Take Two!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and everything else that I´ve missed out on. So I start my new job today... meaning I finally move to a new site. This one is a complete about face from my last site. Full of hills, mountain views, hiking, some mud houses ... somewhere you would expect to find a Peace Corps volunteer. Get excited! It´ll be great.

I will have more details and hopefully some pics for my next post but just wanted to let you know that I am no longer a Panamanian nomad. Time to start the awkardness of getting acquainted with another family and community. Hopefully this will be the last time that I have to do that and the next move will be to my own place in March!

You know your perspective on life has changed when you get excited about your new host family building a brand new latrine. Just one of the perks in my new site.

Homeless in Panama...

Hello fans. I have some bad news to inform you about this holiday season. So because of safety and security reasons, Peace Corps Panama has taken me out of my community and is in the process of finding me another site. As of right now, I don´t know when a new site will be developed or where I will be placed. I left my community this past Saturday after the Mother´s Day party that my community counterpart and I planned with kids in the community (Mother´s Day here in Panama was on Dec. 8). It was a pretty sad farewell and in the days leading up to my departure and since I´ve been gone, I´ve realized that I was much more connected and integrated into my community than I thought I was.

So what does this all mean you may ask? It means that my host mom/counterpart who fought for a year to get a Peace Corps volunteer in the community is left with many questions as to why I am leaving. It means that all the kids that I had built a relationship with in the community are left slightly disheartened and discouraged to see me leave which absolutely kills me. It means that I am stuck in a hotel until I can get to a new site (which is by no means a problem because I am definitely enjoying the running hot water and air condition). It means that I have to go through the awkwardness of moving in with another host family and starting the 3 months of living with a family all over again before I can move out on my own. It means that another community will get the expertise of a Peace Corps volunteer who wouldn´t have otherwise had one this soon if at all. It means a new start for me which I am incredibly excited and a little apprehensive about at the same time. I´ll update you as soon as I know anything. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers in the mean time.

I´ve included some pics for your Panamanian enjoyment.

Have a great holiday season everyone and never take your blessings (including your friends and family= for granted.

(above) On an island near my old community - the house in the background was built with the help of a former Peace Corps volunteer´s efforts with USAID to provide shelter to the local volunteers (Panamanians) who assisted with sea turtle conservation on the island.

(above) On the way back to the Port from the island I had to take a pic of the mangroves striking a pose. Doesn´t this look crazy?

(above) You know I had to include a random shot. My clothes drying with the platanos overhead. Colorful bunch.

(above) Here is a shot from the Mother´s Day party this past Saturday. We were playing a game called Taxi.

(above) You know that water ride at theme parks where you sit in a log and go down a little water way? This is so much BETTER than that. You can´t see it here but they are riding on a banana leaf! This was a couple of days ago in Bugava at a creek in the area.

(2 pics above) Me drinking pipa (coconut juice) with a family (this picture show about 8% of the family that was actually there celebrating mother´s day- it reminded me of mine own family on Easter weekend).

Thanksgiving Peace Corps Style :)

So much to everyone´s surprise, we didn´t have to chase a turkey down in the yard to kill it for our Thanksgiving dinner :)

Depending in how big of a city you are in (and how many foreigners are in the area), the bigger local grocery stores have many things you wouldn´t expect to find in Panama around Thanksgiving time since they don´t celebrate it here and some people even asked me if our ¨Dia de Gracias¨ was like their Christmas... which I kindly explained that it wasn´t.

So I traveled to another city to hang out with friends that I hadn´t seen a month or so and this was the fabululous result. We had a great turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, salad, sweet potatoes, wine... it was great. It was almost as great as it would´ve been had I been with my family but definitely one for the memory books.

It was great to be with other Americans celebrating our yearly tradition. Much thanks to Fred (far right in the photo above) who basically cooked everything even down to homemade pumpkin pie! Happy Thanksgiving from Peace Corps Panama!