Noqa Raquel Kani. Noqa los Estados Unidos mantan kani. Runasimita rumani.
This is proof that I am learning something here in Peru. In Quechua, that means, “I am Rachel. I am from the United States. I speak Quechua.” (Not very sophisticated, I know, but I have had only a few classes so far!). Anyway, Quechua (and the dozens of other indigenous languages spoken in the Amazonian regions of Peru) have been a big part of my last few weeks. But, per usual, I have to retrace my steps and explain what I have been up to because I have been slacking on my blog updates. I could attribute this to my very busy and exhausting schedule or I could perhaps mention the wide availability of every season of the West Wing on pirated DVD – take your pick.
Two and a half weeks ago we went on a trip to Manu, a nature reserve in the Amazon about 10 hours from Cusco. Our trip ended up being delayed a day because of transportation strikes (called “paros” – literally a “stop”) that protested the Peruvian government’s plan to take water from a part of Cusco to help irrigate crops in another area of Peru intended for export to other countries. The delay was kind of nice, though, because it meant that we had a rare weekday without the standard 5 hours of class. We left a day late, at 4:30 am, completely unprepared for the ridiculousness that is a bus trip in the Andes. We were on a paved road for only about the first half hour of the 10-hour trip, and the majority of the time we found ourselves on the outside edge of impossibly narrow, windy dirt roads, face-to-face with another equally large truck trying to go the opposite direction. One look out the window to the thousand-foot cliffs was enough to make me sick. Nevertheless, we finally arrived in the Amazonian town of Pilcopata in the late afternoon, ready to spend a few days in the jungle. The climate change was very stark, as Cusco is very dry and fairly chilly and the jungle was exactly the opposite – humid and HOT.
From Pilcopata, we rode in the back of a truck (my favorite mode of transportation) to the community of Santa Rosa de Huacaria, where we stayed for two nights. Huacaria is a community of a few hundred people, and there are 4 languages spoken there – Spanish, Quechua, and also Matsiguenga and Huachiperi, two other indigenous languages. Both, but especially Huachiperi, are endangered languages – there are only a few hundred people left in the world who speak Huachiperi. Almost all of the adults speak their native languages and have passed them on to their children, which is great for the maintenance of the language but sometimes causes problems when those children want to go to high school outside of their community. In Huacaria we spent also spent a lot of time talking to a Curandero (“cure-er”) who is very respected in the field of traditional medicine. Coming from our very scientific, Westernized position on sickness and medicine, it was interesting to try to understand very different perspectives on the same issue.
After two nights in Huacaria we moved onto another community, Queros. This communidad was MUCH smaller – there are only 5 families and about 30 permanent inhabitants of the community. The community has shrunk greatly in recent years as people have left looking for better economic opportunities in the city. This might be changing, however, because a few years ago the community won a land grant from the government to use as a nature preserve and for tourism, so as to encourage people to return. Something very interesting that is practiced in Queros (and also Huacaria) is “tourismo vivencial” (“live-in tourism”), where the community hosts groups of visitors who are interested in experiencing “authentic” life in an indigenous community. This has changed the face of both communities, especially Queros, as they have begun to revive their traditional language and customs that have been fading over the years. This leads to many questions about authenticity and development, etc, and has made me think a lot ever since I spent time there.
Anyway, after 5 days in the jungle, we returned to Cusco in an equally harrowing bus ride, finally arriving to the city at midnight. It was this second 10-hour bus ride that convinced me that my lack of ipod was not allowing me to immerse myself better in the culture but was, in fact, only causing severe boredom. Moral of the story is that tomorrow I plan on forking over $200 to buy an ipod for the impending long bus rides.
i will update more about my last few weeks in a few days when i have more time! sorry this is so long
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
So I guess it’s time for another update! Considering it has been two weeks since I last wrote, I won’t bore all of you, my many faithful readers, with my day-by-day itinerary. In short, I have gone to a lot of classes and seen a lot of Incan ruins. I have also eaten alpaca (although not yet guinea pig), gone to a birthday party, and sang a bit of karaoke.
I will go into detail about a few things that I hope will be interesting. So here goes:
My daily schedule: During the week, I have two sessions of classes every day. In the mornings, I have Spanish class from 9 until 12. I usually get up around 730, and eat breakfast with my host family. Around 8 I leave for class walking with Hannah and Alex, two other SIT students who live in my neighborhood. The walk from our neighborhood, Magisterio, to the center where we have class is about 40 minutes. Considering I STILL haven’t really gotten used to the altitude here, I usually arrive huffing and puffing to class a few minutes before we begin. The fifteen students in the program have been split up into two different levels of Spanish classes, and I am in the upper level, but I have found the class to be very easy for me. I definitely have the most Spanish experience out of the group, and while it is useful to review grammar and conversational skills, I still find myself very bored and frustrated that I am not in a higher level. It is a moot point now, though, because we finish with Spanish on Tuesday (and then more onto Quechua!). After class ends at noon I return home for lunch, sometimes walking or sometimes in combi, which is the name for public buses here. The buses are usually big vans and are ALWAYS too crowded – the people are shoved in like sardines and it is pretty uncomfortable. I really like public transportation, so I don’t mind too much, but I do find myself getting pretty frustrated with being herded around like cattle. So walking is preferable. I usually eat with at least my host mom if not the rest of the family, and I am very very lucky to have been placed in a family that cooks well! My host mom, Maria Elena, is obsessed with food (as am I) so we have been eating very well. I have eaten a huge variety of things – from pesto pasta and sweet potatoes to tamales and stuffed meats. Lunch is a HUGE meal, so I am often stuffed to the brim when it comes time to return to school for our afternoon session.
Every afternoon we have a lecture from a different invited guest about some theme relating to Peru and its indigenous communities. It has been very interesting to hear people speak about their areas of expertise, and I have started to comprehend a little better the diversity of Peru’s indigenous communities and many of the different factors affecting them. Before coming to Peru, I had always thought of the country in terms of the Andean, quechua-speaking indigenous people, so it has been a big reality check to learn that over half of the country is part of the Amazon and that there are many different groups indigenous people residing there. One of the most interesting things that we have learned about so far has been Peru’s efforts at bilingual educations, which have been futile thus far. Considering I am interested in immigration and ESL in the United States, learning about a different country’s attempts to implement bilingual education has been an interesting comparison. I hope to investigate this further during my month-long ISP (Independent Study Project) which I will complete at the end of the semester. We have also learned about traditional medicine in Peru, Incan archaeology, and the history of indigenous rights in the country. It has been great to learn all of this, but it is also making everyone quite antsy to actually get out there and experience the indigenous culture! Luckily, we don’t have long to wait as we leave in three days for Manu, a park in the Amazon, where we will spend a few days each in two different indigenous communities there. I am really excited to get out of Cusco and go somewhere different (and WARM!)
