All Over

I got back to San Diego yesterday, so the trip has ended for both of us. David is already in DC finding a job, but he has plenty more adjustments to make than I did since he was gone for more than 2 years. All I have to do is get ready to take warm showers again!

I couldn't sleep on the plane flights, so I put a list together of my favorite parts of the trip ... David you can update it if you disagree with anything.

David's responses are below each of Greg's.

Best overall food: Guatemala. Mostly because of Rosa's cooking, but even the rest stops and restaurants we went to were good, especially in Lake Atitlan.

Rosa's cooking was delicious, but I'll go with the best street food because homecooked panamanian food was also delicious. So... street tacos in mexico. By the way, the hottest salsa Chipotle has to offer would be a mild down south.

Best individual food: Guineo Chino. One of the families in Loma Bonita gave this to me. It was a super sweet banana desert. I'm not sure why "chino" is in the name, but it was so good. I ate a lot of banana products on the trip, but this was the only place where I could find this desert!

I guess I already answered that one. I've got to point out though that Nicaragua has the best 'on-the-bus' food sales. Panama just sold doritos, banana chips and drinks. Nicaragua buses sold plates of yucca, chicharron (delicious fried pork skin), Quesillo which was a rolled tortilla with a stick of cheese cream and onions mmm and more.

Craziest thing to eat: Pig brain and coagulated pig blood in Guatemala. Served as appetizers, but neither were good. Also, we ate armadillo, also in Guatemala; that crazy place!

Agree with Greg.. except I liked the brain, the congealed blood was a little weird. The Iguana I had a few near years ago tops it all though, and was very good.

Worst individual food: Ceviche. I don't know why I ordered it because I don't like sea food, but it was octopus in lime juice. Plus, I spilled it on a Panamanian woman while throwing it away, so that was almost dicey.

The white chalky flaky cheese that latinos love so much.

Best money: Costa Rica Colone. It had sharks on one of its bills, so it automatically wins.

Panama. No losses on conversion and a much smaller ATM fee ;).

Nicest people: Nicaragua. The poorest country, but everyone was willing to help and was excited to talk to us. Mercedes and her husband were great hosts in Leon. The people in Loma Bonita were also extremely nice to me, even though my Spanish then was far worse than it is now.

Loma Boniteños, of course.

Best music: Panama. The country that brought us El Choque and it loves Reggaeton.

No question Panama. Most of the buses in the other countries didn't even play much music. Unfortunate especially b/c I lost my ipod on.. day 3?

Best set of ruins: Teotihuacan. Tikal was amazing since it was deep in the jungle, but these ruins were so massive and I could not get over the view of the walkway they called "Avenida de la muerte".

I liked Tikal the best. They were so tall, it was really cool to see the tips above the jungle (even though the Mayans had cleared out the forest). The entire area is flat, but when walking around it looks as if there were hills all around. They are all ruins that have been grown over! They say only 10-15% of the site has been uncovered.

Best sporting event: Futbol. Went to three games but soccer was the best. The fans were so into it that it made what is usually a boring sport exciting and seem pretty action-packed. I'm going to go to a game in America now, but I highly doubt it will compare to this.

I only went to the beisbol game, and enjoyed it but I'm sure futbol was a good time. What was the 3rd game? bullfighting? I'd prefer to just hang out in the ring and get chased up a fence by the bull (guararé guararé guararé) instead of watching someone kill it

Best nightlife: Honduras. We met some really fun people in San Pedro Sula who took us out unti like 6 a.m., Bajamar was a fun place the first time and Utila felt like college.

Agreed. Mexico city is probably a cool place, too bad we picked an area called Zona Rosa.

Best big city: Mexico City. Had no idea a place so nice existed in Mexico. Their country unfairly gets a bad rap.

Penonomé!

Best beer: Salva Vida in Honduras. Outside of the great name, meaning "lifesaver", it tasted exactly like Bass. Wasn't too light and wasn't too dark. The "Mixto" beer that the Samoyas gave us in Guatemala City gets an honorable mention.

Moza from Guatemala.. the only dark beer I found in the last 2.5 years. It was what they mixed with the lighter beer Gallo to make Mixto.

Worst beer: Everything in Nicaragua. They all tasted like nothing.

Yea I'll agree.

Best hotel: Mango Inn on Utila. Only place with hot water and the pool was great to cool off after walking about in ridiculous humidity.

Rosa's house. Or the cabins at semuc-champey. In the middle of the jungle right on the river.

Best outdoors thing to do: Going through the caves, or "spelunking" in Semuc-Champay, Guatemala. Absolutely crazy and such a rush to cliff dive from deep inside a cave halfway filled with water. Worth missing a soccer game at a 100,000-person stadium in Mexico City.

yep Semuc Champey. You would have regretted leaving the tour early and missing that cave for a soccer game you probably wouldn't have made anyways.. glad you eventually made it to one though

Coolest animal: Seeing and hearing howler monkeys in Tikal. They were so loud, sounded like lions. Also, there was a glow-in-the-dark caterpillar in Loma Bonita and we saw an owl eye-spotted butterfly in Costa Rica.

