and hopefully some tomatoes!

Overacheiverism

     My friends are a pretty cool group.  By sophomore year of college, there was a high probability that a good friend of mine was studying or working in a different country.  At any given time since then, I can probably say that I know at least one person living abroad, working on some cool project; and these friends are the Americans, not the wonderful people who are from "abroad," and doing wonderful things at home, although they certainly are fabulous as well.  Reasons for going abroad vary, some studying, some working, some travelling, and usually there's more than one of those going on.  Now, I'm in the Peace Corps, where I join a selection of acquaintances who have been or are serving in various projects around the world, and my "cool friend" quota is definitely increasing.
     There are more than 200 PCVs serving here in Panama as I write, in 4 or 5 projects, all over the country.  (I'm going to use the PCV Panama community as my focus for this post, but the relevance certainly isn't limited to this group.)  When a group of PCVs get together here, there's the usual griping about trouble at work, venting about issues with co-workers, and gossiping about Panamanians and other volunteers.  And we talk about project challenges and successes that we've had, and projects that other volunteers are doing.
     Here's where the problem I see is.  We talk about our projects and the projects that other volunteers are running, and the other volunteer's always sounds so amazing.  That PCV has community engagement, organization, energy, and according to the grapevine, great results.  We wonder why we can't pull off a project like that; why our community is so hard to work with, and why can't we be a better volunteer, like that one.  First of all, an accurate comparison is basically impossible here, given the differences in everything from projects, to communities, to resources, to the PCV's interests and talents.  It's like comparing apples to oranges, and does no credit to any party involved.
     The second, more severe problem, is that there are these admiration conversations on how productive Superstar PCV A is being (Superstar PCV A not being present in said conversation), and then later, on a separate occasion, Superstar PCV A is talking about how his/her project isn't talking off, s/he don't think the project is working, but if only s/he could be more like Superstar PCV B!  People are just too...individual to be usefully compared.
     It's wonderful to have goals and standards.  It's great to have to internal drive to constantly be pushing oneself to improvement, ever striving for improvement.  And competition can be a wonderful motivator, as has been demonstrated in the Space Race, many solar car races, in school, sporting events (fancy that!)   But is it possible, or do I ask too much, for us to somehow learn to see what we are doing and acknowledge the progress, or at least hard work, that we are doing?  For me, I've learned that no matter how hard I've worked at something, or whatever results I get, I find a million ways I could have worked harder to achieve a better result.  And yes, that pushes me to do better next time, which certainly improves "next time."  But constantly finding fault and highlighting the failings of what's been done, past practices, means that it's very rare, and very difficult to find satisfaction in a job well done.  Perhaps I just haven't worked hard enough yet, and if I keep trying, I'll get there...but somehow, I don't think that that is the way it works.
     Reflecting of the conversations with other PCVs and friends outside of Peace Corps, I can't fault us for being dissatisfied with aspects of our performance that we know we can improve.  Maybe, though, we could practice seeing ourselves through other people's eyes.  Not to the point of narcissism or self-adulation (little danger of that, given where we're coming from), but just distanced from ourselves enough to see ourselves and our efforts from another perspective.