One very interesting experience I had last week was actually something completely unrelated to being in Peru. Last Wednesday, as many of you Jewish folk know, was the beginning of Rosh Hashanah. There are three other Jewish kids on the program, so we decided to seek out any sort of service to see what it was like. The only thing that we were able to find was Chabad, which to my understanding is the closest thing to missionaries that the Jews have. I think that Chabad exists in many cities, and is run by orthodox Jews. Its goal is to find not very devout Jews (read: me) and make them more religious. So I went, accompanied by three friends, to the Chabad house in Cusco. We arrived for the service and were immediately barraged by many people speaking Hebrew – it seemed that everyone there was Israeli. The Chabad was located in a huge old house with courtyard in the middle. After some confusing, multilingual conversations, we found our way upstairs to the service. To my surprise, there was a curtain hanging in the middle of the room, dividing it half. I was confused at first until I realized that the front portion of the room was only for men and the back part, behind the curtain, was for women. I have never been to a religious service that prevented women from seeing the action, and I was quite taken aback and even a bit angry. But I stuck out the service (very short and completely in Hebrew) with my friends so that we could attend the dinner afterwards. For the dinner, there were probably over 200 people, all speaking Hebrew and appearing to know each other, and us. We felt very uncomfortable and a bit unwelcome, but stayed anyway for the food and the experience. We found some space at a table and ended up meeting Zevi, the only other American there. Zevi is an Orthodox Rabbi from Crown Heights, Brooklyn, who had just arrived in Cusco the night before. He was an interesting fellow because he was very young and personable, and seemed very normal, but he was also in his full-on Jewish regalia – suit and top hat and everything – and will not touch women. Honestly, I experienced more culture shock on Rosh Hashanah than I have the rest of my time in Peru!
I have also spent a considerable amount of time visiting different Incan ruins during the past few weeks. Last Saturday we went as a group to visit a bunch of different ruins that are right outside of the city, and yesterday I went with a smaller group to Pisaq, a town that lies about 33 km outside of Cusco. The town has a cute market, and about an hour hike up a mountain are some more beautiful ruins. I am honestly a bit tired of hearing about the function of each ruin and about the incredible architectural feat that allow the rocks to stay so well together, etc., so I might take a break for a while. I did, however, enjoy going to Pisaq because we got to hike up a mountain, which was VERY difficult because of the incline and the altitude, but also very worth it because, hey, I am in the ANDES! Every view in breathtaking and sometimes I need to remind myself to stop taking pictures because they never come out quite as incredible as is the view.
Well this entry has been pretty longwinded and unorganized, but I am exhausted so I will call it a night. I will update again next week after my trip to the Amazon!
I will go into detail about a few things that I hope will be interesting. So here goes:
My daily schedule: During the week, I have two sessions of classes every day. In the mornings, I have Spanish class from 9 until 12. I usually get up around 730, and eat breakfast with my host family. Around 8 I leave for class walking with Hannah and Alex, two other SIT students who live in my neighborhood. The walk from our neighborhood, Magisterio, to the center where we have class is about 40 minutes. Considering I STILL haven’t really gotten used to the altitude here, I usually arrive huffing and puffing to class a few minutes before we begin. The fifteen students in the program have been split up into two different levels of Spanish classes, and I am in the upper level, but I have found the class to be very easy for me. I definitely have the most Spanish experience out of the group, and while it is useful to review grammar and conversational skills, I still find myself very bored and frustrated that I am not in a higher level. It is a moot point now, though, because we finish with Spanish on Tuesday (and then more onto Quechua!). After class ends at noon I return home for lunch, sometimes walking or sometimes in combi, which is the name for public buses here. The buses are usually big vans and are ALWAYS too crowded – the people are shoved in like sardines and it is pretty uncomfortable. I really like public transportation, so I don’t mind too much, but I do find myself getting pretty frustrated with being herded around like cattle. So walking is preferable. I usually eat with at least my host mom if not the rest of the family, and I am very very lucky to have been placed in a family that cooks well! My host mom, Maria Elena, is obsessed with food (as am I) so we have been eating very well. I have eaten a huge variety of things – from pesto pasta and sweet potatoes to tamales and stuffed meats. Lunch is a HUGE meal, so I am often stuffed to the brim when it comes time to return to school for our afternoon session.
Every afternoon we have a lecture from a different invited guest about some theme relating to Peru and its indigenous communities. It has been very interesting to hear people speak about their areas of expertise, and I have started to comprehend a little better the diversity of Peru’s indigenous communities and many of the different factors affecting them. Before coming to Peru, I had always thought of the country in terms of the Andean, quechua-speaking indigenous people, so it has been a big reality check to learn that over half of the country is part of the Amazon and that there are many different groups indigenous people residing there. One of the most interesting things that we have learned about so far has been Peru’s efforts at bilingual educations, which have been futile thus far. Considering I am interested in immigration and ESL in the United States, learning about a different country’s attempts to implement bilingual education has been an interesting comparison. I hope to investigate this further during my month-long ISP (Independent Study Project) which I will complete at the end of the semester. We have also learned about traditional medicine in Peru, Incan archaeology, and the history of indigenous rights in the country. It has been great to learn all of this, but it is also making everyone quite antsy to actually get out there and experience the indigenous culture! Luckily, we don’t have long to wait as we leave in three days for Manu, a park in the Amazon, where we will spend a few days each in two different indigenous communities there. I am really excited to get out of Cusco and go somewhere different (and WARM!)
