hello family and friends!
í hope you are all doing well!!! just thought id send a little shout out while i have the chance. so far things are going very well!!! let me tell you a little bit about my life in panama so far....
i live with a mom, Alicia, a dad, Sixto, a 15 year old sister Yuri, and a 2 year old sister Alison. My mom is a seamstress and my dad works for a construction materials company. Yuri goes to school in la chorrera, which is about 30 minutes away once you get on the chiva (bus), and Alison just plays all the time. our favorite games to play together are ¨pretend to be chickens´´ ´throw the ball´´ and ´go to the roof!´ we also like to play mommy with her baby dolls and we love to dance!! she is a much better dancer than i am!!
Our community has 3 stores, a primary school, and a church. there are probably about 50 houses in the whole community. theres a river and a creek. its not up in the mountains, but it is slightly higher in elevation than panama city, where i am writing this email from. there are tons of birds and trees and sloths in our community, too! and of course lots of dogs cats chickens ducks geese etc. the water is potable here, which is fantastic, though it goes out from time to time (like today). also there is electricity in most all of the homes, though that, too, can go out from time to time, depending on how much water there is and if the turbine gets clogged (it´s hydroelectric).
the first week was very chaotic and intense due to our training schedule, though also very good. we have a pretty intense schedule of spanish classes in the morning, and techincal classes in the afternoon. then in the evenings we spend time with the families. yuri and sixto do not get home from la chorrera until very late, especially on days when the busses do not come or are too full for them to get a ride, so mostly i spend time with alicia and alison. we are learning about environmental education and informal education techniques, as well as culture and language.
the PC staff down here is FANTASTIC., i feel very lucky to be in such good hands. everyone is super nice, easy to talk to, and cares about us very much. also our group of volunteers is awesome.!! happy to report that CSU is well represented by 3 volunteers in my group alone! one of which is actually from the warner college of nr (corbin, you might know him!) and the other is an international studies major.
what else? we have done some little trips here and there to get to know the public transportation sistem. the busses here are called Diablos Rojos, Red Devils. They are super fast but quite efficient, even though their schedules are somewhat unreliable. our first outing was to a little foothills community where a current volunteer is serving. We got to meet his counterparts, the agency representatives he works with, his family, and tour his community to learn about various projects and his lifestyle there. It was so fun!!! the kids at the school gathered a bunch of fruit from all over the town for us to have when we got there and then they did a folkloric dance for us. i loved it!!!!! i couldnt resist dancing with them....
our second trip was to la chorrera, the largest nearby town. we basiclaly just checked out some important locations, like the clinic, the training center, so that wed know where they are.
our third trip was to parque nacional altos de campana. we had a guided tropical ecology walk there to learn about plants and animals, particularly those that can be used for agroforestry. it was super interesting! lots of the plants and animals found here are also found in costa rica, so that has been super cool to see and it has really been advantageous for me to already have some background information on this type of stuff.
our third trip was today! we are in panama city. we came here to learn where the important places are, like the laboratory where we go to take med samples. now we have a little bit of free time, so ive taken this opportunity to write you all.
next week on thursday i will be going to visit a current volunteer alone in her site. she has been there for about a year. im going to stay with her for like 4 or 5 days and shadow her thorugh her daily activities to see what kinds of projects she is involved in, how she lives and interacts with the community, and to learn from her! i am very excited! it should be super informative, and a lot more realistic than the training.
well, i have to go already, but i hope you all know that i love you and am thinking of you. when i can i will get some photos out to you.
No comments:
Post a Comment