PRODUCTIVITY!...vs. Panama

     Thanks to my brother for ordering and Cecily for bringing my replacement computer battery, I am writing this blog post by candle light.  Now, I don't really need light to type on the computer, but before writing this post, I was handwriting notes from the computer, and then I did need the candlelight.  I'll type up the notes eventually, but I suppose I'm still old-fashioned enough that if I need or want to really think about something, it has to travel down my arm, though my hand and pen, and onto paper.  Maybe getting split down both arms to be computer typed divides the information into nonsense.  I don't know.  Either way, I'm in the funny, quasi-modern situation of working from my computer by candlelight.  My candle is developing a really cool sideways stalagtite-y wax formation, by the way.
     I'm using the candle, by the way, because the light went out for the second day in a row.  Today and yesterday we had light for most of the day, until about 4:30.  Last night it reappeared at about 10PM, and I hope it'll do that again, and recharge this miraculous thing known as my battery.  Water's also out- boo!
     In case you've missed the news, I finally caved and/or build myself up to getting a magic internet stick, which has made my life both more and less productive.  It works best immediately in front of my house, generally decently just inside of my front door, and doesn't exist more than a foot inside of the house.  But, it's enough for e-mails and uploading pictures, and if the clouds are angled just right, I can watch youtube videos with just a couple pauses to load!  It's fun to be in the 21st century again, here in rural Panama.
     The aforementioned notes I was writing are for my first COMMUNITY ENGLISH CLASS!  I'm doing a set of 5 classes, starting tomorrow and happening until 5 Tuesdays from now.  (I'm writing this on Monday night.)  I simultaneously hope that I have a good number of students, because then I could smoothly and easily bring them to perfect fluency ;-), and that no one shows up, so I don't have to actually teach on my own.  I think that I'll have a good handful, at least, though.  My host mom, at least- it's kind of her job as my adoptive family member here, right?  And she is actually interested in learning English, even asking me how to say various things when I'm at her house.
     Next Thursday I'm making myself available for official homework help for 5-10th graders- this one I hope to transition into peer-tutoring, yay sustainability!  And on Friday, I'm going to start more solo-teaching (ack! What am I doing?!?).  There's a second Primaria in town, just 70 students, but they don't have an English teacher, hence my not being assigned to work there as well, but as the students go to the Secondary from there expected to have learned some English, some parents have requested that I teach their kids too.  So, they get their own real, live, Native English Speaker once a week too!  We'll see how long this goes.  I think I was smelling too much of the neighbor's garbage when I was setting all of this up, else I would have at least spaced it out a bit more.  Oh well- in for a real (nickel, pronounced rey-ahl), in for a dain (dime, pronounced dine).  Wish me luck!
     Ooh, and unless I do already have enough going, there are a couple other things I'm working on with other volunteers, this fantastic thing known as a Magic Circle that I want to start at the Primaria, and my new neighbor volunteer (neighbor being in the next town up the road) swing dances, and we're talking about getting the kids in his community and/or mine dancing!
     Ok, I was going to finish with the English planning fun-ness, but I've got to talk about Magic Circles.  A Magic Circle (which I like to capitalize) is a form of permiculture, or a strategy of permiculture, or something like that.  Basically, you dig a hole about 3 or 4 feet diameter by a foot or 18 inches deep, and through 'trash', whatever organic material you feel like, into said hole.  In the ring of dug-up-dirt which you left around said hole, plant plantains, yuca, whatever you want.  As time goes, add whatever more organic material you have to the pile in the center.  The guy who introduced this technique at our trimestral Peace Corps meeting is a former PCV who has since started his own farm here in Panama, outside of Penonome, called “Finca de los Perezosos”- “Farm of the Lazies.”  So, according to John Douglas, the former PCV, this yields significantly more produce than the usual Panamanian methods, while cutting down on the amount of trash left to burn.  Win-win!  I'm talking to my Primaria teacher about starting on at the school, which will help them, and then I/we/someone can use it as a model to teach other members of the community about this alternative strategy!  (I want to do one in my backyard, too :-).)


One more note: I think I accidentally had a big bowl of vanilla pudding for breakfast this morning.  Panamanians use cornstarch for a lot, including a common breakfast known as ‘crema.’  I had a box of cornstarch for when I need to make chocolate pudding, and since I didn’t have anything else breakfast-y, decided to try it.  Halfway through the process, I realized that it was almost identical to the chocolate pudding, except without the melting-chocolate step.  And more vanilla added.  And raspadura, which is minimally processed cane sugar (but sugar goes in either way.)  It’s a curious sensation, to expect to eat breakfast, and eventually realize that it was actually pudding.  ;-)