One very interesting experience I had last week was actually something completely unrelated to being in Peru. Last Wednesday, as many of you Jewish folk know, was the beginning of Rosh Hashanah. There are three other Jewish kids on the program, so we decided to seek out any sort of service to see what it was like. The only thing that we were able to find was Chabad, which to my understanding is the closest thing to missionaries that the Jews have. I think that Chabad exists in many cities, and is run by orthodox Jews. Its goal is to find not very devout Jews (read: me) and make them more religious. So I went, accompanied by three friends, to the Chabad house in Cusco. We arrived for the service and were immediately barraged by many people speaking Hebrew – it seemed that everyone there was Israeli. The Chabad was located in a huge old house with courtyard in the middle. After some confusing, multilingual conversations, we found our way upstairs to the service. To my surprise, there was a curtain hanging in the middle of the room, dividing it half. I was confused at first until I realized that the front portion of the room was only for men and the back part, behind the curtain, was for women. I have never been to a religious service that prevented women from seeing the action, and I was quite taken aback and even a bit angry. But I stuck out the service (very short and completely in Hebrew) with my friends so that we could attend the dinner afterwards. For the dinner, there were probably over 200 people, all speaking Hebrew and appearing to know each other, and us. We felt very uncomfortable and a bit unwelcome, but stayed anyway for the food and the experience. We found some space at a table and ended up meeting Zevi, the only other American there. Zevi is an Orthodox Rabbi from Crown Heights, Brooklyn, who had just arrived in Cusco the night before. He was an interesting fellow because he was very young and personable, and seemed very normal, but he was also in his full-on Jewish regalia – suit and top hat and everything – and will not touch women. Honestly, I experienced more culture shock on Rosh Hashanah than I have the rest of my time in Peru!
I have also spent a considerable amount of time visiting different Incan ruins during the past few weeks. Last Saturday we went as a group to visit a bunch of different ruins that are right outside of the city, and yesterday I went with a smaller group to Pisaq, a town that lies about 33 km outside of Cusco. The town has a cute market, and about an hour hike up a mountain are some more beautiful ruins. I am honestly a bit tired of hearing about the function of each ruin and about the incredible architectural feat that allow the rocks to stay so well together, etc., so I might take a break for a while. I did, however, enjoy going to Pisaq because we got to hike up a mountain, which was VERY difficult because of the incline and the altitude, but also very worth it because, hey, I am in the ANDES! Every view in breathtaking and sometimes I need to remind myself to stop taking pictures because they never come out quite as incredible as is the view.
Well this entry has been pretty longwinded and unorganized, but I am exhausted so I will call it a night. I will update again next week after my trip to the Amazon!
Monday, September 6, 2010
Cusco
I am currently writing from my bedroom in my host family's house in Cusco! We arrived here as a group on Thursday evening and were met by all of our new host families. My host family consists of parents, Maria Elena Carrazco and Ariel Barrionuevo, and a 20 year old host brother named Diego. I also have a 23-year-old sister named Paola, but she lives in the city of Arequipa, which is 8 hours away, so I will probably never meet her. We live in la Urbanizacion (neighborhood) Magisterio, which is about a 30-minute walk or a 10-minute drive from the Plaza de Armas, the central plaza of Cusco. 2 other students from my program live in the same neighborhood as me, which is really and convenient. The family is very nice and welcoming - they have had many exchange students live with them before so they are very familiar with the process. This is very comforting but also makes me feel like one in a long line of foreign students in their lives. But they have been very warm, open, and inclusive, so all is good!
Friday morning my host dad helped me get to the place where we will be taking classes because we had to take a Spanish exam. We take classes in the Centro Bartolome de las Casas, which is a center dedicated to researched about marginalized groups of people. In this case, that research is mainly dedicated to studying indigenous groups here in the Andean region of Peru. It is one of the major research centers in Southern Peru and people come from many different places to study there. SIT has an office, a few classrooms, and its own tiny library in the center. The building is very beautiful and located only about 3 blocks from the Plaza de Armas, which is fantastic. The exam that we took will be used to break the group up into different levels for the Spanish classes that we are going to start tomorrow (Monday). I am definitely one of the better Spanish speakers in the group so I am not too worried.
I have so far spent a lot of time with my host family – yesterday we all went to see my host dad play in a soccer game. He is a dentist (as is my host mom) and every Saturday he plays with other dentists in a league against teams from other professions. This week they played the engineers, and the game resulted in a 1-1 empate (tie). The type of soccer that is popular in Cusco is very urban – teams of 6 play on basketball courts. Every park that I have passed has always been full of people playing soccer. I am waiting to find some people playing basketball so I can join in! Yesterday I also went with my host mom and brother to the Baratillo – a huge, open-air market that winds up and down different avenues. The thing about this market is that almost everything there is stolen, used, or fake. There were fake ray-bans mixed in with 60-year-old typewriters and old books in English about mineralogy. Anything that is brand-name has been stolen – generally from stores and tourists – and anything that looks new is a knock-off. My host brother jokingly told me that when his friends’ phones get stolen on a Friday night out, they will go the Baratillo the next morning to buy it back.
Some of the most interesting things I saw at the Baratillo were fake North Face jackets and other items. I think that this makes a big statement about the type of tourism in Cusco. The tourism industry here is dominated by adventure tourism. In the center of town there are tons of shops advertising rafting trips or hiking tours to Machu Picchu, and most of the tourists that are seen choking the center of the city are generally sporting expensive, brand-name outdoor-performance clothing. For this reason, there is a market for fake North Face and Patagonia products in a city that keeps warm via alpaca sweaters. It is very obvious that Cusco is a city of multiple identities. It is at the same time a haven for dreadlocked hippies and adventure seeking travelers, a central market for the indigenous people living in the small mountainous communities outside the city, and also one of Peru’s biggest cities, filled with a mainstream working-class and professional culture just like any other. I don’t really understand yet how these different identities and functions blend together and build off each other, but I am hoping that by the end of my semester here I will have gained a little more insight.
Right now I am relaxing after a long weekend. Last night I explored Cusco’s nightlife with my SIT friends, which included having a drink in the highest Irish pub in the world, at over 11,000 feet! Today I went to one of Cusco’s big produce markets, where we spent over an hour haggling over prices and choosing between the 20 varieties of potatoes. I then drove with my host family to visit a town about 30 minutes outside of the city where there is a beautiful church and a lot of old Spanish architecture. On the way back we stopped by some old Incan ruins that casually sit on the side of the highway. We concluded the trip with a big lunch (at 4:30 pm!) and I am currently resting and waiting for the inevitable food coma. Tonight I have to do some reading because classes start tomorrow – I had almost forgotten the reason for which I am here in Cusco!
Friday morning my host dad helped me get to the place where we will be taking classes because we had to take a Spanish exam. We take classes in the Centro Bartolome de las Casas, which is a center dedicated to researched about marginalized groups of people. In this case, that research is mainly dedicated to studying indigenous groups here in the Andean region of Peru. It is one of the major research centers in Southern Peru and people come from many different places to study there. SIT has an office, a few classrooms, and its own tiny library in the center. The building is very beautiful and located only about 3 blocks from the Plaza de Armas, which is fantastic. The exam that we took will be used to break the group up into different levels for the Spanish classes that we are going to start tomorrow (Monday). I am definitely one of the better Spanish speakers in the group so I am not too worried.
