Pictures from Isla Leones/xmas

getting coconuts

midnight fireworks (tried to save some for the 2nd night.. but who were we kidding)

we were in hammocks for.. the majority of the time

I wrote up a post on a piece of paper..

and then I didn't bring it.

I'll type that up next time i get the chance but heres the short of it.

Merry christmas, I'm meeting up with some people on Isla Leones.. another volunteer's site. Lobster dinner and fireworks, I'm bringing alone an arbolito that Brianna left behind.

uhm.. my latrine is full of mosquitos and flies, so going back to the bucket looks pretty good. I have some kinda fungus on a few of my toes (a personal diagnosis).. a cream I'm using seems like its working. I'm probably getting a dog next month, his names Nacho.. sticking to the food theme.

I'll get the real blog posted sometime soon with an update from christmas/new years. Heres some pictures.

the posada.. singing at the door

maria y jose

swim up bar, oh ya i met up with some people at an all inclusive resort nearby. ya i live near an all inclusive resort lol

harvesting arroz

nacho is in the middle

lots of rice

Mother's Day and bingo

So this is how my mother's day started.. around 8AM i was doing my laundry when a mute man walks by my house and signs me to go drinking with them (i didn't, i did my laundry). Eventually i make it over to a host family for lunch, but they had already eaten. it was perfectly panamanian and awkward haha. they stood around talking but forced me to sit and eat. the funniest part was when they cut me open a coconut to drink and had the little girl stand next to me and just hold it for me while i ate. after a few minutes i just put it on the ground. mother's day is december 8th here.. the same day as the imaculada concepcion so there was a huge procession through a nearby town.

christmas seasons gonna be a lot of fun. well, yes i have friends coming in and will be missing a lot of it but thats ok ;). this time of year there is tons of guandu (pigeon pea). arroz and guandu is a traditional christmas and new years food. the 16th, different sectors around gather together and walk to the church where they give out snacks.. they do that every night til christmas eve, when they do the play. they want me to act in it but im pretty sure im gonna pass haha. then theres christmas which is more low key, just family time. i dont think there is anything else but january 6th, big party for the kids on 3 kings day (not sure what thats actually called).

on a related note, happy hannukah

alright, so where am i now? i met up with allison and a friend of hers at the decamerons.. a little beachside resort, more like a giant all inclusive beachside resort which was a lot of fun and then came out to the city to pick up becky ron and holly. plans are.. isla taboga, checking out the canal, maybe catch a baile in penonome (its patronales), spend some time in LB, rivers and waterfalls, and getting to the beach at some point.

as far as work goes.. ill be starting up the all ages english class after christmas.. im getting things going on the stove project, and i want to start mapping out the trails were going to make so we can figure out what signs we want to post.

has anyone read guns, germs and steel? its interesting but holy crap it is hard to read, i cant go more than a few pages at a time, lucky for me ive got another year and half or so :p. oh.. and the reason i put bingo in the title, is cuz ive been playing a lot of it.

gathering leaves for composting

stoves were going to replace

english bingo

Happy Thanksgiving

Little late but hope everyone had a happy thanksgiving. After another whole week of being out of site, I'm heading back today. My group had 4 days or so of extra training, some of which was useful some of which wasn't at all but thats alright.. was cool to see everyone again.

Over 100 volunteers got together in Cerro Punta for the holiday.. they cooked 5 turkeys and 5 hams and everything else that goes along with tday. Heres a picture of my cabin.

My plan for December.. the first week, a spanish teacher is coming to stay in Nikki's site so I'm going to try to take advantage of that as much as I can since she's so close. I'm going to finish up in the school (their year ends soon).. and then start my community-wide english class. I've got to work on applying for grants for the penpal program and for the stoves. I'd like to try to get an environmental youth group Panama Verde going as well.

Besides that, I am going to be doing a ton of pasearing because I've been getting that out of site guilt trip lately. This might be a good time to make my map with everyones names.. itll help me actually memorize their names. I've really only got down the people I talk to all the time and certain kids. This is a hard job for someone whose bad at names ;), especially ones I can't understand or spell sometimes.

Mid-december, right around when the kids are taking exams I've got a few more gringos coming to visit.. I might force them to do a night of hannukah with me haha, then theres xmas and new years (not sure where I'll be for those)

Metallica

Panama City, March 8. awesome

http://www.metallica.com/page.asp?id=600036

November

I’ve been starting to feel a bit guilty lately about being out of site with the little trips since Maria’s been around, but the days that we’re in town we do enough pasearing and I work at the school so the guilt goes away pretty quick. We’re currently in the city dropping Maria off at the airport tomorrow. We stayed in Nuevo Emperador with my training family which was fun, they were all stoked to have me back even for just the night. Everything was the same except the puppy I lived with during training is now a full blown dog.

After 7 months in Panama I finally went to see the canal haha. Well.. I’ve seen it tons of times driving over it, but just now went to the locks/museum/etc. Glad I read Path btwn the Seas before I went b/c I could fill in all the blanks of the history the museum left out (lots of blanks.. read the book).

