Friday, August 7, 2015

With Time Comes Experience

August 5, 2015

June and July were filled with work days, an unexpected celebrity moment, meeting of the new group, saying goodbye to the old group, a much need week of vacation, and an early addition.

An early addition to my host family that is.


Meet my newest tiniest host sister. She was born a month early and weighed only two pounds. In the picture above she is six weeks old. She is gaining weight and doing very well. I was shocked when I first saw how tiny she was and to learn she was only a month early. It was a very real reminder of how malnutrition continues to be a big problem in the rural parts of Panama. 

June consisted of meeting the new volunteers from group 76 (I’m in group 75) whom are in my same province. This was visual confirmation that we (group 75) are no longer the newbies! This was followed later in the month by celebrating being in country one year. An entire year in Panama, I can’t believe it. It feels like yesterday we were stepping off that plane into the humid Panamanian air with fear and excitement flowing fresh in our veins and every other sentence out of our mouths a question. (Now that I think about it I'm still uttering a lot of questions, but mostly in the form of: "como?" meaning; huh?/what?/could you repeat that cause you are talking way to fast and/or mumbled and I have no idea what Spanish words are coming out of your mouth.) 
I was reminded of this newness and excitement when I hosted one of the new trainees (from group 77, arrived in June, the new set of agriculture and environmental health volunteers) for a week in my site. It was a little surreal to realize I was now supposed to know what I’m doing and impart my year of experience and knowledge on a member of the incoming group. We spent the week working on projects, visiting families, and working in my garden. She survived living with a stranger for a week in a pea-sized house and ate every campo delicacy I conjured up without so much of a peep of complaint. What a trooper, I have high hopes for her next two years of service. One of the fun things week did that week was hike to the waterfall in my community.


My "desk" for the weekly reading program I have for the kids

We also got some pretty good picture of toucans. (Taken from my front porch.)





 

Yet another reminder that we are no longer the new kids of the block was having to say goodbye to the old group (73, the group that was here a year when we (group 75) showed up) of agriculture volunteers. It was particularly heart wrenching to say goodbye to a couple whose site was pretty close to mine and helped me tremendously in so many ways through my first year of service. I’m still not sure how I’m going to survive the next year without them.

 

On a lighter note, I was informed by someone in the office (i.e. someone with daily access to the news) that I was in a photo in a Panamanian newspaper! The article is about how a new school is being built in my community and every material needed for the construction has to be hiked in from the road.

See me in the top picture to the right?
 
I took a week of vacation and was able to spend time relaxing with family and exploring a tropical paradise.

 
Some of you might have assumed Panama is a tropical paradise... tropical? Yes. Is my site beautiful? Absolutely. However living in a house the size of a shoebox with no electricity or indoor plumbing or cell phone service does not a “paradise” make. I love my community, but I also loved spending a week with amenities and stuffing my face with American food.

Work projects in my site are continuing to evolve and grow, but more on that will come later, for now here are some pictures from June and July.


Fish Tank Construction

Coffee Pruning
 

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