I have so far spent a lot of time with my host family – yesterday we all went to see my host dad play in a soccer game. He is a dentist (as is my host mom) and every Saturday he plays with other dentists in a league against teams from other professions. This week they played the engineers, and the game resulted in a 1-1 empate (tie). The type of soccer that is popular in Cusco is very urban – teams of 6 play on basketball courts. Every park that I have passed has always been full of people playing soccer. I am waiting to find some people playing basketball so I can join in! Yesterday I also went with my host mom and brother to the Baratillo – a huge, open-air market that winds up and down different avenues. The thing about this market is that almost everything there is stolen, used, or fake. There were fake ray-bans mixed in with 60-year-old typewriters and old books in English about mineralogy. Anything that is brand-name has been stolen – generally from stores and tourists – and anything that looks new is a knock-off. My host brother jokingly told me that when his friends’ phones get stolen on a Friday night out, they will go the Baratillo the next morning to buy it back.
Some of the most interesting things I saw at the Baratillo were fake North Face jackets and other items. I think that this makes a big statement about the type of tourism in Cusco. The tourism industry here is dominated by adventure tourism. In the center of town there are tons of shops advertising rafting trips or hiking tours to Machu Picchu, and most of the tourists that are seen choking the center of the city are generally sporting expensive, brand-name outdoor-performance clothing. For this reason, there is a market for fake North Face and Patagonia products in a city that keeps warm via alpaca sweaters. It is very obvious that Cusco is a city of multiple identities. It is at the same time a haven for dreadlocked hippies and adventure seeking travelers, a central market for the indigenous people living in the small mountainous communities outside the city, and also one of Peru’s biggest cities, filled with a mainstream working-class and professional culture just like any other. I don’t really understand yet how these different identities and functions blend together and build off each other, but I am hoping that by the end of my semester here I will have gained a little more insight.
Right now I am relaxing after a long weekend. Last night I explored Cusco’s nightlife with my SIT friends, which included having a drink in the highest Irish pub in the world, at over 11,000 feet! Today I went to one of Cusco’s big produce markets, where we spent over an hour haggling over prices and choosing between the 20 varieties of potatoes. I then drove with my host family to visit a town about 30 minutes outside of the city where there is a beautiful church and a lot of old Spanish architecture. On the way back we stopped by some old Incan ruins that casually sit on the side of the highway. We concluded the trip with a big lunch (at 4:30 pm!) and I am currently resting and waiting for the inevitable food coma. Tonight I have to do some reading because classes start tomorrow – I had almost forgotten the reason for which I am here in Cusco!
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Peru!
So I have arrived in Peru! I left on a noon flight from Boston, and arrive in Lima around 10 pm (their time, which is an hour behind the east coast, so really 11:00). I had traveled with a girl on my program, Priscilla, because she was also from Boston. Our flight to Cusco didn't leave Lima until 5:45 am, so we waited in the airport all night until it was time to leave. We waited at a Starbucks and ended up meeting a few other people from our program who were also there waiting for flights, so it was nice (but also a little ridiculous because we were so tired) to meet each other in advance. We got to Cusco around 7:00 am and got picked up by the staff here (we have 3 main staff who coordinate everything and are in charge of academics). Rather than staying in Cusco right away, we have been staying at a hotel in a nearby city called Urubamba for our orientation. The reasoning behind this is that Cusco is at 11,000 feet and many people get sick from the altitude when they first get there. Urubamba is only around 7,000 feet so it has been easier to get used to the altitude.
We haven't been doing too much in orientation, just getting to know each other (there are 14 other students in the program) and becoming familiar with Peru and the culture and understanding the academic expectations for the trip. We have gone a few little trips to neighboring communities but otherwise mostly stayed in our (beautiful) hotel here in Urubamba and talked. Yesterday, though, we went to Machu Picchu, which was beautiful! Well, it owuld have been more beautiful had it not been raining the entire time. But it was still incredible to see, and even better than I had expected. The trip took a LONG time each way, so we all bonded a lot on the journey, which was fun.
Today we are going to meet our homestay families in Cusco! We are leaving on a bus in an hour to go to a little reception they are having for us. Tomorrow we have a Spanish placement test and then we start class on Monday. I should go now but I will update more later once I figure everything out in Cusco.
Hasta Luego!
Rachel
We haven't been doing too much in orientation, just getting to know each other (there are 14 other students in the program) and becoming familiar with Peru and the culture and understanding the academic expectations for the trip. We have gone a few little trips to neighboring communities but otherwise mostly stayed in our (beautiful) hotel here in Urubamba and talked. Yesterday, though, we went to Machu Picchu, which was beautiful! Well, it owuld have been more beautiful had it not been raining the entire time. But it was still incredible to see, and even better than I had expected. The trip took a LONG time each way, so we all bonded a lot on the journey, which was fun.
Today we are going to meet our homestay families in Cusco! We are leaving on a bus in an hour to go to a little reception they are having for us. Tomorrow we have a Spanish placement test and then we start class on Monday. I should go now but I will update more later once I figure everything out in Cusco.
Hasta Luego!
Rachel
Friday, August 27, 2010
From Panama to Peru!
Hello!
Sorry I have been a bit lax about updating this blog (by which I mean sorry for not updating for the past two months...) A lot has happened since the 4th of July, when I last wrote so I will try to give you the (very) abbreviated version of July and August.
The rest of July brought about the end of AMIGOS. I spent another few weeks visiting my volunteers in their communities, getting to know different people, and wrapping up community projects that had been started. It was a lot of work but I truly enjoyed every moment of it - I really came to love and appreciate all of my volunteers and become comfortable in all of their communities. I felt like an overly sentimental mother when they left, just gawking at how much Spanish they had learned and how much more confidently they carried themselves, etc. They left on July 27th, and then I spent a few days visiting all of my communities for a final wrap-up and to fill out paperwork to leave for the AMIGOS staff next year in Cocle. I then had a brief few days to travel around Panama before returning home on August 5. I was able to visit a few different cities (Santiago, Aguadulce, and El Valle) and spend a night in a beautiful resort before returning to Panama City for my flight home. My plans were unfortunately hampered a bit by the fact that I badly sprained my ankle on my second-to-last night, but I managed to still have a lot of fun!
