ice cream and abono

Hiya! I just finished up with a three day tourism seminar with six members of my community and all of the other Peace Corps TEA volunteers from my group. The seminar was good, boring and long at times but gave some great basic ideas about what a business is and some of the planning and work that goes into starting a tourism business. As usual I had fun joking around with my community and the topic of choice was abono aka poop. I am really hoping to do a composting latrine project as right now the only latrines are at the school. I´ve been spreading the idea around whenever I can and it always creates a smile as collecting your poo in a large concrete box and waiting for six months before scooping it out and putting it on your crops to help them grow is somewhat of an awkward conversation. But it made for some good times this weekend and showed me that there really is interest in the project. It has also been great to see the friends I made during training. Strange being together everyday for three months and then not seeing eachother. It has also been a good time as there is a fair here. I went the last two nights and ate some traditional fair food like cotton candy as well as some not so traditional (MN that is) fair food like fried noodles with chicken. I´ll be heading back to site in about 30 min, but it was, as always, a good break. Ti ni gira/ya me voy/I´m off. Later!

transportation shmantzportation

In need of a break I sat at the port yesterday morning hoping a boat would pass by heading to the main island. I finally hitched a ride to some nearby restaurants on another island then waited there until a boat hauling cargo passed by. It took about 4 hours total but ended up being free! After a little rest and relax and good conversation with some other peace corps friends hanging out at the regional leaders house I am attempting to head back to my site today. Easier said than done. I was planning to meet my ex-host family at 1pm and have been waiting ever since hoping they show up. Finally I got through on my cell phone and found out we are atleast in the same city so hopefully I can get back with them. OK, they just called, gotta go! BYE! PS things are still good :)

Buenos Dias! Ñontoro Dego! Finally another day of electricity and internet! Unfortunately I didn’t prepare appropriately for the rough sea and got here completely soaking wet as if I had jumped in the water- and when it’s salt water that’s really uncomfortable. So the first thing I did was buy a new skirt to wear for the day.

I feel extremely busy lately. There has been lots of work on my house- we cut the palm last Friday and I got to go with. Now I understand why nobody wanted to do it. They climb the tree and chop down huge palms and then carry them through the jungle- mud and water and all- to load them in the boat. There was lots of laughing though whenever anyone fell in the water and got wet. Then, a feast of 10 pounds of rice and 15 pounds of fish with boiled bananas. They have also worked two days putting up the palm to form the roof of my house. We’ll need to cut some more palm to finish, as well as cut the wood for the walls and floor, but we get a couple weeks of rest until the moon is right again.

Last week I got to participate in a volleyball tournament with 5 other women from the community. Sadly, we were the only women’s team to show up. We played with some men that where there but they clearly had never played volleyball before in their lives, so we won! We even got a trophy. We had a lot of fun- I enjoyed wearing the team uniform.

I moved in with my third (and hopefully final) host family. It is a little far away in the jungle so I have to return home earlier than usual each night because the snakes come out. Luckily I have yet to see one. I really like the family and have a giant room all to myself. There is a 22 year old woman, her 3 month old baby, a 14 year old girl, and sometimes the husband of the 22 yr old is there too when he is not working.

Adult English classes have begun! I have 8 students- small, but the same students have come back each class and many more have said they want to enter. I’m happy with the number and they are learning much faster than I expected. It’s fun because I know everyone in the class so it’s like teaching friends- we have a good time. Now I need to come up with something for the kids that keep bugging me for English classes.

I pray all is well with you who are reading this! Hasta luego from Panama!!