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Continuing on Tuesday, since I didn’t post this before now:
So, the much anticipated class came and went!  Exactly none of the community members who seemed excited about it showed up today.  Which was ok, in a way, because the guy who was supposed to give me the key to the building and pull out the whiteboard and help me get everything set up forgot that today was the day, and was in Penonome (the city about an hour’s drive away).  But, we got the key to the space from another guy in the community (though not the key with access to the supplies), and on a ‘hunch’ I’d brought a stash of poster paper and markers.  Just in case.  Despite none of the adults coming up (even my host mom didn’t come to the class), I did have 8 youth-students, ranging from 2nd grade to 9th.  They acted like Panamanian students, that is to say, irresponsive to about everything, but when asked after the fact, said they enjoyed it.  I think I could be a good teacher...not that I’m changing my intention to never make that my career...but who knows, maybe I’ll keep saying never through a career of it (eek!).
    We’ll see what happens next week; it’s slightly possible that the culprit for the thin attendance today was a band meeting that lasted much longer than anyone had anticipated...vamos a ver.   In any case, I came back home to relax, put together a random outfit which I then inflicted on the community between my house and the store, and came home.  They say Peace Corps is a learning experience- this particular event taught me that I have 4 main coping mechanisms for disappointment/disenchantment/discouragement/etc- (1)nature meditation (2)fashion whimsy (3)dancing (4) creative output in crafts or food.  Makes those nasty things rather more pleasant, when I know the fun that follows ;-)

    Tomorrow I have a happyfunplanningsession with my Primaria teacher, Thursday meeting some other volunteers to work on a possible collective book grant, Friday starting teaching at the non-English-teachered-Primaria, then a nice full weekend.  Oh life, you’re so funny.

Also, I’m on day 5 of a 2 day charge on my magic internet stick, not sure what’s up with that, but hey- internet’s cheaper by the day!

Cecily comes to Panamá!

     On Saturday, September 1st, 2012, an amazing thing happened. Cecily, one of my amazingly fabulous friends from college walked through the immigration gate at Tocumen International Airport- first from her flight.
     It was a long day for both of us, as she started her travels from Omaha at 5:something in the morning, and   I started at 7:00 AM waiting for a bus to start my journey to the airport as well.  However, it all went smoothly- I arrived 2 hours before I'd expected, and Cecily's flight was just a few minutes late.  We caught a bus (the first of 3 to get us back to my site), and thus commenced a week of fun!
     After hours and hours of travel, we reached my house, and Cecily reminded me that it's unusual in the US for a house to have a concrete floor and the ceiling to simply be the underside of the corrugated metal roof.  But we had water almost all the time we were home, and the electricity cooperated as well!
     I know I wax verbose, so here's a quick breakdown of the week:
Saturday: Travel day
Sunday: El Valle
Monday: Santa Rita (hammock time and dinner with host family)
Tuesday: On travel to Chiriquí (where we saw bugs!)
Wednesday: David (cool to me, I believe Cecily might have been less than fascinated.)
Thursday: On travel to Herrera
Friday: Back to Santa Rita
Saturday: La Ciudad- Panama City
Sunday: Travel and mourning...and dragging myself back to normal life.
 
El Valle
     On Sunday, we went to El Valle, which is my province's main tourist attraction, with a market full of 'artesanias' - craft goods mostly from Panama's indigenous groups, with sections for produce, living plants, and craft fair style jewelry- lots of macrame/knotted jewelry stuff.  Oh, and to get there, we took off in the morning for the half-hour bus ride to the end of the road, and then a 2 hour walk up one side of the extinct volcano, and down a bit into the center of it, because that part is El Valle (aka, The Valley) and down into the center.  The part that was where the air (usually rainclouds) is apparently blew off in the mists of time...the rocky, smokey, dusty, acidic, volcanic mists.
     We had lunch at a little restaurant there, and Cecily got her first taste of Panamanian cuisine- pollo guisado, or stewed chicken, with rice, potato salad, and a little piece of platano en tentación, or 'temptation plantain'.  So far, so good!  We visited the market, and set off to find the "Square Trees," which the friendly fellow at the information kiosk told us was about half an hour walk away.  We set off, and naturally, it starts pouring down rain.  However, we pressed on, and after a brief respite at a conveniently located hotel, made it to the hotel where the 'square trees' were supposed to be- we followed the signs...but the gate was locked.  Disheartened, but not put off, we set across the lawn to inquire at the hotel, when we met a group coming the other direction, so we joined them.  (At this point, the rain was down to a light sprinkle.)  We went through the gate and started along the path when we looked back to see that the guide/employee had locked the gate behind us and returned to the hotel.  We followed the other group down the trail, over a comically wobbly bridge to a bit of a clearing where there were several 'square trees'.  (Walking down this path, Cecily was struck by how realistic the jungle area of the Omaha Zoo really was, in terms of trees and large vines looped at prime height for sitting on.)  The square-est trees were the adolescent trees- old enough to have the shape, but once they got older yet they became particularly root-y trees.  Still cool, though!