Anyway, backtrack a bit to Costa Rica. Monteverde was way fun, definitely did its job as a tourist town. There were way more gringos walking around than locals.. little different than Boquete where the tourists were a little more mixed in. We ziplined with a company called Aventura and were gonna do a night hike in the park but it started pouring mid-zipline. The rain made it way harder to slow down, adding to the fun so it was nothing to complain about.

Next day we went out to a chill Caribbean town, Cahuita. We walked around on the beach, hung out with the owners and did a mini-hike through the national park. The trail is right on the coast, looping around a little peninsula. Didn’t see any howler monkeys but definitely heard em. We decided to turn around midway and head out to the sloth sanctuary. Still haven’t seen one in the wild but saw a good amount in rehab.. funny looking things.

The bus back was better than the way there as in they gave us meals and put some movies on. Either way it was still an overnight bus with a shitty, 3 hour border crossing :p. After a few days hanging out in site again/working at the school, we left again and well I guess that brings me back to where I started this thing. Here are pictures..

monteverde

cahuita

sloth

NE

canal

Estufas

A few weeks ago the director at my escuela mentioned to me that they're very interested in building heat efficient/wood saving stoves. I thought sweet, work opportunities. What this entails is soliciting help from a non-government agency called Cosecha Sostenible Internacional (Sustainable Harvest International). I found out they were actually started by a volunteer in the 90's from Coclé and are now all over Central America. The head of the group now in Penonomé is actually the brother of the director at my school, both of who are awesome and am finding out are pretty easy to work with.

Besides getting help from Cosecha, I will be applying for grants to get the funds for the project. Of course none of this is happening anytime too soon, especially because I'm sitting in a wireless cafe in America (Albrook mall) right now waiting for a bus to Costa Rica.

I had a chance to help out with the building of these same stoves at a neighbor volunteer's site. Here is a link to a bit of information from cosecha's site http://www.sustainableharvest.org/stoves.cfm although the model is a bit different than the one we worked on. To get 2 or 3 built, we'd only have to collect $100 to $150.. not a whole lot with how efficient the stoves are compared to the current methods. The school cooks a ton every day for all the kids, so they really do save a lot of wood (less work/less trees used)

Below are a few pictures of the work.. Maria got in there too. On that note, the cultural exchange with her around has been through the roof.. which is 2/3 of my job haha. We went to a baile in Penonomé on the 6th to celebrate.. I want to say the founding of the city. Two big names were playing, Alfredo y Nenito. She said dancing tipico is kinda boring but likes the music. Its true the dancing is pretty simple but hey, at least I can do it.

Alfredo on the left.. he killed a guy! machetazo

The wood is placed inside that elbow so the heat comes straight up onto the pot. Eventually ash surrounds the entire chimney so heat isn't lost.

Securing it with muddy paste

Filling the ash

Boquete and Bocas

The quick decision to head up to Boquete was definitely worth it. Nice, quiet mountain town.. too bad we didn't have a few days to do the hikes in the area but we did take the Cafe Ruiz tour.. there were only 4 of us. The other guy and I both spoke spanish and english but his girlfriend only spoke spanish and maria, english.. so the tour guide did double the work and gave the whole tour in both languages. For Thanksgiving I'll be up in the same general area at Cerro Punta.. hopefully there'll be some time to hike volcan baru.

Right after the tour ended we booked it out to David and up to the Bocas Islands and met up with some volunteer friends for halloween festivities. I finally got to be a tourist.. as in spending too much money. We took a day long boat tour of 4 islands, saw dolphins, snorkeled (well I did at least, Maria took pictures from the boat) and chilled on the beach. We're in David now, heading back to LB tomorrow for the holidays. Heres some pictures of the trip so far.. the ones that look like a Caribbean island is Bocas.

Boquete

Learning how to prep pescado

At the creek in site, heading to the waterfall

teaching ingles, we're playing hangman w/ family vocab

you can't see me. i'll leave the guy on the left nameless to protect his dignity

Los Yanquis vs Los Filis

So despite all you've heard from me or anyone about Mariano Rivera and everyone's die-hard yankee mentality.. 58% of Panamanians want the phillies. well.. the vote was carlos ruiz vs mariano.

So after almost a week of introducing Maria to the panamanians, which was awesome because I got my second promotion.. the first one being when the students from the states came down. Everyone felt bad about Maria being cold and maria's bug bites, but no one gave a crap about me haha. Being a translators kinda fun too. Like I said earlier, you'll get a bunch more info/pictures from the trip on her blog, so check that out.

We're in Boquete tonight, checking out a coffee plantation in the morning, and heading up to Bocas for a few nights/Halloween before the holidays (we'll be in LB for that week). Then straight out to Costa Rica, pretty exciting.

viene Maria

So Maria finally got here.  I'm pretty excited about everything we're gonna be doing in the next few weeks. I'll finally get to show someone around.  More than half the time we'll actually just be in my town but that should be just as cool for her.  Whats awesome is having visitors is considered work for me because 2/3 of what I'm supposed to be doing is cultural exchange.  