Howler monkeys. Just went to the zoo in DC and heard one "howl" through the glass. So many people were impressed and video-ing its sad and depressing 'let me out of here' whimper, when he should have sounded like a lion screaming "THIS IS MY TREE"

Best economic decision: Paying 60 Lempira ($3.50) for street meat in Utila. We bought grilled chicken and a bean-filled tortilla. Not only was it the best food on the island (which is way too touristy), but it was by far the cheapest.

Folding my honduran customs paper so it fit into my passport. See below.

Worst economic decision: Paying 30 Pesos (just under $3) for pistachios at bullfighting in Mexico City. That was equal to what I paid in Mexico on a separate occasions for 3 tacos. I'd say paying a 3,200 Lempira fine in Honduras for my customs issue was much worse economically, but then again it wasn't really my "decision".

Only taking out 20 dollars worth of Lemps when the ATM fee totaled 7.50, oops.

Safest town: La Fortuna, Costa Rica. The little town near Volcano Arenal. It just seemed so comfortable to walk around the few blocks of the town. Like nothing bad could ever happen ... except the volcano exploding.

Leon? Felt safe pretty much everywhere

Most dangerous town: San Pedro Sula, Guatemala. Nothing happened to us, but when you see a security guard at a restaurant holding a file, that is all you need to know. Guy was also drinking a beer, so I dont know how much protection he would have provided.

Haha ya, based on what we read.. SPS would probably win this one. The guard definitely wouldn't protect us with his file ;). a rifle would be better

Craziest bus trip: They, really, all were, but from La Entrada to Copan Ruinas, Honduras. They fit more than 20 people in a shuttle that, truly, has space for 14. People were standing or sitting on one another. No way anyone would have survived had we crashed. Also it rained, so everything was wet and we had to make an emergency stop to prevent luggage from falling off the top of the van.

I wore those zip off quick dry pants on the way to Atitlan on a school bus. Every curve i went from the left side of the seat to the right.

Hardest cultural adjustment: Taking cold showers. Not even close.

Here, we'll go with an adjustment back to the states. 6 dollar beers! aah

One back, one still left

So, David has returned to the US after more than 2 years living in Panama and a great month traveling in Central America. I was supposed to join him today, BUT because of schedule changes with the Mexican Premier Futbol League and the extra time we spent in Guatemala, I had yet to go to the soccer game that I desired. So I got a new ticket for Monday to be able to go to a Cruz Azul game today. Plus, I found out that there is bullfighting on Sunday, so I get to do that as well as a bonus. Definitely pumped for that as I´ve never seen anything like it.

The soccer game was great. It was the first professional soccer game I´ve ever been to, let alone it being my first soccer game in another country. The fans there put those in the US to shame. They chant and cheer all game, bang drums, wave flags. Even through halftime they were making noise. Nothing like in America, when we cheer only when something happens. Best I could compare it to is a college basketball environment, but these fans were even louder in an outdoor stadium than those in gyms.

Mexico City impressed both of us. My only experience with Mexico was the Tijuana-Ensenada strip and Cancun, so I really didn´t know what to think. But this place is nothing like those towns. First it is huge (there are more people here than in Canada), it is really clean, there are huge statues and monuments everywhere and the public transportation is great. We also went to the ruins of Teotihuacan, which were probably the best set of ruins we saw. These pyramids were huge and nearly the whole city is in tact; or you can at least see traces of it. It is amazing what these ancient people were able to do.

I managed one day without depending on David as a translator, so we´ll see how it goes on Day 2. Hope he has a safe flight back.

Week in Guatemala

Well we enjoyed Guatemala so much (and staying with family friend Rosa and her family) that we stayed an extra few days. We're all set to fly to Mexico City in a few hours. We're going to miss most of that country, but still get to see the Aztec ruins and then tour the best parts of the city. We met a girl from Mexico at our last stop in Semuc-Champay and she gave us a heads up on the good stuff to do there.

We spent about 8 days in Guatemala and pretty much went all over the country. Started in Guatemala City to spend time with Rosa and her family. She was a foreign exchange student who stayed with our grandparents in 1969 and they have kept in touch since, so she was very welcoming and let us stay at her house at the edge of the city and treated us so nice. We are very grateful. After 3 days there (one longer than planned!) we went to Lake Atitlan for a day, then to Flores to see the ruins in Tikal. While there we heard about this place called Semuc-Champay, which has natural turquoise water pools on top of an underground river as well as caves filled with water, so we decided to check that out. The plan was to fly to Mexico City yesterday to see a Premier Division soccer game, but the bus got us to the airport just a bit too late, so we stayed another night in Guatemala City and went out on the town with Maria, Rosa's daughter. That was a good time.

We will be in Mexico City and then back in San Diego on Saturday night. Hopefully the airlines let us change the flight so we can catch a soccer game before we go! After all, that was one of my big goals for the trip.

Pictures from the trip

Costa Rica/Nicaragua

Honduras/Guatemala

On to Guatemala

Well, I am now an international criminal, but we will get to that later on.