Square Tree: they actually grow with natural corners! 

After having our fill of the trees, we set about finding our way out.  There were signs all over that said 'sendero', which actually means 'path', but I didn't know that at the time, so we ignored one line of logic, and retraced our steps, where we confirmed that the gate was in fact locked, so we followed that Panamanian family from before out over the gate.  Woohoo!  We escaped the square trees, and started back to the center of town where it started to rain in earnest, that is to say, we were completely soaked to the point of forming cartoonish puddles around our feet whenever we stopped.  We agreed though, that once it was acknowledged that there was no avoiding the rain, it was pretty fun to get completely soppingly drenched.  After some difficultly getting a bus down to the highway, we eventually got back home, to...something for dinner, hot chocolate, and pixbae (pronounced pifa) with my preferred honey-and-massaman curry dipping sauce.  Cooking is fun here in the campo!

I also bought a hammock chair for my livingroom, which Cecily helped me hang :-)

Santa Rita
   On Monday, we visited my schools where I showed off our vegetable gardens and animals, and then took a brief tour of Anton, with a stop to get a pineapple at the market.  In the afternoon, we went to my host family's house for some quality hammock time in the afternoon rain, and then my host mom invited us for dinner, and Cecily got another taste of the delicious (Panamanian) comida (food) panameña.  :-D  In non-Panamanian food, we put together a muffin mix from my aunt and successfully baked them via advanced stovetopoven technology- they were delicious, and just slightly burned on the bottom.

--> Remedios, Chiriquí
   Tuesday saw us with more hours on the bus as we traveled to visit another volunteer named Ken, in the south-western-border province of Chiriquí.  We had a bit of a wander adventure in Santiago where we changed busses and wandered halfway across the town to find the airport- first adventure of my dragging Cecily around as I learned useful things about getting around.  We got to Ken's in the evening, where he took us on a tour of his site (way bigger and nicer than mine- he has multiple paved streets AND the streets had names!)  We met his very sweet dog, and took a walk in the evening in attempt to see stars and fireflies, and found fireflies and a weird glowing centipede thing.  Oh, and listened to the laser-tag frogs.

David
     I wanted to visit David, since I'd heard about it a fair bit from other volunteers, so we spent a couple more hours on the bus, a few hours wandering in the city (we brought strawberries, which grow in another city called Boquete, which is now on my to-visit list), before heading back to Ken's.  By the way, while at Ken's, we didn't eat Panamanian, but we did put together pretty delicious meals, a few of which involved copious amounts of peanut butter (on chicken stir fry, in oatmeal, on pancakes...good stuff.)  We also made a Shepherd's pie inspired meal which turned out well- yay for cooking by 'making it up as we go along'.

EDIT/ADDITION:  On Wednesday morning, we were having oatmeal mixed with all sorts of delicious things for breakfast.  At one point, just as I was starting to realize that something wasn't quite right, Cecily comments on "not wanting to alarm anyone" but she felt off, like her inner ear was awry.  We soon realized, once we got over the initial confusion of why we seemed to be moving while sitting at the table and why the wall appeared to be shifting a bit, that there was an earthquake- later found to be a 7.6 in Costa Rica.  One more life experience to cross off the list for Cecily and me!

Herrera
     On Thursday we took leave of Ken and wandered off to visit another volunteer, Miranda, in her more south-central province of Herrera, in the region known as the Azuero.  She showed us around her town with its lovely Spanish Colonial architecture, and told us about their festival atmosphere for Carnival, their saint days, etc.  We chatted, watched some Doctor Who, and admired her house and community (one of the biggest, I believe.)

