PANAMA!!!

On Thursday afternoon we received a Fed-Ex package from the Peace Corps with our official invitation! We had received emails Tuesday morning telling us that the invitation was in the mail but that we would have to await its arrival before finding out the big news. Waiting for that package made those two days incredibly difficult but once I opened the package and read the invitation the wait was all worth it.

We will be going to PANAMA, staging is in DC starting on April 20th. That is so soon. It could not have worked out more perfectly that we had already decided to leave our jobs on this past Friday, February 26th. Our lease is up near the end of March and we have a month to see our families before heading out.  I am excited that it is happening more quickly than we had originally thought (we had been nominated to leave in June), now that I know where we are going to be I am totally ready to be there!

Sean is working as a Community Environmental Conservation (CEC) Extension Agent and I will be a Tourism and English Consultant. It sounds like we will both be contributing to sustainability projects and community education. I could not possibly be more excited with my assignment, or the country. I know/knew absolutely nothing about Panama. When we got our invitation we had no internet access to look up information so we walked to the bookstore and bought a guidebook. We've learned a lot and it has us very excited- and maybe a little nervous about the bugs and snakes...

Here is a section of the PC welcome book about the environment in Panama:

Panamá’s landscape varies from province to province, and each province has its own beauty. The tropical environment supports a large variety of flora and fauna, including orchids, bromeliads, fabulous quetzals, over 100 varieties of hummingbird, conejos pintados (large nocturnal rodents), and armadillos. Forests cover 40 percent of the land. The dominant topographical feature is the central spine of highlands called the Cordillera Central that forms the continental divide. The highest elevation is the Baru volcano, located near the border with Costa Rica, which rises to almost 11,550 feet (3,500 meters). The coastal areas are largely plains with gently sloping hills. Panamá has nearly 500 rivers, most of them not navigable. The Chagres is one of the longest and most vital of the approximately 150 rivers that flow into the Caribbean. In the sparsely populated eastern half of Panamá lies the Darien eco-region, a dense tropical forest that is a cradle of biological diversity

Pretty much wherever we are will be filled with natraul beauty! And it is a brand new kind of wilderness for us, so different than the mountains of Colorado...the temperature ranges form 70-90 degrees pretty much year round! The images I've seen of Panama are exactly what I always imagined when I dreamed about the Peace Corps. 65% of Panamanians live in poverty, and though many think of cosmopolitan Panama City when they think of the country, most of the country is struggling to develop as communities wrestle with stifiling poverty. We know that the work we will be doing is needed and will truly be helping the members of the community we live in. We don't know yet what community that will be, but it will be rural and between 2-16 hours from Panama City.  We were told not to count on electricity or potable water...(all part of the experience!)

So for the next two weeks we are continuing to work on our spanish, filling out a ton of paperwork for the PC, packing up our apartment and getting ready for the big adventure!