Right now we´re at Rosa´s beautiful house in Guatemala City. Rosa was a foreign exchange student who stayed with our mom and grandparents in New York in the 1970s. They have communicated ever since and her and her family agreed to be our host for two days in the city. They took us out to Antigua today, which is one of the two big tourist cities in the country, and we went on a bike ride around a coffee field. Rosa´s daughter Maria´s 2-year-old son, Diego, got the fortune of both getting a horseback ride and a bike ride. Fortunately I did not crash when he was on my bike! But their family has been so nice to us and we are grateful for being their guests.

Our return trip to Bajamar wasn´t as great as the first as, unfortunately, some people tried to use us for money AND we got there too late to see the traditional Garifuna dancing. We did get to see some of the locals dance that way later at night, though.

We also saw the ruins at Copan, which is on Honduras near the Guatemalan border. It was amazing the detail the Mayans put into their sculptures, temples and everything else. It is similar to the painstaking detail people put into churches, etc., that we´ve seen, so intense sculpting for religion seems to cross all cultures. We did learn some pretty intense things about the Mayans, including what transpired on their ¨Ball court¨. At first we thought this game -- which is played between two slanted walls and one where a winner is declared as the player/team who throws a rubber ball at several sculptures of a macaw´s head the most times -- was just for fun, BUT turns out that, in big games, the losing player/team was sacrified. Glad our modern day games don´t end like that, because I would have been dead a long time ago.

I have to say, I loved Honduras for the 1.5 weeks we were there, but our ¨frontera¨experience soured me on the whole country. I was forced to pay a fine of 3200 lempiras ($160 bucks) because a portion of a yellow immigration paper had gotten torn off when my passport was in my bag. It is in Honduran law that if that paper was ¨lost or damaged, any national or foreigner has to pay half of the minimum wage for a month.¨Unfortunately this didn´t occur in Nicaragua, where the minimum wage is just $75, but the damn paper was oversized for the passport and I didn´t fold it up like David and, apparently, everyone else in the world. We didn´t even have nearly enough cash to pay the fine, so if it wasn´t for an extremely nice man from Luxembourg (sorry, we lost your e-mail so I can´t write and say thanks), we would have been trapped in Honduras.

We´re off to Lake Atitlan tomorrow, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful spots in the world.

Utila

The Garifunda festival was pretty fun in Bajamar. We met a few people and they convinced us to come back for the big finale on Sunday. Our dive instructor was cool enough to change around our schedule, allowing us to finish our practice dives Saturday morning, and our free fun dives that same afternoon to make the fiesta.

The garifunda's have a homemade drink called Guifidi, which is made with any rum either really cheap or Flor de Caña (nicaraguan rum). Its then poured into a bigger bottle, and they had 10 different herbs and leaves. 2 that I remember are called Escalera de Mono (a vine.. monkey stairs) and Palo Hombre Grande (Big Man Tree). The latter is supposedly a natural viagra "para la potencia del hombre" said our waitress. Strong but a little tasty. We'll get some more of that on Sunday, most ppl give it out free. Their traditional music and dance is called Punta.

On Tuesday we arrived at Utila -- part of the Bay Islands off the north coast of Honduras -- and have started our certification classes, which should wrap up Saturday with a bunch of free times. Not much time right now, so I'll get back to what we've been up to later, but this place is awesome, outside of it being really, really humid and I wanted to put up this picture we took that I really like.

The water is so green; it's amazing.

Beisbol

Never did I think I would be able to watch a baseball game in a country other than America, but as it turns out beisbol is bigger than soccer in Nicaragua and we were staying in a town that just happened to be hosting a home game in the country's professional league. So... today we took in an epic Leon-Esteli baseball game. Well the game wasn't so epic for the home team Esteli, which lost 12-1 when the game was called after 7 innings (meaning I will now buy a Leon hat instead of Esteli), but it was kind of trippy to be one of 2 Americans watching a game we invented, alongside an entire town of Nicos. (We also brought along a British friend we met, and got to show him his first baseball game). The game actually took place in a town called Pueblo Nuevo (about an hour from Esteli). I guess they do 2 games a week in Esteli and two games a week in this other town, which is very small and EVERYONE in the town came out to the game. It was kind of funny, though, because David, who is fluent in Spanish but doesn't know baseball as well as me, ended up the whole game explaining baseball to the British guy, while I, who knows basically no spanish, spent the whole time talking to a Nicaraguan about all sorts of things. He told me players make $500 US a month (very good considering the minimum wage is only $75 a month), two guys from the league just signed on to minor league contracts, Vicente Padilla owns a mansion in Nicaragua and several $1 million racehorses, all while teaching me spanish terms for baseball (they pretty much just use english words for everything, outside of a lancedor throwing a pitch to a receptor).

Also, thanks to James from England for loaning us some money for the bus ride back to the hostel! We nearly did not have enough Cordobas to make it back. Good thing all 3 of us did not indulge too much on the $.75 cent beer or we would have been walking.

Edit from David: We actually had EXACTLY enough to get home, 51 cordovas by bus for the 17c each. oops, we got on an express bus where the fee was 30c each. the pavo (turkey/bus helper) wasn't too happy but eventually gave in to our desperation.

Had a pretty full day in Esteli, because right before the game we toured a cigar factory. Saw how the tobacco was treated and how they were rolled -- and even got a free cigar that we were able to smoke during the entire tour.