Her town is famous for, well, everything festival related, including devil masks and  floats like this dude.

Santa Rita
     Friday morning brought us to Penonome, my stomping ground, where I showed Cecily around the 2 main streets, the park, mercado (market), where Cecily bought her cutarras- Panamanian sandals.  We had lunch with Nate and Julie, the two other volunteers from my group in my corner of Panama, before heading back to Santa Rita, where we "dimos la vuelta", or walked around the loop of my road.  We finished at my host family's house for another dinner, before coming back to my house for a final night there.  This evening held on of the excitement of dubious value, where we discovered that I have giant (up to a centimeter) ants living in my spare-room door.  We spent...I don't know how much time, but quite a bit carrying on an ant-massacre (movement), which culminated in my getting locked in the room, because the knob and lock were loose and bent and generally non-operational.  We rescued me by removing the knob completely.  Girl power!  One of these days I'll replace the door-knob, since I don't know how much of the damage we caused, and how much predated me, but in the meantime, I'm trying to eliminate the giant-disgusting-ant presence in my house.  Now I don't have Cecily to help, but I did get a can of bug death to help.  They're disgusting, and now I will only live in places with solid wood doors, because it's the only non-solid door in my house.  Actually, my bathroom door isn't either- will have to douse it in bugdeath too before the ants try to move in.  ICK!

At my host family's house, Ana (host mom) and Maryori (host sister) dressed Cecily up in some of Maryori's folclorica pieces (from the traditional Panamanian cultural dances)

Panama City
    Saturday saw us return to the City, where we stayed at Hostel Urraca, which is a little bit of beach house downtown- a very fun, chill place where volunteers tend to stay in the city.  We set out to eat at a German restaurant I'd heard about, and got rather lost, but eventually found it...open only for drinks.  But our sorrow was mitigated by the presence of a delicious Indian restaurant exactly across the street.  After our 3:30 lunch,  we (intentionally, this time) took the long way back through 'Calle Uruguay', home of a lot of clubs/bars/restaurants, and along a European-ish park and walking path along the Pacific.

La Despedida
      After a very cold night (where they have A/C in Panama, it's binary), we got up and caught a bus for the airport, where we arrived in good time, though a little close, for Cecily to check in and get through security.  I went back to the mall where I bought a Spanish translation of Pride and Prejudice, and made my way back to Santa Rita, to re-enter my life as a Peace Corps Volunteer in rural Panama, where this week, I have preparation for next week and Peace Corps meetings, and next week, we have the final trimester, and I'm starting my community English classes.  Woohoo!

I'll get more pictures up in facebook and google albums, but it took long enough for these few pictures, so I'll work on those another night.  I'm sure there are things I've forgotten, but here's a lot of it.  Ciao!