Leaving Panama was one of the hardest things that I have done in a while. Usually, when I leave a place to go home, I am sad but also excited to return home to my family and Rhode Island. This time, however, I had no desire at all to go home and I just wanted to stay in Panama as long as possible. I really felt comfortable living in Penonomé and getting to know my area of La Pintada to the point where I would recognize people walking down the street and I was even beginning to reach the point where I didn't feel like a tourist anymore. It was hard to abandon that momentum right when I was feeling so confident. But, of course, it was nice to come home, to familiar old Rhode Island.
So now I have been home in RI for three weeks, trying to squeeze in as much as possible before I leave for Peru (tomorrow!). I went to a cousin's wedding in Rochester, NY, which was beautiful and really fun. I have also gone to New York City and Cape Cod, but mostly I have been sitting on my couch, enjoying my downtime and catching up on all of the reality TV that I missed...
So here I am, once again, on the brink of another adventure! I leave tomorrow (August 28) from Boston, and head to Lima, where I will spend the night, and then I will leave Sunday morning for Cusco. I have spent a LOT of time figuring out what to bring so that I will have enough clothes for a year while still packing fairly lightly (my dad would not agree that I have packed lightly, but I am pretty proud...). I am still unsure of many of my plans, so hopefully I have packed everything that I might need no matter what the situation.
This first semester I will be living in Cusco, Peru with the program SIT (the School for International Training). I will be living in Cusco and taking classes for the first month to six weeks, after which I will go on a few week-long excursions to different parts of Peru (Lima, the Amazon, etc.). The end of the project includes a month-long independent study project, where I will choose a research topic, conduct independent, first-hand research, and end up writing a 30-40 page paper (in Spanish!). I have NO idea what the program or people will be like, but I have a good feeling and I am not too nervous.
Well this is enough for the night - I should probably finish packing considering I leave in 9 hours!
Rachel
Sorry I have been a bit lax about updating this blog (by which I mean sorry for not updating for the past two months...) A lot has happened since the 4th of July, when I last wrote so I will try to give you the (very) abbreviated version of July and August.
The rest of July brought about the end of AMIGOS. I spent another few weeks visiting my volunteers in their communities, getting to know different people, and wrapping up community projects that had been started. It was a lot of work but I truly enjoyed every moment of it - I really came to love and appreciate all of my volunteers and become comfortable in all of their communities. I felt like an overly sentimental mother when they left, just gawking at how much Spanish they had learned and how much more confidently they carried themselves, etc. They left on July 27th, and then I spent a few days visiting all of my communities for a final wrap-up and to fill out paperwork to leave for the AMIGOS staff next year in Cocle. I then had a brief few days to travel around Panama before returning home on August 5. I was able to visit a few different cities (Santiago, Aguadulce, and El Valle) and spend a night in a beautiful resort before returning to Panama City for my flight home. My plans were unfortunately hampered a bit by the fact that I badly sprained my ankle on my second-to-last night, but I managed to still have a lot of fun!
Leaving Panama was one of the hardest things that I have done in a while. Usually, when I leave a place to go home, I am sad but also excited to return home to my family and Rhode Island. This time, however, I had no desire at all to go home and I just wanted to stay in Panama as long as possible. I really felt comfortable living in Penonomé and getting to know my area of La Pintada to the point where I would recognize people walking down the street and I was even beginning to reach the point where I didn't feel like a tourist anymore. It was hard to abandon that momentum right when I was feeling so confident. But, of course, it was nice to come home, to familiar old Rhode Island.
So now I have been home in RI for three weeks, trying to squeeze in as much as possible before I leave for Peru (tomorrow!). I went to a cousin's wedding in Rochester, NY, which was beautiful and really fun. I have also gone to New York City and Cape Cod, but mostly I have been sitting on my couch, enjoying my downtime and catching up on all of the reality TV that I missed...
So here I am, once again, on the brink of another adventure! I leave tomorrow (August 28) from Boston, and head to Lima, where I will spend the night, and then I will leave Sunday morning for Cusco. I have spent a LOT of time figuring out what to bring so that I will have enough clothes for a year while still packing fairly lightly (my dad would not agree that I have packed lightly, but I am pretty proud...). I am still unsure of many of my plans, so hopefully I have packed everything that I might need no matter what the situation.
This first semester I will be living in Cusco, Peru with the program SIT (the School for International Training). I will be living in Cusco and taking classes for the first month to six weeks, after which I will go on a few week-long excursions to different parts of Peru (Lima, the Amazon, etc.). The end of the project includes a month-long independent study project, where I will choose a research topic, conduct independent, first-hand research, and end up writing a 30-40 page paper (in Spanish!). I have NO idea what the program or people will be like, but I have a good feeling and I am not too nervous.
Well this is enough for the night - I should probably finish packing considering I leave in 9 hours!
Rachel
Sunday, July 4, 2010
ahora más tarde
Hello all!
It has been quite the eventful week since my last update. Last Sunday, Kate McGuire, the AMIGOS Regional Director for EcuaNicaPanaRica (Ecuador, Nicaragua, Panama, and Costa Rica) came to visit. She is an incredibly energetic person and has been working with AMIGOS for something like 8 years, so her input into our project is not only valuable, but also incredibly fun. On Sunday we went to Santa Clara, a beach in the Pacific that is about 30 minutes from Penonomé. Our timing left a bit to be desired because it rained all day, but it was still hot and the water was still warm and we still had a great time! It was really nice to have a day of relaxation and to not be thinking about working and our volunteers for a little while and to just have fun! We watched the Argentina-Mexico game from a restaurant at the beach, which was a lively experience. I had decided to root for Argentina after the US and Italy were eliminated, so the result of the game was exciting (but unfortunately invalidated as of Argentina's loss yesterday). That evening Kate took us out to a fairly fancy dinner (for Penonomé) and we had a fun time discussing our spirit animals (I am either a camel or a dragonfly...).
On Monday I left again to spend the week in my communities. The beginning of the week was particularly challenging, for reasons I will not discuss here, but I just had to have some conversations that I was hoping not to have during my time here. But all is well now and that is what's important. The rest of the week was good and fairly uneventful - I went on a few jungle treks, played horribly during a game of volleyball, and got my clothes extremely wet crossing a river after a rainstorm. I really do enjoy going out to communities every week and seeing my volunteers and their projects progress; however, it requires a great deal of energy, which becomes exhausting. I am constantly worried about making sure that my volunteers are having the best and safest experience as possible, and there is always more that I can do. But I think that I am finding a decent balance and doing well. I guess I'll find out...
