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.  ;-)