IST, the passage of time, and upcoming adventures

My how time flies!  Last time I wrote was sometime in July, probably about a month ago.  But time is funny.  Somehow, it feels like I've only been in my community for a couple months, and in Panama for a month or two more than that, when in reality, I've been in my community for 5 months- nearly a quarter of my service is gone!  At the same time as that perception of time is quick, trying to remember IST, our 2 week training session at the end of July, feels like reaching back into the mists of time.  In short, by some means, the past 2 weeks were longer than the previous 7 months.
And then, of course, you have the complete lack of seasonal markers here.  Ok, that's not technically true, but they're a good deal less clear here than in the good old EEUU (Estados Unidos, or United States- and I have no idea why they double the letters).  It's incredibly weird to think that it was very much winter when we left, and now it's well into summer, which means that spring has come and gone, and it feels vastly different now there than it did in January.  But, it's pretty much the same here as it has been.  Occasionally we get rainstorms, and sometimes it sprinkles, but we still haven't had the daily torrent of “winter” that I was given to expect to start in April.  According to my abuelo panameño, it's starting now, but honestly, I'll believe it when I see it.  In the meantime, sweating doesn't mean anything anymore, and moments where I'm not sweating are really pleasant breaks.  As I write this, actually, it's actually pleasant, though I just watched a Panamanian neighbor walk by with a knit cap.    I'm wondering if, when I visit the States in December, I'm going to have become Panamanian in terms of temperature...hopefully not.  Last night, my familia panamaña walked me home, and my hermanito commented that it was so cold that it was nearly frozen.  We were all wearing sandals, short sleeves, all that stuff- a curious reminder of how foreign an idea like “cold” the way we consider it, can be.  Yes, among you, my lovely readers, there are varied ideas of “cold”, but we can probably agree that any time when most people have bare arms, legs, and feet, it doesn't qualify as “cold”.
Que más...the problem with this blog is that nearly every day I think of things to write, but it's always when I'm out doing them, and when I get back home, all I'm thinking of is dinner, and what I need to get ready for tomorrow, and deciding when to go to bed. (I hold out at least until 8).
Oh, our IST- InService Training.  Two weeks with nearly our whole group together for the first time since we swore in!  Unfortunately, a few of us 'Early Terminated', ended their service early.  And for the first couple of days, we had CEC (Community Environmental Conservation, the other sector in group 70) with us too, so it was truly our entire training group.  We had sessions from 8 AM to 5 PM, which is a longer work day than I think all of us had had since training.  Our presenters included the PC ET team of Jose, Joel, and Sonia, as well as some of the other TE volunteers, the ones who came last year, and Allegra I-don't-remember-her-last-name, but she's the English coordinator person for all of Peace Corps.  It was a lot of work, a lot of information, but really useful stuff ranging from assessment techniques, to activities, teaching strategies...but I think my favorites ended up being a great session on re-working the official MEDUCA curriculum to something that might actually work, and the various ways to develop reading and writing skills even on very basic levels, while still supporting very important vocal skills as well.  Intense, but good times.  Also, the place where this took place had TVs, so we even got to see the Olympics!  (Which led to time contemplations, thinking about how it was 4 years ago that I went to China and saw their preparations, before heading to the American Solar Challenge 2008, and then seeing the massive spectacle that was the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics- that was a good year...)
Of course, since it was our whole group together again, and our group has a well-deserved reputation for having ridiculous levels of solidarity/friendliness, every night was hanging out, games, dance parties...so, long days, and full nights.  We did have a couple days off, one of which we spent at the beach and most of us went into the city for the other, where we shopped, saw the new Batman, and went out dancing.
On a side note, our group dynamic is really a fortunate thing- we hear from other groups that we  have this reputation, and it's true- while of course there are some groups who are closer than others, they aren't exclusive, and pretty much everyone hangs out with whomever else.  It'd be a hard thing for nearly 30 people to all be close friends, but we all more or less get along.  Sometimes it's a detriment, when waiting for a critical mass of us to get heading the same direction at the same time...once there is a direction...but that's an infinitely preferable problem to have to having political/social drama problems.  
After I got back from IST, I went to spend my 2 weeks with my third Secondaria teacher, who has 2 8th grade classes, and 4 9th.  It was pretty painful overall, with her barely talking to me in class, and chatting with other teachers in Spanish in her free periods, but I got to have some fun helping kids practice pronunciation for presentations they were preparing (read, memorizing the sounds of) for the second week.  (Haha, woohoo alliteration!)  On my second Thursday we finally had a conversation that I sincerely wish we'd had at the beginning of my time with her, and I think it's possible that we can actually make a lot of progress when I'm with her again for the next school year.
Even before these 2 weeks, before IST, I'd pretty much decided that I was going to split my time between my mumblemumblefavoritemumblemumble Secondaria teacher and my Primaria teacher because they're the readiest, most fun for me to work with, and the 3rd trimester is effectively the shortest, because almost all of the last month is consumed by holidays, including independence days from Spain and Colombia, Flag Day, and 'First Shouts of Independence” from a lot of cities and towns around the country.  Culturally interesting, horrible for academics.  (It doesn't help that the Panamanian attitude towards education is that it's important, but doesn't merit too much actual effort from the teachers, administration, or students.  I suppose, though, that it's hardly fair to compare rural Panamanian school attitudes to my school experiences, which weren't quite standard even for the US.)  So, it should be an interesting time in all sorts of definitions of that word!  Incidentally, that being November, that should be the intensely ridiculously rainy part of the year, and also Thanksgiving, which I understand involves a PCV extravaganza out in Chiriquí.  And then there are a few other random festivals and events thrown in for fun.  Should be an interesting few months!  And I'm having my first visitor from the States in September- welcome Cecily! :-D

P.S. If you'd like postcards or the like, I would be happy to send them, but I left my address book in the States, because I was smart and prepared like that...so, if you'd like something por correo, send me your address :-)

Double post day!