Besides her tagging along to my work and meeting people in my town.. we're going out to Boquete in Chiriqui.. Bocas del Toro and Costa Rica.  Plus theres 4 straight days of holidays in/near LB at the beginning of November which will be cool.  And she brought my john cena costume for halloween in bocas.  Anyway, I'll post some pictures and updates later on but she'll probably do a better job of blogging her time here.  If you want to check hers out its.. http://calibellezza.blogspot.com/

We had a district holiday here on oct 19 in La Pintada.. parades with all the schools and a baile after which I didn't end up staying for.  Here's a few pictures

Los Yanquis!

i find it funny how theyre SO huge here because of their panameño closer, but no one here knows that they´re rooting for a team that essentially means gringo. same with all the playboy brand clothes kids, teachers, parents, everyone wears. all it is to them is a little rabbit.

so i just finished this book The Looming Tower, about how al-qaeda came about and the buildup to 9/11. awesome book with tons of information i never woulda known, but all it does is piss you off about how much the beauracracies blew it when it coulda been stopped months ahead of time with one phone call/email. then the crazy/radical mindset is always just "wtf".. war on america b/c of what the quran says yet theyre doing everything against what the quran says. anyway i recommend it.

not much new goin on, the kids here finally wrote their letters to the states and i´ll be sendin that out today. gave my first real presentation to the big group of parents at the padres de familia meeting.. the community analyis. my bosses came in for a visit and we had a meeting with everyone to talk about what my role is here, went pretty well. house is good, finally got a door to my latrine and walls put up on my shower so i don´t have to use my traje de baño anymore. maria´s coming in less than 2 weeks which is exciting, but she´ll be stuck showering in a bathing suit b/c its.. built for a guy. then i have ron holly and becky coming in december.

one of the dogs from a host family who used to follow me every where i went.. still does and shows up at my house at least twice a day for however long at a time. i also get this random cat coming around, so i wake up pretty early to ketchup growling at it. i have a hard time being mean to these animals meaning, theyll probably always come back.

days go by insanely fast here even without all the distractions, but those don´t help either. the other week i was online for 4 hours without realizing it.. costing a whole $2.40. ok i think i can get away with only an hour and a half today.. hasta luego

i fought a bull

k thats a lie.

so first off.. theres a little video tour of my house posted below.

now i think its a good time to give a little detailed schedule of an average day.
6 to 6:30 wake up and watch ketchup eat some kind of bug
7.. make breakfast
7:30 shower.. in my bathing suit since i still have no shower walls
8-12(this is where it varies a bit).. do nothing and read/pasear/go to the school/work at a farm/anything else if i actually have something to do. also depends on the rain
12: make lunch.. but usually its just leftover from breakfast or eat at someone elses house
12-dinner: repeat of 8-12
dinner
read
sleep, probably around 8

last weekend i made it out to the mejorana festival in guarare, los santos. was huge, tons of people, parades, dancing. i got pooped on by a bull during a parade.. i´m getting used to my feet being caked in, well everything. at one point we ended up in the bull ring, no worries i havent had the urge to hop on one.. yet ;).

then i headed out to some meetings and back to LB to move into the house. i´m stoked because the penpal program im setting up with someone in the states looks like its going to start up this week. the kids should have fun with it. Also, i started looking through all the random materials Brianna left me.. found a bunch of books in spanish for kids, like El Árbol Generoso.. now ive got a plan for this weeks environmental class hah.

ketchup playin with a scorpion.. which eventually became a little after dinner snack. after it stung her i cheated and machetazo´d the stinger off for her. i have too many pictures of her playing around with random bugs to post. i´ve also got a bat living in my house now.


bull

parade.

..bulls on parade? ha..ha :p

house

back in penonome getting the rest of the things i need for my house, pots pans candles, 20 big sacks to use as the walls of my latrine and shower. i also decided to scratch the car battery idea, i really don´t need it. especially because i have this solar powered flashlight, which i rigged up to charge my cell also. also i´m finally buying cat food so ketchup can eat something besides crackers, rice and random bones. pictures later today whenever maria does it

class went pretty good last week.. ozone layer day. i figured out who the kids are who are actually interested in what im doing, usually just the 3rd and 4th graders. the little kids just have fun doing what they do with little idea what im talking about. the older kids listen but are a little more bored. but when we got to the game all hell broke loose and everyone had fun. i was the world in the middle and they grouped up as the capa de ozono and the rayos del sol and essentially ran into each other for awhile. teaching english tomorrow.. communication and transportation and maps on thursday. the worm box ended up being a failure but i know what to fix when we build the next one

hmm, went to a central american pride fair which was pretty cool. food and recuerdos from all the countries.. singing and dancing. what else is new? my harddrive died but i actually still have my warranty and a friend of mine headed to the states on vacation, taking it with her and theyre fixing it up. funny thing is i probably could have taken it to panama city, theres 2 apple stores there but taking it to the states probably is less of a hassle overall. i finally finished path btwn the seas (k i lied, i have about 50 pages left), its a monster of a book but a good one, tons of panama history. i´m stoked because i´m gonna be starting a pen pal xchange (hopefully) with a friend of maria´s in the states who teaches 5th. theyre studying spanish so itll be some good culture/language practice for everyone

bathroom

shower