This weekend has been pretty relaxing thus far, filled mainly with fútbol and food. We have also been planning for midterm, which is coming up this week. Midterm is the day when the volunteers will come to the city to share their experiences and have the opportunity to reflect, call their parents, and use the internet for a little while. Logistically, this is very complicated so we have spent a lot of time figuring out exactly how it will work.
I have had two main highlights this weekend:
1). Meeting Peter. In Penonomé, there is this store named Casa Peter that I would equate to the city's equivalent of a Walmart. It isn't that big but it has EVERYTHING, and many American brand school supplies, toiletries, electronics, etc. As a staff we have spent a great deal of money there buying materials for the project and things for ourselves and out volunteers. There are weekends where I end up going to Casa Peter (affectionately nicknamed Casa P (with the a in Casa pronounced like the a in "happy")) every day. The frequency with which we go to Casa P has become a joke in staff house and we talk about it a lot. This isn't all, though. In addition to Casa Peter, there is also Farmacia Peter and Mr. Peter's, a restaurant. All three are located on the same street and are owned by Peter, a third-generation Chinese-Panamanian who spend ten years of his life in San Francisco. He speaks perfect English and has become incredibly successful in Penonomé because of how he has incorporated foreign (mainly American) products into his businesss. Anyway, the moral of this story is that I FINALLY got to meet Peter on Friday night when the staff decided to go to Mr. Peter's for dinner. It was a bit disarming to meet someone that seemed so American in Penonomé, where I have yet to meet another person from the US, but it was really interesting to hear about his life experiences as well. Mainly, the fact that we had built up Peter so much in staff house made the fact that I got to meet him extremely exciting.
2). Parades. I had the opportunity to witness two very different parades here in Penonomé this weekend. The first happened on Friday afternoon as I was walking to the lavandería to drop off my laundry. We were walking away from the main street in town when we heard a lot of honking, more than is usual even in Panama where people believe that honking is an acceptable substitute for using their side mirrors. Anyway, we turned around to investigate and were confronted with a long line of cars (probably about 60) that were decked out with balloons and decorations with the colors of various world cup teams. They were all honking and playing music and throwing candy out the windors. We were a bit confused because there seemed to be no rhyme of reason to the decorations - some of the teams had already gotten out of the world cup whereas others were still in, and we were just confused about how the whole thing got organized. We found out later that it really didn't have anything to do with the world cup, and was just a celebration from the local elementary school that is done every year with the "reinas" (queens) of each classroom. It always has some sort of theme and this year just happened to be the world cup. Nevertheless, the music, candy, and excitement were a fun pick-me-up for a Friday afternoon.
I saw the second parade yesterday when I went to the vegetable market. I heard a lot of music and commotion in the street so I went outside to check it out. It turned out to be a parade celebrating all of the cooperatives in Penonomé, which was really interesting. The parade consisted in blocks of people in matching baseball caps and polos, just celebrating themselves and their cooperatives. Some groups were extremely lively and had some trumpet and trombone players and drummers, and they would play a simple tune and dance, and some even had people dressed in traditional Panamanian clothing doing some típico dance. I loved this parade for many reasons. Firstly, I thought it was really cool that there was a day to celebrate all of the cooperatives in the city. But what was even better was its informality - it was just a bunch of people in matching polos with old trumpets, but they were having a damn good time (probably aided by the consumption of alcohol, but still...). There were fifty-year old men just having a good time dancing in the street, which is really just my idea of a good time, and something you would never see in the US. Nothing was especially choreographed or rehearsed, but it was just FUN. I spent about a half hour just watching this parade.
Any-hoo, I should probably go and help out with our little 4th of July celebration - we are grilling some burgers and making mashed potatoes and whatnot. Tomorrow I head back out to community for the week! I hope everyone is having a nice holiday!
Rachel
EDIT: I just realized that I forgot to explain the title of this entry. Usually, in Spanish, the word "ahora" is the equivalent of the English word "now", and the word "ahorrita" means something like "in this very instant". However, this is different in Panama, which has caused quite a bit of confusion in my experiences. Here, "ahora" really means "later", and "ahorrita" means "now". So I keep catching myself saying something like "Ok so you can help me AHORA" without realizing what that really means. Many people use the expression "ahora más tarde", which would usually be a huge contradiction ("now but later") but makes perfect sense with the Panamanian understanding of the word. Let's just say it's very confusing.
It has been quite the eventful week since my last update. Last Sunday, Kate McGuire, the AMIGOS Regional Director for EcuaNicaPanaRica (Ecuador, Nicaragua, Panama, and Costa Rica) came to visit. She is an incredibly energetic person and has been working with AMIGOS for something like 8 years, so her input into our project is not only valuable, but also incredibly fun. On Sunday we went to Santa Clara, a beach in the Pacific that is about 30 minutes from Penonomé. Our timing left a bit to be desired because it rained all day, but it was still hot and the water was still warm and we still had a great time! It was really nice to have a day of relaxation and to not be thinking about working and our volunteers for a little while and to just have fun! We watched the Argentina-Mexico game from a restaurant at the beach, which was a lively experience. I had decided to root for Argentina after the US and Italy were eliminated, so the result of the game was exciting (but unfortunately invalidated as of Argentina's loss yesterday). That evening Kate took us out to a fairly fancy dinner (for Penonomé) and we had a fun time discussing our spirit animals (I am either a camel or a dragonfly...).
On Monday I left again to spend the week in my communities. The beginning of the week was particularly challenging, for reasons I will not discuss here, but I just had to have some conversations that I was hoping not to have during my time here. But all is well now and that is what's important. The rest of the week was good and fairly uneventful - I went on a few jungle treks, played horribly during a game of volleyball, and got my clothes extremely wet crossing a river after a rainstorm. I really do enjoy going out to communities every week and seeing my volunteers and their projects progress; however, it requires a great deal of energy, which becomes exhausting. I am constantly worried about making sure that my volunteers are having the best and safest experience as possible, and there is always more that I can do. But I think that I am finding a decent balance and doing well. I guess I'll find out...
This weekend has been pretty relaxing thus far, filled mainly with fútbol and food. We have also been planning for midterm, which is coming up this week. Midterm is the day when the volunteers will come to the city to share their experiences and have the opportunity to reflect, call their parents, and use the internet for a little while. Logistically, this is very complicated so we have spent a lot of time figuring out exactly how it will work.