So, my counterpart (Primaria co-teacher) let me borrow his magic internet stick to see if it gets signal in my house!  AND IT DOES!  Inconsistently, but hey, it's more than I've got otherwise.  So, you get 2 posts today (this one and the one about Independence Day), and we all get hope for internet at my house for the future! Isn't that exciting? Pictures still seem to take an eternity or so, but we'll see how long it actually takes when I have my own stick.

       In both the United States and Panama, preparations for Presidential elections are in full swing.  The candidates of the opposition party are being selected, and running mates bandied about.  I don’t know about the US, but lately I’ve been seeing increasing numbers of cars and trucks with various candidates names’ and parties driving around my town and the towns nearby, and I’m sure commercials, yardsigns, and billboards are popping up in the US, and probably here.  I don’t know about TV commercials here as the TV in my house doesn’t work, but I’d be surprised if there weren’t bastante (plenty/enough) commercials here.  The difference is that in the United States, the presidential election is in a number of months, and here in Panama, the election doesn’t take place until after I leave in 2014.  They certainly don’t waste time!...Except for all of the time that gets wasted waiting for busses that have imprecise schedules at best, for the time waiting to see if it will rain, for time just spend...sitting around.  Time spent waiting for meetings, waiting for appointments.
In the meantime, (haha, more time) I’m having a lot of fun in my house, although I’ve been rather anti-social now that I’m moved in.  But, I visit my familia panameña every few days, and am fully planning on getting out and walking more often, pasearing, visiting, all that jazz.
Now I have 2 weeks here, with my 10th grade profesora (the one who teaches English, French, Ethics, and Bellas Artes) before going to a 2 week “IST”, which is In-Service Training.  It’s unfortunate that it takes place in the middle of the most productive trimester of the school year, but oh well.
If I didn’t cover it before, here in Panama they have 3 trimesters in the school year.  They run late February-June, June-September, and September- December.  The first is largely spent getting the students, and teachers, back in academic modes, with a fair number of holidays, celebrations, recognitions, all manner of interruptions.  The second is the least interrupted, when the students and teachers are in gear, warmed up, and so it’s considered to be the most productive part.  Other than the 1st week of my Ciclo being out the window for the Aniversario festivities, another saint day at the Primaria, English Week at the Ciclo, and a variety of those little things that can come up in any term, it’s been much more consistent than last term.  Side note, substitute teachers don’t exist here, so if the teachers have family emergencies, official seminars, medical appointments, etc, their classes have free periods.  Technically, we’re are here to support our teachers in their teaching, and make sure that the schools don’t consider us to be unpaid substitutes, so I haven’t been stepping in when my teachers are out, but I might change my policy on that.  Particularly if my teachers ever have one of those 1 or 2 week MEDUCA seminars that I hear about other teachers disappearing to every so often.  I still don’t think I want to be a teacher for a career, but it actually hurts when I see the expectations for these students contrasted with the opportunities and situations offered.
Don’t misunderstand me, I think that my teachers are all above average (which is really saying all that much in the context of the Panamanian public school system), but they have a lot of room for improvement, and the MEDUCA approved books are so badly written that although there are decent parts, there are other sections that I have to read a passage 3 times to figure out, and yet others that are complete nonsense.
In addition, none of my teachers have their own classrooms, which makes usage of posters and other props more challenging, and technological limitations abound.   All of that being said, my teachers are very invested in their jobs, and generally devoted to their students.  And, they are ready and willing to work with me, which is marvelous for their students and the TE program, but a lot of pressure on me, which I feel particularly strongly when I think about my lack of formal educational training.  Oh well; c’est la vie!

