Culture Shock

November gone, December gone, (its 2015! Can you believe it?) I apologize for neglecting the blog, its been a busy two months! December 18th marked six months in county! Can you believe it? I can't. Certainly doesn't feel that long. Lots has happened in the past two months, let's review:

November in Panama is a month of celebrations. Most concerning the several independence days Panama has. November third is one of these and my community had several presentations and activities planned to celebrate. We spent all day at the school...

The two teachers and all the students (pre-k - 6th grade)

PanaPride



Performing a song

Cuties

Wanting to see the photo I just took, again.

As my house construction got underway, I started on my garden and demonstration plot.

I made three raised beds and a giant pile of compost (under the blue tarp)

Making these raised beds took me the entire day. I hauled buckets and buckets full of poop and dark soil up to my house from the pasture. I was quite sore the next day.

Putting the final layer on top

Chopping plantain trunks

About a week into November I received a vistas from my regional leader (and the regional leader in training). I was very excited to show off my site to my first set of visitors!

After I got these lovely ladies back to the road and onto a Chiva, I was hiking back into my site (actually kind of running because I didn't have much daylight left...) and about ten minutes into my hike I saw a group of people walking towards me. "huh" I thought "that's strange, it looks like they're carrying somebody." Yes. That is exactly what they were doing. A young women in my community was very ill and needed to go to the hospital that night. Some of the members of my community built a makeshift stretcher out of tree branches and a foam pad and were carrying her on it, on their shoulders, out to the road. I was in shock. First, how the heck did they get up and down the muddy, rocky slopes of the trail leading out of the community from a logistical standpoint? And then how the heck were they able to physically carry her all that way? This happened well over a month ago, the young women is fine and back in the community. All I can really conclude from seeing this event is that my community is amazing. They came together and built this stretcher and then carried a sick member of their community to the road so she could revive the medical treatment she needed. It definitely makes me feel better knowing that if I was that girl, if I needed medical attention and wasn't able to walk or ride a horse out, my community would still be able to get me out.

Starting to look more like a house, no?

My roof

And the tubes for connecting my house to the aqueduct

On other news, one day I was going about my daily routine and within a hour timespan I saw a spider that was as BIG AS MY HAND (in the shower no doubt) and then I saw a cockroach AS BIG AS MY HAND in my room. I am not joking or exaggerating here people. They were has big as my hand! And I'm still not exactly sure which one I was more freaked out by...

This was a different day, but I was equally freaked out by this weird bug eating a very harry and large spider

This is one of thing I did on my birthday. Thank you pocket Jamie for accompanying me.

 Other things I did on the actual day of my birthday (in my site): I turned my compost and made banana bread with my host family. Attempting to bake over a fire is a tricky business. It came out burnt around the edges, but it tasted great! (and my host family agreed!)

The day after my birthday I came into the city and made a proper cake (chocolate with peanut butter icing, what else?)

24!

The candles came in packs of 24, I felt this was a sign I had to have them on my cake.

Things grow incredibly fast here



Like I said... things grow incredibly fast here...

What is this that I found on my(clean and dry) pants after I took them off the clothes line? I have no idea.

Thanksgiving day was very uneventful, I ate rice. However, my group organized a wonderful Thanksgiving get together (aka friendsgiving) for the first week of December and a marvelous time was had by all. Food! Real food! So much delicious food was feast upon. And being reunited with (almost) everyone in the group after three months (most of my group I had no contact with at all because I don't have service in my site) made me feel like I was surrounded by family, which is a very important feeling this time of year.

mini jam session at friendsgiving

After friendsgiving I returned to my site to host my first community meeting. I was a bit nervous about it and on the day of, seeing how many people showed up (a lot) made me even more nervous about public speaking in another language, but having a good turn out is amazing! It shows me how committed the community is to having a PC volunteer working with their community. For this meeting I separated them into two groups (women and men) and had each group draw a map of the community from 40 years ago and a map of the community today. This helps lead a discussion on what life/farming was like back then, what it is like now, what the community is lacking/community needs for the future, and whether or not past/current farming practices were/are sustainable. I think the meeting went quite well, there was lots laughing during the drawing portion and towards the end I attempted to make a joke and people actually laughed! I take this is a sign my Spanish is improving.

Meet Corteza

Some of you might be confused if you know my general dislike of man's furry "best friend", but it is true, I got a puppy. Well it was more like she was thrust upon me, but she is mine.