I have had two main highlights this weekend:
1). Meeting Peter. In Penonomé, there is this store named Casa Peter that I would equate to the city's equivalent of a Walmart. It isn't that big but it has EVERYTHING, and many American brand school supplies, toiletries, electronics, etc. As a staff we have spent a great deal of money there buying materials for the project and things for ourselves and out volunteers. There are weekends where I end up going to Casa Peter (affectionately nicknamed Casa P (with the a in Casa pronounced like the a in "happy")) every day. The frequency with which we go to Casa P has become a joke in staff house and we talk about it a lot. This isn't all, though. In addition to Casa Peter, there is also Farmacia Peter and Mr. Peter's, a restaurant. All three are located on the same street and are owned by Peter, a third-generation Chinese-Panamanian who spend ten years of his life in San Francisco. He speaks perfect English and has become incredibly successful in Penonomé because of how he has incorporated foreign (mainly American) products into his businesss. Anyway, the moral of this story is that I FINALLY got to meet Peter on Friday night when the staff decided to go to Mr. Peter's for dinner. It was a bit disarming to meet someone that seemed so American in Penonomé, where I have yet to meet another person from the US, but it was really interesting to hear about his life experiences as well. Mainly, the fact that we had built up Peter so much in staff house made the fact that I got to meet him extremely exciting.
2). Parades. I had the opportunity to witness two very different parades here in Penonomé this weekend. The first happened on Friday afternoon as I was walking to the lavandería to drop off my laundry. We were walking away from the main street in town when we heard a lot of honking, more than is usual even in Panama where people believe that honking is an acceptable substitute for using their side mirrors. Anyway, we turned around to investigate and were confronted with a long line of cars (probably about 60) that were decked out with balloons and decorations with the colors of various world cup teams. They were all honking and playing music and throwing candy out the windors. We were a bit confused because there seemed to be no rhyme of reason to the decorations - some of the teams had already gotten out of the world cup whereas others were still in, and we were just confused about how the whole thing got organized. We found out later that it really didn't have anything to do with the world cup, and was just a celebration from the local elementary school that is done every year with the "reinas" (queens) of each classroom. It always has some sort of theme and this year just happened to be the world cup. Nevertheless, the music, candy, and excitement were a fun pick-me-up for a Friday afternoon.
I saw the second parade yesterday when I went to the vegetable market. I heard a lot of music and commotion in the street so I went outside to check it out. It turned out to be a parade celebrating all of the cooperatives in Penonomé, which was really interesting. The parade consisted in blocks of people in matching baseball caps and polos, just celebrating themselves and their cooperatives. Some groups were extremely lively and had some trumpet and trombone players and drummers, and they would play a simple tune and dance, and some even had people dressed in traditional Panamanian clothing doing some típico dance. I loved this parade for many reasons. Firstly, I thought it was really cool that there was a day to celebrate all of the cooperatives in the city. But what was even better was its informality - it was just a bunch of people in matching polos with old trumpets, but they were having a damn good time (probably aided by the consumption of alcohol, but still...). There were fifty-year old men just having a good time dancing in the street, which is really just my idea of a good time, and something you would never see in the US. Nothing was especially choreographed or rehearsed, but it was just FUN. I spent about a half hour just watching this parade.
Any-hoo, I should probably go and help out with our little 4th of July celebration - we are grilling some burgers and making mashed potatoes and whatnot. Tomorrow I head back out to community for the week! I hope everyone is having a nice holiday!
Rachel
EDIT: I just realized that I forgot to explain the title of this entry. Usually, in Spanish, the word "ahora" is the equivalent of the English word "now", and the word "ahorrita" means something like "in this very instant". However, this is different in Panama, which has caused quite a bit of confusion in my experiences. Here, "ahora" really means "later", and "ahorrita" means "now". So I keep catching myself saying something like "Ok so you can help me AHORA" without realizing what that really means. Many people use the expression "ahora más tarde", which would usually be a huge contradiction ("now but later") but makes perfect sense with the Panamanian understanding of the word. Let's just say it's very confusing.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
"I just wanted to make you happy... by becoming a ninja"
The title of this blog post will be explained a little later on.
Firstly, sorry for taking so long to update! Things have been CRAZY here and I have been pretty exhausted and haven't had much computer time. So I will try to give a quick recap of my past two weeks.
A week and a half ago, Tuesday, June 15th, the volunteers arrived in Panama! It was clearly and exciting day because the volunteers are the whole reason that we are here. 6 of the 9 of us went to Panama City to pick them up at the airport. We left pretty early from our city of Penonomé so that we would get to do a little sight-seeing in Panama City before the flight arrived at 230. We didn't have much time, but we did get to see Panamá Vieja, the old, colonial part of Panama City. Compared to the modern city, Panamá Vieja is pretty different. While many of the old colonial buildings have been restored beautifully, there are many historic buildings that are completely falling apart as well, creating an interesting juxtaposition.
So then the volunteers arrived! Which was very exciting but stressful, as 5 people's luggage was lost and the buses arrived late to take the volunteers to Penonomé. But everything ended up going well and we got underway with briefing, our 4-day training for the volunteers before they head out to the communities. We held briefing at a camp about 20 minutes outside of Penonomé - it is an evangelical campsite so there was lots of fun religious propaganda on the walls. Briefing went extremely well; we had planned for it for 2 days straight so it was definitely rewarding to see everything pay off. It was pretty stressful too because we had to observe and interview the volunteers in order to pair them off into partnerships and place them into communities. This process ended in a 6-hour staff meeting (on my 20th birthday, nonetheless!) in order to decide everything. The meeting brought out a lot of tension and strong personalities within our group, but everything ended pretty smoothly without incident. My birthday was as fun as it could have been considering what I was doing, and they bought a cake for me and all of the volunteers that have June birthdays. Briefing ended on Saturday the 19th with the volunteers being driven through a thunderstorm to their communities. Everyone arrived safe and sound so that was good news!
After briefing I had a break for about a day before I had to deal with some sick volunteers (nothing serious, just time consuming). Monday morning I left on "route" - my weekly trip spending a night in each one of my communities. I travel between my communities on buses (called "chivas" or "pick-up" - literally pickup trucks with benches in the back. For three out of my four communities, there is only one bus and driver, so I have begun to make a lot of new friends! Actually some of my favorite time throughout the week were my busrides (and the inevitable waits for the infrequent buses - i had to wait one time for three hours). But every time I had to wait for a bus I made new friends traveling to the same communities. It is so nice to actually see familiar faces around town while waiting for the bus. Apart from the bus rides, my week was both fun and stressful, for various reasons, but certainly a learning experience. I love all of my volunteers and it is great to spend time with them and see them become comfortable in the communities and get better at Spanish.