And now, a bit of news of home life:  I’m sure that everyone will be able to breathe a sigh of relief- I’ve successfully identified and located cornstarch here, and although had to make some other substitutes, I made chocolate pudding from scratch.  So, in the end, all is well with the world.  ;-)

Independence Day

Today is, or is as of writing this, (because although I'm writing on the 4^th, who knows when I'll be posting) el Día de Independencia de los Estados Unidos, or Independence Day of the United States. A handful of people here remembered it to me, and a few more got it after just a couple of hints. I was fully intending to spend this week with my Primaria teacher, but he didn't go in yesterday, and after we did Kindergarten today, he basically kicked me out of classes because I “shouldn't have to work on my Independence Day,” which meant that I could go to El Valle with a handful of other volunteers from around here. The a lot of Panama PCVs went to a beach party in Chiriquí, actually where I went on my volunteer visit back in January, but I hadn't wanted to miss that much school...even though I am missing it anyway, with today, yesterday, and tomorrow my teacher is going to a ceremony/presentation in Los Santos to get our new Bandera Azul flag. As a reminder, Bandera Azul is the First Lady's program to motivate environmental programs in schools. My teacher wanted to invite me to the ceremony, but wasn't allowed to bring more people, so I have the day for...whatever I decide I need to do. Which will involve finding internet to post this!

Now, to the point: Celebrating Independence Day in the United States

I admit that I haven't always been the most fervent patriot in the Union, and that celebrating the 4^th of July was more for the sake of fireworks than the country itself, but I am very grateful to be an American citizen. Of course there are political problems, social problems, economic problems, energy problems, environmental problems, internal problems, international problems- the list can be endless of the problems.

But every time I spend time outside of the States, I learn as much about home as I do about whatever country I'm in.

And in that, I am reminded of how good we really have it. Granted, with the exception of bits of time in Austria, Germany, and Canada, my international adventures have been in less developed, less modern, or perhaps just less “Western.” Whatever the reason, for the most part, we have reliable access to running, potable water, and much of the time, even heated water. There's almost definite access to electricity across the board, and as annoying as the orange barrels are, someone is maintaining the roads. Not everyone has air conditioning, but most communities have some place they can go to enjoy it. To varying degrees of quality, we have neighborhood, city, county, state, and national parks, and a hefty percentage of the population is equipped with an automobile.

Beyond all of this, there are the less measurable things that are at least as important, if not more. The American Dream has gotten a bit tarnished over time, but having that idea that anyone can be anything is really encouraging. That's not to say they will be, or that it will be straightforward, or even seem possible, but knowing that it is possible for an individual to find and take chances and opportunities to make their life into whatever form they want to- is that not an idea to cherish?

Our educational system is beset with problems, but it does result in creative and productive engineers, scientists, librarians, teachers, leaders political and social, thinkers, inventors, writers, builders...people in every realm of activity.

The American ideals of opportunity, freedom, justice, accountability...despite the problems, there are throngs of people who still want to come to the United States so desperately that they will risk everything that they have, just to be able to start with nothing, in hopes that they or their children, or their grandchildren, will be able to improve themselves.

A few weeks ago, my 'uncle' asked me why there were so many immigrants want to go into the United States. I don't know an answer from surveys or studies, but I know it must be a strong reason for them to face the challenges that confront both legal and illegal immigrants.

Yes, there are faults to find, and counter-examples to everything that I mention as good and well-done, but they haven't proven to be as lastingly definitive of the US, and who doesn't have room for improvement?

And so, despite the the occasional 'declines into socialism,' debates on constitutionality of this and that, despite particular decisions and actions that I disagree with, and certainly at times a lot of frustration, I am and I will continue to be proud to be an American citizen.

(I do think it highly ego/ethno-centric that we have claimed the name “American”, which really belongs to quite a few countries on two continents.  Here in Panamá, they use "Estadounidense", which roughly translates to the sociological "United States-ian" more often than they use "americano."  However, I'm not going to change my opinion of the entirety of the United States on the basis of linguistic annoyance.)