Life Update

Writing to check in after spending my first ten days in site! Alive and well and I haven't gotten sick yet!

I'm living with a new host family that consists of a father, mother, and twins of a brother and sister that are ten years old. They're pretty awesome and unlike most Panamanian families. The entire family sits down for meals together, the kids like to read in their spare time, and the only TV that is watched is the news. The first two parts are more normal in the United States than in Panama and I'm glad to be a part of such a family.

After two months of living with three other people in the same room, I finally get to live in a room by myself. I got lucky in two aspects of the room. First is that the room is brand new and I have a glass window which is unheard of, second just as I moved in, the previous volunteer finished her service and I was able to fill my room with furniture on the third day. It's nice not having to live out of a suitcase anymore. As for the rest of the house, it's pretty typical with a living room area, dining area, kitchen, and latrine out behind the house. I got lucky in that my house already has unfiltered clean water and electricity from a generator from sundown to about 9pm each night.

I'd had it written down on my todo list as a high priority to figure out my living situation after the first three months because I'm allowed to move into my own house. I heard nothing for a few days and eventually the idea of an old house a few minute walk away could be mine surfaced. It was rather isolated and that wasn't the most exciting for me. Also, I'd gotten used to the idea of having electricity each night. I lucked out though and my host father said that we could convert the large rather new shed on his property, only about fifteen feet from the house, into my house. It's big enough that it would work and I'm excited to say that's where I'll be building my house.

As far as my time in the community, I've been studying Spanish a ton. When I arrived for my first four day visit, I could probably understand about 5 to 10% of what was said because their accents were so different from what I'd known. I've committed about two to four hours a day to studying and with conversations with my family, I'd say I'm up to about a 70 to 80% understanding rate. Some notes on my progress:
- 260/501 of the book 501 Spanish Verbs are known
- 200 pages of Harry Potter in Spanish finished
- My record for least words unknown on a single page of Harry Potter has been 15.

 Besides Spanish, I've been reading, playing soccer, and getting my room in order.

That's about all for now. I'll hopefully be checking back in about a week with some progress of the cool people I've met and the work I've started doing.