Nicaragua has been kind of eye-opening. It is a very poor country, however the people here are so nice and welcoming. But I did not realize how much political turmoil existed here and how unstable the country has been, up until very recent. In a few days they are celebrating a revolution that occurred about 30 years ago. Like half the people in that country lived through and experienced all of that change, so I imagine the celebration will be really charged with emotion. Compare that to our July 4 celebration, which is now just about BBQs, beer and fireworks, with no attachment to the real purpose. Unfortunately we can't go to the festival in Managua on July 19 b/c it would really push back our plans.

Thank you to Mercedes, who David met while serving in Panama. She let us stay at her house for 2 days in Leon and showed us around the town, including several awesome murals that depicted all of the change and turmoil here between 1950 and now (much of which America helped to cause). She actually was a reserve soldier in the revolution, so it was interesting to hear here take on why she joined and the sentiment here in the 1980s.

Leon was a cool town; seemed pretty safe with 15-year-old walking around by themselves around 11 p.m. We did some volcano boarding on Cerro Negro, which was a blast, but a little disconcerting since we were actually walking on top of and peering over an active volcano.

Tomorrow, we're off to the Caribbean coast of Honduras for a local dance festival and the some scuba diving. Apparently, it is whale shark season so hope we see 'em.

Earthquake in Upala

We got to La Fortuna late on the 10th, checked out Volcan Arenal the next day. Was hoping to see some national geographic lava like the videos on youtube but it didn't work out for us. Apparently its been pretty quiet since last October or November. It's nice out there in the national park though and was cool to see the recent streaks on the volcano from the lava. We got poured on on our way out and luckily one of the tour bus drivers gave us to free ride back to town. On that ride we met a phd student from france doing her studies in costa rica and went out that night to watch Costa Rica get destroyed by Argentina. You could call it a bad decision or not, but we stayed out, karaoked and hung out with our hostal owners. I told greg we'd miss the bus and probably get screwed out of going to San Juan del Sur, he didnt believe me and well.. we didn't make it haha. It's good he learned that lesson early, because he never would have trusted me til it actually happened.

Got out of La Fortuna a little late on the 12th, and started bus hopping hoping to make it across the border in time. When we arrived in a town called Upala to catch the border bus, we found out the next one wasn't leaving until 5 so we just hung around and eventually made it up to La Cruz (pretty close to the border) for the night. At our little stop over in Upala, we were sitting around eating, getting checked out by 13 year old girls and the ground started moving. People were freaking out running around for safety and making phone calls. Was a 5.1 with 2 aftershocks. They said the volcano nearby started smoking. Turns out the only person that fainted was one of those girls haha. Here's an article on the temblor

The CR/Nica border was pretty easy.. MUCH quicker than panama/CR. What was nuts though was how long the line was for trucks and buses. We're lucky to have cabbed over because we got dropped off right at the window.. if we had bussed we would have had to walk a few kms or more. Got through and bus hopped to Leon. We're staying with a woman I had met in Panama, Mercedes. She is the Cosecha Sostenible (agency I built stoves with) directora of central america. Signed up to volcano board Cerro Negro tomorrow morning. Theres a full moon hike set up for tomorrow night but I don't think we'll make it since the plan is to get to Estelí for a cigar factory tour and baseball game the next day.

I'm diggin the food all over. The plates are all pretty similar to a Panamanian fonda.. rice beans, a little salad and some kind of meat but now that we're getting further north we're starting to see tortillas too, and not the little fried corn hockeypuck of a tortilla from Panama. A meal that would be 2, maaybe 2.50 in Panama is 5, 6, could be 7 in Costa Rica :/. Nica's prices are back to normal. Didn't make it to Granada, but the two volcanos on Lake Nicaragua are a cool sight.

Out of the two CR beers I tried, Imperial and Pilsen.. both of us decided Pilsen was better. It is Panama's Panama, while Imperial is its Atlas. Update on Nicaraguan beer later (toña/victoria)

Some word differences I'm noticing.

Plastic bag which is cartucho in Panama is just a bolsa in Costa Rica. I asked for a cartucho and Sylvia our hostal owner was very confused. Also they say campo for space, or a seat on a bus. kept hearing "hay campo, hay campo". A Soda is a little restaurant or fonda in panamanian spanish. By the way, fonda is a bolsa/cartucho in Ecuador. A soda (the drink) is a fresco in CR and gaseosa here in Nica. A hostel is a hostal in panama, cabinas in CR and hotelito in Nica.

From Greg:

As far as my Spanish experience goes, I learned that using Spanglish is not always the best idea. Trying to tell the people in David's town that I was embarrassed as how I was speaking, I made up some word "embarazo." Turns out that it was not a made-up word at all, so what I ended up telling everybody was "I am a pregnancy". So.. that was fun!

Trip Planned!

Well... about a week in, we finally have everything (almost) figured out. Tomorrow we're going to an active volcano in Costa Rica, then up to a beach town in Nicaragua for ziplining and to watch turtles lay eggs. On the way to eventually leaving from Mexico City on Aug. 6, we're going to go scuba diving for like 5 days on a Caribbean island, go whitewater rafting, see a bunch of Mayan ruins, see Lake Atitlan in Guatemala, see a soccer game in Mexico to see how real soccer fans act and some other cool stuff. Of course we have to get buses at all the right times and hope our guidebook is right about travel times (it definitely was not today as an expected 12-hour trip took 24 hours), so we'll see what ends up happening.

