November Rain

November is a busy month in Panama. We have the Fourth of July but Panama has the month of November to celebrate their independence (they had a few more countries to seperate from) which means that there are lots of parties and less classes than usual.

On the 3rd of November there was an assembly at both schools to celebrate Seperation from Colombia and honor the outstanding students. We stayed in Boqueron Arriba and attended their celebration. All of the moms came to the school to help cook fried chicken and rice for all of the attendants. Unfortunately most of the dads still had to work on their forms and couldn't make it to the celebration. For the festivities, the honors students recited poems about Panama and lead the other students in the pledge of allegiance to Panama.  When we were all done eating, there was a big baseball game!

Some moms hard at work

That's a lot of chicken!

How to cook rice for 40+ people

The whole school assembly

The 6th grade class leading the National Anthem

Current Honors Student and her future Honors Student sister

Baseball

As we mentioned a few posts ago, Sean and I hosted a logo competition for the Boqueron Waste Management project that Sean is helping with. It was a huge success! We had 40 entries- which for Boqueron is a really big number. We have never had more than 20 people at a meeting, so 40 participants was really exciting. We held voting at both schools and ended up with a clear winner.  What was also really exciting about this is that the winner is not a big participant in the community- Boqueron sometimes suffers from having the same group of people involved in all of the projects. Having fresh ideas is a great plus and being able to show that other people can be involved in the community is important.

Logo Submissions on Display 1 Week Prior to Voting

Kids Voting at Boqueron Arriba

Winning Logo

Winning artist and her logo

To celebrate the 'completion' (loose term, as it will always be ongoing) of the garden project in the school of Boqueron Abajo, the Health Committee held a big celebration and invited all of the agencies that work in Chagres National Park. It was an amazing party- and a great recap of all of the hard work that Boqueron, the Health Committe and the Padres de Familia put into the project. We both made mini speeches during the presentation- the biggest group Sean has ever spoken in front of, and it was all in Spanish. The day before the festivities some people got together to kill a cow...Sean got a few pictures before they told him it was bad luck

Cow Killings happen rarely enough that the kids are learning something here

In terms of day to day life...November is a RAINY month. All day, everday. One time there was a landslide int he community that effected transportation big time- no one could get up or down the road.  Also, our water went out and we had 10 straight days without it and life is hard without water. I know there are volunteers who always have to deal with this and I do not envy them at all. It is tough living without water...and dirty living too. Our sink fills up with dirty dishes in no time.  We are still getting lots of visits from the kids.Sean has given some impromptu guitar lessons and we've added some new card games to put an end to the 10000 weekly Go Fish tournaments. Sean went out with Francisco and caught 38 fish! He felt like Santa Claus walking through Boqueron brining fresh caught dinner to some families.  And he made delicious fried fish for the first time for us too.

Francisco in the Canoe

Go fish...a very common scene right before or after school

Sean working on the semilleron...germinating seeds before moving to the new garden.

Kids learning of course.

I apologzie for not being a better photographer here...but love watching Sean as a music teacher

 Summer vacation starts in Panama on December 15th and we are actively planning a summer camp for up to 80 kids. The camp will be called Exploradores (explorers) and every week will have an exploration based theme (navigate, discover, adventure) and a corresponding 'field trip' somewhere int he community. We will be teaching art, english and science and having lots and lots of games. If you were thinking about sending a care package with games and craft materials for the kids, think maybe about getting it out soon so we can use it for camp.  The more we can have at the start of camp the better for the kids. We want to give these kids the summer of their lives!