Saturday, May 15, 2010

starting to feel like home












Animals
There are way more animals in my life here in Panamá than I had in the US. Everyone(!!) here has chickens and our yard is full of them. Mainly the laying chickens have to stay in their cage during the day, but the roosters and other chickens just walk around the yard a lot. Sometimes they hang out in the cage, but from what I can tell they are never actually locked in, they just have free reign to do as they want. Sometimes they come up to the house and come inside, stealing the cat`s food (which is cannabilism often because the cat eats a lot of chicken!) Roosters are usually the first sound I hear in the morning and the last sound I hear at night, they crow all day long. Of course there are also the kitties...so adorable. They are now running around outside of our room, occasianally sleeping in the box where they spent the first few weeks of their lives, but mostly we find them in boots and shoes or, against the rules, inside the house.
The family also has two dogs, but like many families here that doesn´t mean the same thing as it does in the states. Whereas we back home might keep the dog inside our house and feed it regularly, dogs here are the way many outdoor cats are in the US, they roam the streets during the day and maybe sleep outside the house at night. The family puts out food that is for all of the animals and whatever animal comes by when the food is placed out gets to eat it. It`s not dry cat or dog food but the leftover scraps from dinner.  There are a lot of stray dogs and cats around- not many animals are spayed or nutered here- and that is hard for me to see, but there is not a large amount of expendable income to be used on animals.
Bugs and lizards are another part of our everyday life. Lizards run around the walls, or hang out in the shower pretty much every day. Cockroaches, beatles, mosquitos, spiders, flies, moths and unidentifiable flying creatures are the norm- I´d probably be concerned if I didn´t see them. I find myself not even bothering to shoo them away while I eat-  when we first got here we would actually try to get some of the bugs out of our room before bed, but that is really a waste of time. I am not weirded out by bugs, even the really big ones, but I could do without the bites. Every meal I have, everytime I watch TV with the host family and every time I sleep I get bites. Itchy, itchy bites.  I am very excited to say that we got our mosquito net yesterday!!!! It was a great night`s sleep! We do have to shake out our shoes, clothes and sheets before using them every day, just in case there is a particularly unsavory creature waiting for us...
There are also some animals that have made appearances, but that I coudn`t say are every day experiences.  I saw a group of monkeys in our yard swinging through the trees. They were white and black and had long tails. Pretty awesome.  Sean has seen a few snakes (both living and dead) and after the training on the snakes of Panamá we received Tuesday...I am glad it`s him and not me who has seen them.







Below are some pictures of the place we are calling home for the next few months


Our Room







View from our room

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Volunteer Visits

We each spent 4 days staying with a active volunteer in the Los Santos region of Panama. We were not together for the visits and had two vastly different experiences.  Both were great and packed full of  lessons learned. The best part was taking a nice breather away from our training community and group (though we love them both, it is always nice to take a break).

Sean
This weekend I visited the small community of Cucula, which is located about 1.5 hours west of Guarare in the Azuero peninsula.  I had a blast haningin out with the current volunteer, and getting to know the community.  The volunteer told me when I got to the site that we were going to partake in a Junta de Embara (sp?). This entails building a house from mud and grass, and I knew that it was a really big deal when they butchered a cow. And yes, we watched the whole thing.

The next day the Junta began by watering down two large mounds of soil.  All the men mashed up the mud by marching through it in rows of 10 or so. Once the mud was soft, grass was added to the mix, which was then sectioned off into lumps using our feet.  The mud was then thrown onto the skeleton of a building to form mud walls.  After about five hours of stomping through the mud and packing it into walls, a new house was formed, and in the process I got to know some of the local people, who were all super friendly.    Later that day we played some softball, and just hung out with the locals.  It was a great first experience in a volunteer community, and I really enjoyed getting a first hand encounter with the culture.  Pictures to come soon.

Sarah
All of us in the TEA group travelled in pairs to our site. I went with another female trainee in the same language level as me (intermediate) to visit a 2nd year TEA volunteer who is just weeks away from the end of her service. Her site is in Pedasi, but she lives in a smaller town called Limon, about a 45 minute walk from her site. Pedais is a larger town with a sizeable permanent gringo population and many gringo visitors during high tourism seasons (Jan, Feb, Mar, July, August)...it was definitely different from Sean´s 80 to 100 person community only a few hours away!
My volunteer primairly works in her local high school (of about 900 students), but our visit was over the weekend so we didn´t get a first hand look at her work. We did get to help her with her World Map Project, hers is a 7 x 14 foot map on the outside of one of the school buildings. Most is completed but we helped paint. I stuck with Antartica because there was less of a chance for making mistakes!

As much as Sean´s visit was about hard work, mine was abuot relaxing and enjoying the beauty of Panama. We headed out to Isla Iguana, the hot tourism spot near Pedasi, for a day of snorkeling, walking along a small island and enjoying the sun. Isla Iguana is BEAUTIFUL, white sand beaches  and beautiful turqouis water you can see through. We were literally the only people to the island all day since it is not during the hout tourism months and we had absolutely perfect weather.  My guidebook claimed the island had a lot of trash on it, but nothing could be further from the truth. Honestly, the write up in the book almost talked me out of going and I would have been devestated to have missed something so awesome.

Our volunteer also taught us how to make brownies from pure cacao, I am excited to make a batch for our host family. It was also a treat to control my own food intake for the four days and we had a blast making delicious, unfried, food all weekend long. Being a touristy spot also had perks of smoothie stands and lots of fresh fruit.

Isla Iguana
With the other trainee Christy


Fruit!

Doesn´t Antartica look awesome?

Per usual I am running out of time in the Internet cafe with lots to say. I will try to update again soon. We love you all!