The trip today was ridiculously long because, for some reason, Panama decided to have only one person working their customs check. When you have bus after bus (and an angry group of a motorcycle gang) all in line, that just does not work right. It took us four hours to cross the border ... unfortunately every country can't be like the swinging gate entrance to Mexico. We also probably would have missed our connecting bus, but as it turns out we gained an hour entering Costa Rica, which neither of us realized heading into the trip that Panama was a different time zone than the other countries.

Costa Rica so far is pretty nice. It is so green and the whole country seems to be a giant forest. It is expensive though, even though $1 US dollar is worth $500-plus "colones", things are still a lot. I ended up paying nearly $4000 colones for a bowl of Chinese food of chicken and broccoli (in my defense, my spanish is so bad I did not know I was ordering chinese food, because obviously I mean to try central american food while I'm here). I did buy some pretty good fruit from some people who just came onto our bus during a passport checkpoint to sell it. I forget the name, but it looked like those spikey brown things that fall from trees, but you could peel them open and eat the insides that kind of tasted like an orange.

They were called Mamón Chino. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambutan

In Loma Bonita, there was ONE known mamón chino tree so I didn't see a whole lot of it unless I was in penonomé at the market. What we had all over was the regular Mamón which is a little more sour but so good. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melicoccus_bijugatus

Fireworks videos

Here are some videos of the fireworks we did on my last night in Panama. The first one is at the school, the second one is Greg attempting a firework at my place, and the last one is me and Samuel doing one at Maria's (1st host mom) house.

We set these off at the school during a bingo night, and after a few shots the box fell over. The best part is that not one kid cried and no one seemed to be worried. Everyone just "para ver"d for the video cracking up. I miss panama

I thought the school video was going to be the most ridiculous of the night.. until this one

"it's a real firework??"

We left Panama last night at 11 on ticabus, which after a long delay and some shoving btwn the bus workers and some costa ricans, we got on our way.. making it to San Jose around 5:30 instead of 1. Good timing, we made it on the 6 oclock bus to San Carlos, where we thought we were going to have to stay because people were saying that there were no more buses to La Fortuna (guide book also said that). Turns out there was a bus, which got us here around 11. 24 hours on buses but we made it and are gonna check out Volcan Arenal tomorrow.

Bye Loma Bonita

Well, I COS'd (close of service) last week officially on July 1st. Picked up Maria and went back to LB for a few days. Of course I got sick but against the new nurse's recommendations pushed through it and continued to be sick. It was worth it though seeing everyone for the last time, hearing repeated bye's and goodbye cards from the kids and taking pictures. We went to the city to pick up Greg and then back for just over 1 day.. not a whole lot of time for him to spend there but he got the jist of it.

Btw for when you leave your community for good, have someone else with you, it gives you a little cushion and eases the blow of suddenly leaving your home of 2 years knowing that you won't be communicating with your people that often.

You might have seen, Greg's an author on this blog now too so he'll be adding bits about our trip. And like he said, he almost blew himself up. He didn't know you had to let go of the firework for it to shoot off. Then after surviving he read the instructions and realized "hey! it says don't shoot it with your hands".

Sent Maria and Anzuelo off this morning. Didn't go as planned and was reallly stressful. The guys at the cargo company told me it was "right behind the airport" but well, it was another 15 minute DRIVE east from the airport and had already dropped off the car. Had to leave Maria while she was checking her bags and cab over to the cargo area and deal with the dog.

Turned out I had got there just a little too late so they have to send him on a different flight, meaning he's getting into Houston today too late and has to stay the night.. not making it to SF until tomorrow midday. As long as everyone does their jobs and gives him food and water he'll be fine. What I'm worried about is that they won't do their jobs. I feel bad for leaving him, he has no idea whats going on and won't see anyone he knows until 2pm tomorrow, but he'll be ok. They had told me they weren't going to take him out of his cage during the 4 hour layover.. now that he is staying the night, I'm not sure what will happen..

More info and pictures to come.

Hola!

So, David has been lacking in his blog updates, so I figured I'd join in and make this more up-to-date.

We are at a hostel in Panama City ready to begin our trip across Central America tomorrow. Maria leaves for San Francisco in the morning, then me and David will check out the Canal and go from there. We end in Mexico City on Aug. 6 and have to fill in the dates in between with activities, much of which are unknown.

Gotta go to bed right now to wake up early and take Maria to the airport, but a few quick highlights of my short stay in David's town of Loma Bonita include handing out gifts from Maria's church to the kids at school, meeting all of the townspeople (they all love David), getting to light trash on fire, eating this awesome sweet banana snack called "guineo-chino" and nearly blowing myself up with a firework (video to come!). The lowlight was taking a freezing cold shower from a PVP pipe at 6 a.m. (I don't know how David did this for 2 years).

Vacaciones

recent pictures of ketchup's despedida and stove building

Well it got to a point where I almost forgot this blog existed, and since I'm done with Peace Corps on July 1st, yep.. 3 weeks, I should get it going again.