Probably the funniest part of my week was Wednesday night, which I passed in the community of Paguá. The community does not have electricity, so television and the like are not common. However, since the next day was both the Día de San Juan (some big saint's day in the schools here in Coclé) and also the 80th anniversary of the elementary school in the community, the town brought in a generator, tv, and dvd player, in order to show a movie. Not many people owned dvds (all pirated, of course), so the selection for viewing was pretty sparse. We started off at first watching the movie Norbit, a horrible Eddie Murphy movie made a few years ago. It was in English with Spanish subtitles but the tv was too small for anyone to read them. After about a half hour, we switched to "Revenge of the Eight Samurai", some horrible karate movie from the 80s that was originally in Chinese, dubbed in English, and lacking in Spanish subtitles. It was probably the most ridiculous and cheesy movie that I had ever seen, but the community was completely enthralled, despite the lack of Spanish. The title of this blog entry was one of the more funny quotes from the movie. The evening ended in a parade through the town after dark with tiki torches, and the young kids playing drums and xylophone. It was a fairly bizarre but enjoyable evening.
I got back from route yesterday evening and have been relaxing and filling out paperwork ever since. Today we watched the US-Ghana soccer game (lots of angry yelling at the end!) and had a barbecue for our neighbors and some people from the MINSA, the ministry of health. People showed up verry late (we invited them for 3 and they came at 6, but such is the "hora panameña"), but we had a great time entertaining people and using the grill that came with the house. Tomorrow we are going to the beach for a little relaxation and then on Monday I leave again for route! It is an exhausting but rewarding process. I am really enjoying being here in Panama; even though it is a lot of work i have learned so much, in Spanish and otherwise. I really feel that I can call myself fluent, which is a fun achievement.
Well I think that it is time for bed considering my big week coming up. I will try to update next weekend!
Firstly, sorry for taking so long to update! Things have been CRAZY here and I have been pretty exhausted and haven't had much computer time. So I will try to give a quick recap of my past two weeks.
A week and a half ago, Tuesday, June 15th, the volunteers arrived in Panama! It was clearly and exciting day because the volunteers are the whole reason that we are here. 6 of the 9 of us went to Panama City to pick them up at the airport. We left pretty early from our city of Penonomé so that we would get to do a little sight-seeing in Panama City before the flight arrived at 230. We didn't have much time, but we did get to see Panamá Vieja, the old, colonial part of Panama City. Compared to the modern city, Panamá Vieja is pretty different. While many of the old colonial buildings have been restored beautifully, there are many historic buildings that are completely falling apart as well, creating an interesting juxtaposition.
So then the volunteers arrived! Which was very exciting but stressful, as 5 people's luggage was lost and the buses arrived late to take the volunteers to Penonomé. But everything ended up going well and we got underway with briefing, our 4-day training for the volunteers before they head out to the communities. We held briefing at a camp about 20 minutes outside of Penonomé - it is an evangelical campsite so there was lots of fun religious propaganda on the walls. Briefing went extremely well; we had planned for it for 2 days straight so it was definitely rewarding to see everything pay off. It was pretty stressful too because we had to observe and interview the volunteers in order to pair them off into partnerships and place them into communities. This process ended in a 6-hour staff meeting (on my 20th birthday, nonetheless!) in order to decide everything. The meeting brought out a lot of tension and strong personalities within our group, but everything ended pretty smoothly without incident. My birthday was as fun as it could have been considering what I was doing, and they bought a cake for me and all of the volunteers that have June birthdays. Briefing ended on Saturday the 19th with the volunteers being driven through a thunderstorm to their communities. Everyone arrived safe and sound so that was good news!
After briefing I had a break for about a day before I had to deal with some sick volunteers (nothing serious, just time consuming). Monday morning I left on "route" - my weekly trip spending a night in each one of my communities. I travel between my communities on buses (called "chivas" or "pick-up" - literally pickup trucks with benches in the back. For three out of my four communities, there is only one bus and driver, so I have begun to make a lot of new friends! Actually some of my favorite time throughout the week were my busrides (and the inevitable waits for the infrequent buses - i had to wait one time for three hours). But every time I had to wait for a bus I made new friends traveling to the same communities. It is so nice to actually see familiar faces around town while waiting for the bus. Apart from the bus rides, my week was both fun and stressful, for various reasons, but certainly a learning experience. I love all of my volunteers and it is great to spend time with them and see them become comfortable in the communities and get better at Spanish.
Probably the funniest part of my week was Wednesday night, which I passed in the community of Paguá. The community does not have electricity, so television and the like are not common. However, since the next day was both the Día de San Juan (some big saint's day in the schools here in Coclé) and also the 80th anniversary of the elementary school in the community, the town brought in a generator, tv, and dvd player, in order to show a movie. Not many people owned dvds (all pirated, of course), so the selection for viewing was pretty sparse. We started off at first watching the movie Norbit, a horrible Eddie Murphy movie made a few years ago. It was in English with Spanish subtitles but the tv was too small for anyone to read them. After about a half hour, we switched to "Revenge of the Eight Samurai", some horrible karate movie from the 80s that was originally in Chinese, dubbed in English, and lacking in Spanish subtitles. It was probably the most ridiculous and cheesy movie that I had ever seen, but the community was completely enthralled, despite the lack of Spanish. The title of this blog entry was one of the more funny quotes from the movie. The evening ended in a parade through the town after dark with tiki torches, and the young kids playing drums and xylophone. It was a fairly bizarre but enjoyable evening.
I got back from route yesterday evening and have been relaxing and filling out paperwork ever since. Today we watched the US-Ghana soccer game (lots of angry yelling at the end!) and had a barbecue for our neighbors and some people from the MINSA, the ministry of health. People showed up verry late (we invited them for 3 and they came at 6, but such is the "hora panameña"), but we had a great time entertaining people and using the grill that came with the house. Tomorrow we are going to the beach for a little relaxation and then on Monday I leave again for route! It is an exhausting but rewarding process. I am really enjoying being here in Panama; even though it is a lot of work i have learned so much, in Spanish and otherwise. I really feel that I can call myself fluent, which is a fun achievement.
Well I think that it is time for bed considering my big week coming up. I will try to update next weekend!
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