were the exact words that went through my head when I saw the time. Kinda made me laugh. Was in bed by 9.. which is the usual time but I couldn’t sleep and finished reading Ghost Soldiers. I decided after Path btwn the Seas I’m gonna stop reading so much and maybe focus more on Spanish.
Since my last post I haven’t done too much out of the ordinary. I went by the vivero that I’d like to work at and it looks like I’ll be working there once a week.. pretty stoked that Im actually getting a weekly schedule going.
T: hopefully work with the teachers to teach their own English classes
W: teach environmental ed
Th: vivero.. reforestation
Sat/sun: teach English to older kids/adults
Not sure when that’s all gonna start but at least the environmental ed and vivero work by next week. Besides that I’ve just been pasearing, mostly with the host family. I’ve been eating delicious food, which is also nothing new. I don’t think theres been one meal I haven’t liked.. chicken neck wasn’t my favorite though. Its always funny to get dinner in the dark b/c it just ends up being mystery meat. Found out one time I was eating the organs. Eating the heart reminds me of something out of Indiana jones. Hmm.. I had duck which was a changeup and tiny fish they called titi which were shaped like extra long rice with eye balls. Apparently I’m gonna get both iguana and conejo pintado sometime, which goes against the environmental principles I’m supposed to live by, but don’t judge me.. I want to try it.
Whenever I post this, I’ll be in the city for my dentist appointment. Btw a panameño named Alonso Edward got silver in the 200m in berlin WAY behind Bolt.. but 2nd, 3rd and 4th was pretty close. Either way it was a huge deal. Then salidino sucked it up in the long jump and EU got gold. The only baseball games I watch are Yankees games but at least its something.
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In the office waiting a bit to go to my appointment and started to think.. the only two things I hate about being in this country:
1. when the water cuts off midshower and I’m covered in soap
2. latrine splashback
running into crappy customer service is no fun either. I bought an mp3 player from this electronics store that turned out to be crap/not work and the receipt said I have 30 days to return. Long story short the jefa was a huge ***** and wouldn’t let me return it til I owned her in a 20 minute all Spanish argument. At one point she said “hey, This is not the united states!” Whats that even mean? That they’re not supposed to follow their own rules cuz its panama? probably just laziness. Guess its not just here though, people can suck in the states too. Either way, I got my money and my new cheap mp3 works.
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Chillin at the hostel.. turns out i didn't have a cavity, so it ended up just being a good excuse to go to the city haha. It was a chunk of old cement from my braces.. 10 years ago? that had chipped off and looked like a hole. Sounds good to me.
Had a little party here for a group of runners called the Hashers, apparently they have em all around the world. They run here in the city once a week. We had cow tongue for dinner, that was another first.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
2nd Family
Good news, I’m not bored at all here.. and when I do find myself doing absolutely nothing, I’m definitely ok with it. The family let me ride their horse up the hill to meet some other families, then we hiked the rest of the way up to the top. Another day I worked on the church’s farm, pretty much gardening with a machete.. but the grass/plants tends to be a few feet tall and they like to defend themselves, usually with spikes or poison giving you a nice rash, then theres the swarms of red ants that all bite at the same time. No way I’m gonna be the token gringo and the only one wearing gloves though haha. Anyway, I went home scratched up with bites and blisters.
I’ve been going to church almost every week b/c its good community time to talk to people and hear announcements. I finally got asked if I was catholic, so I told them what was up with the Judaism and they pretty much said “that’s cool”
Stephanie, the regional leader came for a visit. Was a good reason to pasear all up and down LB, to the granja, had a meeting at the school to figure out what I’ll be up to for the rest of the school year (looks like I’ll keep up the weekly environmental classes and will do English on the weekend for now). Went out to the waterfall (wasn’t too sure how to get there so we winged it).. got a little lost, little bit/scraped up but we made it eventually, took a fast straight shot up “path” out.. rock climbing with tree roots lol.
I finally talked to the family I’ll be renting from about money and what needs to be taken care of the house. That was an awesomely awkward conversation but I said what I needed to. Looks like I’ll need to take care of a few things before I move in and whatever I pay will be taken out of the first few months rent. Fine by me.
On Saturday there was a despidida for Brianna, a goodbye party which is where these pictures are from. The students sang some songs or danced. They sang This Land is Your Land in english, even though they had no idea what it means haha. I should have expected it but at some point they put me on the spot and I had to stand up and say a little something. Then the tamborito group came out with the drums and some lady asked me to dance, not cool.. I hadnt even seen how youre supposed to dance tamborito so I just copied what she was doing. Turns out its way easy but the guy does something different than the girl, oops.
Im starting to feel pretty comfortable here with the community, and since my house is a hot spot for everyone during the day its easy to talk to everyone passing by. My host dads a woodworker (hes gonna make my furniture, score).. so he has a generator to power the shop. At night hell turn on the news or some movies, or the yankees game. Usually its Cantiflas, old black n white mexican comedies.
Pictures: Host dad and sisters playing guitar and singing, the little one is called a Mejorana.. national instrument of panama.
Random pictures from the despidida. The guy in the white talking is the representante, the local government official. Ill try to get some videos up too. The janky looking wood en thing is our attempt at a worm box for the school, gonna finish that up later this week. Right now Im in Santiago with a few ppl from my group. I havent seen many others since training so its been cool to see whats goin on.
I’ve been going to church almost every week b/c its good community time to talk to people and hear announcements. I finally got asked if I was catholic, so I told them what was up with the Judaism and they pretty much said “that’s cool”
Stephanie, the regional leader came for a visit. Was a good reason to pasear all up and down LB, to the granja, had a meeting at the school to figure out what I’ll be up to for the rest of the school year (looks like I’ll keep up the weekly environmental classes and will do English on the weekend for now). Went out to the waterfall (wasn’t too sure how to get there so we winged it).. got a little lost, little bit/scraped up but we made it eventually, took a fast straight shot up “path” out.. rock climbing with tree roots lol.
I finally talked to the family I’ll be renting from about money and what needs to be taken care of the house. That was an awesomely awkward conversation but I said what I needed to. Looks like I’ll need to take care of a few things before I move in and whatever I pay will be taken out of the first few months rent. Fine by me.
On Saturday there was a despidida for Brianna, a goodbye party which is where these pictures are from. The students sang some songs or danced. They sang This Land is Your Land in english, even though they had no idea what it means haha. I should have expected it but at some point they put me on the spot and I had to stand up and say a little something. Then the tamborito group came out with the drums and some lady asked me to dance, not cool.. I hadnt even seen how youre supposed to dance tamborito so I just copied what she was doing. Turns out its way easy but the guy does something different than the girl, oops.
Im starting to feel pretty comfortable here with the community, and since my house is a hot spot for everyone during the day its easy to talk to everyone passing by. My host dads a woodworker (hes gonna make my furniture, score).. so he has a generator to power the shop. At night hell turn on the news or some movies, or the yankees game. Usually its Cantiflas, old black n white mexican comedies.
Pictures: Host dad and sisters playing guitar and singing, the little one is called a Mejorana.. national instrument of panama.
Random pictures from the despidida. The guy in the white talking is the representante, the local government official. Ill try to get some videos up too. The janky looking wood en thing is our attempt at a worm box for the school, gonna finish that up later this week. Right now Im in Santiago with a few ppl from my group. I havent seen many others since training so its been cool to see whats goin on.
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