If I didn't say so before, I had a lot of grant money sitting around for stove building and no way to get to the bricks in Herrera. Cosecha Sostenible's car had broken down so I was looking for other options.

At first I tried writing letters and talking to the local politician. Her office, well, never got back to me so I talked to her in person at an event in town and got an enthusiastic "que bien, te ayudaré!" That expectedly went no where.

I was wary of asking ANAM because in the past the Cosecha tecnicos did not seem happy when projects set up with them and their model switched over to ANAM all of a sudden, but eventually I asked them and they got me transportation.

I got all the materials and realized Cosecha was way too busy to help me get the 7 stoves done. A man in town who had helped before originally said he could work with me on them but turned out to be too busy. I was thinking I'd have to leave everything for them to build themselves after I had gone (I know how they are to be built, but I'm not any expert with cement haha. Luckily it turned out another man had helped at the school last year and said he could do them.

We've done 4 this week, leaving us with 3 more for next week. Got a car to drag the materials for two allll the way up the loma bonita to as close to those houses as possible.

This whole week has been vacation from school since the term just ended, but no vacation for the peace corps right?? ;)

Turns out I've got quite a bit of funds leftover, so I'm gonna set up another trip to Herrera, buy more bricks and order the grills and leave them here for a few families to build themselves.

Its been a busy last month, w/ that work, trying to fit teaching in, getting close of service office stuff taken care of, selling junk from my house, taking care of the animals.

I took ketchup to a family in Arraijan where she seems to be doin well. Anzuelo I'm sending home with Maria who is coming down right after COS for a few days. Then Greg is coming out. We'll spend about a week in Panama and another 3 weeks busing around Central America. More on that later.

I'll get back in early August, then I'm heading to DC for an RPCV (R for returned) career fair and the plan is to soon after move in with a PC buddy Shiv.

Things are definitely moving quickly compared to the last slow-paced 2 years of my life.
Mensaje enviado desde mi BlackBerry® de +Móvil!

Coiba.. bien bonita

Having only 2 months left and Isla Coiba left as the last place I wanted to see, I was worried I wasn't going to have a chance to go. I got a call from Shiv who said him and some of his Guararé buddies were going so I tagged along. We saw sea turtles and a shark while snorkeling, groups of dolphins swimming next to our boat, Guacamayas (Macaw), sea snakes, iguanas, a cocodrile.. although the croc lives and gets fed at the island where we stayed, and a ton of fish. There is also an old high security prison, closed down for 20 years or so, on the island that we got to check out.

Coiba is the big island to the left of the southern peninsula (Azuero).

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?fbid=10100316218841733&id=3204872&aid=2734405&l=5ea4dd179d

Pictures from Isla Leones/xmas

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2732615&id=3204872&l=055d442c8d

Congo festival in Portobelo and 2 bailes El Copé

What I'll miss

Leaving a school fundraiser.. bingo and a movie.. walking home in total darkness.. looking at the stars, the milky way, and seeing 3 shooting stars got me feeling a little nostalgic and I haven't even left yet. Everything I'm going to miss about my life out here started popping up in my head. Here's what I've come up with, I'm sure more will be added in the next 3 months. Crazy huh? My countdown says 97 days until July 1. It was so exciting seeing it tick down from 800 to 300 to 200 and then 100, but now I want it to slow down a bit.

As a heads up, this list describes about 25% of my life. I don't know if I'll ever be able to describe it all.

The people - So generous and willing to share their lives and culture. They are just as interested in learning about me and my life back home. When I need help, people are there for me. Yolana, my neighbor watches my dog anytime I leave. One day I planned a bingo/movie night at the school to get funds for the stoves, but the teacher never showed up and he had the keys so essentially I was screwed. I mentioned it to Victor, and he set up his house to do it there.. lifesaver.

I was supposed to take someone to a 3-day seminar but she blew me off literally last second.. as I walked home with my bag a little dejected, Fernando (17 years old) out of no where offered to come. I asked Victor to make me a Mejorana (National instrument of Panama.. 5 strings) and the price would have been $50 but he said "you know what? its a gift from my family."

Nando inviting me to help kill the pig for New Years. Martina showing me the chick finding its way out of the egg. Martina in general, that woman is.. indescribable. Super high pitched voice, always in good spirits, singing, calling at her chicks and turkeys to come eat. I'll have to post the video I have of that.

It's going to be sad having very little communication with everyone, or none.. since there is no cell phone service and no one has e-mail.

Pasearing - When sitting around at home me da pereza, the number one thing to do is just get up and visit people.. whether it be the close neighbors or hiking up the hill an hour. It's nice not to have to ring a doorbell to say hey to anyone.. just walk near their house and yell "BUENAS" and if its lunchtime, get a meal out of it.. and if its not, a coffee or two.

Saying "Hi" - Anyone that walks by, people say hi/good day. When people get on a bus or restaurant full of people they don't know they say "buenos dias" and get a response. I should go back home and test out how many people respond. I'm assuming not many.

The food - I have learned how to make some panamanian food, but it'll never be the same. Hojaldres (fried dough) is something I'm gonna work on to make sure I at least take that back. My grandma's always told me that being willing to eat anything is a good trait.. It's fun being served something in the darkness and having to guess what I'm eating. Usually when we play that game its the organs.

