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

almost in my house

Looking back on how muchI knew before I got to Panama, I´m realizing how close to nothing it was. I pretty much went at the whole acceptance process blindly haha.. funny to try to remember what BS answers I gave you all when you asked what I was going to be doing and why ;).

I´m not taking a cheap shot at peace corps training or anything because even they said "training starts when you get to site", more like a 2nd training and its true. Training gave me an idea of what life and work MIGHT be like here, mostly it helped my spanish which was worthless beforehand. Anyway, point of this.. with my spanish still shitty (imo) but improved, my house almost ready (funny story below), work becoming relatively consistent, i feel like I´m finishing training #2 finally.. so go ahead and ask what i´m gonna be doing and why, because I can actually answer for real.. in spanish if you want ;)

So I decided to install the tubing for my shower and sink solo, which was all cool for awhile. Had the majority of the joints cemented with everything where it should be, but I wanted to test it out before cementing everything.. bad idea. Turned on the water, and as it turns out my water pressure is awesome, stoked.. but i got back inside the house to see that one of the faucets had shot off and water was shooting everywhere, flooding the house. It was pretty empty so all that got really wet was some old newspapers. Luckily I had brought a bag of crap I didnt need (with a towel and a few shirts) so I could dry it up. Somehow i got away with zero panamanians finding out or they´d make fun of me for the next 2 years. Anyway, it all works now.

Not much new, heres a few pictures

view from my new host house
some goofy birds playin around
me in the tienda, they thought itd be hilarious if i posed drinking a soda for some reason

-taught all the grades kinder to 8th about the worm box
-moved into my 3rd house
-played the accordion a bit
-my school hosted a poetry reading competition with the 16 schools in the area, we lost
-tomorrow is ozone layer day, which is sweet cuz i dont have to think to hard about what to teach

thats all thats really new haha, pretty much just say hi. internet sucks, gotta save the pictures for another day

for greg: imagine that sink sitting on two trunks, minus the washing machine (not the norm)

2nd family

An e-mail I sent home, might as well be a blog

Like you might know, I got my pet cat. Her name is Ketchup. It actually it was an animal rescue. This one ran away to kaylas house and she called me up to get her.

She´ll live at my 2nd house familys house, who are really good people until I get my own house in October. I am moving into my 3rd host house this Friday. The cat cant stay there because they have 7 crazy dogs. We installed the new locks and doorknobs to my future house yesterday, and we got the sink in there.. sitting on top of two big stumps. Nothing else is fully installed as far as the water connection goes, but thatll all be soon. Brianna is leaving around the 3rd week in September, so we´re slowly going to move furniture she is giving me in.. as well as what my host dad makes me.

You might have heard, Maria got into her masters program for nursing which is exciting. I guess she called me first and left a message but I´m sure I found out way after everyone else haha. The package my friend sent with instant mashed potatoes came in, and I didnt have to pay to pick them up even though we didnt do the pre-warning. I think that is just so it speeds up the process.

Everything is still good out here. MIGHT be going to the city tomorrow with a group of students and Brianna (her last big thing before she leaves) but I might not, am not sure yet. They are going to the canal. Because they are gone tomorrow, I will either start teaching Thursday or next Wednesday. The reforestation guys are really cool and happy to have me there. Right now, I am re"reading" harry potter deathly hallows whenever I have battery in my computer. Right after that I´ll bestarting path btwn the seas. I can´t get myself to be reading 2 books at the same time.

I´ve been looking into a lot of possible masters programs even though that is years away. There are a few International Environmental Studies I have found. http://policy.miis.edu/programs/maiep.html If you notice there is a PC masters program option, which I obviously didn´t do, seeing as how I most likely wouldn´t have gotten in beforehand.

This site has a good list of schools in California http://www.csus.edu/envs/Gradchool.html . There is also http://www.american.edu/sis/degrees/MA-GENP.cfm in DC and I´m sure more if I had more time to look. Apparently a lot of x PeaceCorps end up in DC afterwards. Only issue is.. my GPA was well, low. But for my major requirements I know that it was higher, just am not sure what.

Also, something I may work on here at the school is a penpal program with hopefully a teacher at Solana Highlands or maybe a friend may know a teacher who would like to do it. I have friends teaching little first graders and some teaching high school, but I´m looking more for 4th to 6th grades. Maria told me Mama had an idea of doing something online, and I had thought of that too. Maybe setting up a blog for posts and pictures that we both could connect to.

Ok, I am going to take care of my new crappy mp3 player to return. Talk to you all later