Monthaversary of being an RPCV!

Hello all!
It's been a while, but I have one last update from Panama.
Since Tristan and Jennifer finished their whirlwind visit, I packed up my house, had a yardsale to sell or just give away many of my belongings, and moved back in with my host family from the beginning (though not training).
I had a few more community classes, printed pictures with my e-mail address to hand out to my favorite community members.

So far I haven't heard from anyone from town, but a couple of my co-teachers have been in touch :-).  As it turned out, I was hopping in and out of town finishing things, and working on reports and various worky things, but did have time to go to the rios with Ana and the rest of my host family, and at the end with their new houseguest, the recently arrived French teacher for the colegio.  Wonder of wonder- he actually spoke decently fluent French!  I mean, I don't speak French to know how correct it was, but he could put multiple complete sentences together, which is lightyears beyond the previous teacher  And as things stand, it even looks like he's permanent and won't be sent elsewhere at the end of the year!

My last big huzzah was a long anticipated trip to visit my friend Grayce in Bocas del Toro.  After talking about it for nearly a year, I finally made it out with a couple weeks to spare in country!

Bocas being far away, about as far as possible while staying in Panama, I took an overnight bus at 10PM, which landed me in David at 4 AM, right on time to get a 4:45 AM bus for the 3ish hour leg up to Almirante, where I switched to a water taxt to Bocas Town on Isla Colon.  Once there, I wandered around the town for a couple hours before settling at a hostel.  Ere long Grayce rolled in, and we did some errands before heading to her island of Bastamientos on her host dad's boat, as there isn't public service to her part of the island.

Bocas is BEAUTIFUL.  Grayce's site is one of the most undeveloped that I'd seen, with neither plumbing nor electricity, but had one of the best views.  She got her washwater from a nearby stream and community pluma (faucet), and lugged drinking water from the Bocas Town..  In a brief couple of days, I got well acquainted with her gatito (cat) Mickey, to whom sitting in a hammock was an invitation to cuddle, saw my first and thankfully only scorpion in Panama (very tiny, and quickly dispatched), and went on a tour of a cacao plantation.  We saw so very many crabs on the mangroves, a tiny red frog, and tried raw cacao, among other things.  It's kinda sweet nutty, and not chocolately at all.

View from Almirante at the water taxi to Bocas Town

Tropical Tree At Cacao Farm

Cacao Pods!

"Walking Palm" tree, which I believe moves on its leggy roots.

Early Panamanian rope- a vine that the indigenous people would pull down, strip the bark, and lash their houses etc.  If it wasn't needed immediately, it would store indefinitely in a stream!

Grayce and me in the wild portion of the cacao farm.  If cacao trees aren't maintained, they naturally grow too tall for harvest.

Purple Cacao Pods!

Our guide through the Cacao Farm.  The seeds are first put in the bottom segment of the shelving unit thingy, and move up through the drawers through the process, before being spread on a large drying platform to the right of the picture.

Manglare, or Mangrove

The view from Grayce's house- none to shabby!

Mickey!

And, on my way out, a dolphin came to see us. He surfaced a couple of times, but this was the only picture I managed. Very cool :-)

 It was a brief visit, but very entertaining, and well worth the many hours in the bus.  When I got back, I went to the finale of a PCV friend's week-long choral camp in which kids learned some American pop songs and performed them in front of friends and family- it was a great success, and at the time at least, generated a good deal of interest in an English youth chorus in her community!
My final week in the campo flew by with a final farewell trip to El Valle, final packing and weighing of my bags, last goodbyes, and some wrap-up errands around town.
Sunday the 23rd, I enlisted the help of a friend with a truck to drive me down to Anton with my bags, and off I went to the City, for a week of meetings, appointments, errands, and a little bit of touristing, when my PCV friend Ally and I stole off to Panama Viejo for an afternoon, which is the centuries-old original capital which Henry Morgan razed many long years ago, leaving it in ruins which more or less remain to this day.  Being in a place that was literally destroyed by a privateer/pirate puts a different spin on the romanticized idea that we have in the modern US.

And a final picture of Nate and Julie and a view to the Pacific as we went from Julie's site to El Valle
One Last Time.

Muchisimas gracias a la gente de Panamá y especialmente los de Santa Rita de Antón por 2 años incredibles. Nunca voy a olvidarles, ni mi tiempo de vivir con ustedes.