Fresh meat - As in chickens just killed (pollo de patio) or beef/pork slaughtered just few hours earlier.

Hammocks - The front patio culture.. just laying on the hammock saying whatsup to everyone that goes by. I don't think I've ever taken a nap in my bed, always la hamaca. Definitely bringing one, or two home.

The kids - I walk around down and get yelled at from all directions "DAVID!" "TEACHER!" "WAGNER (butchered)". My best friends in town range from age 7 to 18, more heavily on the younger side. It'll be strange to see how they've changed in a few years. I plan to come back in 2013 for the 50 year PC Panama anniversary.

Being 'teacher' - My first teaching experience.. started a little rough and awkward but by now it feels natural. Granted I don't see myself getting into teaching, but doing it in spanish would make teaching in english a little easier. The kids get sooo excited for English or Ambiente, whether they actually want to learn or just play games, we have fun. I've seen a good amount really improve their English, especially at the jr. high level.

The background noise to life - It's not engines or honks or a TV, but bugs, birds, dogs barking, roosters quiquiqariing (or something) pollitos goin 'pio pio'. I was talking to someone about it and they say "uno se acostumbra".. you get used to it and it's true. I'll definitely miss all that animal noise, no matter what time of the day or night.. Every year, the month before Easter, the Cicadas come out in full force and they SCREAM in the trees. It's pretty indescribable.

The stars - I'm so used to seeing the stars (on any non-rainy night), it'll be a little depressing to go home and not see them, or not nearly as many. With a nifty guide book and binoculars, I've gotten to know so many constellations, stars nebulas laying on my roof at night.

My dog - Ok Anzuelo is going with me, but I mean that I'll miss him as is.. a panamanian campo dog. He gets to run around at free will, no leash and bark and poop anywhere which I don't have to pick up. It'll be a change for both of us.

The cat - Ketchup! she's staying, but will have a good home.. either at John's, the volunteer in Copé or maybe my old training family from Nuevo Emperador.

Reading - I know this one is up to me and I still will read, but guaranteed not nearly as much as I do now.

No electricity/hot water - It is really nice to only have those things on rare occasion and actually feel grateful for them when I get it. I just got tagged in a facebook picture that says for everyone to turn off the lights at the same time.. haha that'll be easy.

Soccer - haha I've become a soccer fan and going back home means soccer mainly disappears. It's everywhere here. The other day I went to teach, but they were doing elections so I ended up hanging out and playing with each of their PE classes. My legs still hurt

Speaking spanish - Expressing myself in Spanish has become relatively natural and i'm not looking forward to not using it on a daily basis.

Music - I am taking gigas and gigas of music home with me.. tipico reggae reggaeton bachata vallenato salsa.

Bailes- I got good at dancing tipico. Where am I gonna dance back home?? Here, ppl find any and every reason to dance. The baptism party was one of my favorites.

Seco - Ok I won't miss seco all too much. There's enough cheap liquor in the states.

The beer - Panama/Balboa.. can also wait until my visit back

Burning the viejo on New Years - and playing with fireworks

Volunteer friends - Made some good friends out here.. thats what facebook is for I suppose

Nature - Animals, trees, rivers creeks waterfalls. Someone find me any of those in San Diego.. Fortunately I won't miss the beach ;) because that, we do have.

The rain at night - Love waking up to pounding rain on the metal roof. Rain at night gets a little dull at times, especially when its 2 weeks straight.

Ok now that I can't think of anything else right now.. here are a few things I am looking forward to.

- Maria (#1, score any points?)

- Family, friends

- Toilets

- a washing machine

- cheese.. refrigeration

- a cold beer whenever I want

- making a little more money than 370 a month (hopefully)

- driving/wearing a seatbelt

- *being able to follow sports

Notice the difference in list sizes?

Here's some news. My brother Greg is coming down a few days after COS. I'll give him a quick tour of LB and Panama City, then we're heading up by bus and flying out of Mexico City on August 6. We'll be a little rushed in a month, but really looking forward to it. Gonna try out my Panamanian spanish on other countries to see how it flies.

I was in the city last night for some basketball (*) and dinner with a few friends and Becca's family. Thanks again.

Heading back home in a few to do a little painting at the school and then bingo.

Sick again..

Should let you know first that by now i'm better, but last week got pretty miserable. I take that word back because it was a really good week (just having a fever sucked).

Mom came, thankfully she'd already seen the canal so we came straight back to LB and basically hung out w/ my ppl all week.. Which is all she wanted to do. We did have a few plans that got thrown off because for w/e reason i like to get sick when i have plans. When i'm completely free (which can be for weeks), i'm also completely healthy. We also had a weird few days of rain the day we arrived.. Ppl blame it on the change in clima.

We were going to go to semilla de cantores w/ the town on Wednesday, mom was stoked but that didn't work out for anyone.. The bus fell through, good news though Ana Iris got 2nd place that week.

Thursday thankfully everything worked out to get at least one stove put in at Ismael's house. Juan from the office came out, and having that PC (almost added corps hah) car helped out a ton. We brought the materials for 2, and now that Ismael knows how to build them he will help with the other. Then i'll wait til early April when Diomedes is free again to buy more bricks. So that busy day of walking and lugging bricks, wood etc didnt help things.. I got home w my highest fever of the week.

I remember very clearly what happened in October and all the symptoms were the same, decided to call in and see a doctor. Went to Santiago for the night, got some antibiotics and attempted to switch my bb plan to another phone w/ no luck then tried to get this one fixed (it doesn't charge) w/ no luck.

I also got a fax out to the court b/c i dropped charges on those 3 kids. I mainly dropped it because it is on the 24th and my plans were to be on a hike through the darien to Kuna Yala for their revolution day celebrations, sounds sweet huh? Anyway, bummed i couldn't go cuz i was sick. Hike starts today and i'm better :(. Ok so i dropped the charges, didn't go on the hike and now i'm free the 24th. Hah, whatever, now i dont have to think about court again.

Ah i forgot to say that all week we were on alert due to ngobe miners protesting a new law that was passed. Thats why i was sent to santiago and not the city. While in Sant, the alert was dropped so we went to the city for her last 2 nights.

We missed the feria in copé over the weekend as well but thats how it goes.

I swung by penonomé on my way back to get a few things and drop my phone off to get fixed but it turns out after all this time they sell a little cheap charger for the battery outside the phone.

All in all it was a good week w/ mom around, house feel extra empty now. Just wish i didn't always get sick at the wrong times.
Mensaje enviado desde mi BlackBerry® de +Móvil!

Panamanian culture

http://thingspanamanianslike.com/

The site is aimed at gente of Panama City, but you'll notice a lot of them in the campo too.

Little info about my project on the PC site

http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=learn.whatvol.earthday.environmentprojects
Mensaje enviado desde mi BlackBerry® de +Móvil!

Semilla de cantores

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2706621&id=3204872&l=c9f06bd477

My little host sister Ana Iris is in a nation wide kids singing competition (cantadera/decima.. A traditional type of song/poetry)

The family organized a trip out there and took about 30 ppl. I met them there b/c i had a meeting in the morning but will go with them tmrw. First round was no elimination, she got 9th out of 11. I'll get some better pictures and video up later

I definitely was on tv a few times. heres a pic from their website and one i snapped from my phone

2nd round she did a lot better.. lots of 9s and 9.5s, ended up in 6th. I'll probably go with them every Wednesday until she.. wins!


Mensaje enviado desde mi BlackBerry® de +Móvil!

Whats been going on this month..

At first I regretted not staying in the states for new years. As soon as the festivities began, I remembered why I came back. I'm sure that I won't have another campo new years, so I'm glad I didn't miss it.

It started around 1:30 AM the morning of the 31st when bangs on my door woke me up to help (watch) an almost 400 pound pig be killed. I asked if I could go so I knew it was coming. We started hiking to where the pig was and Nando said "oh I actually don't like watching, so go up ahead and I'll be there later" It ended up being his brothers from another town who do the killing. It was a little awkward at first since I was just some lame white guy with a camera and didn't know anyone.

It took about an hour to get the thing tied down, it was screaaaming and jumping and obviously did not like the idea of laying down with its legs tied together. Strangely though, they had to tickle the side of its belly for it to lay down on the own. So anyway they stabbed it and drained probably more than 3 gallons of blood (which someone ended up buying). It was probably 3:30 by now and they still had to shave the thing which took another hour. Long story short, they cut it up and started dragging the meet up to their house around sun rise. I cut a little piece off and made puerco asado and bought a pound for later on. The meat was sold so quickly.. head, feet, blood, everything at 1.50 a pound.

About this time I was getting a second wind and went next door to make my viejo to blow up at midnight. I used an old cuerpo de paz shirt and torn up jeans. I had brought down an old belt I had bought on the street for 2 bux that didn't fit but someone said "what are you doing burning this??" and kept it, fine by me. Once it was stuffed with dried banana trunk and firecrackers, it looked alright except the coco head didnt want to stay on. It fell off as soon as it went up in flames.

I finally got a nap in around 6 and went to Victor's later for the party. Same old tipico house party plus fireworks, good times. Needless to say, I got home late and then was woken up at 8 to go visit someones grandma in another town. For some reason I said yes (I was in the do everything possible mindset) and had a miserable hike over there but after coffee food and a nap in the hammock, the goma was gone.

There will be other chances to go to Vegas for new years.. definitely not going to be killing a pig and burning a straw man again.

The rest of the pictures you'll see are from a river in Aguadulce, a 1 yr olds birthday party up top with first host family and a party waaaay up top to celebrate a baptism.

Good news is I finally got my grant money in, but am realizing I only have 5 months left here. We'll see how many stoves I can get put in, I haven't been able to contact Cosecha yet but I will see them at a meeting this week to figure it out. Another idea came up to build water filters for 2 families who drink straight out of the river.

I'm also studying for the GRE which I'm taking on Feb 12, then my mom comes in, then I'm potentially hiking through the Darien to Kuna Yala for the Feb 25 independence/revolution day, then I have to come back to the city for a follow up appt w/ a dermatologist, THEN carnaval. Oh ya, by then school will have already started. busy!

new years

1st bday party

other randoms